The car ride after dinner is painfully silent.
I stare out the window at the passing city lights, trying not to think about what just happened. Have you ever watched the world reduce you to an object?
The mistress. The secret. The shameful thing hidden in the shadows.
I sat there and just let them. I didn’t speak up, didn’t wave my hand and shout, Hey, I’m a person, by the way. I come complete with thoughts and feelings and batteries included!
Nope. I sat. I said not-a-fucking-thing.
I let them choose my fate for me.
Now, I really might be sick.
“You’re quiet,” Vince remarks.
I don’t look at him. “Should I not be?”
“I want to know what you’re thinking.”
I laugh, a brittle sound that cracks and dies in the air between us. “Trust me, you don’t.”
“Try me.”
I finally turn to face him. “Fine. I’m thinking this is insane. All of it. The fact that I’m even considering being your… what? Your dirty little secret? Is there a word for that in Russian I should learn?”
“Is that what you think this is?”
“What else could it be?” I gesture helplessly. “You heard her! She’s offering you exactly what you need: a wife who doesn’t care if you’re sleeping with someone else. And that someone else would be me.”
“And that bothers you.”
“Of course it bothers me!” I snap. “I’m not— I don’t…” I fumble and lapse into a stupid silence, because whether you speak Russian, English, Klingon, or otherwise, they don’t make words for situations like this.
“You don’t what?” he presses.
I don’t want to share you. I don’t want to be your second choice. I don’t want to fall in love with someone who can never fully be mine.
But I can’t say any of that. So instead, I say, “I don’t know what I want anymore.”
His forehead furrows smooth out. “Come home with me tonight.”
It’s not a question, but it’s not quite a command, either. It’s… an invitation.
One I should refuse.
One I know I won’t.
“That is a bad idea,” I whisper.
“Probably,” he agrees.
But he’s already tapping on the divider, instructing the driver to take us to his penthouse.
And I’m letting him.
Because no matter how many times I tell myself this can only end in heartbreak, I can’t seem to stay away from him. I’m a moth circling a flame, drawing closer and closer despite knowing I’ll eventually be consumed.
But my God…
What a way to burn.
Vince’s penthouse feels different at night.
The view is the same as it is from his office, more or less. Manhattan in every direction, glittering, indomitable. But it all feels farther away than it ever has before. I’m insulated from it, or within it, in a way I can’t quite wrap my head around.
I can’t decide if it makes me feel safer, or if this is just the grim acceptance of a drowning victim who’s finally realized that no help is coming.
My reflection looks every bit as small and uncertain as I feel. Eyes tired, hair drooping, arms wrapped around myself like that’s the only thing keeping me together.
“Drink?” he asks, moving to the bar.
“Several, please.”
He pours two glasses of amber liquid and returns to stand next to me. I take the one he offers, our fingers brushing in the exchange. Even that small contact sends electricity shooting up my arm.
“To unconventional arrangements,” he says, raising his glass.
I don’t toast. Instead, I take a long sip, welcoming the burn down my throat. “More like irreversible mistakes.”
“And yet you’re here.”
I take another drink instead of answering. We both know why I’m here. The same reason I keep coming back, despite every warning bell in my head.
Because when he touches me, everything else falls away.
“You’re overthinking,” he accuses, moving closer.
“One of us has to do at least some thinking.”
His hand brushes my cheek, then slides to the back of my neck to hook me closer to him. “Not tonight.”
Then his lips find mine, and just like that, my resolve goes up in smoke.
I melt against him, my hands clutching at his shirt as if I might float away without him to anchor me. He tastes like whiskey and sin and every bad decision I’ve ever wanted to make.
“Tell me to stop,” he murmurs against my mouth.
“I can’t,” I whisper back. “I want this too much.”
That’s all the permission he needs.
His kisses intensify. His hands roam my body with possessive intent, leaving fire in their wake. He backs me against the window, cold glass at my back, his heat at my front.
I should be scared of the height, of the exposure. But all I can focus on is him.
