Chapter 5 - Zara
A few days pass after the wedding, even though time inside the penthouse behaves strangely, stretching and compressing forever. The city continues outside the glass—Manhattan breathing—but inside these walls, everything narrows into a war of inches.
I know Mikhail thinks it’s protection, but it’s nothing but surveillance.
The penthouse is obscenely beautiful with its floor-to-ceiling windows turning the skyline into moving art. Every surface is expensive, marble catching morning light like frozen water.
Mikhail has laid out the rules: no leaving without security, no unvetted calls, and no unauthorized contact. “None of those investigative detours,” he had said drily.
Who would I be if I didn’t challenge every single one? If he asks me to adapt quietly, to surrender, he’s got another thing coming.
“You cannot seriously expect me to accept this.”
Mikhail doesn’t look up from the file in his hands.
His shirt sleeves are rolled to his forearms, revealing dark ink winding over muscle and scar tissue alike. His nose and jaw are chiseled, like a tyrannical Adonis sent to imprison me.
“Reality remains unchanged by your refusal to accept it.”
I narrow my eyes, mouth curling sourly.
“That was almost philosophical.”
“Wasn’t my intention.”
“I lied—it was insufferable.”
Charcoal eyes lift to me, unimpressed and flat, and they scan me from head to toe. He does that a lot, like I’m an item that’s supposed to be thoroughly scanned to be checked for any unauthorized items.
“You like this, don’t you?”
“I like nothing that is related to you.”
“You enjoy getting on my nerves, Zara.”
I cross my arms, snorting, “You enjoy controlling me.”
“Maybe.”
I hate how quickly heat rises in my chest around him. I can’t tell if it’s just anger anymore, though.
Every interaction between us takes this shade: push, counter, advance, contain.
I test his so-called boundaries constantly, opening locked office drawers but he changes the codes. Accessing one of the secured laptops, but passwords are changed before I finish my second attempt.
I even corner one of his guards and casually ask about vehicle schedules. It’s nearly comical how such a tall and broad man goes pale at such a small question.
Three hours later, Mikhail appears in the kitchen as I’m stirring my coffee.
“Stop interrogating my men.”
I bring up the cup to my lips with an exaggerated calm.
“I was just making conversation.”
His eyes bore holes into me.
“You call that making conversation?” He grunts exasperatedly. “You were extracting information.”
Whatever. I set the mug down without taking a sip.
“Maybe if you stopped treating me like a prisoner, I would stop acting like one.”
He doesn’t say anything, but he steps closer to me, my head leaning back to keep eye contact.
“You are not a prisoner,” he murmurs lowly, striking eyes pinning me into place.
“No?” My laugh is fake. “What else would you call locking me up and refusing to let me go out on my own?”
“Keeping you alive,” he snaps.
Prick.
“You do realize,” I say, “that your inability to differentiate protection and control is deeply concerning?”
His jaw tightens.
“Just like how exhausting your inability to differentiate recklessness from courage is.”
Gritting my teeth, I close the little distance left between us, his minty breath clouding around me.
Dangerous decision, but I make it anyway.
“You are impossible.”
Those heady dark eyes trace a sudden path from my eyes to my lips. It happens in the blink of an eye, but I see it.
That is the fucking problem.
From then on, our arguments become charged with a certain kind of energy—the same one present when he kissed me in front of everyone.
Silence between our quips hums like electricity in exposed wiring. I’m just overthinking, I lie to myself each time like a dumbass, it’s anger and nothing more.
I obviously stand close to challenge him and to hold ground so he knows that I’m not intimidated.
He obviously steps closer to dominate space and re-assert control.
That’s all.
The kiss at the wedding changed nothing, like I told him so.
Rummaging through a drawer in his office, I snap out of my reverie when my hand fits around a familiar shape. When I take my hand out, my reflection in my phone’s dark screen looks back at me. Victory tastes sweet for approximately twelve seconds.
“You look far too pleased with yourself for someone holding stolen property.”
My entire body goes rigid. Slowly, my neck turns to face him, fingers white around the device.
Hair messy as he runs a hand through the strands, he stands in the doorway of his office. The bags under his eyes are slightly darker than usual. Even then, his presence demands obedience.
“It belongs to me,” I croak, my throat bobbing.
“Does it? It is now in my custody.”
I scoff. “You sound insane.”
“I don’t care what it sounds like.”
He moves inside, letting the door shut behind him. I jerk backward, instinctively defensive.
“You are not taking it,” I state firmly.
He stalks toward me with measured and sure steps, like a predator that knows its prey has nowhere to run.
“You already know how this ends,” he drawls.
“Do I?” I ask sarcastically. He just raises a brow, extending his palm towards me. I lift the phone higher.
“Try me,” I scoff.
His jaw clenches, eyes narrowing as he steps towards me. I step back, walking backwards until the edge of the desk hits the back of my thighs.
Mikhail stops directly in front of me, his musky scent clouding the air around me hedonistically. My pulse spikes, sweat pooling in the small of my back.
“Give me the phone, Zara,” he growls roughly.
“No,” I push out, voice weirdly stable.
“Do not test me.”
I laugh shakily.
