Page 64 of 10 Days to Ruin

My palms glide over Sasha’s shoulders, the lotion turning his torso slick. Every ridge of muscle becomes a chance to lose whatever game we’ve found ourselves playing. I have to remind myself of the rules again and again.

Don’t linger. Don’t cave.

Make him hate you. Make him run.

“Harder,” he rasps. “Or can those dainty hands not manage?”

I claw my nails in. “How’s that?”

A low groan vibrates under my fingers. “Much, much better. A little pain makes the pleasure that much sweeter, doesn’t it?”

Sweat beads at my temples. The steam coils around us, thickening the air until every breath feels like swallowing clouds. His scars gleam under my touch—raised, angry terrain. My fingertips hover over the one circling his neck before I pull away, ashamed.

I go back to the massage, and as I do, I try to make it a mechanical thing. I could be rubbing anything, right? Conditioning a leather couch, for instance. Bathing a dog. Completely non-sexual. No reason to get all hot and bothered.

Except, of course, for the literal heat. Sasha’s heat, the steam’s heat, my own heat bubbling up from somewhere deep between my thighs.

More heat blooms where my hand has found its way to splay across the bottom line of his abs. I watch in dumb shock as it goes lower. Lower. Low?—

Nope,toolow.

I try to wrench free, but he holds firm, guiding me over the swell of his?—

“Sasha!”

“You’re straying a little off the beaten path, Ariel.” His eyes are bright, even as his face is framed by billowing steam. “A less humble man might even think you’re after something.”

I let out a derisive snort. “Putting yourself in the same sentence as ‘humble’ might be the most batshit thing you’ve done yet.”

His other hand drifts to cup the back of my knee. “Oh, I’ve got lots more insanity you’ve never seen before.”

“Keep it to yourself,” I grit out. “Roll over.”

Smirking, he does as I say. That’s perfect—him facing away from me makes this easier. If I can’t see his eyes, I can’t be hypnotized by them, right?

But the fact that Sasha Ozerov just actually obeyed an instruction of mine immediately sends me hurtling back toward the fantasy I dreamed up in those feverish few minutes after the office invasion.

Keep those hands right there. Yes, that’s a good boy. Right there, where I can see them and make sure you’re not being naughty.

A full-body shiver commences.

It’s not that I want to boss him around; if I had my way, there’d be thousands of miles between us, and I wouldn’t give a damn about what he chose to do with his hands.

But there’s something intoxicating about the idea. About him letting me be in charge.

Maybe it’s because, percolating underneath the addictive high of that power fantasy, is the knowledge that it could end at any time. That if he wanted, he could rise up from the massage table, andsnap.

Could go fucking feral.

Could pin me down and make me his and remind me that, at the end of the day, only one of us has ever truly held the upper hand.

And it’s never, ever been me.

“Tell me about your first time.”

His voice rips me out of my own head. “Mywhat?”

“The first time you came undone.” I look up to see he’s still face-down, utterly at ease. Moisture beads in the crevice of his spine, pooling at each notch in the bone. “Was it alone or with someone? Quick and shameful? Or slow like sacrilege?”

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