Chapter 5
chapter
five
He didn’t look up at first. Just scrolled through his phone, one ankle hooked over the other, as if the world ran on his timing. When he lifted his eyes, the blue carved straight through my composure.
“You’re early,” I said, aiming for chill but hearing the quaver in it.
“So are you.” His mouth tugged sideways—half-smile, half-knife. “You’re learning.”
I set my jaw. “I’m not a child.”
He rose. And towered. This close, the air between us hummed with a charge that made me want to step back—or forward. I couldn’t tell which.
He glanced at me, then at the spinning glass doors behind him. “The car is outside.”
It wasn’t a question. But I smiled anyway, baring teeth. “I’m taking the Tube.”
Something flickered in those cold blue eyes—amusement maybe, or a surgical interest. He stepped in until there was no air left between us. Then, with the bluntness of a man who never second-guessed himself, he reached up and tucked the edge of the scarf tighter at my throat.
His scarf.
“You still don’t have a proper coat for this weather,” he said, his fingers dragging lightly over the wool. “What kind of man would I be if I let you freeze to death on the Northern Line?”
Heat detonated under my skin. “What kind of man,” I said quietly, so the concierge wouldn’t hear, “gets a girl so wound up she can’t see straight, then leaves her cold in bed?”
He laughed, sharp and bright as frost. “Ah, Alex.” He turned, his mouth grazing my ear. “You want to punish me?”
I almost said yes. I almost said, Get upstairs right now and fix what you did to my nerves.
Instead, I bit it back, teeth grinding behind a smile that didn’t quite hold.
“The car is outside,” he repeated, softer this time.
He rested his palm at the small of my back—pressure precise, firm, and territorial.
I hated how quickly my body went pliant at the contact, my knees melting so he barely had to steer.
I tried to summon a protest, some barb about personal space, but every word in my head evaporated at the heat of his hand.
“The heater’s on. And I brought you a coffee,” he said, the words almost tender if not for the undertow of command. He guided me through the revolving doors and out into the slap of February wind. The city was a cacophony of car horns and exhaust, the sky an unbroken bruise.
His black sedan idled at the curb, exhaust curling in pale ribbons.
He opened the back door and gestured for me to get in.
The interior was oven-warm. The scent of leather and coffee hit before the door closed, sealing me inside.
As he circled the car, I noticed the disposable coffee cup waiting for me in the cup holder.
He buckled himself into the driver’s seat, checked the mirror, and caught my eye. “It’s not poisoned,” he said, deadpan. “Drink your coffee, mila. You’ll need it.”
I wrapped both hands around the cup, inhaling the dark, bitter steam. Strong black coffee—no milk, no sugar. Just a smooth slash of caffeine.
Luka watched me in the rearview.
I sipped without breaking his gaze. The coffee burned, but I welcomed it. The sensation was sharp and clean—a punishment and a reward.
His mouth flicked—a flash, then gone. He signaled and nosed us into traffic, one hand steady on the wheel.
We slid through London’s morning pulse—construction scaffolds and cranes, office workers huddled into coats, breath ghosting white as they clutched paper cups and hurried for doors.
I drank the coffee, feeling it scald away the last vestiges of sleep, and watched Luka’s eyes hunting in the mirror.
Always calculating, always several moves ahead.
“Why do you call me ‘mila’?”
He didn’t look back. “Would you prefer Alexandra?”
A smile, more sneer than grin, tugged at my mouth. “How do you know my name?” I set the cup down. “No one calls me Alexandra. Not even my mother. I only use Alex. Even on the app.”
He met my gaze in the mirror—sideways, wolfish. “I know many things.”
I snorted. “Pretty resourceful for a rideshare driver. No offense.”
That earned a real laugh—like gravel snapping in a fire. “Oh, no, mila. The driving is for entertainment. If I did it to pay rent, I’d be living in a cardboard box.” He punched through a yellow light, the acceleration pressing me back into the butter-soft leather.
“So, what’s your actual job then?”
He traced his thumb over the gearshift, almost absentmindedly. “Cybersecurity.”
I let that wind through my head, tracking the flex of his hands. “That sounds vague.”
He grinned. “It’s meant to.”
I watched the city rocket by, glass towers giving way to brick and Victorian cornices. The Thames slid past in a blur, flashing silver beneath a bridge choked with a haze of headlights. I tried to picture this man hunched over a keyboard, blue light reflecting in his eyes.
Tried and failed. It was much easier to imagine him as an interrogator. Or an assassin. Not that I’d mind being on the receiving end—if it were him. Of interrogation, that is. Preferably not assassination. Torture maybe—
“Did you obey me?”
Instant nausea. I swirled the coffee, studying the lid like it held answers. “Obey you?” I said, aiming for glib. “What are you, my father?”
Luka’s smile in the mirror was sharp with delight. “Your father, James? No, mila.” A pause. “But I’d be fine with you calling me ‘daddy’ if you’re into that.”
My heart slammed. “How do you know my dad’s name?”
He shrugged, eyes fixed on the road. “As I said. I know many things.”
Silence stretched.
At a red light, he twisted around, arm draped across the seatback. I noticed a tiny crescent-shaped scar on his cheekbone—white beneath the dark stubble, nearly invisible unless you were searching for it.
“Your parents—James and Marianne—are retired and live outside Atlanta with a Great Dane named Carl,” he said calmly.
