His mouth finds my breast, and I arch into him, anger dissolving into heat. He works me with deliberate focus—tongue circling my nipple until it’s tight and aching, teeth grazing just enough to sting, hand sliding between my thighs to find me already wet.
“Please,” I gasp.
“Please what?”
“Stop making me wait. Stop drawing this out.”
“I know what you need.” Two fingers slide inside me, and I cry out. “But you’re going to wait anyway. You’re going to let me take my time and prove exactly what you chose.”
He works me with ruthless precision, thumb circling my clit while his fingers curl to find that spot that makes my vision blur. The pleasure builds fast, too fast, and I’m climbing toward an edge I can’t control.
“That’s it,” he encourages. “Come for me first. Then I’ll give you the rest.”
I shatter, clenching around his fingers, and he doesn’t slow. Just works me through it until I’m trembling.
Then he’s sliding into me, and the stretch is perfect and overwhelming. He sets a rhythm that’s deliberately slow, each thrust deep enough to make me feel every inch.
“Tell me again,” he commands. “Tell me you choose this.”
“I choose this.” The words come out broken. “I choose you.”
“Why?”
“I love you.” The admission tears free, raw and unplanned. “God help me, I love you.”
He stills completely, buried deep, his eyes locked on mine. “Say it again.”
“I love you. I don’t want to, shouldn’t want to, but I do. I love you, Dimitri.”
Something in his expression cracks. He kisses me with a tenderness that steals my breath, and when he starts moving again, it’s different. Slower. Like he’s memorizing every sound I make, every way my body responds to his.
“I love you,” he says against my mouth. “I’ve been falling for months and trying to pretend it was just possession.”
The confession undoes me. I cling to him as he takes me apart piece by piece, pleasure building until I can’t separate where I end and he begins. When I come, it’s with his name on my lips. When he follows, it’s with mine.
Afterward, we stay tangled together on his desk, breathing hard, the weight of what just happened settling over us.
“Tomorrow,” I say quietly, “when you meet with the Volkovs. I’ll be here. Waiting.”
“I know.” He brushes hair from my face. “I’ve known since you refused to leave tonight. Since you sat in my chair and couldn’t bring yourself to betray me.”
“You’re impossible.”
“I’m yours.” He says it simply. “That’s far more terrifying than impossible.”
Chapter Twenty-Six - Dimitri
The message comes through at 11:47 p.m.
I’m in my study, pretending to work on contracts that don’t need my attention. Really, I’m watching the monitoring feed Felix set up—tracking the burner phone Marco Santini slipped into Janice’s purse weeks ago. The phone I’ve been using to test her, push her, see if proximity and understanding would be enough to override the offer of freedom.
The screen lights up with her response.
I’m done. I won’t be helping you. Don’t contact me again.
Short. Final. No explanations or justifications. Just a clean refusal.
I read it three times, something dangerous blooming in my chest. Not relief, though there’s that. Not triumph, though I feel that too. Something deeper. More permanent.
