I’m shaking.
Sated.
And furious with myself because I wanted it. Every damn second of it.
And the worst part?
I’d do it again.
But I’m not staying. I’m not his. I’ll play nice, let him think that I’ve given in, that I’m his good, little obedient maid. I’ll find another way out. All I need is a single moment and an opportunity.
I have to.
Even if my body is already aching for him to come back.
CHAPTER 5
GABRIEL
It’s been hours since I left her room, since I watched her come apart on my fingers, her body arching as she moaned with pleasure. I can still taste her, can still feel the way she clenched around me, can still hear those soft, desperate sounds she made when she stopped fighting and just took what she needed.
I lean back in my chair, feet on my desk, starting at the ceiling of my office. I run my tongue over my teeth.
That woman has no idea what she does to me.
Last night, pressed against the front doors, I could’ve taken her right then and there. I could’ve stripped her bare, pinned her down on the marble, and made her scream.
She would’ve let me.Her body was already begging for it, all slick and soft, so fucking responsive that I nearly lost control.
But I didn’t.
Because Thea is not some nameless woman I fuck and forget. She’shers. She’s Masha Fetisov’s daughter. Lev’s little girl. Thefive-year-old I pulled out of the wreckage twenty years ago and swore to protect.
And also the woman I’ve been watching for months.
The woman I’ve been learning.
The woman I’ve been craving.
The woman I’ve bought and made mine.
This is a problem.
She thinks I bought her on a whim, that I saw her on that stage and decided she was worth a million dollars because I’m a possessive bastard with too much money and a God complex.
She’s not entirely wrong.
What she doesn’t know is that I’ve been keeping her alive since she was five, that I’ve had men watching her, tracking her, making sure that Sokolov’s crew never got close enough to recognize her. She doesn’t know that I left money for Liza—money the bitch pocketed instead of using on Thea’s education like I told her to.
And she doesn’t know that I’ve been inside of her apartment, that I know she takes her coffee black with two sugars and a splash of almond milk. She doesn’t know that I’m well aware of her little romance audiobook addiction on her morning commute, or the precise and careful way she dog-ears the pages of historical fiction novels she buys secondhand.
I know that she hides that gorgeous goddamn body under shapeless sweaters.
I know that she hasn’t been on a date in a year.
She doesn’t know that, last night during the auction, when I saw her standing on stage—terrified, furious, beautiful—that I would’ve killed every man in that room before I let one of them touch her.
I think back to Sasha on the phone with Sokolov. How much, exactly, would he have paid for Thea? Enough to set off a hell of a bidding war, more than likely. Really, I should be glad that I got away with spending only a million.
