"You don't own me."
"Don't I?"
He backed me against the bookshelves. The wood was cold against my spine, the edges of the books pressing into my shoulders through the thin silk. He placed his hands on either side of my head, caging me in, and I felt the heat of him everywhere.
I should have been afraid.
I wasn't.
"What do you want, Nathan?" My voice was steady. Steadier than I felt. "You want to threaten me? Intimidate me? Make me cry?" I tilted my head, looking up at him through my lashes. "You're going to have to try harder than that."
His eyes darkened. His jaw tightened. For a moment, I thought I'd pushed too far—that he'd strike me, or worse, that he'd walk away and leave me trembling in the dark.
But he didn't strike me. And he didn't walk away.
He laughed.
It was a low, rough sound—surprised and genuine and something else. Something that sounded like hunger.
"You're not like the others," he said.
"So I've been told."
"The others would have begged by now. Cried. Offered me anything to make me stop." He reached out and traced the collar of my robe—just a brush of his fingers against the silk, against the skin of my throat. "But you just stand there. Looking at me like I'm the one who should be afraid."
"Maybe you should be."
He smiled. It was a beautiful smile—sharp and predatory and full of teeth. "Maybe."
He stepped back. Just a step, just enough to create space between us. But his eyes never left mine.
"I want you, Monika. Not for a night. Not for a week. I want you." He said it like a fact. Like the sky was blue and the river was wet and Nathan Mire wanted the girl his father had claimed. "You. On your knees. Begging."
My heart was pounding. I could feel it in my throat, in my temples, in the places between my legs that had no business responding to a man like him.
"And if I say no?"
He tilted his head. Considered me. The firelight caught the angles of his face, the hollows beneath his cheekbones, the faint scar above his eyebrow.
"Then I'll wait." He said it softly, almost gently. "I'm patient. I've never wanted anything I couldn't have. And I want you more than I've ever wanted anything."
I should have said no.
I should have pushed past him, walked out of the library, locked myself in my room and waited for Aleksander to comehome. I should have called Gabriel, asked him to sit with me, let his gentle hands and gentle words remind me that I wasn't completely lost.
But I didn't.
I stood there with my back against the bookshelves and my heart in my throat and my body humming with something that felt like want.
"You're not going to hurt me," I said. It wasn't a question.
"No."
"You're not going to make me do anything I don't want to do."
"No."
"And if I tell you to stop, you'll stop."
