Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Hailey
I was supposed to kiss him and leave. Prove I'd done it. Prove I could be the kind of person who did crazy things.
But that kiss didn't follow my script.
He froze for less than half a second.
Then he took over.
His hand locked onto the back of my head, the other one pressed against my waist, crushing me into him.
The kiss shifted from my clumsy attack into violent conquest in an instant.
He devoured my breath, his tongue sharp with vodka and ice, ravaging my mouth, tangling with what was left of my sanity.
"Mm..."
A whimper escaped me before I could stop it. My hands pushed weakly against his chest, trying to shove him away.
My mind was screaming, resisting this suffocating invasion. But my body betrayed me completely—the second he took control, a sensation I'd never experienced before shot up my spine like lightning.
My legs went useless. If he hadn't been holding my waist in a death grip, I would've collapsed.
My body craved being torn apart by this overwhelming force, craved drowning in his brutality.
The black hem of my dress had ridden up to my thighs at some point, skin exposed to the air, breaking out in goosebumps from the trembling.
Our bodies pressed together without a single gap between us. I could feel the taut muscles beneath his shirt, and his cock, stirring awake.
The kiss went on forever. Long enough that I thought I might die from lack of oxygen in this dark entryway.
Finally, he pulled back slightly, creating the tiniest distance between our lips.
His breathing was just as heavy, hot breath spilling across my mouth. Those ice-blue eyes looked dangerously deep now.
I gasped for air. My whole body felt liquid. I could feel my thighs clenching involuntarily, wetness between them making me want to crawl into a hole somewhere.
I should've turned and walked out.
I cleared my throat, scrambling for that sharp tongue of mine—the only armor I had left. "Not bad," I said hoarsely, "for an escort, your kissing technique—"
But before I could finish, a low laugh rumbled near my ear.
"Too early to judge, dear Miss Hailey."
His palm tightened around my waist. He gave me no chance to resist. With barely any effort, he lifted me clean off my feet.
Before I could finish my startled yelp, the heavy door slammed shut behind us with a bang.
He locked it.
Inside the massive penthouse suite, only suffocating silence remained, along with our ragged breathing tangled together.
I hung suspended in his arms, that weightless feeling making me instinctively grab fistfuls of his shirt. His arms felt like steel beams, holding me as easily as if I were a weightless doll.
"Put me down!" I sucked in a breath, trying to make my voice sound commanding like a queen, not like prey that had stumbled into a wolf pack.
"As you wish."
In the darkness, his deep voice felt like sandpaper dragged across velvet, thick Russian accent sending shivers up my arms.
The next second, he dropped me without ceremony.
I yelped, landing hard on an absurdly massive bed.
Expensive velvet bedding swallowed my body instantly.
I propped myself up on my elbows, somewhat ungracefully. The black dress—already ridiculously short—had ridden up dangerously past my ass, leaving me with zero defensive ground.
Before I could catch my breath, a towering shadow loomed over me.
He knelt on one knee at the edge of the bed, his other leg forcing its way between mine. The position was aggressively dominant, forcing me into an absolutely submissive posture.
The suite had no lights on. Only Manhattan's pretentious, expensive skyline outside the floor-to-ceiling windows scattered like broken diamonds, casting weak light into the room. That should've been the most striking backdrop in this place, but right now, my vision held only this man.
He didn't rush to touch me. He just knelt there, steady as a mountain.
With his suit jacket gone, the pure black silk shirt had three buttons undone from our earlier tussle, revealing glimpses of his broad, hard chest.
Even in the half-light, I could see the bold dark tattoos on the back of his hands. Those inked lines wound up from his wrists—less like decoration, more like a silent warning.
Every cell in my body screamed at me to stay still. Like my body recognized an apex predator before my brain could find the right words to define him.
Did Samantha really hire him?
My brain completely short-circuited.
The thought was absurd.
Or was this the so-called "fantasy time"?
"You're shaking." He finally spoke, stating a fact that mortified me.
"Shouldn't I be?" I shot back. Meant to sound dismissive, but damn it—between the alcohol and the proximity, my voice came out soft as flirting.
He laughed quietly. That laugh was sexy as hell, making my body respond instinctively, as if he'd just pressed his lips to the back of my neck.
"I'll count to three," he leaned down slightly, breath falling against my ear, "you can turn around and walk out that door. I won't stop you. One."
