Three words, and my body clings to them so effortlessly. They coil around my will, bending until only the frown on my face expresses my refusal to appease him. My arms, however, extend across the couch, bringing my upper body closer to him, betraying me.
“I said—” I enunciate, telling myself he asked me closer only so he could hear me.
But then, his hand wraps around my chin, warm and possessive, and I stop moving. My eyes widen, pupils shifting rapidly across his handsome face. He doesn’t pull me to him. Instead, he inches towardme. Within a fraction of a second, we’re the closest we’ve ever been, his breath brushing the swollen seam of my lips.
“I never slept with her,” he murmurs. “I wouldn’t have brought you here if I had.”
I resist the upward pull of my mouth. “How thoughtful. And here I was, thinking I was only your?—”
His eyes lower to my lips, allowing flames of that inner fire of his to reach outward. I can feel the lick of heat on my skin. It takes to his mere sight like dry timber.
If he can do this by just looking at me…Oh, God.
“My what, Cecilia? What are you to me, exactly?”
“—an accessory,” I say.
“Wrong.” He circles my lips with his, a velvety, subtle touch that never truly reaches me. It’s delirious, infuriating, and it turns my knees to water all at the same time. I’ve forgotten all about the people at this table, at this club, and everything else that isn’t him.
“W-What then?” I lick my lips.
“Mywife. My equal. And right now, my plaything.”
He pulls back just a little, inhaling a breath of nicotine from his cigarette before pulling on my lower lip. Immediately, my mouth parts for him, and then?—
Smoke dances around his sharp jaw as he exhales. It crawls to me, entering me, teasing me with a hint of what he’d taste like. My lashes flutter closed as my lungs cling to the vapor, sucking it in. It floods my mouth, my thoughts, my entire being, until there’s nothing but the low music and the tantalizing feel of Mikhail surrounding me.
“Good girl,” he says, a hint of awe in his voice. A flutter of excitement pulses inside me. It’s frightening how good it feels to please him, my thighs clamping together in response.
“It’s not good for you, you know. Smoking so much,” I say, swallowing.
“I don’t normally, but?—”
“What?” I ask.
His jaw clenches ever so slightly. “You make restraint…difficult. And this filthy thing—” He lifts the dying cigarette between us. “It keeps reminding me when to stop.”
His words are like wind to the blaze flushing in my stomach. I’m stunned and breathless as his fingers skate up to the back of my head, fisting my hair, tugging at my scalp a little. I lick my lips again, watching him, a little ashamed at finding pleasure in this moment. Pain is not supposed to feel good, and I’m not supposed to sit here, waiting for more.
“You wore your hair down like I asked,” he groans, keeping my face still, like he’s about to devour me. “Why?”
“Payment for your help with the dress,” I lie. The hairstyle was my choice, my agency, but it was also me wanting him to see me like that.
“And for the rest?” he asks.
I don’t have to think about it.
A kiss. Kiss me, you goddamn bastard.
It must be the way my eyes lower to his lips that shouts out the thought straight to him. His posture loosens, his face dangerously satisfied with the silent resolve.
“Problem is…that would costmelater, wouldn’t it, Cecilia?”
I don’t know what that means. If anything, kissing him would cost me more by lowering my walls for him. But in this moment, I don’t care.
I don’t care.
I don’t care.
