Chapter Seven
Mirabel
His mouth is everywhere—my lips, my jaw, my throat—and I can’t think, can’t breathe, can only feel.
Arkady’s hand grips my thigh where it’s hooked around his waist, holding me against the wall like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he lets go.
Maybe I will. Maybe these last few hours were a nightmare I haven’t woken from yet. Maybe Kostya’s hand is still reaching for me on that bus, maybe—
“Mirabel.” Arkady breaks the kiss, breathing hard. His forehead presses against mine, ice blue eyes searching. “Where did you just go?”
Shit. Even now, even in this, he can read me.
“Nowhere,” I lie. “I’m here.”
“You left.” His thumb strokes my cheekbone, gentle despite the intensity in his touch. “You were with me, and then you weren’t.”
My throat tightens. The last place I want to be right now is inside my own head, trapped with memories of chloroform and rough hands and the way Kostya smiled when he blocked the bus doors.
“I don’t want to think,” I whisper. “I just want to feel.”
Something shifts in his expression—understanding mixed with something darker, more primal. “Then feel this.”
He kisses me again, deeper this time, his tongue sliding against mine with deliberate intent. My back arches off the wall, my body remembering what my mind is trying to forget: I’m safe. I’m here. I made it back.
But kissing in the hallway isn’t enough. Isn’t private. Anyone could walk by… one of his men, God forbid Yanis—
As if reading my thoughts, Arkady breaks away. “Not here.” He shifts his grip, his arm sliding under my ass to lift me properly. My legs wrap around his waist automatically, the position forcing my dress up around my hips as he carries me down the corridor.
I should protest. Should remind him I can walk. But I don’t want to walk—I want to be carried, want to feel the strength in his arms, want the reminder that someone this capable is about to claim me.
He turns left at the end of the hall, then right, navigating with the confidence of someone who knows every inch of his domain.
My hands find his shoulders, fingers digging into the expensive fabric of his shirt.
I can feel his muscles shifting beneath my touch, feel the controlled power in every step.
“Where are we going?” I manage.
“Someplace I can take my time with you.” His voice is rough, strained.
Heat floods through me, pooling low in my belly. The way he says it—like he’s making a promise, like he has plans—makes my body clench with anticipation.
He pushes through a door I recognize: the library. The massive room stretches before us, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lining the walls. The Persian rug in the center—deep burgundy silk with gold threading—muffles his footsteps.
Arkady sets me down in the middle of it, my bare feet sinking into the plush pile. For a moment, we just stand there, staring at each other. His chest rises and falls rapidly, hair disheveled from my fingers, lips swollen from our kisses. He looks undone in a way I’ve never seen him before.
Vulnerable.
“You’re shaking.” His voice is rough, raw.
I am. I didn’t realize it until he said it, but my whole body trembles like I’ve been standing in the cold for hours instead of the warm library for seconds.
“I’m fine,” I lie.
The word barely leaves my mouth before he moves again. His hands close around my shoulders—not gentle, not rough, just desperate. He pulls me against him, and God, the look on his face. I’ve never seen Arkady Laurov undone before. Not like this.
“Don’t,” he says, and his fingers tighten. “Don’t tell me you’re fine when you’re not.”
Something lodges in my throat. I want to be strong, want to hold it together, but when he pulls me tighter against him, something cracks wide open. All the terror I’ve been swallowing down for the past twenty-four hours rises up like a flood.
“I just—” I stop, can’t finish.
“Just what?” He pulls me tighter against him, one hand sliding into my hair, the other splayed across my lower back. “Speak to me, zaychik.”
The endearment breaks me. I bury my face in his chest and breathe him in—expensive cologne mixed with something sharper, more masculine. Sweat. Adrenaline. Him. Whatever is driving him tonight seems to have him unhinged. It’s a feeling I can identify with, though I can’t tell him why.
“I just want to feel you,” I say instead, clutching his shirt. “To know you’re close.”
For a moment, we just stand there, holding each other like the world might end if we let go. His chest rises and falls against mine, rapid at first, then slowing. Steadying. When he pulls back slightly, his eyes search mine with an intensity that makes breathing impossible.
“I’m here,” he says, voice rough. “Right here. Right now.”
I don’t know who moves first. Maybe neither of us moves—maybe we’re pulled together by something stronger than choice. His mouth crashes into mine, hard and hungry, nothing gentle about it, but it’s exactly what I need. The kind of need that comes from staring at terror and clawing your way back.
