Zoya
Ruslan’s room is not what I expect.
I don’t know what I expect, exactly. Gold. Weapons. Some dramatic black-and-red villain bedroom that looks like it belongs to a man who owns too many secrets.
Instead, it’s quiet. Dark wood. Gray sheets. One low lamp by the bed. A wide window with the sea moving black beyond the glass. Everything is expensive, but none of it is showy. Nothing is out of place. Nothing feels lived in.
The man probably intimidates dust into behaving.
I stand near the door with his coat still around my shoulders and suddenly feel very aware of myself.
My cardigan is damp from the balcony. My skirt is wrinkled.
My hair is a mess. My lips still feel swollen from the kiss outside, and every time I look at his mouth, I remember exactly how it felt against mine.
This is a bad idea. A terrible idea.
Which is apparently the only kind of idea I’m capable of having around him.
Ruslan closes the door but doesn’t lock it.
I notice that.
He notices me noticing. “You can leave whenever you want,” he says.
“Can I?”
His jaw tightens. “Inside the house, yes.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No.”
At least he doesn’t lie.
I look away first, because looking at him is becoming a problem.
He’s still standing by the door, tall and broad and too controlled, his shirt open at the throat, the sleeves pushed up his forearms. There’s a faint bruise across one knuckle.
I hate that I notice. I hate that part of me wants to touch it.
“I’ll sleep in the chair,” he says.
My eyes go to the chair near the window. It looks uncomfortable for a man his size. “That’s stupid.”
“It’s fine.”
“You own this entire house.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re going to sleep in a chair in your own bedroom?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He looks at me like the answer is obvious. “Because you’re in the bed.”
Something strange happens in my chest. Not softness. Not exactly. Something worse, because I don’t know what to do with it.
I pull his coat tighter around myself. “I didn’t ask for the bed.”
“You got it anyway.”
“That is very mafia of you.”
His mouth moves. Almost a smile. Almost.
I hate him for having a mouth like that.
Then I shiver. It’s small, but he sees it.
“You’re cold,” he says.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re wet from the balcony.”
“I said I’m fine.”
“Zoya.”
I close my eyes for half a second. “Do you always say people’s names like a threat?”
“Only when they lie badly.”
I open my eyes and glare at him.
He doesn’t react. He just crosses to a closet, opens a drawer, and takes out a folded black shirt. He holds it out to me. “Change.”
I stare at the shirt. Then at him. “I’m sorry?”
“Your clothes are damp.”
“And your solution is to order me out of them?”
His gaze stays on my face. “My solution is to give you something dry.”
I snatch the shirt from his hand. “Fine.”
“The bathroom is there.”
“I know where bathrooms usually are.”
That earns me another almost-smile.
I go into the bathroom and shut the door harder than necessary. For a few seconds, I just stand there with my back against it, breathing.
My reflection looks wild. Hair loose, cheeks flushed, eyes too bright. His coat hangs off me like it belongs to someone else’s life. I take it off slowly, then peel away my cardigan and dress, both damp around the edges from the sea air.
The shirt smells like him.
It falls to mid-thigh, loose everywhere except across my chest. The fabric is soft from washing, the sleeves hanging past my wrists. I look ridiculous. Small and bare-legged and swallowed by a dangerous man’s clothes.
But I’m warm. And I’m not crying.
That feels like something.
When I step back into the bedroom, Ruslan is near the window with his back to me.
He turns. Then goes still. His face barely changes, but his eyes do. They move from my face to the shirt, to my bare legs, then back up again. Slowly enough that I feel every inch of that look like a touch.
My skin heats. “Stop that,” I say.
His eyes return to mine. “Stop what?”
“Looking at me like that.”
“I’m looking at you.”
“No. You’re doing something else.”
He says nothing.
That silence is worse than any answer.
I fold my arms, which is a mistake because it pulls the shirt tighter over my breasts. His gaze drops for one second.
One second. That’s all.
My nipples tighten.
His jaw flexes.
The room gets very quiet.
I swallow. “You said you were sleeping in the chair.”
“I am.”
“You don’t look like a man thinking about a chair.”
His eyes come back to mine, darker now. “No.”
The honesty hits low in my stomach.
“Then what are you thinking about?”
“You don’t want that answer.”
“I’m tired of men deciding what I want.”
For a moment, his expression hardens, but not at me. At himself maybe. At the whole impossible situation. Then he takes one step closer, slow enough that I have time to move away.
I don’t.
“You lost your job today,” he says.
“I know.”
“You’ve had wine.”
“Two glasses.”
“You’re scared.”
“Yes.”
“And angry.”
“Yes.”
His voice drops. “I’m trying not to be the worst thing that happened to you this week.”
The words hit me so hard I almost look away.
Almost.
Instead, I step closer. “Then stop making every choice for me.”
He doesn’t move. “I’m not.”
“You are. Even now. You’re deciding I don’t mean this because my life is falling apart.”
