Chapter 10
Kiryan
Elena's palm pressed flat to my chest. She froze for a beat, then shoved hard. It didn't do a damn thing to me.
She clenched her jaw, and I traced the line of her lips with my tongue, slow and relentless, until that last bit of resistance cracked under her ragged breathing. She turned her head to dodge me. I followed and pushed back in, my tongue forcing its way past her teeth.
Pain flashed. She bit me.
The metallic taste spread between our mouths, and the animal in my ribs surged, hot and hungry, close to snapping my control in half.
I let her go before she ran out of air.
Her lips looked bruised-red from my mouth. The shine in her eyes didn't make her look weak. It made her anger burn brighter.
"I didn't seduce anyone," she said, staring me down. "Did you really have to humiliate me like this?"
I saw the hurt under it. I knew I should've stopped. I said the opposite anyway.
"You sit in my car wearing the dress I pick. As long as you sit in the Pakhan's wife's seat, you remember who you belong to."
"So that's why you were pissed?" Her lashes shook.
"And that isn't enough?"
"Then what about Isabella?"
The name hit like ice water to the face. I paused. Elena caught it.
"You demanded I remember who I belonged to," she said, turning her face away, "but you never forget Isabella. That isn't fair."
"You don't have to measure yourself against her."
It was the truth. They weren't even close to the same.
"Because I can't compare, I don't even get to call it unfair?"
"I didn't say that."
"But you keep acting like it."
The car went quiet for a second. Feodor didn't make a sound up front, but the tires on the road suddenly felt loud. I hit the switch beside the seat. The privacy partition rose, slow and steady, cutting the front from the back.
"You know what I thought about when I kissed you just now?" I pushed her down into the leather. "I knew who the hell I had in my arms. It was you. Not Isabella."
Elena's pupils trembled. She looked at me like she was bracing for another hit, but there was a flicker there too, something she couldn't hide fast enough.
"Kiryan."
"Stop looking at me like that." I pressed my forehead to hers, my thumb brushing over her swollen lower lip. "Unless you want me to keep going."
The first time I touched her, I'd said someone else's name. At the engagement party, I'd treated her like the reason my fiancée ran. After she moved into my house, everything I did had been meant to remind her she was only Isabella's lesser replacement.
But in that kiss, I hadn't turned her into anyone. I knew I'd held Elena. And the thing that snapped my reason wasn't the past. It was her fight. Her scent. Her, period.
She didn't answer right away.
The car glided through a turn. I watched her hand lift, slow, careful, and touch the cut by my ear where the scab had just formed. Her fingertips barely grazed it, like she was checking whether it still hurt.
"You always hurt me first," she said, her voice finally softening, "and then you say something that makes it impossible for me to hate you all the way."
That sentence tightened around my chest like a fist.
Her gaze dropped to my mouth. Then she grabbed my collar and kissed me first.
I caught her like I'd been starving. Her mouth moved against mine, desperate and angry and sweet all at once, like she was trying to prove something to both of us.
I slid my hand up her thigh, bunching her skirt higher, feeling heat and trembling through the fabric.
She inhaled sharply against my lips, the sound spilling into my mouth like a confession.
"Yeah," I murmured, teeth grazing her. "That's it."
She tried to swallow it down, tried to stay stubborn, but her body answered for her. Every little breath hitched. Every shiver told on her.
I couldn't stop. I didn't want to.
I hauled her up into my lap, turning her so she straddled me. The leather creaked. She grabbed my shoulders for balance, and her eyes widened like she'd just realized how far she'd gone.
"Kiryan," she whispered, like it was a warning.
"Too late," I said, and kissed her again, slower this time, letting her feel exactly what she'd started.
My hands roamed, sure and greedy, memorizing the curve of her waist, the tense line of her back. She melted in pieces, one breath at a time. When I slid my fingers beneath the edge of her panties, she gasped and pressed her forehead to mine, shaking.
"You were soaked," I said low, my voice rough. "Your body looked like it had been waiting for me."
Her cheeks flushed hard, and she tried to look away.
"Don't," I said, catching her chin. "Look at me."
She did, eyes glossy with humiliation and heat.
"Say I was wrong," I told her. "Say you didn't want this."
Her lips parted. No words came out. Just another broken breath.
