Page 29 of Cruel Demands

“And if I ask now?”

“The driver turns around.”

She holds my gaze for a long moment. “Water first,” she says.

I laugh. I can’t help it. Her smile returns, small and triumphant, like she has pulled something from me I did not intend to give.

The car moves through Moscow, past wet streets and glowing windows, past monuments to dead men and buildings full of living thieves. Taylor watches everything with wide, hungry green eyes, as if the city belongs to her because she’s brave enough to look at it. I watch her instead.

By the time we reach my house, I have told myself five different versions of restraint. I will give her water. I will sit across from her. I will let her talk until the liquor leaves her blood. I will send her home untouched. I will not become my father.

Then Taylor steps into my front hall, looks up at the chandelier, the marble staircase, the impossible height of the ceiling, and says, “Wow.”

Not impressed. Accusing.

I close the door behind us. “Wow?”

She turns, eyes bright. “You didn’t mention you lived in a Bond villain’s emotional support mansion.”

“You are not easily impressed.” The house stretches around us, all cold marble, high ceilings, and rooms built to overwhelm rather than comfort. There are no photographs in the entrance hall, no shoes beneath the tables, no books left open or coats thrown over chairs. The maid appears at the far end of the hall, takes one look at Taylor, then at me, and wisely says nothing. “Water,” I tell her.

“Please,” Taylor adds. I look at her. She pushes her hair behind her shoulders. “I’m impressed by manners.” The maid’s mouth twitches.

“And some food.” I do not look away from Taylor. “Please,” I add. The maid vanishes through the service corridor.

Taylor rocks back on her heels, suddenly aware of the size of the house, the silence, the fact that she is alone with me in a place built to keep the world out. She doesn’t see the guard beyond the inner doorway or the cameras above the arches. She doesn’t know my mother is asleep in the east wing, far enough away that the sound of our voices will not reach her. Her bravery flickers.

I remove my coat and set it aside. “You are safe here.”

She laughs once. Soft. Disbelieving. “Men really love saying that in places where women have to trust them.”

She doesn’t know how right she is.

For a moment, I don’t answer. Then I reach for her coat. As my fingers close around one sleeve, I catch sight of something dark inside the buttonhole of my cuff. Blood. I turn my wrist before she can follow my gaze and continue easing the coat from her shoulders. “You do not have to trust me.”

“No?”

“No. You only have to trust yourself.”

Her eyes lift to mine. “And what if I don’t?”

“Then I call the driver and send you home.”

She looks at me for a moment, as if she expected a different answer.

I wrap the sleeves of her coat around her, trapping her in a makeshift straitjacket. “Until then, I suppose I will have to keep you contained.”

She giggles a little, shakes her head, and meets my eyes. Her breath trembles once. Then she attempts to close the distance between us, moving up onto her tiptoes with her arms still caught behind her back. The moment she leans toward me, I release the sleeves. Her lips are right there, and her eyes are closed. I look at them, open slightly, waiting, and I hear her nervous breathing, smell the bourbon on her breath.

I close the rest for her. The kiss is not soft or polite. Taylor kisses me like she has been angry at me for years, though we met only hours ago. She lets out little sounds of frustration that go straight through my blood as she tries to stay on her tiptoes. Her mouth tears at mine.

I grip her jawline with one hand, touching her bottom lip with my thumb, stroking it, then biting it before letting it go. My other arm wraps around her waist, pulling the soft curve of her body against mine. Slowly, I drop the arms of her coat and peel it away, letting it fall to the floor so I can cradle her face with both hands, her kiss as insistent as mine.

One of my hands slips under her thigh and lifts her leg high around my waist, and then the other, and I’m picking her up and backing her against the wall, holding her there with my body. My erection presses between her thighs beneath the hem of that little black dress, separated from her by my trousers, her panties, and the mesh of her tights.

She gasps against my mouth, and her green eyes fly open, sparkling with something. Wanting, maybe. Maybe uncertainty.

I stop. Every muscle in my body fights me. “Say yes,” I tell her breathlessly, my hand stamped against her cheek, my other hand underneath her ass, my weight pressing her down.