Page 64 of Nikolay

He inhaled.

Slow. Deliberate. Unhurried as sin.

His eyes had dropped to the fist clenched at my side, the one still holding the balled-up black lace, and some expression I could not name moved over his face and vanished. Interest first. Then heat. Then something rougher than either.

“What have we here?” he murmured.

Before I could decide whether to hide my hand behind my back like a guilty teenager or slap his away on principle, he reached down and closed his fingers around my wrist.

My whole body went alert.

He did not squeeze hard. He did not need to. His hand was large and cool and impossibly sure, circling my wrist in one clean band of control before he lifted it between us. My fist remained closed around the damp scrap of lace. He looked at it once. Then at me.

And then he brought my hand toward his face.

I should have stopped him. I know I should have.

Maybe the truth was I froze because some part of me could not quite believe he was doing this. Maybe it was because his face had gone so intent all at once, all the polished reserve stripped down to appetite and curiosity braided together. Maybe it was because the hallway had narrowed to fluorescent buzz and his thumb at the inside of my wrist and the terrifying fact of being seen in the wake of my own body’s betrayal.

He closed his eyes and breathed in.

Just once.

His jaw went slack for the smallest moment, as if the scent had hit him lower than language. When his eyes opened again, his pupils had blown wider, amber darkened toward honey and fire, and something in my stomach flipped over hard enough to make me grip the panties tighter.

My voice, when I found it, came out much steadier than my pulse deserved.

“Sir,” I said, “that is inappropriate.”

His gaze lifted to mine.

For one moment, I thought he might apologize.

Instead, he took the panties from my hand.

Not snatched. Not grabbed. Simply unfolded my fingers one by one with his free hand and removed the ruined lace as though relieving me of some delicate object I had no business carrying. Then he held the little scrap of black fabric in front of him for a moment, absurdly formal about it, like he was considering a rare artifact under museum light.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “I suppose it is.”

That should have been the end.

It was not.

He folded the panties once. Twice. His movements were neat, almost absentmindedly elegant, and so wildly obscene in context I could only stare. Then he slipped them into the interior breast pocket of his suit jacket with the same calm care a man might give a pocket square or a letter he intended to keep close.

I just looked at him.

He adjusted the lapel lightly over the pocket and exhaled through his nose.

“But fuck,” he said, his voice gone lower now, roughened at the edges in a way I had never heard from him before, “if that’s not the most delicious thing I’ve smelled in ages.”

Heat flared up my throat so fast I felt dizzy with it.

He lifted one hand.

Two fingers touched my cheek.

Just that.