"Good girl," I said, and worked my hand between her thighs with slow, deliberate pressure, teasing until her legs tightened around my hips. She whimpered, then tried to bite it back. I held her there anyway, right on the edge, making her feel every second of it.
"Don't pretend you're tough with me," I murmured against her throat. "I felt you shaking."
"Stop talking," she managed, but her voice cracked, and she rolled her hips without meaning to, chasing my hand.
"Make me," I said.
Her nails dug into my shoulders. Her breath turned frantic, and her head tipped back as if she couldn't bear to look at what she was becoming. I kept my mouth on her skin, tasting the pulse at her throat, whispering into it.
"Come on," I coaxed. "Let go."
Her body tightened, then broke.
She came apart in my lap with a sharp, helpless sound, the kind she would've hated anyone else hearing. She clung to me like I was the only thing keeping her upright, trembling through it, mouth open, eyes squeezed shut.
I held her until the worst of it passed, until her shaking turned into soft, broken breaths. Then I kissed the corner of her mouth.
"Still think you didn't want me?" I asked.
She opened her eyes, dazed and furious at herself.
"Go to hell," she whispered.
I laughed under my breath, and the last thread of my restraint finally snapped.
I tugged at my belt, shoved my pants down just enough, and pulled her closer, guiding her into place. She stiffened for half a second, then her arms wrapped around my neck, and she nodded like she'd decided to stop fighting what was already inevitable.
"Hold on," I said.
Then I drove up into her, hard.
She cried out, the sound tearing free, and her fingers fisted in my hair. The car rocked subtly with the motion, the partition a silent shield, the city outside reduced to a blur of streetlights and passing shadows.
I set a brutal pace, the kind that didn't leave room for doubt. She took it, shaking, mouth brushing my ear as if she needed something to anchor her. Her hips moved with me, desperate now, meeting every thrust like she couldn't get enough.
"That's it," I growled. "Take it."
"Kiryan," she gasped, and it didn't sound like a warning anymore. It sounded like surrender.
I caught her under the thighs, lifting her just right, going deeper, harder. Her eyes rolled shut. Her breath turned into broken little cries she tried and failed to swallow.
"You were mine," I said into her mouth. "Tell me."
Her lashes fluttered. She looked wrecked and furious and beautiful.
"I hate you," she breathed.
"Liar." I bit her lower lip, not hard enough to hurt, just enough to make her shudder. "You were coming apart on my hand. You wanted this. You wanted me."
Her body clenched around me at the words, and she made a sound that went straight through my skull.
"Fuck," I hissed.
She started to shake again, the pressure building fast, too fast. I felt it in the way she tightened, the way her nails raked my back through my shirt, the way she chased me without any pride left to protect her.
"I'm close," she whispered, like it scared her.
"Then come." I slammed up into her, ruthless and precise. "Right now."
Her eyes flew open, and she broke again, harder this time, clenching around me so tight I nearly lost it on the spot. She cried out into my neck, biting my shoulder to muffle it, body spasming through the aftershocks.
That did it.
My control tore loose. I thrust a few more times, chasing the last of it, and then I drove deep and came inside her, spilling warmth where she'd already taken everything from me.
For a moment, there was nothing but our breathing, harsh and tangled, and the pounding in my ears.
Elena went limp against me, boneless, head tucked into my shoulder. I wrapped my arms around her and held her there.
Desire finally settled, but the ugly, restless edge that had ridden me all night didn't disappear the way it usually did. Something worse replaced it.
I didn't want to loosen my grip.
Her lips were softer than they looked. When she got nervous, she grabbed my clothes.
When she got angry, she glared with those hazel eyes like she could burn straight through me.
I wanted that look only for me. I wanted the light in her eyes to flare because of me, and I wanted every man at that damn party who'd looked at her out of New York.
I couldn't blame this on a marriage contract anymore. I couldn't pin it on simple lust or possession.
An answer I didn't want to admit rose right up in front of me.
I'd fallen for Elena.
I dropped Elena off at the manor, then had Feodor turn the car around and take me to the office.
Hell. I would've rather faced another shootout than admit she was turning into my weakness.
The lights were still on at the top floor.
When I walked into the conference room, the table was already laid out with the attackers' files, crime-scene photos, and the interrogation notes that had just come in.
Both cars had been running fake plates. The serial numbers on the guns had been ground off.
The money had been routed through three shell companies and wired in from an offshore account.
Not clean, but clean enough to drag out any real investigation.