Page 19 of Cruel Submission

“Someplace I can take my time with you.” His voice is rough, strained.

Heat floods through me, pooling low in my belly. The way he says it—like he’s making a promise, like he has plans—makes my body clench with anticipation.

He pushes through a door I recognize: the library. The massive room stretches before us, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lining the walls. The Persian rug in the center—deep burgundy silk with gold threading—muffles his footsteps.

Arkady sets me down in the middle of it, my bare feet sinking into the plush pile. For a moment, we just stand there, staring at each other. His chest rises and falls rapidly, hair disheveled from my fingers, lips swollen from our kisses. He looks undone in a way I’ve never seen him before.

Vulnerable.

“You’re shaking.” His voice is rough, raw.

I am. I didn’t realize it until he said it, but my whole body trembles like I’ve been standing in the cold for hours instead of the warm library for seconds.

“I’m fine,” I lie.

The word barely leaves my mouth before he moves again. His hands close around my shoulders—not gentle, not rough, just desperate. He pulls me against him, and God, the look on his face. I’ve never seen Arkady Laurov undone before. Not like this.

“Don’t,” he says, and his fingers tighten. “Don’t tell me you’re fine when you’re not.”

Something lodges in my throat. I want to be strong, want to hold it together, but when he pulls me tighter against him, something cracks wide open. All the terror I’ve been swallowing down for the past twenty-four hours rises up like a flood.

“I just—” I stop, can’t finish.

“Just what?” He pulls me tighter against him, one hand sliding into my hair, the other splayed across my lower back. “Speak to me, zaychik.”

The endearment breaks me. I bury my face in his chest and breathe him in—expensive cologne mixed with something sharper, more masculine. Sweat. Adrenaline. Him. Whatever is driving him tonight seems to have him unhinged. It’s a feeling I can identify with, though I can’t tell him why.

“I just want to feel you,” I say instead, clutching his shirt. “To know you’re close.”

For a moment, we just stand there, holding each other like the world might end if we let go. His chest rises and falls against mine, rapid at first, then slowing. Steadying. When he pulls back slightly, his eyes search mine with an intensity that makes breathing impossible.

“I’m here,” he says, voice rough. “Right here. Right now.”

I don’t know who moves first. Maybe neither of us moves—maybe we’re pulled together by something stronger than choice. His mouth crashes into mine, hard and hungry, nothing gentle about it, but it’s exactly what I need. The kind of need that comes from staring at terror and clawing your way back.

One of his hands cups my face, thumb stroking my cheekbone while his other hand grips my hip hard enough to leave marks.

Good. I want the marks. Want proof that this is real, that I made it back, that I’m not still in that van with the chloroform-soaked rag pressed to my face or on a flight to Dubai and God knows what kind of horrors lie there—

Arkady’s other hand slides down, gripping my waist, pulling me flush against him. I feel every hard plane of his body, the controlled strength barely contained beneath expensive fabric. His mouth moves to my jaw, my neck, teeth scraping the sensitive skin below my ear.

“Stay with me,” he growls against my throat. “I need you, zaychik.”

“I need you too.” The words come out breathless. “So damned much.” I grab his face with both hands and kiss him like I’m drowning. He makes a sound low in his throat—satisfaction mixed with surprise—and his hands grip my thighs, holding me tighter against him for a moment before he lowers us both to the Persian rug beneath our feet.

The plush fabric cushions my back as he settles his weight over me, never breaking the kiss. One knee pushes between my legs, forcing my dress higher, and I don’t care—don’t care about modesty or propriety or anything except the feel of him pressing me into the silk.

When his fingers find the zipper of my dress, I arch into the touch, desperate for more. “Right here where anyone could walk in and see that you’re mine,” he murmurs against my lips.

The possessiveness in his tone should irritate me. Instead, fire races straight to my core.

He strips the dress off me with efficiency that should be clinical but isn’t—not with the way his eyes devour every inch of exposed skin. I’m left in nothing but my bra and panties, spread out on the rug beneath him like an offering.

“Krasivyy,” he mutters, almost to himself. Then his mouth is on my breast through the lace, hot and wet, and I lift off the rug with a sound I don’t recognize.

“Arkady—”

“No.” He looks up at me, eyes blazing. “Don’t talk. Not yet.”