Page 49 of His Contract Queen

My eyes track her automatically.

She moves around the desk, bare feet silent on the hardwood. The black silk shirt my staff brought her sometime yesterday hangs loose on her frame, the dark fabric swallowing her shape in a way that somehow makes her more noticeable. The hem brushes the tops of her thighs, barely concealing the soft outline of fabric shorts beneath.

Every step makes the silk shift and slide against her skin. By the time she reaches me, one shoulder has slipped free, the collar dipping low enough to expose the graceful line of her collarbone.

My attention locks onto it instantly.

A slow pull tightens low in my gut before she’s even close enough to touch.

“You’re not usually so tight-lipped,” she says, stopping only a few inches away.

I drop my leg from where it had been crossed and let my knees fall apart slightly in a silent invitation. Or maybe a challenge.

We’ve been circling this edge for days now. Trapped in this room together fueled by exhaustion and adrenaline, every shared glance inflating the tension. Work has been the only thing keeping our restraint intact, the only barrier between strategy and something far more reckless.

It has become less a matter ofifone of us breaks and more a question of who will lose first.

“Perhaps this is a subject where you should tread lightly,” I say. My voice comes out lower than intended, roughened by fatigue and something far less controlled. The warning is real, though so is the hunger beneath it.

She cocks her head to the side. “Is that your way of telling me I need to earn it?”

My hands tighten around the glass, fingers flexing against the crystal as discipline becomes a physical effort forced upon myself. Every instinct urges me to reach forward and pull her closer, erasing the careful distance she’s deliberately invading right now.

I will give her this. She is the only person I have ever met who instinctively knows which words dismantle my control. I have spent my entire life mastering people, reading weaknesses, pushing buttons with surgical precision. And somehow she is just as good at it as I am.

I swallow the saliva gathered on my tongue before answering, “Perhaps.”

A brief, satisfied smile crosses her face.

She leans forward to slip the half-empty glass from my hand with careful fingers. She sets it aside without breaking eye contact, removing the final barrier to whatever she’s decided. Then, with effortless confidence, she swings herself into my lap. Both of her hands settle on my shoulders, steadying herself.

Mine move instantly.

They latch onto her hips without hesitation, fingers digging into the silk that barely separates my palms from her bare skin. I pull her flush against me until there’s no space left between us, until the heat of her seeps through the thin layers of fabric and into my bloodstream.

Her breathing shifts, stuttering slightly when my arm bands around her waist and locks her in place. There is something intoxicating about the way she doesn’t fight this. We’ve long since passed the point of denying what we both clearly want.

Her hands slide up from my shoulders to cup my face, thumbs brushing lightly along my cheekbones. The gesture is almost tender while the look in her eyes is anything but soft.

“Well, then,” she murmurs. “Allow me to earn your secrets.”

14

KATERINA

As soon as the words leave my mouth, Aleksandr kisses me hard.

There is no hesitation, no moment of asking permission. There never is with him—he simply takes what he wants without question. His mouth crashes into mine with enough force that steals the air from my lungs and sends heat pooling immediately between my legs.

A soft, involuntary sound escapes me before I can swallow it back.

My thighs tighten instinctively around his waist, locking myself in place even though the arm banded around my lower back already keeps me pinned flush against his chest. The heat of him seeps through my thin shirt, tempting me to sink my nails into the meat of his shoulders and mark him the way he’s marked me so many times before without even touching me.

I rock against him without thinking.

A small, desperate grind to seek the friction I so badly want. I feel the hard, thick line of him press against my inner thigh. The awareness of it sends another pulse of heat rolling through me so intense my breath stutters against his lips.

My hands slide from his shoulders into his hair, fingers threading through the dark strands to anchor myself as the world narrows to the way his tongue strokes deep and claiming inside my mouth like he’s trying to devour every sound I make.