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“Are you done fighting?” he grins, his amusement palpable.
“Fuck you,” I spit back in his face.
“Keep your teeth in your mouth,” he drawls. His grip tightens on my wrists, and I gasp. Pain comes as a surprise.
“Don’t you dare hurt me,” I growl at him. “You deserve everything I did.”
“I do?”
I move my head to snap my teeth but reconsider. In my gut, I know that I need to be careful. No matter how righteous my motives are.
“Just go ahead and do what you want to me,” I challenge him. “I’m done being scared of you. It won’t last anyway. Eventually, you’ll get bored of me and kill me. What’s the point of me staying alive a little longer if you’ll just make me miserable until I drop dead?”
Nikolai lets out a low chuckle, a sound unlike any I’ve heard before. There’s a hint of mockery. His gray eyes meet my green, a million unspoken words hanging in the air. Instead of answering verbally, he dips his head down, his eyes locked with mine. Before I have a chance to understand his intentions, he does the worst thing possible.
He kisses me.
And it’s like the first sip of water in a dry desert.
His lips gently brush mine, neither attacking nor demanding. With my heart hammering and my breath coming in short pants, I can’t help the wave of want that assails my system.
A bolt of pure ecstasy twists my belly with lust, pooling in my core. His fingers no longer make me flinch. There’s a steady, slow ooze of blood from his wound, but he doesn’t seem to be affected by it.
My vision begins to blur, but still, I keep my eyes open and watch the top of his head as he brushes my lips so much more gently than his nature suggests he’d be capable of.
Instead of using his dominance, Nikolai seems determined to show me something else.
It could be a trap, the thoughts murmur in my head.
Be careful, a second voice whispers.
His lips press into mine firmly, no longer hesitant. Yet his kiss doesn’t turn feverish.
My head clears, and I try to throw him off me. When he doesn’t move, I sink my teeth into his lip. To my dismay and utter frustration, he moans. He slides his tongue over his swollen lip, tasting his blood. The wild look in his stormy gray eyes takes the fight right out of me.
“I’ll do something much worse to you, serdtse,” Nikolai tells me in a low, thick voice.
“What’s that?” I scoff.
“I’ll make you fall in love with me.”
With this ominous declaration, he stands up and strides to the door. Before he leaves, he turns to me again.
“I won’t be back until you learn how to behave.”
And then he’s gone, leaving me with my dinner spread over the carpet, my own anger, and hot arousal.
SEVENTEEN
NIKOLAI
It’s been three days since I’ve visited Katarina. I’m angry at myself for dropping my guard and letting her stab a fork into my arm. But I’m even more furious for losing my mind and kissing her. As painful as the bite was, I deserved it. It’s a reminder that she’s not to be trusted.
I’ve been spending my days in the office, trying to keep up the pretense.
Dimitri has called me six times during the past forty-eight hours. With the way he treated me at his house, I have no obligation to take his calls. As far as I’m concerned, he can go to hell. That’s the official story at least. No one knows that I have Katarina. It seems like Yakov Gargarin knows how to keep his mouth shut.
A soft knock on the door gets my attention. I lift my head up from the pile of documents on my desk.
