Page 52 of 10 Days to Ruin

My grip on her wrist tightens as the blood pounds through my veins. We’re headed towards the point of no return.

“You’re playing with fire, Ariel.”

She shifts in my lap, and I bite back a groan. The friction is fucking killing me.

Her free hand meanders down my abs and toys with the buckle of my belt. “Hm. You sure seem to be enjoying it.”

I capture her other wrist, but she just rolls her hips again, and my grip falters. My head falls back against the chair, a curse escaping through clenched teeth.

“Look at you,” she purrs. “The big bad Bratva boss, coming apart because of little old me.”

My eyes snap open—when did I close them?—to find her watching me with dark satisfaction.

She knows exactly what she’s doing. How close I am to breaking.

Her weight shifts, and suddenly, she’s standing. The loss of contact is the cruelest wakeup I’ve ever had.

“What—” My hands reach for her automatically, but she dances back, straightening her skirt.

“I didn’t even realize how much of your time I was taking up!” She says it so innocently, with such a pure flutter of her eyelashes, that I almost buy it. “You did say you were busy, right? I didn’t come here to interrupt. And besides…” Her tongue darts out to wet her lips. “I’m not that hungry, anyway.”

Then she turns and, hips swaying, saunters out. Hips go left. Hips go right. Her hair goes back up in its neat little bun.

And the door goesclickonce more.

Gone. Just like that.

I stare at the empty doorway, my cock throbbing painfully against my zipper. My hands are still tingling from where they’d gripped her hips, her waist, her?—

Fuck.

I haven’t felt this raw, this exposed, since… since the bathroom, actually. Since I walked out on her, shaking with unspent lust and the gnawing certainty that I’d made a mistake.

Now, she’s returned the favor, leaving me with the same bitter taste of what could have been. What almost was.

What I almost let happen.

I push myself up from the chair. The leather creaks beneath me. The room feels too small, too hot. The air is thick with her scent.Peaches,like I work in a fucking orchard now.

I stalk to the window, wishing I could wrench it open, but ripping my tie loose instead. Below, the city sprawls, a concrete jungle teeming with life. Usually, the view calms me. Reminds me of everything I’ve built, everything I control.

But today, it’s a mockery. A reminder of how easily I can lose control. How quickly she can unravel me.

I slam my fist against the glass, the vibration jarring my teeth.

What the fuck was that?

It wasn’t a seduction. Not exactly. It was a… a declaration of war. Not foreplay—apowerplay.

And I almost let her win. I almost forgot who I am, what I’m capable of.

Almost.

I turn, surveying the room. Her presence lingers everywhere—in the scattered papers on my desk, in the faint scent of her perfume, in the throbbing ache of my frustrated cock.

I snatch up the laptop she’d toyed with and flip it open. The screen glows, illuminating the spreadsheet I’d been working on before she walked in. Before she turned my world upside down.

Serbian distribution routes. Profit margins. Logistics. The things that matter. The things I should be focused on.

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