Page 13 of His Hold

“I see that you love looking at me in this towel,” she teases me, her voice cutting through my thoughts.

I clench my jaw, heat surging through me, my cock straining against my jeans as I hold her stare. “Careful, malyshka. You’re playing with fire, and I burn hot.

She lets the towel dip lower, revealing more of her body. My blood roars, and I close the gap, towering over her, my hand hovering near her waist, itching to rip that towel away. “I could devour you, Katya, leave you trembling, begging for more.”

Her lips part, a flush creeping down her neck, but she doesn’t back down, her voice a taunt. “Big talk for a man who’s just standing there. Scared I’ll taste too good?”

I growl, low and hungry, my fingers grazing her arm, electric sparks igniting. “Scared? No. I’m fighting not to fuck you against this wall, towel be damned.”

She leans in, her damp skin brushing my chest, her whisper a dare. “Then why fight it? You want me, Nikolai. I see it in those eyes, starving for a taste.”

My control frays, my hand sliding to her hip, gripping just shy of bruising. “You don’t know what you’re asking, printsessa. If I take you, there’s no going back.”

“Then take,” she says, her gaze fierce, towel slipping to reveal a nipple, hard and tempting. “Or are you afraid I’ll ruin you first?

I press closer, my cock throbbing, her heat pulling me under. “Ruin me? Malyshka, I’d wreck you, and you’d thank me for it.

Calling her baby or beautiful in Russian means absolutely nothing. But she is. Beautiful, I mean. Fucking exquisite.

I have encountered enough women in the past to give an expert opinion, but this woman trumps it all. She smells of soft skin, wet hair, and damp pussy, but there is something else as well, something spicy and sensual that makes me want to do all sorts of depraved things to her.

I get even closer to her on reflex, first to capture the essence of that spicy smell, then to feel the softness of her skin against my rough hands.

The light dustings of freckles on her cheeks are marvelous, bathing her in such a warm tinge I ache to melt into and devour her whole. It’s disturbing enough to feel these things for a woman who could very well have been sent by an enemy.

It certainly isn’t the first time I am getting… propositioned by women like this. And yet, despite knowing, or rather, suspecting it, I can’t get myself to stop wanting her.

Her teasing suddenly changes form. She raises her chin up, stares at me with annoyance rather than anything else, and finally says:

“I’m just looking for what happened to my sister. She was kidnapped over five years ago. I only started searching for her a few months back when I saw your name in her journal. Up until now, all the leads I found about her involvement in the Bratva have been a dead end, but this one pointed to you. You were the last person seen with her before she disappeared.”

Her voice is firm, insolent, but her eyes make me want to hear more. This is definitely not pity I feel.

“How did you find me?” I ask.

“When I found your name in her journal. I dug into her laptop and found a deleted photo of you on her cloud storage. It was attached to the same message I saw in her journal. I had an ex in the police force, and he owed me a favor, so I ran your face through facial recognition software.”

My jaw tightens. “And?”

“And you’re not as much of a ghost as you think you are. It turns out that being a writer isn’t just about making up stories. It’s about knowing how to find the right ones.”

So, she’s good at this. Better than I gave her credit for. But instead of admiring her resourcefulness, all I feel is the need to crush it.

“So, you aren’t a spy?”

“No.”

“And nobody sent you?”

“No.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“Do whatever you want to do, but that’s the whole truth.”

“Don’t tempt me, Krasivaya, or you’ll be dead before your pretty little body touches the floor. It’d be a shame, don’t you think, for me to mess up the rug here? Hard for the next person to clean up.”

Her eyes soften considerably. “I wasn’t spying on you, I promise,” she whispers, her voice shuddering now, and it’s like music to my fucked-up soul.

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