Page 8

I wrestle with the last scrap of my conscience. Maksim never deserved her, but that hands me no right to this. She is drunk and open and unguarded, the most perfect gift the universe has ever set in my lap, and I refuse to take her in this state.

“I need a moment,” I grind out, easing her back onto the couch. My jaw locks tight. “Wait right here for me.”

She protests, and I check twice that she is safe before I walk away. I’m being an absolute asshole, and I still see no better path.

The bathroom door shuts behind me, and the air turns thick and scalding. Her straddling my lap flashes behind my eyes again, and I curse aloud at the empty room.

Bogom klyanus’, I’m too old to come undone like a boy over a girl half my age. And yet…

I picture how it would feel to bury myself inside her. Her thick thighs locked around my waist. Her soft belly pressed to mine. Her slick, tight center clenching down, her breasts bouncing with every stroke. Her pussy would ruin me completely. Her breasts already spilled through my fingers earlier like poured water, and I know exactly how deadly that alone is.

I’ve had every kind of woman money can quietly arrange. Not one of them has ever lived in my head like this.

I open my trousers and shove down my briefs, and my cock springs free into the cool air. I wrap a hand around myself and imagine her riding me, hair damp with sweat, nails clawing lines down my back, begging in that thick drunk voice. I imagine her cunt milking me as she comes apart above me.

I want to wreck her for every other man alive. I want her tits pressed around me. I want to finish across her face and watch her wear my cum. Heat coils hard and low in my gut. My strokes turn rougher and faster until I break apart against the cold tile.

I brace on the sink and drag in air like I sprinted here. Pathetic. Worth every second.

Bozhe moy. I have not wanted anything this badly in twenty years, and it frightens me more than any man with a gun ever has.

Clarity crashes back the second it ends though. I’m panting over a sink, having just done that to the thought of a girl half my age, my own brother’s cast off. What kind of shithead have I let myself become tonight?

I splash cold water across my face. She was a bad choice from the very first glance. I should’ve walked the moment I heard Maksim’s name, and instead I told myself he didn’t deserve her, as though that made her mine to want. That has to be enough now. I will play the gentleman, drive her home, and finish this insane thing cleanly.

I walk back out and stop cold. A man in a white suit stands at my booth, and Delaney is laughing up at him. My vision narrows to one burning point.

I swore that booth was safe, and then I left her alone inside it. The stranger wears a lazy playboy grin I’m certain she would hate while sober, yet the two of them look like old friends, and that makes my chest ache in a way I will not name.

He drapes an arm over her shoulder, and she doesn’t shrug it off. She only smiles wider for him.

I cross the floor fast. Messy dark curls, neat scruff, sculpted features. He is exactly the sort of man young women lose their heads over.

“Take your hand off her,” I say. “She’s here with me.”

He eases back an inch but keeps that smug grin firmly in place. “Respect the lady’s wishes,” he says in a thick Italian accent. “She is enjoying my company.” He sets his hand right back on her shoulder.

I look at Delaney and wait for her to send him packing. Instead she smiles, slow and sly.

“I’m enjoying his company,” she agrees, every word lazy and aimed.

She is punishing me for leaving her behind. She has a right to do it, but it still burns knowing the blade points straight at me.

The stranger lifts his glass toward me as though he has already won. Delaney is not a prize to be passed across a table.

I fist his collar and haul him up onto his feet. His hand falls away from her shoulder.

“Say one more word, and I break you in half before I throw you out.”

His Adam’s apple jumps hard. Recognition drains all the color from his face. “Lev Volkov,” he stammers. “I didn’t realize she was yours.”

“Get out now.” I shove him off mid sentence, and his swagger dissolves as he stumbles away, apologizing to the floor tiles.

“I thought you weren’t coming back,” Delaney says softly. She turns an empty glass between her fingers, and the blush spreads all the way to the tips of her ears.

“Why did you not reject him, or call the bartender over?” I snap, more rattled than truly angry. Her total lack of guard frustrates me down to the bone.

“Men hit on women. It happens all the time.” She tilts closer, her body loose and warm against my arm. “Besides, you already turned me down once tonight. Are you jealous, Lev?”