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To him, the concept is clear as day. I nod.
“If I am willing to lay down my life to protect the life of another, it’s only natural they grant me the gift of obedience to my command. Understood?”
Wait… what? Lay down his life?
Uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation, I mutter under my breath, “Well that got real intense real quick.”
I jump at the sound of his loud bark of laughter. I blink. I’ve never heard him laugh before, and the sound does strange, wonderful things to my body. I squeeze my legs as heat pulses through my center.
I push myself to my feet. I don’t have any plans or course of action in mind. I just stand. When I stand, he’s so big that even sitting he’s only a few inches shorter than I am.
I walk to him and slide myself onto his lap.
“Clare,” he murmurs, his voice thick with arousal. I straddle him, my legs on either side of his large, solid ones, and face him. I cup his face in my hands, the feel of stubble prickling my palms. Without a word, I lean in and brush my lips against his.
The sound he makes is unadulterated passion and raw male wrapped together, and I swallow it whole. He tightens his grip on my waist, slamming me against him, and when I’m flush against his body, he stabs his fingers through my hair and yanks me closer.
I lick his tongue, and he groans. He releases his hand on my waist only to run one thumb along my breast. My nipples pebble, and I release a moan he quickly absorbs.
A sharp knock sounds at the door. We pull away with a shared groan.
“If that isn’t our fucking food, I’ll kill them.” Something tells me he isn’t joking.
I sigh, push myself off his lap, and stomp across the room to answer the door.
“No.” I freeze at the authoritative sound of his voice. I look over my shoulder. “Stand behind me. You do not answer that door.”
A sharp stab of fear grips my heart. There are long moments when I forget who I’m with, what the stakes are, and what could happen next. I watch as he glides a gun out of a holster like it’s the most natural thing in the world to do. My pulse quickens.
A knock sounds again, louder. “Room service.”
I sigh. Thank God. I’m so hungry my stomach rolls.
Constantine shakes his head, frowning, and pulls out his phone. He taps it, then mutters a few words in thick, rapid Russian. I watch as his eyes darken. He slides a knife out of his boot and hands it to me.
“Go to the bathroom,” he says in a low voice. “Lock the door. Wait for me there. If anyone tries to hurt you, stab them. And if that doesn’t work, you kick their balls as hard as you can.”
What?
He growls at me. “Now.”
I run to obey. My hands trembling, I shut and lock the door and hold the knife in front of me. I listen as if my life depends on it.
Maybe it does.
But there’s no sound. No… nothing. The knife slips in my hand against my sweaty palm, and my pulse races. How long do I wait? I know by now that going against him would be a terrible mistake. Not only would it bring about his wrath, but he knows more about this world than I do by a long shot. I don’t know what to expect or how to act, or who could be at the door. He’s the one experienced in this.
It strikes me then that my years of studying, the number of my degrees, all the zeroes in my bank account and my place in society… mean absolutely nothing at a moment like this. My entire life my family’s told me how important it was to build myself up, to secure my status in life. How crucial it was to be wealthy and elite. But it all means nothing in the face of danger, and less than nothing in the face of death.
And this is Constantine’s everyday life.
This is the life he embraces.
The only one he knows.
I nearly sob with relief when I hear a soft knock on the door. “Open.”
Constantine.
My hand trembles on the door handle as I gently unfasten the lock. He slides in quietly, a difficult feat for a man his size. He holds a finger to his lips and gives me a nod. His eyes go to the window behind me, then quickly back to me. I look at the window. It’s large and airy with a generous tiled windowsill, framed by a gauzy white curtain, with a latch to the right to open it. Behind the window’s the top edge of the rail of a balcony.
But wait. We didn’t have a balcony.
