Then she smiled.
“Da. That was a good hit.”
I recognised that smile. The particular light behind it. Blue eyes bright and slightly unhinged.
Malicious intent.
I unzipped my trousers.
Chapter 30
Iskra
An unholy glow lit up in his eyes. It was different from the manic ovulation period. He didn’t strip—just stood there pulling his cock out of his trousers.
Although he did say he’d be quick.
I had to admit, his dick stood out against the dark navy of his trousers—the fabric expensive, the cut precise, the kind of suit that cost more than most people’s monthly salary. Above it the crisp white shirt was still perfectly buttoned, the dark navy tie knotted with the same deliberate precision he applied to everything. The jacket sat immaculate across his broad shoulders.
Everything above the waist—controlled, composed, entirely the Pakhan.
Everything below it—a different matter entirely.
“Balcony,” he said, nodding toward the doors.
Maybe I hit him too hard.
“Get out on the balcony,” he said, when I didn’t move.
I stared at the tall panelled glass doors.
“You want me to go out onto the balcony?” I asked, wondering if he was considering tossing me over it.
His patience expired. His fingers curled around my wrist and he pulled me across the room with him.
The snap of the lock.
Then the cold.
It hit immediately—not the managed warmth of indoors but the sharp edge of a Chernograd spring night rushing in, carrying the smell of wet soil and something just waking up underneath it. Damp moss. Budding trees. The cold of a season that hadn’t quite decided to be warm yet.
He placed my hands on the stone railing.
Cold. Smooth at the surface but not quite—the texture of old stone worn by years of frost and thaw, slightly granular under my palms. My fingers found the edge and held.
“Don’t move those hands,” he growled, and pushed my velvet top up the length of my body.
A gust of wind stole my breath before he’d even finished. He pushed my bra up with the top until my breasts hung free beneath me, exposed to the night air. My nipples hardened instantly, painfully, the cold finding them without mercy.
I blinked down at the grounds below. Patches of snow still holding on in the shadowed corners. More dark soil showing through now—the thaw making slow progress, the same thaw that had started all of this, months ago, when the ice fractured on the river and the merchandise began to move and a photograph of a girl in a pale blue dress landed on a table.
His hands moved to my waistband.
“Vadim,” I implored.
My trousers dropped around my feet.
My fingers tightened on the cold stone. The damp scent of moss and budding earth rose up from below, more prominent now, filling my lungs with every shallow breath.
