Page 94 of Taken By My Grumpy Pakhan

My heart screeched to a halt as flashbacks of the time he'd bent me over this very table returned to mind.

Kazimir’s eyes darkened and I could tell we were both thinking the same thing. “So…?”

“You were right,” I admitted mostly because I needed to get away from him before things escalated. After the way Nikolai looked at me during the meeting, the last thing I needed was for him to see me exiting the conference room flustered and freshly fucked.

“That was too easy,” Kazimir said, his grip loosening without letting go of my arm.

“I have things I’m trying to convince myself you’re not capable of,” I said before I could stop myself.

Something in his expression shifted, the warmth cooling slightly into something more guarded. His hand fell off my arm. “So this is about Moscow.”

“No, not entirely, but I can’t pretend you didn’t disappear and turn up with injured fingers and a gun. Need I mention it was the second time I was seeing you with a gun? I don’t think I can just file it away because you’ve started texting me jokes in the middle of business meetings.”

His lips curled. “So the first time wasn’t the problem?”

Heat climbed up my neck as a visual of him trailing a gun up my thigh came to mind. I was yet to reconcile my actions that night, but I wasn’t going to give him the out he was looking for.

“That’s not what it is.”

“Really?” His voice was laced with amusement. “You didn’t say a word when I had my gun pressed to your pussy, but you have a lot to say when you saw it on a bathroom sink?”

“You were bleeding.”

“So you’re saying if I had slipped it into that hungry pussy of yours, you would have the same questions?”

I struggled to maintain a passive front despite my walls clenching painfully at the image he just painted.

I was mostly a logical and careful person, but when it came to him, that side of me completely shut down and a feral, wanton side I never knew existed took over.

Nothing scared me more than how easily he could make me break my own rules and feel safe even in the midst of danger. While I might be a stranger to relationships of this sort, I was no stranger to danger and power imbalances.

Kazimir was an obvious predator and I was as helpless as any prey. Even worse, I couldn’t tell if he simply liked to play with his food or if this was something else, and I was yet to figure out how to ask without seeming like an idiot.

“Kazimir, this is not a joke,” I finally breathed through the tumultuous, rebellious emotions brewing inside.

Kazimir's expression sobered. “I’m not asking you to file it away.” His voice was quiet. “I’m not going to pretend to be something softer than I am just because it would be easier for you to swallow. You saw me at the lounge and you knew I wasn’t the most upright man. I never hid any details from you, Genevieve.”

“But you didn’t tell me the whole truth either. Still haven’t.”

His jaw clenched and unclenched and I could see him struggling with the details.

After what seemed like hours, he finally spoke. “Voss wants to meet outside the office for the next meeting. It might take long, will you be up for it?”

My chest caved, dropping my heart to the pit of my stomach with a sting, and when I looked at him, his eyes were glued to the blank screen.

I swallowed the lump that had formed in my chest. “I’ll be on time.”

His arm fell away from mine before I could pull it away. Even the heat I’d grown accustomed to was absent on my way out.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Genevieve

Lunch with Voss ran longer than expected. It was the final stage of the deal and I figured after days of negotiation and adjustments by the lawyers on both ends, the final stage would take an hour at most, but I was sorely mistaken.

Voss was trying to cut as much as he could and Kazimir was unyielding and very determined to give only what he thought was necessary.

It was only after Nikolai mentioned a detail I was unaware of that I realized Kazimir had driven Voss to the point of wanting to sell.