Chapter 20
chapter
twenty
“Fuck!” I braced against the back of the sofa and pressed my face into my hands.
“How bad?” Luka asked softly from behind me.
I stood bolt upright. I hadn’t heard him come into the living room.
I didn’t know how to answer, where to begin. The words sat in my mouth like an undissolved pill. “How much did you hear?”
Luka’s arms were folded, his face half in shadow. “Just what you said.”
I let out a laugh, exhausted and brittle. “Well, in case I was unclear, Richard-fucking-Montgomery is not only a first-rate pervert, but he also just reported me to my boss. Apparently, I’m ‘wholly incompetent, inappropriate, and unfit for work.’” I attempted Richard’s accent. Badly.
Luka didn’t move. Only the tight flicker of his jaw gave him away. “They’re sending you home?”
I nodded, swallowing against the next wave of tears. “First flight out tomorrow morning.”
He stepped closer. I avoided his eyes, picking at a splintered cuticle on my thumb.
My chest ached with anger and grief. I wanted to disappear—not just from the city, but from the map.
From the version of myself who had arrived in London convinced she was untouchable.
The one who thought this was just another arena with higher stakes and better whiskey.
A place to prove myself and launch to the next level of my career.
Luka didn’t move for a long time. It felt deliberate, like he was fixing something in his mind. Then, without warning, he closed the distance and pulled me into him.
I stiffened, but he held fast—a grip so fierce I couldn’t have broken it with a crowbar.
My body went rigid, then slack. I crumpled into him, sobbing—loud and unrestrained.
He said nothing, just rocked me slowly, his chin resting against the crown of my head. I clung to the coarse knit of his sweater and soaked it through with tears. I didn’t care.
The sobs thinned to shuddering breaths, then to silence.
Luka never loosened his hold, only tightened it when my knees threatened to buckle.
He didn’t offer platitudes. He didn’t try to fix me with empty words.
Just braced my body with his, anchoring me against the cold that had settled beneath my sternum.
His heartbeat thudded against my cheek. The radiator clicked across the room. Luka cradled the nape of my neck, his thumb sweeping slow arcs along my hairline.
Eventually, he pressed his lips to my temple. “Tea or more vodka?”
I huffed a hopeless, hiccuping laugh. “Vodka.”
He nodded and stepped away to pour. The clear liquid ribboned into the short glasses. His hands were steady—always steady—as he handed me one drink and took the other for himself.
“Sit.”
I didn’t resist. I sank into the leather chair, weary and hollowed out, and cradled the vodka with both hands. Luka perched on the ottoman opposite me, knees bracketing mine. He waited until my breathing evened out.
“Tell me what you need,” he said.
“I don’t know.”
The silence that followed wasn’t awkward—just open. For the first time in hours, my pulse steadied.
“I really don’t know what I need,” I repeated, quieter this time. “I don’t want to crawl back to Atlanta like a failure. I don’t want Richard to win. But I can’t see a version of this where I’m not the villain. Or the punchline. Or the cautionary tale.”
“In what world are you the villain?”
“If we go after him now, it looks like I’m trying to cover myself.
I need to walk into that office clean.” I took a slow drink.
The vodka burned a path down my chest. “You can ruin him,” I said, studying the glass.
“But then I’m just collateral. The desperate chick who torched a client because she couldn’t hold her ground. ”
Luka started to respond, but I placed a palm flat against his chest.
“I’m not saying no.” I drew in a breath and exhaled through pursed lips. “Just not right now.”
He nodded once, and something inside him seemed to realign, like a joint sliding back into place. He took the glass from my hand and set it aside—carefully, deliberately—the motion at odds with the raw energy in the room.
“What now?” he asked.
I glanced around the flat. “Well,” I said, voice scraping up from the bottom of my rib cage, “I should probably pack.” I pinched the bridge of my nose, the beginnings of a headache pulsing behind my eyes.
He tilted his head. In the stark light, the skin under his eyes was faintly shadowed.
“When did you last sleep?” I asked.
He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does.” My voice came out sharper than I’d intended.
“I don’t need sleep.”
I snorted. “Everyone needs sleep. Even you.”
Luka leaned forward until his knees touched the chair and took my face in his hands. His palms were rough and warm, bracing my jaw as if he could steady the chaos inside my head. His eyes were impossibly blue, as if lit from within.
“We only have one night left,” he said. “I don’t need sleep. I need you.”
