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"You want to dance?" he asked, reaching for my waist again. I pulled back from him and took a long sip of the drink, the vodka biting the back of my throat. It reminded me of my father, the smell of booze when I walked back into the house from a long night at work.
"Come on," the guy told me, his voice taking on a sharper edge. I stared at him. I could tell he was expecting me to just give myself over to him right now, like I was nothing, like this was normal.
"I … I …," I blurted out. I wanted to turn him down, tell him to fuck off and leave me alone, but I didn’t want to make a scene. Wasn’t this how things went at clubs? Some guy got you a drink, and then you danced with him, and then …
"What the fuck are you doing here?"
A familiar voice caught my attention, and I spun around on the spot, tottering in my heels. Behind me, arms crossed over his chest, was Maxim. My heart dropped.
"I was just … getting a drink," I told him, lifting the glass in my hand as though it would make it any better.
"Hey, man, back off," the guy tried to intervene. Maxim narrowed his eyes at him, and then waved over one of the security guards who had been watching the whole thing unfold. He came over to us and grabbed the guy, pulling him by the arm towards the door as he protested, but Maxim didn’t pay him a single bit of attention. He turned his head, his gaze landing on me once more, and I felt a shiver run down my spine.
"Maxim, I’m sorry," I blurted out. "I wasn’t trying to get out, I was just—"
"With me," he told me, jerking his head towards the back rooms where I had come from. I knew there was no point in arguing with him. I could see in the look on his face that he wasn’t going to take any more shit from me. And hell, after what I had just done, I couldn’t blame him …
I followed him, head down, drink still clutched in my hand, though I abandoned it before he took me into his office. I didn’t want to be so much as tipsy for this. I needed to be in my right mind. I didn’t know how he was going to react to this, to what must have looked to him like I was trying to make a break for it.
He pushed open the door from me, and I had to brush past him to get into the office. I could smell something on him, shower gel, maybe. His hair was wet, like he had just showered. Had he come from some woman’s place? The thought of it twisted up in my head, almost jealous, though that would have been ridiculous. I didn’t have any kind of ownership over him, hell, if anything, he had it over me …
"What the fuck were you doing out there?" he demanded as he rounded on me and glared at me. I could feel the anger coming off him in waves, and I shivered where I stood, my heart pounding in my chest.
"I just wanted to blow off some steam," I protested, but the words seemed to catch at the back of my throat as I tried to force them out.
"You could have run into anyone out there," he growled, shaking his head, beginning to pace, as though he couldn’t believe what I was hearing. "You fucking— You have no idea who could have been out there."
"What, your Bratva friends?" I demanded. All at once, I felt a certainty course through my system, some part of me just not willing to take this any longer—not willing to have him talk to me like this, even though he was the one calling the shots, even though I should have known better.
"You think they would have tried to take me like you did?" I snapped back at him. His face darkened.
"I tried to help you," he shot back at me. "But if you can’t see that—"
"I can’t see how keeping me locked up in that penthouse is any different than … than what the other men would have done to me!” I fired back at him. He stared at me for a long moment before he spoke again.
"You really don’t see any difference?" he asked me. His voice had dropped another tone, almost like he was daring me to keep up at this.
"No," I shot back. "They just wanted me to do everything they asked, right? And you want me to do the same thing.”
"I want you to let us help you," he replied. He seemed pissed now, mad, but there was something else in his gaze, too—something darker, more possessive, like seeing another man talking to me had brought out a new side to him.
"And what does that help look like, exactly?" I demanded. "Because if it’s staying locked up in your penthouse and getting scolded every time I leave—"
He took a step towards me. I fell silent. Not because I was scared. No, because I could see something else in the way he was looking at me right now. I could see the same thing that had been in Damyan’s eyes before, the thing I had walked away from, but that my body was already pleading for me to try for again. I was so overheated, it felt like I couldn’t control myself, couldn’t think straight.
"You want to go?" he asked me, and he pointed towards the door. "You go out there right now. Leave. You can get out and never look back. We won’t come looking for you. You have my word on that."
I hesitated. I could have. I could have just walked out of here right now and pretended none of this had ever happened. Even if I had to start from scratch, I could have done it. Nothing was stopping me.
But I couldn’t. Not when he was looking at me like that, those eyes burning into mine like they were on fire. I felt like electricity was pulsing through every inch of my body right now, tingling to the tips of my fingers. All the bad decisions I could make rushing through my head, getting the better of me, until …
Until, all at once, I moved into him and pressed my mouth to his.
Chapter Eleven – Maxim
That kiss. That fucking kiss. That kiss had been the last thing I had expected. But as soon as I felt her mouth on mine, I knew any good sense I had been hanging on to was about to go right out the window.
I grabbed her hips and pulled her close to me, hands traveling up her back, over the lace of her top, feeling the warmth of her skin through the fabric. I had come back from the gym, cutting through the bar to check on how everything was going, and when I had seen her in there, that smarmy guy chatting her up, I had felt a rush of possessive anger that had taken over all the good sense in my head.