“I’ve been thinking about this all day,” he growls, hiking my dress up my thighs inch by devastating inch. “Watching you at that dinner, pretending we hadn’t fucked. Acting as if I don’t know exactly how you sound when you come.”
A whimper escapes me. “Vince, please—”
“Please what?” His fingers find the edge of my underwear, teasing. “Tell me what you need.”
“You,” I gasp as he pushes the fabric aside. “Just you.”
He smiles against my neck. “Good girl.”
His fingers slide inside me, finding me already wet, already desperate for him. I arch into his touch, shameless in my need.
“So needy,” he murmurs. “So perfect for me.”
I cling to him as he works me with his fingers. My breath stops and stutters in my chest as I get closer, closer, clo—
“No, no. That’s not a good girl. I didn’t say you could come yet,” he scolds when I’m almost there. “I want you in my bed.”
He lifts me effortlessly, my legs wrapping around his waist as he carries me to his bedroom. The room is massive, dominated by a king-sized bed with dark sheets.
He lays me down carefully. But the gentleness doesn’t last. His eyes darken as he looks down at me, spread out on his bed.
“Take off your dress,” he commands.
With trembling fingers, I comply, pulling the fabric over my head and dropping it to the floor. My underwear follows, leaving me naked under his gaze.
“Beautiful,” he says, voice rough.
He undresses quickly, efficiently, revealing that body I can’t seem to get enough of. The scars. The tattoos. The evidence of a life I’ll never fully understand.
When he joins me on the bed, I open to him willingly, eagerly. There’s no hesitation now, no doubts. Just want. Need. Hunger.
“Condom,” I manage to gasp as he positions himself between my thighs.
He reaches for his nightstand, retrieving one and rolling it on. Then he’s pushing inside me, filling me completely.
I cry out at the intrusion, the stretch. It’s both pain and pleasure, too much and not enough.
“Did I say you could close your eyes?”
I wrench my eyes open, meeting his gaze. In this moment, with him inside me, I feel seen in a way I never have before. He watches me in a way that no one ever does.
As if he can’t look away.
As if I’m the center of his universe.
I know it’s an illusion. Tomorrow, he’ll go back to his world of power and politics and arranged marriages.
But tonight, in this bed, he’s mine.
I’ll take what I can get.
“Move,” I plead. “Please.”
He does, starting a rhythm that’s both punishing and perfect. His thrusts plow me into the mattress, each one sending shockwaves of pleasure through my body.
“Vince. Vincent. Please—”
“Please what?”
“Make me come. I need— I need—”
He slips a hand between us, finding my clit again. “Like this?”
“Yes! God, yes!”
It takes only a few circles of his thumb to send me over the edge. I shatter beneath him, his name torn from my throat as pleasure consumes me.
He’s right behind me. He erupts inside me and I clamp down as he empties himself, pulsing, shivering, snarling.
Afterward, he doesn’t immediately pull away. He stays inside me, his weight a welcome burden, his breath hot against my neck.
When he finally rolls to the side, he takes me with him, tucked me against his chest like he wants me to stay.
That’s the most dangerous part.
More dangerous than the gun in his desk. More dangerous than the men who tried to kill him. More dangerous than the Russian mafia and all its violence.
The way he holds me afterward—that’s what will kill me in the end.
“Stay tonight,” he says, his voice rumbling against my ear.
I should say no. There’s a sad, miserable apartment and a sad, miserable life waiting for me to step back into it. They both know I’m fooling myself by pretending I can fit into this grim and twisted fairy tale.
Instead, I nod against his chest.
“Just for tonight,” I warn.
I’m lying to myself as much as to him.
Because I know I’ll be back tomorrow night. And the night after that. Even as I tell myself it’s just physical. Just an addiction I need to work out of my system. Even as I promise myself not to fall for a man who belongs to a world I’ll never be part of.
Even as I whisper in the darkness of my own mind: It’s just sex. It doesn’t mean anything. Don’t you dare fall in love.
… Oops.
