Page 36 of Wicked Vow

“That, Natalia, would be no hardship at all.”

The way he says my name is meant to be seductive, I know. His accent thickens on it, the word tangling around his tongue, but it still somehow can’t match the way it feels when Mikhail says my name.What is wrong with me?

Something must be, surely. A handsome man is dancing with me, a man who at any other time would have been exactly my type. He’s confident, but not so full of himself as to be annoying, charming without seeming fake or smarmy, sophisticated, and well-spoken.

And he smells good.

He has me up against his chest now as the music slows, swaying to it with his hand still pressed to my lower back, the fingers of his other hand laced through mine. I can feel him, solid and warm against me, the spicy scent of his cologne filling my senses. I can feel the desire running through him, the way his hand grips me just a little too tightly, but it’s not obscene. He’s not aroused; there’s no hard ridge pressing into my thigh, no demanding desire. And that’s the problem.

Erik might be everything I could hope to check off on the list of what I might want in a man on paper. Still, he lacks that fervent urgency that I felt with Mikhail, that hungry, all-consuming need, that ferocious animal desire.

That’s what got you into a situation where you were in a basement with a knife cutting away your clothes. That got you into a dog crate, being fucked whether you wanted it or not. That got you cuffed to a bed while Mikhail belted you until you almost came.

That last memory jolts me, heat sweeping through me at the memory of Mikhail’s belt on my ass, my thighs,betweenthem, how nearly I’d come to climaxing from the sweet, hot pain of it. It makes my knees weak, my pulse leaping in my throat, and Erik picks up on it as my step falters, his hand tightening on my back.

“Are you alright?” He looks down at me with clear concern. “Do you need to sit down? I didn’t see you drinking–”

“I had champagne earlier,” I lie, not wanting him to pick up on a potential reason why I mightnotbe drinking. It’s not that I’m trying to hide it, exactly, but it’s not a conversation I want to have just now, with this man I’ve just met, in the middle of the dance floor. “But no, I just tripped a little. I’m fine.”

“A ballerina tripping.” Erik grins, but there’s no malice in it. “Should I hope you were thrown off by how attracted you are to me?”

There’s a hint of self-deprecation in the comment, a wry humor that makes me want to like him. Ishouldlike him. He’s given me no reason not to.

“You can hope,” I tell him, letting a hint of flirtation slip into my voice, and from the way his smile spreads slowly, I can tell that he likes my reply.

His hand lets go of mine, his arm slipping around my waist as his hand comes to my cheek, tilting my chin upwards with a brush of fingers that, for just a moment, sends a small ripple of sensation down my spine.

Iwantto want him. I want to feel more. But I can tell that he’s about to kiss me, and all I can think is that I want to pull away. That it’s not his lips on mine that I’m longing for.

A chill ripples down my spine again, but this time it’s not from any touch of his. We’re in a room full of people, and it shouldn’t feel strange that I feel as if there are eyes on me.

But I can’t shake the sensation that someone, in particular, is watching.

That they’re watchingme.

Mikhail

Sneaking into the gala was a risk I shouldn’t have taken. But like many risks lately, I couldn’t talk myself out of it.

Luckily, I’ve had years of training in how to be stealthy, how to pull off dangerous missions without getting caught, how to break in and how to hide myself, and how to gather information that could get me killed if I’m found out. It’s lucky that it’s so ingrained as to basically be innate by this point, because if it wasn’t, I’d almost certainly be dead already from my lack of self-control.

I’d managed to find similar clothing to what the security for the event was wearing. I’d used that tactic to slip into the event unnoticed, keeping to the perimeter where I could quickly slip away if need be. I’d tried to stay aware of where others were, the patterns of the other security in the building, but from the moment I’d seen Natalia, it had been hard to focus on anything else.

She’d been beyond beautiful. I’d never seen her so dressed up in person before, only in photos from my research on her back in Moscow. It had felt like torture to stay far on the other side of the room, out of sight, unable to speak to her or let her know that I was there.

I tried to focus on the satisfying part of all of this–that three times now, I’d snuck into close proximity to Viktor without him realizing it.There’s a reason why I was one of your most valued men,I thought grimly as I watched him walk with the others to their table, completely unaware.You should have thought about that before you threw me away so easily.

A part of me wants to punish him for that, to get vengeance for his casual dismissal of me–but I can’t bring myself to focus on it. What I want more than anything is Natalia and the possibility of the family we could have together. Going after Viktor would endanger that, and it’s no longer worth it to me.

And then, as I hang back, watching the dinner proceedings, I see the man approaching their table.

He’s no one I know, but I see the way he looks at Natalia before he’s even close enough to speak to anyone there, and it infuriates me. His eyes rake over her with a desire that’s all too familiar to me. It takes everything in me not to stride across the room and grab him by the collar, dragging him away from her.

The feeling only intensifies once he speaks to her. I’d have to be fucking blind not to see that he’s flirting with her, and the fact that she doesn’t immediately dismiss him makes it worse. I can see her entertaining the flirtation, theideaof him, and that makes me murderously angry.

I know that violence won’t help me, though. It won’t win her back–it will only make things worse–and so I hold on to that last shred of my self-control, watching them with gritted teeth as the man takes her hand and leads her out onto the dance floor. It makes me want to punch Viktor squarely in the face more than I already do, because I’m absolutely certain that he introduced that man to her on purpose.

He and his wife are trying to put distance between Natalia and me, to distract her from me, to make herforgetme. I know they are. It’s evident in their actions, from helping Ruby, to inviting Sasha and Max back from Boston to reunite Natasha with her sister, to bringing her to the gala and introducing her to this acquaintance of Viktor’s. They’re trying to build a new life for her with walls high enough to shut me out, and I’m determined to scale them.

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