Chapter 3
Chapter three
Rafail
With Jana it’s coffee first, always black; the furrow between her brows when she concentrates—but my cameras are a poor substitute for nearness.
Now that she’s here, under my roof, I register details the feeds couldn’t capture: the way morning light finds the gold in her brown skin, how her curls are still mussed from sleep, the precise moment her pupils blow wide when I enter a room.
Like now.
I stand in the doorway of the breakfast room. She jumps, hard enough to slosh coffee over the rim of her cup. A pulse hammers in the hollow of her throat. Her eyes widen, pupils blowing out before she can school her expression into composure. Too late. I’ve already seen her body’s honest reaction.
She’s drowning in my robe, the hem hitting her knees and the sleeves falling past her hands.
She thinks it hides her, but the fabric clings to the swell of her breasts, the outline of their peaks pressing against the terry cloth.
She’s positioned herself in the chair to see the doorway, to track threats.
Smart girl.
“Good morning, milaya,” I say, moving into the room. I let my casualness be a statement. Nothing about this morning touches me.
She sets down her cup with hands that want to shake. “I see Rina took care of your dress.”
“She took it without asking.” The words are sharp, edged with something harder than fear.
Good. Anger I can work with. Anger means she still has fight.
“It needed to be washed.” I pour myself coffee and sit across from her, my gaze tracking her movements. Prey watching the circle tighten. “Would you have preferred to wear dirty clothes?”
“I would have preferred to be asked.”
The entitlement pulls at the corner of my mouth. She still thinks she has a say. I file it away for later. “Noted.” I let it land. Then I ask the question I already know the answer to. “How did you sleep?”
“Fine.”
The lie is automatic. She’s testing me. I arch an eyebrow and wait.
Her expression shifts. The brief confusion clears, replaced by a tension that locks her jaw. When she corrects herself, her voice is sharp enough to cut. “Terribly. I slept terribly. Happy?”
“Not particularly.” I sip my coffee, letting the silence stretch. “But I appreciate the honesty. You could have been more comfortable in my bed.”
The reaction is immediate. A tremor runs through her, her breath catching in a sharp, audible hitch. The peaks of her breasts, already outlined against the fabric, tighten into hard points that even the thick terry cloth can’t hide.
“That wasn’t part of the arrangement.”
Under his protection. The phrase does nothing to comfort me. If anything, it drops my stomach, because protection from a man like this comes with conditions I'm not ready to consider.
“Within reason—”
“I decide what’s reasonable, Jana. Not you.”
The words land. Her jaw tightens. Her throat works as she swallows whatever protest she was about to make.
She picks up her fork with fingers that tremble just slightly and takes a bite of eggs she doesn’t taste.
But she can’t hide the way her thighs press together under the table, the subtle shift of her hips.
The rapid rise and fall of her chest has nothing to do with fear.
Every instinct I’ve sharpened in the Bratva watches her come apart piece by piece.
The silence stretches while she pushes food around her plate. I track every tell: the way she can’t meet my eyes, the constant shifting in her seat, the subtle bite of her lower lip when she thinks I’m not looking.
“Is there something you want to say?” she finally snaps, defensive. “Or are you just going to sit there watching me?”
“I’m enjoying the view.” My voice drops, more intimate. The dark centers of her eyes go wide.
“I’m not squirming.”
The lie is thin enough to tear. She’s been shifting in that chair every thirty seconds. I don’t call her on it. I just let my gaze travel deliberately down her body and back up, slow enough that she feels every second.
Her breath hitches. Those hard points against her robe become more pronounced. I see the moment she realizes I can see them.
Her throat works as she swallows. She stands abruptly, the chair scraping against the floor. “I’m finished.”
“Sit down.”
“No.”
There it is. The spark. I let the moment stretch. “That’s the second time you’ve refused a direct instruction. Don’t make it three.”
“Or what?” The words burst out of her, reckless. “You’ll punish me? I’m already here. Already sold. Owned by a man who apparently can’t get a woman without paying for her.”
The accusation is a clean strike. For a moment, I consider letting it slide. But she needs to understand.
I stand slowly. She tracks the movement, backing herself against the window. Cornered.
“You think I had to buy you?” My voice is level, more dangerous than a shout.
