Page 26 of Gilded Cage (Kovalyov Bratva 1)

When I don’t reply, he takes a step forward.

I flinch instantly. “Don’t come any closer,” I order.

“And here I was expecting a thank you,” he drawls. But to his credit, he stops in his tracks.

His eyes bore into my face. Something rises, hot and desperate, inside me. I’ve never quite felt anything like it before and it takes me off guard.

“Why?” I ask. “So you can finish what he started?”

His eyes flash dangerously. “Do I look like the kind of man who needs to force himself on a woman?”

“How would I know?” I spit. “I don’t know you.”

“No, but you’ve been staring at me like you do.”

My mouth pops open in shock. I thought I was being subtle. I try and recover, but I fear he’s already seen through me.

“You were the one staring at me.”

He smiles, a slow, tilted grin that sends a bolt of electricity shooting up between my legs.What the fuck is that?

“Yes, I was,” he admits freely.

“Why?” I ask.

“Why?” he repeats, raising one dusky eyebrow. “Because men like me live to claim women like you.”

My breath catches in my throat.

Without thinking, I take a step towards him. Something magnetic takes ahold of me.

I make a decision in that moment.

For no one else but me.

BecauseIwant to.

“He had his hands all over me,” I say softly.

Anger flashes across his eyes, bitter and terrible. He says nothing though. Waits for me to go on.

“Make me forget,” I whisper. “Make me forget that he ever touched me.”

My savior closes the final distance. Raises his hand. Lets his thumb trail along my bottom lip.

It’s the only moment made of tenderness.

In the next second, his lips crash down on mine like a storm and my arms wrap around his neck.

I can feel his hands on my back, before they slip down, squeezing my ass and hoisting me up around his waist.

He turns and carries me to the bathroom counter. He sets me down on the marble, right between two sinks.

My body registers how cool the marble is, but it’s extinguished almost immediately by the heat of his hands.

They rake across my skin, leaving trails of fire that somehow find their way between my legs. I can feel his cock pressed up against my thigh and it makes me moan.

Desire—that’s what I feel with this stranger.

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