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Dmitri sets his glass down.

“It will be tough,” he says. “There will be moments where you want to quit. Times where you ask if the agony is worth the cost.”

“I’m up for it.”

Dmitri studies me.

The city throws gold across one side of his face. “I am glad to hear it.”

I cannot sit anymore. The chair is too soft for the way my pulse is moving. I stand and walk to the window.

The drop is obscene.

A whole machine down there that does not know my name but might, if I do this right.

“Do you rule it?” I ask. “The city…”

I do not look at him when I say it. I look at the lights.

“Parts,” Dmitri says. He is closer now. I did not hear him move. “Not all.” A beat. “Not yet.”

The words land in me like a hand.

Ambition on a man like him should scare me clean. Instead it turns me on so sharply I have to lock my knees.

I want to be standing by him when he takes the entire city as his.

Before I know it, Dmitri’s hands come around my throat from behind.

Not crushing the life out of me.

Claiming me.

Fingers at the sides of my neck, thumbs resting where my pulse is stupid and obvious. I go still. The water glass is cold in my hand.

Dmitri’s mouth finds the nape of my neck.

The kiss is slow.

I moan before I can swallow it. A small sound. Enough.

Dmitri laughs against my skin. Then he pulls away. The air rushes back in.

My neck feels abandoned. I feel a longing for a man I barely know and yet feel connected to on the deepest of levels.

“Bedtime,” Dmitri says.

Just like that. As if he did not just put his hands on my throat and kiss me like a promise and a warning in the same breath.

I turn.

Dmitri is already walking toward the hall, vodka left behind, decision made.

“Is that an order?”

“Yes,” he replies, not even turning back to look.

I look at the city one more time.