Chapter 3
Izzy
Five days.
Five days of Sergei Orlov in my space, and I'm losing my goddamn mind.
The Wolf doesn't rest.
He watches.
And I feel those grey eyes on me constantly, tracking my movements through my own apartment like I'm something precious he's cataloguing. Something fragile he's afraid to break.
I want him to break me.
I want him to stop looking at me like I'm a client and start looking at me like I'm a woman.
I want—
Stop.
I press my palms against the cold marble of my kitchen island, forcing myself to breathe. It's past midnight. The penthouse is dark except for the city lights bleeding through thirty-eight floors of glass. I came out here for water.
Instead I'm standing here in a silk robe that barely covers anything, thinking about a man who's made it very clear our relationship is professional.
Professional.
Except professionals don't look at you the way he looked at me during the will reading.
Don't position their bodies between you and every exit like they're ready to kill anyone who gets too close.
Don't say if he touches you again, I'll break every finger with the casual certainty of someone who's done exactly that before.
Professionals don't make you wet just by existing in the same room.
"You should be asleep."
His voice comes from the shadows near the window. Low. Rough. The voice of a man who's been watching me stand here in silk and hasn't said a word until now.
I don't turn around. "So should you."
"I don't sleep much."
"Guilty conscience?"
"No conscience at all." Footsteps, soft on hardwood despite his size. Moving closer. "That's why they hired me."
The air shifts when he stops behind me. Close enough that I feel the heat radiating off his body. Close enough that his breath stirs the hair at my neck.
Not touching.
The not-touching is worse.
"What are you doing out here, Isabelle?"
My name in his mouth. That accent wrapping around each syllable like a threat and a promise had a baby and named it bad decisions.
"Couldn't sleep."
"Nightmares?"
"Something like that."
I turn.
He's close. Closer than I expected. Those grey eyes are almost black in the darkness, fixed on my face with an intensity that makes my lungs forget how to work. He's wearing a black t-shirt stretched across his chest, sweatpants slung low on his hips. Barefoot.
Human.
He looks almost human like this.
The thought should comfort me. It doesn't.
"You need to stop looking at me like that," he says quietly.
"Like what?"
"Like you're thinking about something that'll complicate this arrangement."
"What if I am?"
His jaw tightens. "Then you should stop."
"And if I don't want to?"
I step closer. Close enough that the silk of my robe brushes against his chest. Close enough that I can smell him—cedar and smoke and something darker underneath. Something that makes my hindbrain light up with every warning I have no intention of heeding.
My therapist would have a field day with this. Too bad I fired her three weeks ago.
"Isabelle." His voice is strained. Controlled. The voice of a man holding himself back by a thread. "You're grieving. You're not thinking clearly—"
"I'm thinking perfectly clearly." My hand finds his chest, palm flat over his heartbeat.
It's racing. Pounding against my touch like it's trying to escape.
"I think you want me. I think you've wanted me since Mexico.
I think you're standing here in the dark watching me instead of sleeping because you can't stop thinking about what it would feel like to stop being professional. "
"You don't know what you're asking for."
"Then show me."
Something breaks behind his eyes.
His hand fists in my hair—sudden, rough, tilting my head back until I'm looking up at him. The grip is just shy of painful.
Perfect.
"I'm not a good man." The words come out like a warning. Like a confession. "I've killed people, Isabelle. Dozens. I've done things that would make you sick. Things that should make you run."
"I'm not running."
"You should."
"Make me."
He kisses me.
Not soft. Not gentle. This is a collision—teeth and tongue and five days of tension igniting like someone dropped a match in a room full of gasoline. His hand tightens in my hair and I moan into his mouth, the sound swallowed by his hunger.
He tastes like whiskey. Like violence. Like the worst decision I'll ever make and the only one that feels right.
I should stop this. Should think about consequences and complications.
But my father's dead. My mother's a murderer. My uncle wants me in a cage or a coffin. And right now, the only thing keeping me tethered to this world is the feel of Sergei Orlov's hands on my body.
So fuck consequences.
I clutch his shirt, dragging him closer, needing more contact. More heat. More of whatever this is that's burning through my bloodstream. His free hand finds the tie of my robe, tugging it loose with a sharp pull that makes the silk fall open.
