Page 45 of Inked Adonis

“Like you rolled over for me?” I challenge, because apparently, I have a death wish. “Are you vicious, too, Samuil?”

His laugh this time is dark honey, dangerous and sweet. “Probably.” His fingers tighten slightly on my wrist. “But don’t try to tame me. You won’t like what happens.”

The threat in his voice should send me running. Instead, it draws me closer, like a moth to a beautiful, deadly flame.

His finger stills on my scar. The silence stretches between us, thick with all the things we’re not saying. The darkness makes it too easy to forget who we are to each other—captor and captive, predator and prey. Too easy to pretend this moment exists outside of everything else.

“You should be afraid of me,” he says finally, his voice rough. “Not seeking comfort in my arms.”

“Iamafraid of you.” The confession slips out before I can stop it. “Just not in the way you think.”

His breath catches. In the slice of light from the hallway, I see his expression shift—hunger and hesitation warring in those storm-gray eyes. Like he’s fighting the same battle I am.

“Tell me,” he demands softly.

“I’m afraid...” My voice breaks. I swallow hard and try again. “I’m afraid of how much I want to trust you. Even knowing what you are. What you could do to me.”

His other hand comes up to cup my face, thumb brushing my cheekbone. The tenderness in that touch makes my chest ache. “And what am I, little one?”

“Dangerous,” I whisper. “Beautiful.” My eyes flutter closed as his thumb traces my bottom lip. “Everything I should run from. Everything I can’t.”

The kiss, when it comes, catches me off-guard.

One moment, he’s warning me away, and the next, his mouth is on mine, hot and hungry and tasting of danger. Not comfort. Not romance. Pure want wrapped in shadows.

I should push him away. Should remember that he’s my captor, that this is probably just another way to control me. But his kiss speaks a language my body understands better than my brain does—one of need and heat and forgetting.

His hands cradle my face like I’m something precious even as his mouth claims me like I’m something owned. The contradiction undoes me.

When he finally pulls back, I’m breathless and broken open. He guides my head to rest against his chest, where his heartbeat drums a steady rhythm against my cheek.

I let exhaustion drag me under, knowing I’ll hate myself in the morning, knowing this moment of weakness will cost me.

But right now, in the dark, I let myself pretend this could be real.

And why couldn’t it? His body touching mine is real. His heat blooming beneath me is real. The strength in his arms where they keep me close—that’s very, very real.

The last thing I register before unconsciousness claims me is the brush of his lips against my temple. So gentle it might be my imagination. So tender it has to be a lie.

Sleep takes me before I can hear him leave.

Morning hitslike a slap in the face. Samuil’s gone.

In his place, a stern-faced Russian woman offers me coffee in a heavy accent, informing me that “Mr. Litvinov will return for dinner.” Like this is normal. Like I’m a guest and not a prisoner.

The housekeeper hovers, watching me with sharp eyes that miss nothing. She’s older, maybe sixty, with steel-gray hair pulled back in a severe bun and hands that look too strong for her small frame. Her black dress and sensible shoes scream efficiency. The kind of person who keeps secrets for a living.

“You will eat,” she says, not a question. “Mr. Litvinov insists.”

Of course he does. Can’t have his prisoner wasting away. Bad for business, probably.

I accept the coffee but ignore the spread of pastries she’s laid out on the food cart. They smell amazing—all butter and sugar and everything I normally love. But my stomach is too knotted to handle food right now.

The reality of my situation comes into sharp focus as I rise and walk the penthouse with Rufus pressed against my leg. Tattooed men with dead eyes have sprouted overnight like mushrooms after rain. They’re stationed everywhere—one scrolling his phone by the private elevator, another “casually” reading a newspaper on the terrace, a third lounging in the kitchen, positioned suspiciously close to the knife block.

I count four gleaming new cameras just in the living room. Five in the hallway. The floor-to-ceiling windows showcase a view of Chicago that reminds me exactly how far up we are.

How isolated. How trapped.

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