“You’re thirty-five. You earned your MBA at Emory—top quartile, not the top.
You are a marketing executive at Jennings Corp, in London on a six-week consulting contract with Hallstrom Group. ”
The light turned green. A horn blared behind us. Luka muttered something in a language I didn’t understand as he turned back to the front and rolled forward.
“You divorced your husband, Jacob, two years ago. No kids—he wanted them, you didn’t. Still don’t.” His voice stayed even. “You take your coffee black. You swam competitively at university. You still swim laps at five every morning. Except Sundays.” A beat. “And today.”
My blood ran ice cold. “Stop the car.”
“No.”
“Stop the fucking car.” I wanted my voice to boom, but it came out splintered.
His foot sank heavier on the accelerator. The city smeared into glass and smog, the world warping at the edges as my pulse skittered sharp and metallic in my throat.
I stared, hands clenched, unsure whether I was more furious at him—or myself for letting him get this far under my skin. “You think this is a joke?” I snapped. “Some sick mind game?”
“You think I’d involve myself with you if I didn’t know who you were?” He said it as if I were being unreasonable. As if collecting the details of my life overnight were simply due diligence. “I don’t act without information.” Then, deliberately: “Alexandra Thompson.”
My name landed like a collar snapping closed.
Air stalled in my lungs. I forgot what I’d been about to say. Dawn washed the windshield in a thin, sickly gray.
He waited for the next move—mine or his, I wasn’t sure.
The car banked through a roundabout, smooth and controlled. Luka exhaled—not impatient. Disappointed.
“Relax,” he said, quieter now. “Your secrets are safe.” He said it like we’d reached the end of an argument, not the beginning.
“I needed to know who you are,” he went on.
“Everyone has a past. I don’t like surprises.
” His eyes caught mine in the mirror, pinning me there.
“If I can know this much in one night,” he said calmly, “imagine what I can do when I really dig. That’s not a threat.
It’s a promise.” Another beat. “With me, you’ll never have to worry about anyone else getting close without my knowing first.”
“Paranoid much?”
He chuckled. “With good reason.”
“Which is?”
He didn’t answer. Which was the answer. Instead, he slung me a look that lingered too long. “You didn’t answer my question,” he said. “Did you obey me last night?”
The air tightened. I kept my face neutral, even as warmth crept up my throat. “You’re assuming I listened,” I said.
He laughed, a harsh scrape of sound. “So—did you?”
I turned toward the window, letting the motion outside stand in for a response. But I could feel his attention on me, tracking every breath, every shift. I held still, willing my pulse to behave.
“Naughty girl,” he murmured, voice low enough to feel more than hear. “Are you looking to be punished?”
I shouldn’t have smiled. But the smile came anyway, crooked and wicked. I sipped the coffee, found my voice, and let the bitterness steady me. “You told me not to touch myself.”
He waited.
“I didn’t.”
“I don’t believe you.”
I lifted my hand in the Girl Scout salute. “Not a finger.”
“Then why evade the question?”
I glanced sideways, pulse hitching. “You never said anything about vibrators.” I held his gaze in the mirror. “Technically, I followed your instructions to the letter.” A beat. “You should have been more specific.”
His eyes flicked to the mirror, then back to the road. A laugh ghosted at the edge of his mouth. “So, you’re a brat as well as a masochist. This should be interesting.”
The words licked over my skin. A thrill—I’d surprised him.
“Was it worth it?” he asked, voice gone velvet and iron again. “Did your little rebellion make you come as hard as when I had you squirming on my tongue?”
God, the audacity. I kept my eyes forward. “You left me no choice.”
He pulled to the curb in front of my building, not bothering with the hazards, and shifted into park.
“Next time,” he said evenly, “you won’t need your toy.
” He pivoted in his seat to face me, his gaze steady and unapologetic.
“I’ll have you begging with my mouth on your cunt and my hand on your throat. ”
I held his gaze as long as I could, pressing my thighs together. Tension coiled low and tight.
I let out a slow, calculated breath. “Bold of you to assume there’ll be a next time.” I reached for my bag, careful not to fidget with the scarf around my neck. “How much do I owe you for the ride?”
His mouth curved, slow and rough. “Scream my name,” he said. “That’ll cover it.” A beat. “I’ll pick you up after work. Five?”
The arrogance was breathtaking. I had a retort—something sharp enough to draw blood—but when he got out and came around to my door, my wit shorted to static. He opened it and held out his hand, palm up.
I stared at it, dumbstruck, as if it were a riddle. The wind needled through the street, stinging my eyes. Luka didn’t move, patience weaponized.
I took his hand.
He pulled me up in one smooth motion and, a heartbeat later, had me pinned against the car—his body a wall of heat, his thumb pressing hard into the pulse point at my wrist. I was acutely aware of my surroundings: the security guard in the foyer, two pensioners shuffling past with grocery bags, the ordinary rhythm of the street moving around us as if we weren’t there at all.
Luka crowded in, blue eyes close enough to see the ring of frost around the iris. “Think of me today,” he murmured, teeth grazing the edge of my ear. “Think of me fucking that tight little pussy so hard you can’t walk.”
The air vanished from my lungs. I tried to turn away, instinct more than intention, but he locked his grip, holding me exactly where he wanted me.
“Five o’clock. Don’t make me wait, mila.”