Page 90 of Emerald Malice

She bites down on my shoulder, one hand scraping across my chest as we start rocking back and forth. “You see?” I murmur in her ear. “You see now who you belong to?”

She doesn’t reply apart from a breathy moan here, a hitched gasp there.

“And if you’re ever in doubt again, just come to me—” Thrust. “—and I’ll remind you all over again.” Thrust. “I’ll remind you as many—fucking—times—as—it—takes!”

She falls apart again just as my hot cum fills her up.

I stay there until I have nothing left to give, fully sealed hip-to-hip with her. Natalia’s eyes are still hazy when I pull out and zip myself up.

When she reaches for a tissue, I stop her. “No, lastochka. You’re not allowed to wipe it away. You’re going to spend the rest of the day walking around with my cum dripping down your thighs. And you’re going to fucking love it.”

She pushes herself off the desk onto wobbly legs and, for a moment, I think she’s going to defy me. But she leaves the tissue where it is and pulls her skirt down.

Despite her compliance, the post-orgasm euphoria has drained off her face almost instantly. She’s back to looking pissed.

“Satisfied now?” she demands icily.

“I believe I made my point.”

Her eyes flicker savagely. “That’s all I am to you. That’s all I’ve ever been: a point. You can have me whenever you want. But I can only have you on your terms, when you want.”

She walks around Byron’s desk, leaving behind a faint, sweaty imprint of her ass on the wood. It’s disappearing already. Pity—someone should frame that and hang it in the Louvre.

“You make a huge deal about meeting my needs and wants, but the truth is, they don’t matter at all. I don’t matter to you at all.” Her eyes have gone misty again. “I’m nothing more than a plaything to you.”

There are a dozen or more snide jabs I could think of to lob at her feet and walk out of here victorious. But strangely, the need to come out on top feels much less important than the pain in her eyes.

On instinct, I reach forward, moving to cup her face with my palm.

But she flinches back like I might hurt her.

I drop my hand with the sudden realization that, quite apart from not trusting me, Natalia doesn’t feel safe with me. It sends a jolt of something very much like regret coursing through my gut.

“This is what you agreed to, Natalia,” I remind her softly.

She whips away from me to face the far wall. If she’s crying, she doesn’t want me to see it.

“I know exactly what I agreed to,” she whispers back, so quietly that I almost miss it.

The words she’s left unspoken come through loud and clear. But maybe I shouldn’t have.

Resisting the urge to touch her, I sweep out of the office, leaving behind the mingling scents of sex and sadness. I’m so deeply preoccupied by that hurt look in her eyes that I don’t even notice Byron until he’s slipping around the corner to face me.

Before he can so much as open his mouth, I grab him by the front of his shirt and slam him hard against the same wall he was hiding behind this whole time.

“This is your first and last warning,” I snarl. “Go near my woman again and you will regret it.”

I shove him against the wall once more for good measure, just to make sure the message sinks in. Then I stalk away, happy at least that I can put some distance between me and that sniveling rat.

I ignore the curious looks Anatoly and Olaf toss my way as I storm through the lobby. Outside, I throw myself into my car, the memory of Natalia’s dejected face burning itself into my retinas.

The last time a woman looked at me with that kind of disappointment, I lied and promised her everything would be okay.

Which makes me realize with an uncomfortable jolt?—

Maybe that woman is due for a visit.

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