Ice clinked softly in a glass somewhere in the corner.
"Two."
I didn't move.
My body made the choice before my brain could. While my rationality was still screaming "this is insane," my feet had already rooted themselves in place, my hands already gripping his shirt without permission.
He didn't say three.
"Say it," his voice dropped lower, almost a command, almost a seduction, "what you want. Not what you should want. What you actually want."
I'd never said those words to anyone.
Four years. All I'd learned was what other people wanted. Matthew wanted a proper, quiet fiancée who didn't cause trouble. My parents—they didn't want anything from me at all. They each had new families, new children, and I became the excess person who couldn't even be needed.
And now, this man whose full name I didn't even know, dangerous as a warning sign, was forcing me to say what I wanted.
The alcohol, the darkness, the terrifying heat of his palm, and that answer I'd been holding back all night—holding back for twenty-six years—it all broke through the dam at once.
"Ruin me," I heard my own voice, strange as a stranger's, "make me forget everything. Ruin me."
Those words were like a forbidden spell unlocking Pandora's box.
The dark tide in his eyes released completely in an instant.
"Good girl."
His hand plunged into my hair, fingers tightening just enough to force my head back—hard enough to control me, but not quite hard enough to truly hurt.
Then he kissed me brutally.
No gentle comfort, no gradual seduction.
I made a short, sharp gasp against his mouth.
He swallowed that sound without mercy, as if it had always belonged to him.
His tongue pried my teeth apart ruthlessly. Saliva I hadn't swallowed yet ran down where our mouths met, bringing an addictively filthy sensation.
His other hand clamped around my waist like iron, crushing me completely into him. Using only his body weight and absolute will, he pinned me down entirely.
And my muscles surrendered to him so fast, under normal circumstances, it would've terrified me.
But now, it only made me burn.
He bit my lower lip, then soothed it with his tongue. His kisses traced my jawline, my vulnerable neck, traveling down to the bare skin at the edge of this ridiculous short dress, as if blindly following some secret path only he could see.
"So beautiful." He murmured against the sensitive hollow of my throat, voice rough and full of satisfied hunger.
I moaned, clenching my thighs together, feeling warmth flowing between my legs.
Then pain shot through my chest—he'd bitten me hard.
"Damn it!" I cried out, "are you a dog?"
"This body." He looked up at me, thumb pressing deep into the soft flesh of my hip, "you dress like a walking temptation, waltz into my territory completely defenseless, and expect me to maintain civilized manners?"
My breathing started shaking violently.
Before, whenever someone commented on my body with words, it always came with criticism or "concern" wrapped in harsh rules. Too much fat here, curves not perfect enough there.
But the way this man controlled me—as if my "softness" itself was the world's most lethal weapon. As if every inch of my skin was born to be yanked close by him like this, pinned down by him, worshipped like a deity by him, then completely destroyed by him.
"You don't know anything about me." I gasped out my protest.
"Perhaps." He agreed calmly and certainly, "but right now, we're the most intimate people in the world to each other."
Butterflies erupted in my stomach.
His lips sealed off my breath again mercilessly. I completely abandoned any thought of resistance.
I became acutely aware that in this dark room, I had become his prey.
Under normal circumstances, I should've felt fear. But I didn't.
God knows what happened, but somehow, I felt inexplicably safe.
"Lie back." He commanded.
I obeyed.
His hands landed on my waist first. No impatience, no clumsy fumbling. They simply stationed themselves there steadily, as if they'd been growing on this territory from the beginning.
That unhurried control sent an extremely sharp contraction through my lower belly.
"You're shaking." He said it again.
"I'm not."
"Hailey."
Just my name.
"Fine," I exhaled like a concession, "a little."
"Good." His thumb drew excruciatingly slow circles on my hipbone through that thin layer of fabric. My breathing immediately lost its rhythm. "I want you to feel everything that happens next with complete clarity."
An extremely crisp tearing sound rang out in the quiet room.
I didn't even feel how he'd undone it—that black dress, like useless wrapping paper, torn apart by one hand without mercy, tossed into the darkness.
Cool air hit large expanses of bare skin, making me shiver instinctively. But immediately after, his scalding body pressed down without any gaps.
I made a low moan that even I found shameful.
"Yes, right there," he murmured against my skin, "that's what I want."
"What?" I managed to force out one word.