“That ship sailed days ago.”
His hand reaches towards mine but I jerk away, knocking myself off balance. My hip catches the desk, making me stumble.
A strong vice-like grip tightens around my waist, his hard body pressing against my flesh. I blink profusely, lips parting. Mikhail’s other hand is braced against the desk beside me.
The phone slips from my hand and clatters away, but the sound becomes distant. Everything except him and his scent and his taut body pressed against mine fades away.
His palm, warm and large, cradles the curve of my waist possessively. Heat burns through the thin fabric of my blouse like his touch carries its own temperature. Every place we are not touching feels barren and cold.
His exhale brushes my bottom lip, the scent of smoke and something minty clouding all rational thought. My chest rises and falls in tandem with his, the contact sparking like flint before it catches on fire.
Anger buzzes under my skin, hot and directionless, but it’s washed away by molten desire. My pulse kicks against my chest.
“You infuriate me,” I breathe.
Something flickers across his face.
“You think you don’t do the same to me?” His thumb presses against the sliver of skin where my blouse parts. “Every day. Every goddamn day, Zara, you walk up to me and you argue and you push and you don’t have the slightest idea what it takes for me not to—”
He halts, jaw tight.
“Not to what?” My voice comes out thinner than I’d like to admit.
His grip tightens just enough so I feel the heat of his palm searing into my skin, the rough calluses on his fingers, the way his breath stutters out of rhythm.
“Not to do this.”
His lips capture mine, all teeth and heat and weeks of tension detonating between us like a charge going off. His free hand slides into my hair, fisting tight, angling my head back as his mouth devours me.
A sound—half protest, half plea—leaves me, my palms flattening against his chest. His tongue sweeps past my lips and the taste of him floods my senses: whiskey, smoke, something dark and addictive.
“You drive me insane,” he growls against my mouth. His hands drop to my hips, fingers digging into the generous curve of my ass through the jeans. An ’oof’ escapes me as he lifts me like I weigh nothing.
My legs wrap around his waist instinctively. He sucks a bruise into my neck, tearing a gasp from my throat, and Mikhail swallows it whole, his hips rolling against mine in a rhythm that makes me see stars.
His mouth trails down my jaw, teeth scraping where my pulse flutters frantically. “Weeks of just watching you walk out of this office, of lying awake wondering what sound you make when—”
“Shut up.” I fist my hands in his hair and pull hard. “Shut up and fuck me.”
He makes a sound like a wounded animal. As he drops me to my feet, his hand sweeps papers and a crystal paperweight to the floor in one violent motion off his desk, the crash echoing through the room.
He spins me around and bends me over the mahogany. The wood is cold against my cheek, a sharp contrast against the wall of heat behind me, his chest pressing down along my spine, his breath hot at my ear.
“You want this?” His voice is wrecked, barely recognizable. “Tell me. Say it.”
“Yes.” I can barely form the word. “God, yes! Mikhail—”
His hand cracks across my ass. Through the denim, the sting radiates outward, blooming into heat that pools low in my belly. I moan—loud, unguarded, nothing like the careful composure I practice in every other room of this building.
“Good girl.”
His fingers work my jeans open to drag the fabric down my hips, my thighs, just far enough. The cool air hits my wetness and I shudder. A tinge of embarrassment colors my cheeks—my pussy is slick, drenched, and he can see it, can feel it when his fingers slide between my thighs.
“Look at you,” he murmurs, awe in his voice. “All this time. All those arguments. You were this wet for me the whole time.”
I bite my tongue as his belt clinks. The sound of the buckle opening, the zipper descending—it’s obscenely loud in the quiet office. I feel the blunt head of his cock pressing against my entrance.
“No more games.” He brackets my body with his arms, one hand braced on the desk, the other wrapping around my throat, not squeezing yet, reminding me who’s in control. “No more pretending. You’re mine now, Zara. Say it.”
“I’m yours,” I whimper.
He thrusts in without hesitation, without warning.
The full, devastating length of his cock fills me in one stroke that borders on too much.
The cry that leaves my throat breaks against the wood.
My nails scrabble for purchase on the polished surface as he withdraws and slams back in, harder, deeper.
“Fuck,” he grunts. “So tight. So goddamn perfect.”
The tempo is punishing. Each thrust drives a sound from my throat—short, broken moans that match the rhythm of his hips.
The desk creaks beneath us and papers flutter to the floor.
The world narrows to the all-encompassing feeling of him, the stretch, the exquisite pressure building at the base of my spine.
His fingers leave my throat and slide lower, between my legs to find my clit.
“Come for me.” It’s an order, rough and desperate. “I can feel you close. Come on my cock, Zara. Right now.”
The heat coils tighter in my gut. I’m going to shatter, to splinter into a thousand pieces across this desk, and Mikhail is everywhere—inside me, around me, his groan vibrating against my ear as my pussy spasms around his cock.
Stars burst behind my eyes as my spine locks into place, my orgasm sipping through my body. A scream erupts, echoing off the walls and it doesn’t even register that it’s mine.
As I tremble around him, while he chases his release, I am no longer sure which possibility frightens me more—
Losing myself to him, or discovering that some part of me wants to.