Page 83 of The Beast of Moscow

“Yeah, yeah. Go to bed.”

She even had his tone down in her mockery.

He might have laughed.

But then she said, “I wanted you to. I still want you to, Vas.”

God knew he should have made her go to bed. This would go nowhere good, very damn fast.

Instead, he replied only, “Crawl to me—and take off the robe.”

Vera stiffened a bit, her chin lifting subtly. “Excuse me?”

“I will call another woman to do far worse—in fact, she already has. Where’s my phone?”

Another sharp suck of air echoed from the woman in the doorway. “You ... prick.”

That barely even stung.

She didn’t even say it like she meant it.

“If you want me, you’ll crawl for it. Like a kitten coming for a stroke, Vera. Down on all fours, in nothing but white cotton, and you’ll even ask me nicely. Again, if you want it.”

He expected another one of her curses. Hell, if she ever spoke to him again after this trip, he’d be shocked. But if the woman was going to play his games, then she would do so by his rules.

Including this.

Vera’s tongue peeked out to wet the seam of her plush bottom lip. “Why?”

“It turns me on.”

Another wash of pink colored her cheeks, and she dropped his stare once more. It told him everything he needed to know about this woman and just how much she could tempt him without even having to try.

“And I would dare say,” he added, “that it turns you on, too, kisska. Deny it.”

She didn’t say a word.

She also didn’t need to.

Not when she dropped the robe from one naked shoulder. He grinned when the second one followed, and she lifted her head for him to see her face once more.

“All the way to the floor,” Vas told her.

She let the silk fall.

24.

Vera’s skin pebbled exposed to nothing but air, and when Vaslav’s gaze turned away from her to the bottle she’d left on the table, she almost covered her bare breasts with her arms. Resisting the urge was easier said than done when insecurity creeped in to whisper why doesn’t he want to look at you?

Except he did keep watching her. Out of the corner of his eye, while he unscrewed the top off the vodka, that steely gaze of his raked her up and down. Vera felt every inch, swell, and curve of her body that he lingered on.

For years, her body had been on display as a ballerina—just as much as her technique and style was when she danced. Behind the scenes, there was always a handful of people at the ready with measuring tape, or a strict dietary plan, and some comment about whatever invisible fat they found on her already stick-thin body.

At the same time, she received unending praise, adoration, and love when she was on the stage. Talk about a fucking complex.

If anything, she had learned to be unashamed about her body. That she was beautiful, whether she was fifteen pounds under weight so she could jump higher, or twenty pounds heavier than she’d been the last time she had been on a stage.

“Your career has been beneficial to what’s standing in front of me, no?”