Chapter 3 #2
"Bro, not everything is about you," Jax laughed, clapping me on the shoulder. "But seriously. Relax. You look like you’re about to cross-check the waiter."
"The waiter keeps looking at her," I said, the words slipping out before I could filter them.
Jax raised an eyebrow. "Everyone is looking at her, T. She’s the hottest girl in the room, and she’s wearing a dress that is technically illegal in three states. If you didn't want people looking, you should have put her in a burlap sack."
I felt a growl vibrating in my chest. Mine.
The word flashed in my brain again. Irrational. Stupid. She wasn't mine. She was a liability. She was a contract obligation.
But as I watched a young guy—some prep-school legacy kid in a navy blazer—slide up next to her and place a hand on the small of her back, the logic in my brain short-circuited.
The kid was too close. He was leaning in, whispering something in her ear. Mila didn't pull away. She smiled—a tight, polite smile, but she didn't step back.
"Excuse me," I said to Jax.
"Oh boy," Jax sighed. "Here comes the enforcer."
I cut through the crowd. I moved differently than the other people in the room. They meandered; I targeted. People stepped out of my way instinctively, sensing the momentum of a body that was used to collision.
I reached them just as the guy—Preston, I think his name was, Delta Sig president—let his hand drift lower on her waist.
"Mila," I said.
My voice wasn't loud, but it cut through the din of the party like a knife.
Mila stiffened. She turned to look at me, her eyes wide. The mask slipped for a second, revealing relief, before she plastered the smile back on.
"Theo," she said brightly. "Have you met Preston? He was just telling me about his summer in Nantucket."
"Fascinating," I said, deadpan. I looked at Preston. I had three inches of height and fifty pounds of muscle on him. I directed the full weight of my glare at his hand, which was still resting on the green silk of her dress.
Preston blinked, his survival instincts finally kicking in. He snatched his hand back as if the silk had turned into hot coals.
"Volkov," Preston stammered. "I was just… welcoming Mila back to the social scene."
"She’s been welcomed," I said. I stepped in, inserting my body between them. I turned my back to Preston, effectively cutting him out of existence, and looked down at Mila.
"Dance," I said.
Mila blinked. "What?"
"We need to maintain appearances," I lied smoothly. "The donors like to see team unity. Dance with me."
I didn't wait for an answer. I took the glass of champagne from her hand and set it on a passing waiter’s tray without looking. Then I took her hand—her small, delicate hand engulfing it in mine—and pulled her toward the dance floor.
"Theo, you’re making a scene," she hissed, though she followed me.
"I’m preventing a murder," I muttered. "That guy was five seconds away from losing teeth."
We reached the center of the floor. The quartet was playing a waltz. It was slow. Intimate.
I turned to face her. I placed my right hand on her waist.
The sensation was electric. The silk was thin. Beneath it, I could feel the heat of her skin, the curve of her hip bone. My hand spanned nearly half her waist. She felt fragile, breakable.
Mila placed her hand on my shoulder. She looked up at me, her eyes searching mine.
"You’re jealous," she whispered. A slow, incredulous smile spread across her face. "The Tsar is jealous."
"I am territorial," I corrected, pulling her closer. Our chests brushed. "There is a difference."
"Is there?" She raised an eyebrow. "Because you looked ready to bite Preston’s head off. And not in a hockey way. In a 'don't touch my toys' way."
"You are not a toy," I gritted out, moving us in a slow circle. I wasn't a dancer, but I had balance. I moved us with efficient, powerful strides. "You are my responsibility. If you get groped by a frat boy, your father blames me."
"My father isn't here, Theo," she said softly. Her voice dropped, losing the performative edge. "And Preston wasn't groping me. He was boring me. There’s a difference."
"He was touching you," I said. The image of his hand on her back flared in my mind again, hot and ugly. "I don't like it."
"Why?" Mila challenged. Her fingers on my shoulder tightened, digging into the wool of my jacket. "Why do you care? You think I’m a brat. You think I’m a job. Why does it matter who touches the merchandise?"
"Because," I said, leaning down. My face was inches from hers. I could see the gold flecks in her blue eyes. I could smell the peaches on her skin. "Because you’re living in my house. You’re wearing my rules. That makes you… off-limits to them."
"And to you?" she breathed.
The question hung between us, heavy and dangerous.
And to you?
Every instinct in my body was screaming at me to close the gap.
To slide my hand from her waist to the back of her neck, to tangle my fingers in that intricate knot of hair and pull her head back.
I wanted to wipe that red lipstick off her mouth with my own.
I wanted to mark her, so that when she walked away, everyone in the room would know exactly who she belonged to.
I felt a bead of sweat roll down my temple. The restraint was physically painful. It felt like holding back a check at full speed.
"Especially to me," I lied. My voice was rough, strained.
Mila didn't believe me. I saw it in her eyes. She saw the hunger. She saw the crack in the ice.
She leaned in closer, standing on her tiptoes. Her breath ghosted against my jaw.
"Liar," she whispered.
She moved her hand from my shoulder to my chest, resting it right over my heart. She could feel it hammering. It was betraying me. It was beating a frantic rhythm against my ribs—want, want, want.
"You want to touch me, Theo," she murmured, her voice a siren song. "I can feel it. You’re shaking."
I was. My hand on her waist was trembling with the effort of not gripping her harder.
"Mila," I warned, my voice a low growl. "Stop."
"Make me," she challenged.
It was the "Checkmate."
She had pushed me to the edge. We were in the middle of a ballroom, surrounded by three hundred people, and all I could think about was dragging her into the dark corner behind the velvet curtains and ruining her lipstick.
I tightened my grip on her waist, pulling her flush against me. Her hips hit my thighs. She gasped, her eyes widening. She felt it. She felt exactly how hard this was for me.
"Careful, Princess," I whispered against the shell of her ear. "You think you’re playing a game. But you forget who I am."
"Who are you?" she breathed.
"I’m the one who ends the game," I said.
I was about to do something stupid. I was about to bite the sensitive skin of her neck right there on the dance floor.
"Volkov!"
The voice shattered the moment like a brick through a window.
I flinched, pulling back. Mila stumbled slightly, her eyes dazed, her lips parted.
I looked over my shoulder. Coach Miller was waving at me from the buffet table, flanked by two elderly donors in fur coats.
"Bring her over here!" Miller shouted, oblivious to the fact that he had just interrupted a nuclear detonation. " The Hendersons want to meet the Kensington girl!"
I closed my eyes for a second, inhaling a sharp breath through my nose. I forced the monster back into its cage. I locked the door. I smoothed my features into the mask of The Tsar.
I looked back at Mila. She looked shaken. Her chest was rising and falling rapidly. She looked like she’d just run a marathon.
"Duty calls," I said coldly, stepping back and offering her my arm. It was stiff, formal. The moment was gone.
Mila stared at me for a heartbeat longer. She looked disappointed. And... hungry.
"You’re right," she said, her voice shaky but recovering its edge. She took my arm, her nails digging into the fabric. "Let’s go smile for the cameras, Theo. But don't think this conversation is over."
"It’s not a conversation, Mila," I said, leading her toward the wolves. "It’s a warning."
But as we walked through the crowd, the heat of her hand on my arm burning through the layers of wool, I knew the warning was for me, not her.
I was in trouble.
I was in deep, catastrophic trouble.