Chapter 17
Kit
Ivan Morozov’s apartment looked exactly like I expected it to look and nothing like I wanted it to and that annoyed me.
I wanted clutter—evidence, some small humanizing defect I could hold up against him like a weapon.
A crooked stack of mail, dishes in the sink, a sweater thrown over the back of a chair.
Something dumb and ordinary and slightly careless like a fridge magnet, a dying plant, maybe even an ugly mug from a conference with a bad acronym.
Anything to prove he wasn’t lethal and dangerous but just a regular person.
Instead, his apartment was sparse, expensive, and meticulous.
It was all dark wood, pale walls, clean lines, and furniture that probably had a name in Italian.
There were no photographs or throw pillows or visible books except for a narrow shelf of technical references, Russian literature, and three chess books arranged by height in a way that made me want to rotate the middle one just to see if he noticed.
The main room had a dining table that looked like no one had ever eaten a casual meal at it, a couch that looked comfortable but not inviting, and, against the far wall and what I was most interested in, three monitors running all at the same time.
I stopped two steps inside and stared at the screens.
“Do you ever turn them off?” I asked.
“No.”
“Healthy.”
“Useful.”
“That’s usually what unhealthy people call unhealthy things.”
Ivan closed the door behind me. The lock clicked, followed by two additional mechanisms engaging deeper in the frame. I heard them because I had spent years teaching myself to hear things like it.
He noticed me noticing.
“You can leave at any time,” he said.
I turned to look at him. He stood with my bag in one hand and his dark coat still on, pale blue eyes steady behind his glasses. He didn’t smirk or make any theatrical attempt to reassure me.
I believed him, which was inconvenient.
“Can I?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Without being followed?”
His expression did not change.
I smiled without warmth. “Right. That was the wrong question.”
“It was an incomplete one.”
“You’re a joy.”
“I’ve been told.”
“By whom? Hostage negotiators?”
“My brothers. But they were drunk at the time.”
“Same thing, probably.”
Ivan set my bag beside the couch. “Your laptop can go there. That machine is isolated, but you may inspect it first.”
He pointed to a workstation at the end of his desk. There were a computer and keyboard waiting for me. Blank notebook. Mechanical pencil. Coffee coaster.
The coaster was what did it. I stared at it.
“You set up a workspace for me.”
“Yes.”
“That’s presumptuous.”
“Yes.”
“You’re not supposed to agree that fast.”
“You prefer accuracy over comfort.”
My eyes narrowed. “Stop using my own traits against me.”
“Never.”
A small, extremely stupid part of me wanted to smile. I killed it with discipline.
Mostly.
I crossed to the workstation and checked it because no matter how infuriating a man was, an isolated machine still deserved inspection.
Ivan didn’t hover. He took off his coat, hung it over the back of a chair, and moved to his own station.
I watched him from the corner of my eye as I opened panels, checked ports, verified the boot environment, examined the logs, and generally made sure the machine wasn’t about to quietly betray me.
It was clean.
“Acceptable?” he asked.
“For now.”
“High praise.”
“Don’t get emotional.”
“I’ll try to endure.”
I sat down, but he did not sit immediately.
I looked up. “What?”
“You haven’t eaten.”
I froze.
“You don’t know that.”
“I know you had coffee before leaving your apartment. I know you brought a bag but no food. I know you were up most of the night because you were too angry to sleep and too suspicious to trust me. I know your hands aren’t shaking at all, but you are blinking less than usual, which means you are forcing concentration. You are hungry.”
My fingers curled around the edge of the desk.
“You are a deeply unsettling man.”
“Yes.”
“That wasn’t a compliment.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“I can feed myself.”
“Eventually, perhaps.”
“Ivan.”
“Kit.”
The tone was firm enough that my body heard it.
Traitor.
“I ordered food,” he said.
“Of course you did.”
“You can refuse to eat it.”
“How generous.”
“You can also refuse to work until I give you more of the Orlov file.”
“I’m absolutely doing that.”
“I know.”
Again, with that.
He moved to the kitchen area, which was less a kitchen and more a showroom for stainless steel appliances that had never known the joy of being splattered with soup.
A paper bag sat on the counter. He opened it and removed two containers, setting one beside me without comment.
I looked down. Grilled chicken, rice, roasted vegetables, and a little container of sauce on the side.
