Chapter 34 Zatanna #2
He stands there like a man who has decided to be direct because all his other methods have failed him, and somehow that makes this more dangerous, not less.
“Tell me,” he repeats. “And I’ll stop.”
That is a lie.
Maybe not fully. Maybe he means it in this moment.
But stop what? Touching me? Looking at me? Existing in the shape my whole nervous system now recognizes on sight?
Still, I hear myself say it. “I don’t want you.”
The words sound wrong before they finish leaving my mouth.
He hears it, too. Aleksei takes the last few steps between us until there’s barely any space left, and I hate that my pulse jumps like my body just called me a liar in public.
“You’re terrible at this,” he murmurs.
“I am not.”
He says nothing. Just reaches out and takes the jar from my hand, setting it carefully on the console table beside us. Then his fingers skim the inside of my wrist on the way back.
That tiny touch wrecks me more efficiently than it has any right to.
I inhale sharply. Damn him.
This pregnancy has made everything worse.
Stronger. More immediate. My body feels like an exposed nerve half the time.
My breasts ache, my skin is sensitive, and my sex drive has apparently decided shame is for people with weaker hormones.
I have had dreams about him so vivid I woke up wet and furious and too embarrassed to even think in full sentences for an hour.
Explicit dreams.
Ridiculous, filthy dreams where he put his hands everywhere and my body gave up every secret it had left.
And now he is standing right here with one fingertip still resting against my pulse like he knows exactly how badly I’m failing.
“I don’t,” I say again, weaker this time.
His hand slides from my wrist to my waist.
My whole body answers before my mind can form a protest. Heat. A low, aching pull low in my belly. I hate how quickly it happens. I hate more that he feels it.
His eyes darken. “Liar.”
He kisses me.
No warning. No argument. Just his mouth on mine, hot and immediate and exactly as devastating as the dreams never quite got right. I make a helpless sound against his lips and grip the front of his shirt because standing suddenly feels like an advanced skill.
He kisses me deeper, one hand braced at my lower back, the other sliding up into my hair. The hallway disappears. The house disappears. There is just this and him and the humiliating fact that all my righteous anger has burned down into pure want in under ten seconds.
“Aleksei—”
“I know.”
His mouth moves to my jaw, then down to my throat, and my head tips back before I can stop it. He kisses the sensitive skin there once, twice, then sucks lightly at the place that always makes my knees weak.
I press a hand to the wall behind me to steady myself.
“This is a hallway,” I whisper.
“Yes.”
“Someone could see.”
“Yes.” He sounds completely unbothered.
I sound nothing like myself when I say, “That’s not reassuring.”
He lifts his head and looks at me. Then he drops to his knees.
My breath stops. “Aleksei.”
He glances once down the empty corridor, then back at me. “Then we’ll be quick.”
That should not be hot. But it absolutely is.
Before I can decide whether I have enough dignity left to refuse, his hands are on my thighs, pushing the fabric of my dress up just enough, just far enough. He parts my legs and the cool air of the hallway brushes over skin already too warm.
“God,” I breathe.
He looks up at me once, and there is nothing gentle in his face now except the way he handles my body. “Hold onto something.”
Then his mouth is on me.
I bite down on the gasp so hard it hurts. My hand flies to his hair, the other to the wall as his tongue drags through me in one slow, devastating stroke.
He does not tease. Not today. Maybe because he knows I’m already halfway gone. Maybe because he’s as worked up as I am. Maybe because the risk of being caught has sharpened everything until it feels almost violent.
He licks me again, deeper, then closes his mouth over my clit and I have to clamp my lips shut to keep from crying out. My whole body jolts. The hallway swims. The edge of the table digs into my hip where I’m leaning against it.
“This is insane,” I whisper.
He hums against me in obvious agreement and keeps going.
My arousal has been absurd lately, climbing too fast, too high, my body craving him at stupid moments. He finds the exact rhythm almost immediately, tongue working hard and sure while his hands keep my thighs open, his grip firm and grounding and possessive.
I cannot believe I am about to come in his mother’s hallway.
I cannot believe part of me thinks that’s appropriate punishment for all the things he’s made me feel.
He glances down the hall again, quick and efficient, then goes back to my clit with even more focus. That’s somehow worse. The reminder that we are hidden only by luck and timing makes the pressure build too fast.
“Someone might come,” I say, though it comes out broken and not at all like the warning I intended.
“Then be quiet,” he murmurs against me.
I glare down at him, or try to.
Then he slides two fingers into me at the same time and I lose the ability to be offended.
My forehead hits the wall. Hard enough to sting. I don’t care. He curls his fingers, tongue still working my clit, and my whole body tightens around the coming orgasm in one brutal wave. “Aleksei…”
He groans at the sound of his name and that vibration finishes me.
I come so hard my knees nearly fold. He catches me with one arm around the back of my leg, holding me upright while my body shakes and clenches and tries not to make enough noise to bring the whole house running.
He works me through it fast, efficient even in this, until I’m oversensitive and weak and barely able to process that I’m still standing.
Then he rises in one smooth movement, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and kisses me.
I can taste myself on him. The shock of it makes me moan softly into his mouth.
His hands settle at my waist, steadying me while I try to remember my own name.
“That,” he says quietly, “was not the reaction of a woman who doesn’t want me.”
I hate that he is right. I hate more that I am too wrecked to lie well. So I put my hand flat against his chest, still breathing hard, and say the only thing I can manage.
“You’re evil.”
His mouth curves. “And yet.”
And yet.
I close my eyes for one second and rest my forehead against his shoulder because standing still feels safer than looking at him right now.
