A cold, bitter laugh expels from his lips, matching that snarl of a smile on his face. He reaches up, the back of his reddened knuckles ghosting over my cheekbone, and I shiver. “Oh,malen’kaya pevchaya ptichka,” he murmurs, the Russian rolling off of his tongue and sending heat curling through me. “You have no idea what I am. No idea what I’ve done. How dangerous I must be to live in this world.”
My knees feel weak, like they might not hold me up much longer. I’m cold and hot all at once, and I have the urge to lean into his touch, into his hand. I’m a fool, a stupid, horny fool, but this man is undoing me, and I don’t know how to stop it.
There’s nowhere for me to go, and right now, I don’t want to leave.
“I know you’re dangerous,” I whisper. “But maybe you aren’t as evil as you want me to think you are.”
His jaw tightens, and his hand moves in a flash, gripping my chin. His fingers press into my flesh, and I have a sudden hot, ridiculous desire for him to slide his hand lower and grip my throat the way he did before. My thighs squeeze together involuntarily, my breath catching in my throat.
“You think there’s so much good in people, don’t you?” His mouth is closer to mine now, his breath ghosting over my lips. “So pretty, so positive, my little songbird. You see the whole world through sunshine.” His thumb swipes against my jaw, and his gaze holds mine. “You have no idea what the real world is like. The life I live, the world I live in. You are a fool.”
I fight to breathe, my heart beating hard and fast. I’m afraid, but it’s more, too. It’s what made me kiss him back, what made me slide my hand into my jeans and rub myself to an orgasm imagining what else we might have done. It’s the way I feel right now, with his hand gripping my jaw and his mouth close to mine, his body hard and taut and nearly touching me.
It’s the desire to reach out and touch a naked flame, even if it means getting burned.
“Maybe,” I whisper. “But I’m still alive. So there’s a good man in you somewhere, Andrei Petrov.”
His eyes narrow, and his gaze darkens. A cruel smile twists his lips. “Would a good man do this, then?” he murmurs, low and rough and dark.
And then his mouth crashes against mine.
It’s rough and hot and hungry, a devouring, angry kiss. His teeth scrape against my lips, prying me open for his tongue, and he tastes like vodka. His hand on my jaw holds me there, his mouth against mine, and his other hand goes to my hip, gripping me hard enough to bruise as he plunders my mouth like it was made for him to take.
I can’t breathe. I can’t think. He’s hot and vicious andgod, I want him like I’ve never wanted anything, anyone, else. I can’t ever remember anyone making me feel like this, and I hate him for it a little, for being the one to arouse all of this in me when no one else ever has. When I should never, ever want a man like him. When it destroys everything that I’ve ever believed about myself and who I am when it comes to desire and romance and all the fantasies I have about both.
I’ve never fantasized about a man like him, and I can’t get enough of him.
It’s wrong, and it’s so fucking hot.
“What about this?” he growls against my mouth as he slides his hand up from my hip, under my sweater, over my ribs. I’m only wearing a thin lace bralette under the sweater, and when my breast fills his palm, I can feel every rough inch of it over my soft flesh, against my peaked nipple.
I can’t answer. His tongue licks into my mouth again, claiming me, his hand and his lips anchoring me to him. The rest of his body is held apart, as if he knows if he touches me with the rest of him we’ll both go up in flames.
I make a sound—half gasp, half moan—and he swallows it, deepening the kiss. His hand tightens in my hair, angling my head exactly where he wants it, and I let him take control. I let him have this.
Because he needs it. I can feel it in the desperation of his kiss, in the way his fingers dig against my breast like he's afraid I'll disappear if he doesn't hold on tight enough.
My back is pressed against the library shelf. I can feel the books shifting behind me, smell leather and paper, wood polish, all beneath the scent of his smoky cologne and the tang of his sweat. His mouth moves from my lips to my jaw, down my neck. I tilt my head back, giving him access, and he takes it, his teethscraping against sensitive skin, his tongue soothing the sting. Each touch sending sparks of sensation through my entire body.
"This is a mistake," he murmurs against my throat. But he doesn't stop. Doesn't pull away. “A good man would stop.”
His thumb rolls over my nipple, fingers giving my breast one last squeeze before his palm slides down my flat stomach, his fingertips grazing the divots of muscle from all that yoga and Pilates. He touches me like he’s mapping my body, memorizing the lines of it so he can imagine it later. The thought of that, of him with his cock in his hand while he thinks about me, makes my entire body go tight and hot.
His hands on me… on my stomach, my jaw, sliding down to the edge of my leggings, is claiming and possessive. Like he's marking territory he has no right to claim.
I arch into it anyway.
“Liesl.” He growls my name and I can feel how wet I am from the sound of it. “Would a good man do this?”
His teeth scrape against my lower lip as his fingers slide beneath the waist of my leggings, over the thin panties beneath.
He cups me over them, first, and I gasp at just the pressure of his hand. The heel of it presses over my clit, right where I need him and can’t get enough from just this. His first two fingers press against my folds, curling as if to thrust into me, only the thin fabric stopping them. I feel my face heat; my panties are soaked through, and I know he can feel it.
The groan that spills from his lips tells me exactly that. I should try to fight him off, pull away, remember that he's dangerous and I'm his captive and this is wrong on every level.
But all I feel is heat and want, the desperate need for more. This is insane. We're in his library and he has blood under his fingernails and I'm supposed to be his prisoner, not this—whatever this is.
I don’t try to make him stop.
