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“Don’t leave me hanging, Rayne. What did you expect when you thought about what my bedroom looked like?” His eyebrows jump in sheer amusement. “And tell me what you were wearing while you imagined it.”
I wrinkle my nose. “You are scum.”
“The scummiest,” he says without missing a beat. “Don’t let that stop you.”
I cross my arms, but it’s a paltry defense against him. “I imagined a den of debauchery. Red and black paint, silver cuffs hooked to the walls, maybe a well-worn sex swing hanging from the corner.”
He looks over his shoulder towards the closet. “You know, I have been wondering what to do with that corner. That’s not a bad idea.”
The conversation drops away, and I feel naked. Words are armor. Without them, I’m exposed. It feels like he can see straight through me.
“Well, are you just going to lie there and watch me work?” I snap.
“Happily,” he says. “Carry on.”
“Fine. I will.”
I can be professional. Even when my boss is anything but, I can rise above. Just like Mom taught me.
I close off my mind to Kirill’s presence and all of the tingly, buzzy things it does to my body. I don’t think about his torso hot against mine, even as I spray down the glass in his room and wipe away the smudges of our handprints.
I very pointedly don’t think about how many women he has pressed against that glass. How many times women have screamed his name in this expensive, expansive bedroom.
How many times Viktoria has been in here… naked… moaning…
“Something wrong?” Kirill asks from the bed.
I look up and realize he’s watching me. And that my nose is wrinkled in obvious disgust.
His slight smile makes me think he knows exactly what is wrong. I smooth out my expression. “No, nothing is wrong. I’m fine.”
As I’ve been cleaning, I’ve ignored the area around the bed. Instead, I moved around the edges of the room, keeping as much distance between myself and Kirill as possible. But now, there isn’t another option. There’s nothing else left to clean.
“I need to change the linens. Do you want to move or should I come back—”
“They were just changed,” he says.
“You have enough staff that I’m sure all of the linens were ‘just changed.’ But I have sheets here if you want me to—”
“I don’t,” he responds sharply. “I’m comfortable. Continue with the rest of your work.”
God forbid I disturb his comfort while doing manual labor so he can watch.
I bite my tongue and dust the bedside tables. Then I vacuum the carpet and, thankfully, move on to my final task. I connect the attachment to vacuum under the bed and drop down on my hands and knees. I hear Kirill’s weight shift on the mattress, no doubt moving to get a better view of my current position.
I flip the vacuum on. “Pig.”
“Speak up,” he calls over the noise.
I pretend not to hear him.
I’m nearly done vacuuming, but there’s a small box at the end of the bed that is in my way. I nudge it out of the way with the attachment, but it snags on the plush carpet and topples over. A bundle of things spills onto the floor.
I turn the vacuum off and crawl quickly to the end of the bed. The sooner I pick this up, the sooner I can leave for the day.
“Everything okay?” Kirill asks again.
I open my mouth to tell himI’m perfectly fine, thank you very much. But then I catch a hint of red lace.
