The room doesn’t exist when my mouth meets hers, it’s just the soft, shocked sound she makes when I pull her closer. My hand finds the back of her neck, fingers sliding into her hair, holding her there, not hard enough to hurt but firm enough that she can feel what I mean without words. Her breath catches against my mouth, her hands coming up between us like she can’t decide whether to shove me away or hold on.
The taste of her hits and something in me snaps loose all over again. The noise of the room dulls until it’s just the beat of her pulse against my thumb and the tremor that runs through her chest when she exhales. Her lips part under mine, a breath, a protest, I don’t know which, and for one impossible second, I want to keep going, to drown in it until there’s nothing left to prove.
But reluctantly, I pull back.
Her eyes are darker now, pupils wide, the edges of her anger blurred by something that looks a lot like confusion. Her lips are flushed and swollen, her chest rising too fast. She looks wrecked. Beautiful.
I drag my thumb along her jaw, steady, deliberate, letting the contact linger just long enough to make sure she feels it. My voice drops low, meant only for her. “Now they’ll stop wondering.”
Her voice comes out low, trembling with anger. “You used me to prove a point.”
She jerks away, and I let her go. The crowd starts to move again, like nothing happened, but I can feel their eyes on us, the whispers already starting.
I don’t care. Let them talk. Luciano’s watching from across the room, one brow lifted, amused. Mikhail is somewhere behind him, shaking his head slowly, a ghost of a smile tugging at his mouth. Kira takes a step back, her hands shaking, and I know I’ve crossed another line.
I go to the bar, pick the drink I left earlier on the counter, and down it in one breath. The burn helps.
She’s still standing there, trying to compose herself. When our eyes meet again, I expect her to look away, but she holds my gaze with that quiet, furious defiance that has been undoing me from the start.
I can’t decide if I want to protect her or destroy everything that makes her strong.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Kira
Laughter rolls through the room, bouncing off marble and glass, a sound that feels rehearsed. My lips tingle from the kiss he gave me minutes ago. I can taste him every time I swallow, and it makes me furious because I know what it meant to him. A show. A claim. A way to remind everyone here that I’m his possession, not his partner.
But my body doesn’t seem to care about any of that. It remembers the heat of his mouth, the roughness of his hand at my waist, the quiet sound he made right before he let me go. It’s pathetic, how much I wanted him to do it again.
I’m still trying to breathe normally after that kiss when someone at the table calls out, “What about the fiancée? Let’s see if she’s as lucky as she looks.”
It takes me a second to realize they’re talking about me.
I glance at Artyom, expecting him to shut it down, but his jaw tightens instead. He doesn’t say no. He doesn’t say anything for that matter. Just that small shift in his shoulders, the one I’ve already learned means he’s thinking about how much of himself to give and how much to keep.
Boris smirks, leaning back in his chair like he owns the place. “Come on, Morozov. Surely your woman knows a few games. Or did you pick her for something else?”
The table laughs, a low menacing sound that makes the back of my neck heat.
Artyom’s eyes flick toward me. I can feel the warning there, that silent question:Can you handle this?I don’t answer. I just step forward and take the empty chair across from Boris.
The men make room like they’re letting a child sit at the adult table for the first time. One of them, a slick guy with too much cologne and a gold watch big enough to blind, slides a stack of chips my way. “We’ll go easy on you, sweetheart.”
“I think that would be a little boring now, wouldn’t it?” I say, settling in.
A few of them laugh again, but this time it’s uneasy. Artyom’s hand rests heavy on the back of my chair. His touch doesn’t move, but I feel it everywhere, the heat of it climbing up the side of my neck.
Cards shuffle, making a crisp sound. Poker.
Lucas’s image flashes before me and the way he used to sit cross-legged on the living room floor, teaching me how to read people instead of cards.
Forget the numbers.Watch their hands, their mouths. People always talk without meaning to.
I inhale through my nose, slow and calm.
The dealer slides the cards out like he’s cutting through air. Two for each of us. The men look at their hands, murmuring small things under their breath. I don’t move. I’ve seen this game before. Lucas used to deal with the same kind of guys, only cheaper suits and worse poker faces.
“Big blind’s on you, sweetheart,” the man with the watch says. He flashes me a grin that doesn’t touch his eyes.
