Page 4 of The Russian's Innocent Prey
“Lev,” I started to say, but he pressed me back against the wall, his hands braced on either side of my head.
“Do you have any idea what you do to me?” His voice was raw, desperate in a way I’d never heard from him before. “Any idea how hard it’s been to keep my hands off you?”
I couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe. Could only stare up at him and try to process the fact that Lev Antonov—cold, controlled, untouchable Lev—was falling apart because of me.
“Answer me.”
“I hoped,” I whispered. “I hoped you felt something.”
He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Something? Anya, you’ve been driving me insane for months. Every time I see you, every time you smile at me or say my name or just exist in the same room as me, I have to remind myself why I can’t have you.”
“What if I don’t want to be something you can’t have?”
The question hung in the air between us, loaded with promise and peril in equal measure. Lev’s eyes searched my face like he was looking for some sign that I didn’t mean it, some indication that this was just the alcohol talking.
He wouldn’t find it. Because this was the most honest I’d ever been in my life.
“Anya,” he breathed, saying my name like a prayer, like a curse.
“Kiss me.”
For a heartbeat, he didn’t move. Just stared at me with those storm-gray eyes while I held my breath and waited for him to either give in or walk away.
Then his mouth was on mine, and the world exploded.
It wasn’t gentle. Wasn’t the careful, exploratory kiss I might have expected from someone who’d been holding back for so long. It was desperate and hungry and completely consuming, like he was trying to devour me from the inside out.
I kissed him back with everything I had, months of suppressed desire pouring out in the slide of lips and tongue and the scrape of teeth. He tasted like vodka and danger and something that was uniquely him, something I wanted to drown in.
His hands found my waist, pulling me against him until there wasn’t an inch of space between us. I could feel the hard line of his body, could feel how much he wanted me, and it made me bold in ways I’d never been before.
I tangled my fingers in his hair, messing up the perfect style until it fell across his forehead in dark waves. He groaned against my mouth, the sound vibrating through me like electricity.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” he said when we broke apart to breathe, but he didn’t let go of me.
“I know.” I was breathing hard, my lips swollen and my body aching for more. “I don’t care.”
“Your brother—”
“Isn’t here.” I pressed closer, until I could feel his heart hammering against his ribs. “It’s just us.”
He stared down at me for a long moment, and I could see the exact moment his resolve crumbled completely.
“If we do this,” he said, his voice rough with want, “there’s no going back.”
“I don’t want to go back.”
Something shifted in his expression then, something primal and possessive that made my stomach clench with anticipation.
“Not here,” he said, pressing one last, devastating kiss to my lips. “When I take you for the first time, it won’t be against a wall in some back room where anyone could walk in.”
The promise in his voice made my knees weak, made heat pool low in my belly in a way that was both terrifying and thrilling.
“When?” I whispered.
“Soon.” His thumb traced the line of my jaw, gentle despite the hunger burning in his eyes. “But not tonight. Tonight, you go home and think about whether this is really what you want.”
“I already know—”