One of his hands cups my face, thumb stroking my cheekbone while his other hand grips my hip hard enough to leave marks.
Good. I want the marks. Want proof that this is real, that I made it back, that I’m not still in that van with the chloroform-soaked rag pressed to my face or on a flight to Dubai and God knows what kind of horrors lie there—
Arkady’s other hand slides down, gripping my waist, pulling me flush against him. I feel every hard plane of his body, the controlled strength barely contained beneath expensive fabric. His mouth moves to my jaw, my neck, teeth scraping the sensitive skin below my ear.
“Stay with me,” he growls against my throat. “I need you, zaychik.”
“I need you too.” The words come out breathless.
“So damned much.” I grab his face with both hands and kiss him like I’m drowning.
He makes a sound low in his throat—satisfaction mixed with surprise—and his hands grip my thighs, holding me tighter against him for a moment before he lowers us both to the Persian rug beneath our feet.
The plush fabric cushions my back as he settles his weight over me, never breaking the kiss. One knee pushes between my legs, forcing my dress higher, and I don’t care—don’t care about modesty or propriety or anything except the feel of him pressing me into the silk.
When his fingers find the zipper of my dress, I arch into the touch, desperate for more. “Right here where anyone could walk in and see that you’re mine,” he murmurs against my lips.
The possessiveness in his tone should irritate me. Instead, fire races straight to my core.
He strips the dress off me with efficiency that should be clinical but isn’t—not with the way his eyes devour every inch of exposed skin. I’m left in nothing but my bra and panties, spread out on the rug beneath him like an offering.
“Krasivyy,” he mutters, almost to himself. Then his mouth is on my breast through the lace, hot and wet, and I lift off the rug with a sound I don’t recognize.
“Arkady—”
“No.” He looks up at me, eyes blazing. “Don’t talk. Not yet.”
“But—”
He covers my mouth with his hand, the gesture both commanding and intimate. “I said no talking, zaychik. I need you quiet. I need you here, under me, letting me prove to myself that you’re real.”
I don’t understand this strange desperation rolling from him, but I nod against his palm. He removes his hand slowly, replacing it with his mouth in a kiss that’s all possession and relief tangled together.
His fingers work my bra clasp open, and the garment falls away, and then his mouth is on my bare skin, tongue circling my nipple before he pulls it between his teeth. Not hard enough to hurt, just enough to make me whimper.
“That’s it,” he says against my skin. “I want to hear you.”
His hand slides down my stomach, over my hip, between my thighs. When his fingers press against the damp fabric of my underwear, I groan, hips lifting.
“So wet already.” His voice drops lower, rougher. “Is this for me, zaychik?”
“You,” I manage. “Always you.”
Something flashes across his face—triumph and vulnerability wrapped together. He hooks his fingers in my panties and pulls them down my legs slowly, deliberately, his eyes never leaving mine.
The cool air hits my exposed skin, but it’s nothing compared to the heat in his touch as he spreads my thighs wider. He kneels between them, still fully clothed, and the contrast makes me dizzy.
“I’m going to taste you,” he says, and it’s not a question.
“Arkady—”
“And you’re going to let me take my time.”
He lowers his head before I can respond, and the first touch of his tongue against me is enough to steal whatever words I had. Slow, deliberate strokes that build a fire under my skin. He explores every fold, every nerve ending, exploring me with focused intensity.
When he slides two fingers inside me while his tongue works, I come apart with a cry that echoes off the library ceiling. My whole body bows off the rug, only his free hand on my hip keeping me from levitating entirely.
But he doesn’t stop. Even as I’m still trembling through the waves, he’s working me higher again with ruthless precision. Like he knows exactly how to break me down and rebuild me stronger.
“Too much,” I gasp, fingers tangling in his hair.
“Not enough.” He adds a third finger, and the stretch makes me moan. “I need more.”
“Please—”
“Please what?” He looks up at me, mouth glistening, eyes dark with lust. “Please stop? Or please don’t ever stop?”
“Don’t stop.” The admission costs me something, but I give it to him anyway. “Please don’t stop.”
His smile is savage and tender all at once. “Good girl.”
The praise does something to me. Makes me needier, more desperate.
I pull at his shirt, wanting the barrier between us gone.
He helps me strip it off, revealing the dense inkwork that covers his shoulders, throat, and upper chest. The stylized wings and feathers that climb his neck and frame his jaw.