My heart did a slow, uneasy pivot. I wanted to quip, to slice the tension with sarcasm, but the gravity in his face held me to the moment. Luka traced his thumbs along my cheekbones and leaned in, his mouth close enough to ghost heat over my lips.
But no closer.
I realized he was waiting for me to move first.
My choice.
I closed the gap.
But I didn’t kiss him—there was no space for something so sentimental and sappy.
I bit him.
My teeth scraped his lower lip—hard enough that he gasped. Then I softened it, tongue chasing the sting, tasting salt and adrenaline. Luka groaned and cupped the back of my skull, his thumb pressing at the hinge of my jaw. For a second, I thought he’d devour me whole.
I wanted him to.
The vodka turned the room kaleidoscopic. The blood in my veins burned molten. And I was drawn to Luka like a moth to a blowtorch.
He surged forward, pressing me back into the chair until the leather creaked in protest. I opened for him, my thighs parting as he settled between them. He pushed up my skirt with broad, flat palms.
The shock of the day sharpened into a physical hunger, urgent and bright. I wanted him to mark me, to overwrite the humiliation in my bones with something that belonged only to us.
“Are you okay?” he asked, voice dark and rough.
I wasn’t even sure what that meant anymore. I couldn’t remember the last time someone hadn’t taken my “okay” for granted.
So I said the only honest thing I could muster.
“No. Make it better.”
He did.
He hooked my right knee over the arm of the leather chair, opening me, kneeling between my thighs. He pressed his palm along the inside of my leg—claiming the space before taking it.
He ran a finger along the seam of my panties. Even through the fabric, the muted pressure sparked along every nerve. I spread wider, chasing it.
He didn’t give more.
“Please,” I said, my voice rough, starved.
Luka stifled a dark chuckle and pushed the damp fabric aside, exposing me to the cold air and his gaze at once. He watched my reaction, the way I tilted my hips into his touch.
“You have good manners today,” he said as he parted me with two fingers, unhurried, then circled my clit with the most devastating restraint.
The urge to grind against his hand, to beg, nearly swallowed thought.
“Actually,” I said, hesitating briefly, “can I ask you for something?”
He pressed in just enough to pull a sound from me, then eased back.
“Ask.” Permission and command.
“Have I…earned the ropes yet?”
Luka drew back—hand still, head cocked, eyes narrowed. He traced my thigh, up to where the hem of my skirt had bunched. “You want ropes.”
It wasn’t a question, but I nodded anyway, heat flooding my cheeks and bleeding down my neck. I held his gaze. “Yes.”
He studied me for a full beat. Then another. “You’re sure.”
“Yes.” My voice was ragged. “And—” The rest of it died in my throat. I curled my trembling hands into fists.
A flicker—approval, interest, something darker—crossed his face. He pressed his thumb against my lower lip, easing it open. “Whatever you want from me, it’s yours,” he said. The certainty in his voice made my skin prickle. “Just name it.”
I swallowed. The want felt too large for my lungs. “Tie me up,” I said, and it came out as a dare, all spine and exposed nerve. “Use the ropes. Use my body. It’s yours. Give me everything. And I mean everything. Don’t you dare hold back.”
His eyes went lethal, and the shadow of a smile touched the corner of his mouth. He smoothed my hair behind my ear, palm lingering at my jaw, then stood. For a moment, he just looked at me. His gaze felt like a verdict.
“Don’t move,” he said. He left the room without another word, his footsteps fading down the hall.
My pulse kicked hard, wild and giddy, anticipation tightening under my skin, every second without him stretching the wait.
He returned a minute later with a large spool of blue network cable cradled in the crook of his elbow, a thick pack of zip ties in one hand, and red-handled wire cutters in the other.
He set everything down on the coffee table, arranging it with meticulous care.
Then he unspooled a length of cable, flexing it between his hands to straighten the kinks.
“Naked,” he said without looking up. “Now.”
It took me a moment to realize he meant me.
Then he was towering over me. “If you want to keep those clothes,” he said, voice low, eyes fixed on mine, “take them off.” He fisted the collar of my blouse. “Because if I do it, they’ll be in shreds.” He pulled me to my feet.
I kicked off my heels and stripped quickly—blouse, skirt, bra. The air hit my bare skin, cool and sharp. The panties, though, I left in place.
He raised an eyebrow. “Forget something?” His voice, so dark and unhurried, trickled between my legs and knotted there.
I hooked my thumb under the waistband and tugged it down half an inch, then let it snap back. “Did I? Silly me.”