“I’m deciding that if I touch you, I want you to be sure tomorrow.”
“I will be.”
His eyes hold mine. “You don’t know that.”
“No,” I say. “But I know I want you to kiss me right now.”
The air between us changes. His breathing stays even, but something in him tightens. I see it in his shoulders, his mouth, the way his hand curls once at his side and then stills.
“Zoya.”
“No.” My voice shakes, but I keep going. “Don’t say my name like a warning. I’m standing here. I’m telling you. I want you to kiss me.”
He looks at me for a long second.
Then he says, “Come here.”
I should be embarrassed by how quickly I obey.
I cross the space between us, and the second I’m close enough, his hand comes to the back of my neck. He doesn’t kiss me right away. He holds me there, close enough that I can feel the heat of him, close enough that his breath touches my mouth.
“One word,” he says.
My heart stumbles. “What?”
“You want me to stop, you say stop. I stop. No questions.”
My throat tightens. Because he means it.
Because the man is dangerous, terrifying, probably the worst decision I have ever made, and somehow he’s giving me this.
“I understand,” I whisper.
His thumb moves once against the side of my neck.
Then he kisses me.
It’s not like the kiss on the balcony. That one was grief and fear and the reckless need to feel something other than panic. This one only has certainty. He wants me, and he’s going to take me.
His mouth takes mine slowly at first, like he’s still giving me time.
I grip his shirt and rise onto my toes, pressing closer, telling him without words that I don’t want time.
I have had four days of waiting. Four days of fear.
Four days of him walking into rooms and leaving again before I could decide whether I wanted to slap him or beg him to stay.
I want.
His restraint lasts until I make a sound against his mouth.
Then his hand tightens in my hair, and the kiss changes.
Suddenly I’m backed into the wall beside the window, his body hard against mine, his thigh between my legs, one hand at my waist and the other tangled at the back of my head. I gasp, and he uses it to deepen the kiss, tongue sliding against mine, controlled and filthy and certain.
My whole body lights up.
I’m wearing nothing but his shirt and underwear.
His hand moves down my side, over my hip, then grips the back of my thigh and lifts my leg around him. The movement presses his thigh harder between my legs, and my clit catches against the pressure through my panties.
I break the kiss with a gasp.
Ruslan freezes.
“Again,” I say before he can ask.
His eyes darken.
He moves his thigh. Slow. Deliberate. The pressure drags right over my clit, and my head falls back against the wall.
“Oh.”
His mouth goes to my throat. “That?”
“Yes.”
My fingers dig into his shoulders.
He does it again, and this time I can’t stop the small moan that escapes me.
It’s humiliating how fast my body reacts.
How quickly all my fear and anger turn molten under his hands.
How the ache between my legs turns sharp and demanding, as if it has been waiting for him longer than I want to admit.
His hand slides under the shirt. I inhale sharply when his palm meets my bare waist.
“Still with me?” he asks against my skin.
“Yes.”
His hand moves higher. Not to my breast yet. Just my ribs, my side, the soft skin under the curve of it. He’s taking his time, and somehow that’s worse than if he grabbed.
I pull at his shirt, impatient.
He lifts his head. “Careful.”
“No.”
His mouth twitches. “No?”
“I don’t want careful.”
That does something to him. I feel it in the way his body presses harder into mine, the way his fingers tighten on my thigh, the way his control thins for one rough second before he catches it again.
“You don’t know what you’re asking for,” he says.
“Then show me.”
For a moment, neither of us moves.
Then he kisses me hard enough that every thought leaves my head.
This time when his hand moves under the shirt, it goes straight to my breast. He cups me fully, thumb dragging over my nipple, and I make a sound into his mouth that doesn’t feel like mine. He swallows it. His palm is warm, rougher than I expect, and when he squeezes, not gently, I arch into him.
“That’s it,” he says. His voice is lower now. Rougher.
I tug at his belt.
His hand closes over mine, stopping me.
I look up, breathless and frustrated. “What?”
He stares down at me, chest rising harder than before. “If we start that, I’m not stopping at a kiss.”
My pulse kicks.
I should think. I should remember where I am, who he is, what happened today, what happened all week. I should remember that this man lives inside a world of guns and secrets and men who die in libraries.
But his hand is still on my breast, his thigh still between my legs, his mouth close enough that I can taste him when I breathe.
And for the first time in days, the choice in front of me feels like mine.
“Then don’t,” I say.
His hand leaves mine.
That’s all the warning I get.
He lifts me. I gasp and grab his shoulders as both my legs go around his waist. He carries me away from the wall and toward the bed, kissing me the whole time, not softly now, not carefully.
I feel the hard press of his cock through his trousers against the wet heat between my legs, and the shock of it makes me grind against him before I can stop myself.
Ruslan makes a rough sound deep in his throat.
“Fuck,” he says against my mouth.
The word sends heat straight through me.
Then my back hits the mattress, and he comes down over me.