Chapter 5
Paige
His mouth collides with mine again, and the violence of the resulting tectonic shift erases thought. Everything inside me folds in on itself, then explodes outward as chaos overtakes careful silence.
I have no warning. No slow slide into peril.
Just an eruption of color in my monochromatic existence.
I shouldn’t want this. I’ve spent fifteen years running from this kind of volatility, escaping the wildness that used to stream through my veins like fuel, brightening every moment.
That’s how I lived.
Before the island, Mom’s funeral, and learning that seizing life by the horns may end in tragedy. That losing the ones you love isn’t worth the thrill.
Only a dull, predictable life can protect my heart from shattering all over again.
But my body refuses to listen to my brain, responding instead with a surge of want that’s all the more terrifying because of the familiarity, the inevitability. The fuel burns through me, throwing sparks that char me from the inside out.
The thirst for more—his kisses, his touch, anything—nearly drives me insane.
My cardigan sags open, and when his fingers brush my breasts, the resulting sensation is nuclear.
Warmth detonates across my nerves, flooding me with instant and irresistible desire. His cool palm finds my waist. My hips arch up on their own, begging for him to move lower.
A sharp exhale catches in my throat, and my muscles twitch under his fingertips.
I can’t believe this is even happening. We’re tucked between the bookshelves like a couple of horny teenagers under the school bleachers.
I should shove him away and summon security.
I’m the senior archivist. This is my territory, my library. Everyone obeys my rules.
Everyone but him and my own body.
Reflexively, I fist my hands in the soft fabric of his shirt and revel in the toned body underneath. Urgency fuels the raw urge to close the distance between us until only hunger remains.
In one primitive, instructive seminar, he’s showing me everything I’ve denied myself. Fresh citrus scrapes across my senses, teasing my nose. He tastes of dark roast coffee, danger, and certainty.
I need more, though the last shreds of my sanity scream at me to stop.
We both know how this ends.
It’s like coming home to a place I promised myself I’d never return to.
A place I fled from.
I put that reckless girl to rest with her mother, entombing that version of me under frumpy sweaters, rigid order, and lists where even the ink color has meaning.
But she’s not gone.
That girl exists, here in the gloom, this criminally hot mouth breathing her back to life.
He’s not just kissing me. He’s exhuming the Paige I tried to erase.
Each flick of his tongue is a shovel. Every shared gasp breaks up another silty layer of self-imposed civility.
Under him, I come alive.
The buzzy, raw edge of sensation reignites everything I once considered numb. My breasts ache, my legs nearly buckle, and my quaking thighs clench in anticipation. I find the floor itself treacherous.
That carefully maintained numbness has vanished.
I swallow, struggling to right myself in the chaos of my mind. “We…you have to…this—”
“Tell me you want this.” His whisper rakes over my skin, soft but demanding agreement.
Demanding submission to my past self.
Unable to help myself, knowing how much I’ll regret this, I give in.
Greedy for more, I dig my fingers into his hair, urging him closer. My head tilts, baring my throat in both an offering and a dare. My hips buck, seeking friction, all my self-control a distant memory.
Impressively, he’s even better built than he appears, his body firm against mine and shoving me into the books as he steals the breath from my lungs.
His teeth snag my lower lip, biting hard enough to send shivers over my skin.
The whimper that escapes me is humiliating, honest in a way I’d forgotten.
His fingers hike my skirt inch by inch, exposing my thighs to cool, dusty air.
No one has touched me like this in ages. I never dropped my guard enough. In all these years, my handful of dates were clinical. Forgettable.
When Vanya strokes me through my underwear, I gasp into his mouth. The contact is electric. I’m soaked. Trembling. Desperate.
“Please.” The word escapes before I can reclaim it, a plea spun from threads of longing and defeat.
His fingers slide past cotton.
I dig my teeth into my lip to suppress a moan.
Then those fingers press against me.
The friction of skin on skin burns away the last of my composure. I’m stripped so naked, his touch illuminates every secret. Making out with a stranger between the shelves, with my staff somewhere nearby… I ought to be ashamed. Terrified.