Nothing too heavy or too greasy. It was exactly the type of food I would have ordered if I were pretending to be practical and responsible instead of surviving on coffee and spite. My stomach tightened.
“What?” he asked.
I looked up. “Nothing.”
“That is not nothing.”
“It’s food.”
“Yes.”
“It’s exactly what I would have ordered.”
“Yes.”
I leaned back. “How did you know?”
His gaze met mine and for a moment, I thought he might tell me. For a moment, I wanted him to.
Then he said, “I pay attention.”
With a sigh, I opened the container and picked up the fork because refusing to eat would have been childish, and also because my stomach had already decided dignity was less important than arguing about roasted vegetables.
Ivan sat down beside me, close enough that I could feel the heat of him if I thought about it, which I immediately decided not to do.
He opened the legitimate version of his Orlov investigation on the center monitor, and I knew it was legitimate because of what was missing.
Me.
I ate one bite of chicken and let my attention move over the screen.
“You edited this.”
“Yes.”
“You’re admitting that too?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you would know if I lied.”
“I might not.”
“You would.”
His confidence was either flattering or insulting. Probably both.
“What did you remove?” I asked.
“The parts that are not necessary for the next few hours.”
“I’m going to need you to understand that I consider that sentence an act of violence.”
“I assumed you would.”
“Do you ever get tired of being insufferable?”
“No.”
“Good. Consistency matters.”
He smiled just the tiniest bit, but his gaze didn’t leave mine.
“Stop looking at me like that,” I said.
“No.”
“Ivan.”
“Kit.”
“If you say my name like that again, I’m going to do something stupid.”
His mouth curved faintly. “Good.”
That was when I kissed him.
Or he kissed me.
We’d done this once before, in an event I’d let myself file under accidental orgasm. This was not an accident. This was me deciding to do the single stupidest thing I had ever wanted to do. I planned to blame him later anyway.
His mouth met mine with the kind of control that should not have felt as devastating as it did. He did not crush me. He did not grab first. He waited one fraction of a second after contact, as if giving me the choice to pull back.
I did not.
That was all the permission he needed.
His hand came up to my jaw, thumb beneath my chin, fingers firm along my throat, and he angled my face exactly where he wanted it.
The kiss deepened, slow and hot. Ivan kissed the way he did everything else, as if he had already studied the system, found the pressure points, and chosen to take it apart one beautiful piece at a time.
I hated him.
I kissed him harder.
His other hand settled at my waist, not pulling me in until I leaned.
Then his grip tightened and suddenly I was against him, chest to chest, the heat of him all along the front of me.
He was lean, yes, but there was strength beneath the restraint.
Hard muscles. Restrained power. The kind that did not need to announce itself because it knew exactly what it could do when required.
My fingers slid into his hair.
His breathing quickened.
I liked that.
I liked it enough to do it again, tugging slightly, and the low sound he made against my mouth went straight through me. Then he turned us and pressed me back against the edge of the desk.
A command through positioning.
My body responded before my pride had time to object. My knees parted a fraction, his thigh between them, the desk at my back, his hand still on my jaw. I was trapped in the most technically avoidable way possible, and every inch of me knew I could say stop and he would.
His mouth left mine and moved along my jaw.
“Ivan,” I breathed.
He froze and so did I, all because my voice had betrayed me completely.
He lifted his head. His eyes were darker behind the glasses, and for one wildly unhelpful second, all I could think was that I wanted those glasses off and his hands somewhere much less respectable than my waist.
He was hard against me. I could feel he wanted me. He was not unaffected, not calm in that insulting way men sometimes pretended to be when they wanted women to feel messy and alone. His control had edges now. Strain. Want.
His gaze dropped, then lifted back to mine, and the air between us became so charged I could hardly breathe.
“You’re enjoying this,” I whispered.
“More than is wise.”
That made my face heat again. He stepped back. I hated the loss of contact so much I wanted to throw something at him. Instead, I straightened my sweater, smoothed my hair, and pretended my pulse was normal because denial was free and sometimes effective.
“Fine,” I said.
“It is not fine.”
“Then don’t be noble.”
“I am not noble.”
“Then what are you?”
His gaze held mine. “Trying not to take too much before I have earned it.”
I looked away first.
“Then let’s get to work,” I offered, trying to feel a little bit normal.