The living room's lamplight cuts a single slash across the ivory carpet. Riley sits in the armchair by the window, legs tucked beneath her, one of the silk robes I ordered pooled around her thighs. Not the charcoal one she wore that first night. A new one. Blush-colored. It clings to every tempting curve. Her hair is loose; the red braids undulate into a crimson storm that falls past her shoulders.
“Where were you?” she asks.
“Working.” I hang my coat. The gun under my arm is wrong for this room.For her. “You should be asleep.”
“Should I?” She rises, and the robe slips open at the knee. She does not close it. I taste copper at the sight of her thigh. “Should I sleep, Mikhail? Should I curl up in bed and dream about a fairy-tale ending while you play whatever game you’re making us play?”
I turn. She is closer than I expected. Jasmine and defiance, the same scent that burrowed under my skin in the warehouse. It has only deepened since she moved into my space. She is in my soap. My towels.My air.
“I am not playing,” I say.
“No?” She gestures wildly at her clothes, the coat rack, the kitchen beyond. “You bought me shampoo. You’ve given me pajamas. Clothes in the closet with the tags still on. Organic groceries and fifteen different kinds of tea, and you think I don’t notice?”
I take a step toward her. “I’m trying to make you comfortable. Give you time.”
“I don’t need time!” The shout fractures the room. She shoves at my chest with both hands, small fists thudding uselessly against me. “I don’t need a goddamn body pillow and a skincare routine. I need you to stop treating me like a ghost in your house. I need this—whatever the fuck this contract is—to actuallyhappen.”
“It’s going to happen.”
“When?” She stops, and her eyes narrow. “Maybe I’m asking the wrong questions. Are you gay? Is that why you can’t get your own woman pregnant? You can’t get it up for–”
I snatch her before I can stop myself. My hands catch her wrists. Not hard. But enough. “You never stop pushing. Sometimes, Riley, you go too far.” Her pulse hammers against my thumbs, atrapped bird. “You want to know what game I’m playing?” I ask. My voice is barely above a whisper, but it makes her freeze. “I am trying not to devour you, Riley. That is the game. I am trying to be the man who waits. Whoasks. Who does not take a twenty-year-old virgin to bed like the animal I am because I signed a piece of paper that says I can.”
She is breathing hard. Her pupils are blown wide, swallowing the brown. “So… you want me?”
I release one wrist. Trace the line of her jaw with a knuckle that has broken men’s teeth. “Yes, Riley. I want you. I want you so much, I have been jerking off in the shower every morning like a teenager, so I don’t drag you into my bed every time you walk through my kitchen. Is that what you want to hear?”
Her throat ripples as she swallows. She does not pull away. “Then just fucking do it already.” I don't move a muscle.
“I am giving you an out,” I say. Then I take my last stand. My final mercy. “Right now. Walk to your room. Lock the door. Tomorrow, the doctor comes, and we will do this clean. Clinical. It’s my last offer. Take it.”
She tilts her chin. Saucy. Reckless. Alive. “And if I don’t want clean? If I want you dirty, Pakhan? What then? You gonna make me beg?”
The last thread of my control snaps. Whipping free along with my restraint. “Strip.”
She blinks. “What?”
“Take off the robe. The shorts I know you are wearing underneath, because you've been teasing me with them since I arrived. The little cotton tank that rides up when you reach for a glass. Take it all off. Then go to my bed, lie down on your back, and wait for me like a good girl.”
Her lips part. Her eyes are wide, enormous, suddenly seeing something she missed before. “I didn’t… I thought you were…”
“Thought I was what?” I step closer. Crowding her. Letting her feel the heat and the violence coiled in every inch of me. “A gentleman? A saint? I am neither. I have not been gentle a day in my life. And if you walk through that bedroom door, you will learn exactly hownot-gentle I am.”
She swallows. Her bravado trembles at the edges, but she does not run.She's so fucking fearless.
For a long moment, we stare at each other, from opposite cliffs, contemplating the dive. Two people who are staring into the abyss of what we actually are.
She moves first.
Her fingers go to the tie of the robe. It falls. Beneath it, the silk camisole and shorts, blush-pink and obscene against her dark skin. She pulls the camisole over her head. Her breasts are small, perfect, the nipples already tight with want. The shorts slide down her hips. She is bare. Completely. I take it all in. The soft curl between her thighs. The scars on her hip from a life she survived without me.All of it.
She turns. She walks to my bedroom.
She does not close the door.
I stand alone in the living room, counting my heartbeats, until I can breathe again.
When I enter, she is on the bed exactly as I commanded. On her back. The duvet white and pristine beneath her, a canvas waiting for ruin. Her hands are fisted at her sides. Her knees press together, then part slightly, then close again. She has no idea what to do with her body. For all her dirty talk, research, and bravado, she is truly innocent.