She lifts her chin. “What does that say about you?”
I close the distance in measured steps. Her breath comes faster. Her tongue darts out to wet her lips.
“It says I didn’t want them,” I tell her when I’m close enough that she has to tilt her head back. “I wanted you.”
My hand shoots out, cupping her jaw. She gasps, her body going rigid before a slight tremor softens her into my hold.
“And you’re about to learn how much you want me back.”
“I don’t—”
I kiss her. Brutal. Claiming. Her body surges toward mine even as her hands come up in a token protest that falters against my chest. Her mouth opens under mine, and when I deepen the kiss, a sound that is pure need tears from her throat. She’s kissing me back, her tongue tangling with mine.
When I finally pull back, we’re both breathing hard.
“If I let you walk out that door right now,” I ask against her lips, “no contract, no consequences—would you leave?”
The question hangs between us. Pride wars with something else in her eyes. She doesn’t answer, but she sways toward me instead of pulling away.
Just as I thought.
I grip her wrist and start walking, pulling her behind me. “Come on.”
“What are you doing?” Her voice is breathless.
“Teaching you about assumptions.”
She tries to dig in her heels, but her resistance is a faltering thing, a gesture that dies with each step I pull her forward. Up the stairs, down the hallway, into my bedroom. The door slams shut, the sound making her flinch.
I back her against it, caging her with my arms. I’m not touching, but she can feel the heat from my body. Her chest rises and falls with rapid breaths.
“Stop me,” I say, my voice low. “Use the word, and this ends.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then I show you.” My mouth hovers over hers. “Your choice.”
The silence stretches for five heartbeats. Then she lifts her chin, her eyes meeting mine with something that looks like defiance wrapped around surrender.
“Prove it.”
That’s enough.
I strip the robe off her in one clean motion and step back.
She’s all curves and soft skin, breasts fuller than I’d guessed, hips that flare in a way that makes my hands itch.
But what stops me cold is the evidence written across her body.
Her nipples are so hard they look painful, dark and tight.
And when my eyes travel lower, I see the slick sheen on her inner thighs.
She tries to cover herself—hands flying to her breasts, to the apex of her thighs—but I catch her wrists.
“No.” I hold them at her sides, my gaze traveling over every inch of her.
I walk her backward toward the bed. When the back of her knees hit the mattress, she sits down hard, looking up at me with wide, dark eyes.
I release her wrists to cup her face, tilting it up so she can’t look away. My other hand slides down her throat, over the frantic pulse, between her breasts, across her stomach to rest just above the wet curls between her legs.
“Could I have you without paying for it?” I ask. “Answer me.”
She tries to hold out. “No.”
My hand slides lower. The moment my fingers touch her, she gasps. She’s already slick. So wet my fingers slide through her folds with no resistance. When I circle her clit, her hips tilt up into my touch.
“Stop—” The word comes out as a moan.
“No.” I increase the pressure, adding a finger inside her. She nearly comes off the bed. I work her with ruthless efficiency. Her hips rock up to meet my hand, inner walls clenching around my finger.
The orgasm builds fast. I feel it in the way she’s clenching, see it in the way her body goes taut. I curl my fingers, hitting that spot inside her while my thumb circles her clit. She shatters on a cry she can’t swallow back, her body arching off the bed.
I don’t move., my hand still resting between her thighs. Her breathing is ragged, her body trembling with aftershocks. When her eyes flutter open, they’re dazed.
I lean in close, my voice a whisper against her ear. “Could I have you without paying?”
The fight slips. When she finally answers, the truth comes out in a sob. “Yes. Yes, okay? Yes.”
“Say it properly.”
“You could have me without paying.” The words tear out of her, raw and honest. “You could have had me from the moment you walked into that club.”
I pull my hand away. The sudden absence of contact makes her flinch.
She’s trembling, pulling the corner of a sheet over her lap with a jerky, uncoordinated motion.
Her gaze is fixed on the wall, refusing to meet mine, but her jaw is set.
The words came easy. The rest didn’t. The words are what I wanted.
The proof. But her eyes—those aren’t broken. It’s banked. Waiting.
I stand. Turn my back on her. I walk to the door without a word.
The latch clicks behind me, loud in the quiet I leave her in.