I was on her balcony at eleven forty-three.
The mechanism on the door caught on the second try tonight. I stepped through into the dark and pulled it closed behind me and stood still while my eyes adjusted and the silence of the room settled around me.
She was asleep.
On her side, facing the window, one hand tucked under her cheek in a gesture that had nothing polished or managed about it—just a woman sleeping, entirely unguarded, the composure she wore through every waking hour completely absent. The city light came through the gap in the curtains and lay across the bed in a pale stripe and I stood in the dark at the edge of it and looked at her and thought several things I had no business thinking.
I should leave. That was the correct assessment. I had not been invited tonight. She didn’t know I was here. The professional version of me, the one that had functioned without incident for eleven years, had a clear position on what I should do, which was step back through the balcony door and go home and send a text in the morning like a man with appropriate boundaries.
The professional version of me was losing ground at an alarming rate.
I hadn’t come for the job tonight. That was the thing I needed to sit with. The fact of it, clean and inconvenient. The job would have had me at Nikos’s desk reviewing intercepts, not standing in the dark watching a woman sleep because the thought of two unoccupied nights in her vicinity had made focusing on anything else a theoretical exercise. I had come because I had wanted to. Because the alternative, the apartment, the silence, the particular quality of a space that had never felt empty before and now did, was something I was no longer willing to choose when I had a choice.
I crossed the room.
My imagination had become increasingly difficult to control where Polina was concerned.
The light through the blinds striped her skin in silver and shadow. For a moment she looked less like Polina Morozov and more like Hecate, something untouchable and dangerous and entirely capable of ruining my judgment.
Not performative, but primal. No armor. No apology. No space between us.
I gently pulled the blanket down until it revealed her statuesque frame. She was tall, and petite, not unlike Sif, Erik’s woman, but where she was willowy, Polina was all curves. My fingers dusted the silk skin of her legs, down to her ankles.
A soft moan and a fluttering of eyes.
“Keep them shut.” I commanded.
Beneath the sheer negligée, her nipples hardened. Her body recognized my voice before her mind fully caught up.
I continued dusting my fingers along her skin, watching. Loving the frisson of excitement my trail left in its wake. “On your back.”
Obediently she rolled onto her back, the light catching and making her skin iridescent in the moonlight. Beautiful. Kneeling on the edge of the bed, I tugged the bodice of her negligee untilit tore. The two sides fluttered open with my release and her breasts were free. Even in the almost darkness, the pulse at her throat was beating a frenzied beat. The pulse told me more than words would have. She wasn’t afraid. She wanted this.
“Spread your legs.”
Her glistening center was on proud display, her plump swollen lips begging for attention.
I climbed between her legs and blew gently across the hot skin. She shivered and arched her back with invitation. Desperate for attention, but I controlled this and she would only get it when I decided.
I flicked my wrist, spanking her silky entrance.
“Ahh.”Her gasp was almost a moan.
“Play with those nipples Hecate. Show me how much you love this.”
Her lips tugged into a playful pout, so unlike her. It was adorable.
A genuine reaction. Unfiltered.
That was what I noticed. And what I wished I could stop noticing.
This shouldn’t matter.
Why did it matter?
I blew cool air over her slick lips once again before I spanked them.
“Ohh,”she cried out. A slight buck of the hips to show me what she wanted.