Cool air hits bare skin. I'm not wearing anything underneath.
He pulls back just enough to look.
The sound he makes—low, guttural, almost pained—sends heat pooling between my thighs.
"You've been walking around like this—"
"Hoping you'd notice."
"I noticed." His thumb traces my collarbone, my shoulder, pushing the silk until it pools at my feet. "I noticed every fucking time you bent over in that robe. Every time you walked past me smelling like vanilla and sex. You think I haven't been going out of my mind?"
"Then stop talking about it and do something."
He moves.
One second I'm standing in the kitchen. The next I'm lifted off my feet, my legs wrapping around his waist automatically, and he's carrying me—not to the bedroom, but to the windows.
The glass is cold against my back. Thirty-eight floors of nothing between me and the glittering city below, and I don't care. Can't care about anything except his mouth on my neck, his hands gripping my thighs, the hard length of him pressing against my center through his sweatpants.
"Here?" I gasp.
"Here." He pins me against the window with his hips, one hand leaving my thigh to palm my breast. "I've been thinking about this for five days. You pressed against this glass. The whole city watching while I make you scream."
"Arrogant."
"Honest." His thumb finds my nipple and whatever clever response I had dissolves into a sound I'll deny making later. "Big difference."
Manhattan spreads beneath us like diamonds someone scattered across black velvet. In the reflection of the glass, I can see us—his dark silhouette against my pale skin, city lights painting us in gold and shadow. We look like art. We look like a crime scene waiting to happen.
His hand slides between my thighs.
I'm already soaked. Have been since he walked into that Mexican courtyard five days ago, looking like he wanted to either kill me or fuck me. Nice to know we're finally picking an option.
His fingers find my center, sliding through slick heat, and the groan that escapes him vibrates against my throat.
"This wet already. All from thinking about me?"
"Don't let it go to your head."
"Too late." He circles my clit—light, teasing, nowhere near enough pressure. "I'm going to be thinking about this for months."
"Less thinking. More—" He pushes two fingers inside me and the sentence dies in a gasp. "—that. More of that."
He works me with the same precision he probably uses to dismantle people. Nothing wasted. Nothing random. His thumb presses against my clit while his fingers curl inside me, finding that spot that makes my back arch off the glass.
The window is freezing against my spine. His body is a furnace against my front. It's too much and not enough and I'm already embarrassingly close.
"Look at you." His voice is gravel and smoke. "Falling apart on my fingers like you've been waiting for this."
"I have been." The words come out broken. "Five days of you staring at me like—"
"Like what?" He curls his fingers harder, hitting that spot again, and my skull cracks back against the glass hard enough to make me see stars.
I don't care.
"Like you wanted to devour me."
"I do." His thumb presses harder and my vision goes white around the edges. "I want to take you apart piece by piece and put you back together wrong. I want to ruin you for anyone else. I want—"
"Then stop fucking talking and do it."
Something snaps behind his eyes. His fingers disappear and I'm about to protest when I hear fabric shove down and then he's there, thick and hot, pressing against my entrance.
"Last chance to run, Isabelle."
"I told you." I dig my heels into his ass, pulling him forward. "I don't run."
He drives inside me in one brutal thrust.
The sound that tears out of me is raw.
He's big. Thick enough that the stretch burns, long enough that I feel him everywhere. And he doesn't give me time to adjust. Doesn't ask if I'm okay, if it's too much, if I need him to slow down.
He just pulls back and slams home again so hard my head cracks against the glass.
Stars explode behind my eyes. The pain and pleasure blur together into something that doesn't have a name, something that makes my nails dig into his shoulders hard enough to draw blood.
"Harder," I gasp.
So he gives me harder.
His fingers dig into my thighs like he's trying to leave fingerprints in my bones. Good. I want the bruises. Want to press on them tomorrow and remember exactly how reckless I was. How stupid. How alive.
The glass rattles against my spine with each snap of his hips. My head knocks back—once, twice.
His hand slides up my body—ribs, breast, collarbone—and wraps around my throat. Not gentle. Not careful. Just his palm against my pulse, his fingers pressing into the sides of my neck, controlling my air supply with the same ease he controls everything else.