But fear is the furthest thing from my mind.
I feel alive for the first time in over a decade, and I just want more. I want these flames inside my body to consume me, leaving nothing but bliss and ash in their wake.
His thumb lands right on my clit, circling with merciless expertise, and then one long finger sinks inside me.
Oh my god. I think I’ve died and gone to heaven.
I bury my face against his shoulder to muffle the moan that threatens to escape.
Someone’s going to hear me. Hear this. Anyone could turn that corner, see him against me, his fingers—
He applies more pressure on my clit, and I huff out a strangled breath.
Our taboo actions only propel me higher, until I’m dizzy with need.
There’s no hesitation or slow build of pleasure.
Just brutal, immediate ecstasy.
His fingers work in tandem, one rubbing smooth circles while the other thrusts, strokes, and stretches me.
I grip his shoulders for balance as the tension inside me tightens, threatening to shatter with every calculated gesture.
I’m so close. Another push, and—
He withdraws his fingers.
Only a few inches, but enough to rip the ground out from under me.
The sudden absence has me reeling and falling back on my heels. I didn’t even realize I’d been up on my toes. I blink a few times, clearing my vision only to meet his cruel, intense stare.
His breath comes out ragged, his chest heaving like he’s barely holding himself together, but neither weakness nor desire shows on his face.
Just triumph.
He sees the real Paige.
The feral thing inside me, the creature who laughs at danger and thrives in chaos.
The realization hits like a breaking wave.
Icy self-loathing smothers the heat burning through me.
I did it again.
For the thrill of being unraveled by someone who’s nothing but trouble.
I flatten both palms against his chest and shove.
He barely budges enough to wedge a sliver of air between us. I’m shaking, still buzzing with the aftershock of what he almost gave me, my legs waterlogged from want.
I yank my skirt down, though I refuse to give him the satisfaction of seeing me fix the askew underwear between my thighs.
Hot anger surges through me. Mostly at him, but also at myself for being weak. I gave in as soon as he touched me, even after I told myself I wouldn’t. I know better.
I know what weakness leads to.
With clumsy fingers, I wrestle my sweater back on, but my usual shield fails to comfort me.
Vanya raises the hand that was just up my skirt and flicks his tongue over his fingers. “What’s wrong, Paige? Not what you expected? What did you think would happen after you dragged me out of sight, deep into your lair?”
His Russian accent has gotten heavier, tempting me to tumble right back into the heat I just clawed my way out of.
I despise myself a little bit more.
“Don’t.” I recoil until my back collides with the shelves. Book spines jab me through my clothes, providing an uncomfortable reminder that there’s no escape.
“Don’t what? Touch you? Kiss you? Don’t make you feel things you’ve been denying yourself for years? Don’t finish what your body so desperately craves?”
I twitch, clenching the bottom of my cardigan and letting the knit fabric ground me. He doesn’t know anything, even if his words slice through my walls and stab me right in the heart.
But he doesn’t know, and he won’t break me.
“Don’t pretend you understand anything about me.” My tone falls flat, but I still manage to roll my shoulders back and face his scrutiny. “And don’t assume you can push my buttons like this and magically get what you want.”
He’s seen past all the careful composure, the meticulous routine and straight into the repressed mayhem.
I can tell what he’s thinking.
Too late. I understand who you are now, “Ms. Kisner,” and I will get exactly what I want.
My hand trembles as I point toward the door. “Get. Out.”
“All right. No need to be testy, Ms. Kisner.” Without subtlety or shame, he adjusts himself in front of me. The graphic way he palms his erection is a crude punctuation mark on everything we just did.
I want to be disgusted, to summon up some righteous anger or even basic self-respect, but traitorous heat pulses between my legs.
I detest the smug bastard, but my frustrating body never got that memo.
“I’ll see you later, Paige.” He saunters away, arrogant as a king.
The second he’s gone, I sag back into the books.
How did I fall apart so easily? How did I let him see me—really see me—and why does that feel more intimate than anything he could do with his hands?
I clamp my thighs together, desperate to muffle the lingering throb he’s left there.
And I hate myself for craving more of him.