He smooths the skirt back down over my thighs with maddening care, then reaches past me to retrieve the tamarind jar and hands it back like this is the most normal sequence of events in the world.
I take it because apparently that is where my life is now.
I clutch the tamarind jar to my chest and try to recover enough dignity to stand upright.
Aleksei is still too close. Too calm. Too pleased with himself.
I hate that look on him. Mostly because I know I put it there.
So I do the only thing I can think of.
I lie.
“I told you,” I say, forcing my voice into something steadier than I feel, “you aren’t the father.”
His expression barely changes. But his eyes do. They narrow, getting darker like an incoming storm. “Really?” he says.
I lift my chin. “Yes.”
He watches me for one long second, then asks, very quietly, “Then where is he?”
My mouth goes dry. “What?”
“The father,” he says. “Where is he?” He takes one step closer, crowding me again without touching me this time. “Why is he not here to protect you?”
My pulse starts to race all over again.
He keeps going, voice low and dangerous and far too controlled. “Why is he not the one making sure you get home safely?” Another step. “Why is he not the one stopping me from touching you?”
My breath catches. Because he knows.
Maybe not everything. Maybe not in words.
But he knows enough.
“It’s Jake,” I hear myself say. The lie comes out too fast to be convincing, but it is all I have.
He stills. “Jake,” he repeats.
I nod once. “Yes.”
“Your ex-boss.”
“Yes,” I breathe.
For one split second, real surprise flashes across his face. Then it’s gone. He recovers so quickly another person might have missed it.
Not me.
He tilts his head. “Interesting.”
It is not interesting. It is a disaster.
I can feel the shape of the lie already collapsing under its own weight, but he doesn’t call it out. Not yet. Instead, he does something worse.
He nods once, as if accepting it. “Fine,” he says. “Then I’ll deliver you to him.”
My head jerks back. “You’ll do no such thing.”
“Oh?” His mouth curves faintly. “Why not?”
“Because I said so.”
“No,” he says. “Because you’re uncomfortable.”
The truth of it makes me furious.
“I’ll talk to him,” he says.
That panic in my chest sharpens immediately. “No.”
He notices. And there it is again, that infuriating calm satisfaction. The comfort he takes in the fact that I am rattled, because to him my discomfort is proof that my lie is weak.
“What would he think,” Aleksei murmurs, “if he found out you came apart on my mouth in the hallway?”
My whole body goes hot. I swallow hard.
“We’re not together,” I say, hating how thin my voice sounds. “I’m raising the baby alone.”
“Of course,” he says, with a quiet chuckle that makes me want to shove him down the stairs.
Because he doesn’t believe me. Not for one second.
And I know, with cold, awful certainty, that he is very close to the truth now. Too close. If he finds out the baby is his, there will be no more pretending. No more distance. No more room for me to decide my own life.
He will marry me. Not because he wants the fairytale.
But because it would solve too many things at once. The child. The inheritance. The danger. Me.
And that should not make my heart beat harder than fear alone can explain.
So I go on the attack. “Why aren’t you married yet, huh?” I ask.
That gets him. Not dramatically. But enough.
I fold my arms and push while I can. “I thought you were on a deadline.”
His expression shifts. The smugness fades. The heat changes shape.
For the first time since we started this argument, he looks tired in a way that has nothing to do with lust. “Yes,” he says. “I was.”
I stare at him. “Was?”
He looks down the hallway once, then back at me. Something in him settles, like he has decided there is no point pretending this is still just strategy.
“My father made the will public months ago,” he says. “He started hitting my warehouses. Buying loyalty. Pressuring investors. Every day I didn’t marry someone made him stronger.”
I blink.
That part I knew in fragments. Rumors. Headlines. Jake muttering about violence in the city. But hearing it from his mouth makes it heavier. More real.
“So why didn’t you?” I ask. “You had women lining up.”
His gaze holds mine. “I know.”
“Then why didn’t you just pick one?”
He takes another step, close enough now that the wall behind me feels less like architecture and more like fate. “Because after you,” he says quietly, “every match was impossible.”
My breath leaves me.
He keeps his voice low, but there is no teasing in it now. No manipulation. Just brutal honesty. “I tried,” he says. “Dates. Names. Alliances. Alena. Every ‘reasonable’ option anyone could put in front of me.” His mouth twists slightly on reasonable. “None of them were you.”
I search his face for an angle. An escape hatch. Some sign that this is just another move in a game I’m losing.
I don’t find one.
“I thought,” he says, “it would pass.”
The words hit me harder than all the rest. Because I know exactly what he means.
That feeling. Too fast. Too wrong. Too intense for the amount of time. Something that should have burned off and didn’t.
“It didn’t,” I whisper.
“No.”
And suddenly I understand something I had not let myself believe. This is not just obsession for him. Not just sex. Not just guilt. Not just possession. He has been suffering, too.
That should not make me feel better. It does.
Which is its own problem.
I look away first because I have to, because if I keep staring at him while he looks at me like that, this hallway is going to become another bad decision.
My voice comes out thinner than I want. “That doesn’t change anything.”
“No,” he says. “It changes everything.”
I laugh once, shaky and defensive. “That is a very mafia way to answer.”
He almost smiles. Then his hand lifts, slow enough to let me stop him, and brushes once along my jaw. “Tell me to leave you alone,” he says.
I know what he means now. Not for an hour. Not for the hallway.
“Really. Tell me to stop. Tell me this means nothing. Tell me you want a life with Jake or no one or anybody but me,” he says in a low voice.
I open my mouth. And nothing comes out.
His thumb pauses at my chin. “That’s what I thought,” he murmurs.
And I hate that he’s right.