Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 68931 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68931 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
His expression is reminiscent of a thunder cloud as he stands. “So am I.”
His icy tone belies his words, and my friend pales slightly. Casting an indecipherable look in my direction, she mumbles something about needing to check on the catering and hurries away before I can ask what it was that she wanted. Not that it matters. I can’t stay here any longer, not after what has just happened.
“I have to go,” I say tightly and beeline for the exit, weaving through the crowd as fast as my high heels allow. I ignore the voices calling to me, all the friends and acquaintances who want my attention. I walk so fast I nearly trip on the hem of my floor-length dress, and it’s still not fast enough.
When I burst out through the ornate doorway into the hallway, Alexei is right behind me, his long legs catching up to me with ease.
“Alina, wait.”
I pick up my pace, all but jogging toward the lobby, my breath coming fast. I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid. I can’t believe I—
“Wait, I said.” A steely hand wraps around my upper arm, jerking me to a halt and spinning me around.
Before I can blink, I’m dragged to a nearby open door and into a small room that turns out to be a coat closet. Keeping his hold on me, Alexei shuts the door, isolating us from the world. Then and only then, he lets go of me.
I immediately back away. “What the fuck are you doing? I said I have to go.”
“Not until we talk.” Jaw clenched, he advances on me, backing me against the wall.
My heart hammers frantically, but I lift my chin to meet his gaze. “What is there to talk about?”
A dozen emotions, each darker than the next, flash across his face before he growls, “This”—and hooking one hand on my nape and the other over my hip, he slants his mouth over mine.
Chapter 21
Present Day, Location Unknown
“That shouldn’t have happened,” I say, my face burning at the memory of what went down that evening.
Alexei arches his eyebrows. “Which part? You pretending to be oh-so sympathetic about my sister, all the while knowing you and your brothers were about to steal her son? Or us—”
“I wasn’t pretending.”
The admission hangs between us, suspended in the tense atmosphere like a broken leaf in a spiderweb. I don’t know why I said it. Why should I care what he thinks about my motivations? If anything, it’s better if he believes hate, and only hate, drives me. Which is the case. It has to be. So what if it felt like we had a real connection for that brief moment nine months ago?
It doesn’t change what I did after that night.
It doesn’t change the way he responded.
And it certainly doesn’t change where we are today or how many deaths are on my conscience.
Chapter 22
9 Months Earlier, Moscow
Our lips crash together like rogue waves colliding, all violence and pent-up fury. He’s angry with me, and I’m angry with myself, with this weakness of mine that propels me toward a man I should do everything in my power to escape. I didn’t have to be here tonight. I didn’t have to be anywhere near him, yet I came of my own volition. And not just to offer my condolences.
I came to see him.
After years of encountering him only in pictures and videos, I’ve grown hungry for this. For him. For feeling like I’m not just surviving, but living.
His tongue sweeps into my mouth as my nails dig into his skull, my fingers convulsively gripping his hair, and my eyes squeeze shut as my body catches fire, instant arousal drenching my underwear and hardening my nipples. Fuck, yes, I’m hungry. I’m starved for the taste of him, the feel of him, the way he ignites every cell of my being.
I’m hungry, and I’m angry, and I feel like I’m going to explode from the heat building inside me… from the desperate need to burrow into him until we’re so close that it’s impossible to tell where one begins and the other ends.
He groans low in his throat, and his kiss grows rougher, his teeth nipping at my lower lip, his fingers digging into my flesh with bruising force. It should hurt, should frighten me, the violence of his desire, but it just adds to the boiling cauldron inside me, intensifying everything I’m feeling to the nth degree. I taste blood as my teeth sink into his lip in retaliation, and I don’t know if it’s his blood or mine—nor do I care. I’m burning, dying, and at the same time, I’m violently, incandescently alive. I can hear each thudding heartbeat in my chest, feel every breath he steals from me… smell the heat rising between us, dark and forest-wild, edged with musk and man and something ineffably appealing.