Not suddenly. Not enough to startle. Just enough that the heat of him enters my space, his body angling toward mine. One hand lands beside me on the seat. The other goes to my knee.
“Aleksei—”
His fingers slide higher. Just over the fabric of my skirt, slow and deliberate, and every coherent thought in my head scatters like frightened birds.
“You can argue with me,” he says quietly. His hand moves another inch. My breath catches. “You can tell me this is a bad idea.” Higher still.
His touch is up the inside of my thigh now, the pressure of his palm warm and deliberate and so distractingly confident I almost hate him for it.
“You can keep saying no.”
My pulse is pounding so hard I can hear it.
His mouth is close now. Not touching. Just there, the threat of a kiss hanging in the air between us.
“But don’t pretend,” he murmurs, thumb brushing once along the inner line of my thigh, “that you don’t want to get out of that office and away from all of this for a few days.”
I drag in a breath that does nothing to steady me. This is cheating. Absolute, unfair cheating. “Your methods are disgusting,” I whisper.
“I know.” His hand stays where it is, not moving now, just resting high enough that my whole body is aware of it.
Every nerve in me is lit.
He watches me fall apart with infuriating patience.
“You have complete control of me,” I say before I can stop myself. The words slip out, helpless and true and humiliating all at once.
His eyes darken instantly. “No,” he says, voice rougher now. “You just make it very hard for me to act like I don’t.”
That should not help. It does.
God, it does.
I close my eyes for one second, trying to recover some fragment of dignity, but the warmth of his hand and the weight of his gaze make it impossible.
When I open them again, he is still right there. Waiting.
He’s not forcing. Not pushing harder. Just letting the truth of the moment settle between us.
I swallow. “How many days?”
“Three.”
I laugh once, shaky and disbelieving. “You negotiated that like I already said yes.”
His thumb strokes once, lazily, impossibly. “I was optimistic.”
I hate the way my body reacts to that. I look past him, through the rain-streaked glass, at the private terminal glowing under the tarmac lights. Then back at him. “This is a terrible idea.”
“Yes.”
“You are impossible.”
“Yes.”
“I should absolutely refuse on principle.”
He tilts his head. “And yet?”
