Page 77 of Sinful Blaze

I’m plopped right down into the seat. Pasha’s hand grips my thigh to pin me in place while he gruffly reaches for the seatbelt, buckles me in, and snatches the keys from my slack hand all in one swift move.

But he’s close. He’s touching me. And at this angle, right when he’s reaching across me to buckle me in, I can smell the cologne on his neck.

Outside, I’m pretending to pout.

Inside, I’m purring.

He’s about to pull away when he stops. Looks at me. Then leans in closer and sniffs my neck. A small smile tugs at the corners of his mouth as he growls, “I like your perfume.”

He noticed. I lower my lashes as I blush. “You should. It’s yours.”

Because I couldn’t find any of my own perfumes that I swear I unpacked and put away in the cabinet. All I could find was a bottle of his cologne. Did our stuff get mixed up? Or is this a weird game of his?

Whatever the case, I’ll gladly play along if it makes him look at me the way he’s looking at me right now.

With heat in his eyes and a hungry possessiveness that makes him lean in even closer.

“I can get you a different one, if you don’t like it,” he rumbles, his gaze flicking between my lips and my neck.

“I love it, actually.” Whoa. I did not mean for that to come out as sultry as it did.

Heat ignites into fire, and for a breathtaking moment, I’m so certain he’s going to close the distance and let me finally taste him. How could he not?

But he doesn’t. Instead, Pasha lifts his hand to tuck my hair behind my ear and lets his fingertips trail along my cheekbone.

He’s touching me. Surely that’s a win, right?

“Have a good day,” he murmurs. And, with a light tap of his finger to the tip of my nose: “Try to behave.”

I want to laugh.

I want to cry.

Most of all, I want to get this whirlwind of emotions and urges under wraps before I do something really, really stupid.

29

DAPHNE

Another day, another trudge through the muck of a job I used to love. More and more, I wonder if I ever actually loved it, or if I just loved the freedom away from Conrad and my parents and their never-ending attempts to control every last aspect of my life.

When the day ends, my afternoon guard brings me home. I don’t bother making a fuss about who drives this time.

“Hold on,” Viktor barks when we reach the penthouse door. He pulls me back and steps in front of me, drawing his gun in the same motion. I don’t know what’s got him on edge all of a sudden, but when I try to ask what’s wrong, he gestures for me to remain quiet.

My heart jumps into my throat.

Slowly and silently, he eases the door open and creeps inside.

Someone’s in the kitchen. That must have been what alerted him: someone clanking and clinking and making all sorts of noises with our dishes. Pasha isn’t due home for at least another hour or two, and we don’t usually have an in-house guard stay behind all day.

Viktor keeps his gun poised and ready. He takes one step closer, and…

“Since you’re not rushing in, I’m assuming you have a guard with you.”

What the hell? A woman?

A woman whose thickly accented voice Viktor automatically recognizes, because he relaxes and slides his gun back into the holster. “Bozhe moy,” he calls back. “Did Damien let you in?”

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