Page 127 of Sweet Obsession
What tomorrow would bring.
The vote.
Misha versus Chernov.
Power versus power. Blood against blood.
Only one of them would walk away as Pakhan.
And I wasn’t sure what scared me more—what Misha would become if he won.
Or what might happen if he didn’t.
I looked down, and froze.
My shirt, soaked with pigment and thinner, had turned nearly translucent. My skin. My bra. Every inch underneath was visible in vivid, humiliating detail.
I yanked the hem instinctively. “Don’t...”
“I’m not,” Misha said, voice rougher now. “Looking, I mean.”
But he was.
Not like a man ogling.
More like a man watching a lit fuse snake toward something breakable.
I backed up too fast.
My heel slipped on the wet floor. “Shit—!”
He caught me. One arm braced tight around my waist, the other on my back.
I was suspended—flushed against him, every line of muscle and heat anchoring me in place.
And then his hand slid. Just a little. Just enough.
A bolt of heat ripped down my spine.
I looked up.
He was already looking down.
And the moment tilted.
Gravity shifted. The air thinned. Every part of me leaned in before I could stop it.
His mouth brushed mine.
Not soft. Not sweet.
It was hot—bristled, hungry, dangerous. The kind of kiss that warned you this will cost you.
A mistake.
A betrayal of every boundary I’d tried to draw.
And still—
