What the fuck?
I couldn’t take my eyes off Sloane’s hands. She had them on the cook’s, and that was all that I had to witness to drop into an instant, red-hot rage.
Rage was all I’d experienced tonight. When Nik and I headed to a warehouse to check on concerns of spies getting close, we’d ended up in a bloodbath. Some Cartel dumbasses opened fire on us and it was a tense exchange. Nik had taken a shot to the arm, just a grazing, but anytime my brothers were wounded, it pushed me into a more convoluted and volatile state of wanting to destroy everyone in my path.
We’d all fought hard. And all the Ivanov men with us had shot back to keep the Cartel members away from our prime drug distribution site. It had left me with a residual ember of anger, though, and seeing Sloane so close to one of the cooks reignited the heat of my darkness, sparking fresh fury to consume me.
“You belong to me,” I reminded her again, as if she’d forgotten. I didn’t know how she could’ve lost sight of that crucial detail. My cock had been inside her daily. Her pussy ached and was bruised from the force of my thrusts. I’d marked her, with my cock, my fingers, and my mouth. Hidden under her clothes was the proof of the fierce intimacy that I expected her to handle from me.
“Maxim, you’re overreacting.”
Gritting my teeth so hard that the enamel had to be pulverized by now, I closed the distance between us to pull her away.
“I’m sorry,” the young cook said as he backed up from Sloane again. His hand was bleeding. A piece of glass was jammed in his palm with red drops leaking to the counter.
That didn’t matter. Nothing about him touching her—or her touching him—would be okay.
What pissed me off the most was that she’d try this tactic with me. Trying to tell me what I was thinking or feeling. Attempting to let me know how I should be taking this.
“Don’t fucking gaslight me.” I grabbed her forearm and wrenched her back, too full of jealousy to slow down this fast track into dark, sinister rage.
“I’m not gaslighting you!” She let more of her sass and slang-like tone cut into her words. Talking more like she was from the hood, she doused her reply with too much attitude.
“And don’t fucking talk back to me,” I growled, reaching again for her since she’d tugged her arm away. This time, I wasn’t letting go for a second
“I’m not!” she snapped.
The cook backed up more, almost as if he were more afraid that someone was daring to defy me. If this were anyone else, I would’ve punched them already, but Sloane gripped me with that stubborn glare of hers.
“I’m not gaslighting you. You are overreacting. What the hell is so wrong about my trying to help him?”
I tugged her further from the cook, too delirious with jealousy to listen to her or rationalize what she was saying.
“Get over here,” I ordered her, intent on dragging her upstairs.
“No. I’m not some thing to pull around.”
She wasn’t. She was so much more than a thing, no matter how hard I tried to compartmentalize her as a dismissible mistress. Sloane was getting to me, and I hated that my instant reaction of jealousy like this was proving that point even more. If she didn’t matter to me, if she were really just a mistress I’d breed, then I wouldn’t be so invested to get this mad that another man had touched her, or that she’d touched someone else.
“What the hell did I do that was so wrong?” She pushed at my hand on her forearm, but my fingers wouldn’t budge. “I was just walking by and heard him in pain. He dropped something and got cut, and I was helping him clean it off.”
I didn’t care.
As I towed her after me, forcing her toward the elevator, I vowed to let all her words go in one ear and out the other. She couldn’t be right, that I was overreacting. I hated the possibility that she had this much hold over me to thrust me into a jealous fit because of her helping someone who’d been hurt.
“Maxim!” She slapped her hand against my chest as the elevator doors opened and I shoved her inside. Catching her hand, I walked her all the way in the metal car until her back smacked against the mirrored wall.
She panted, breathing so hard and fast as she scowled at me. Even like this, she was gorgeous. Radiant. So full of sass and fire that she was impossible to resist.
Fuck.
She was too much. She was coming to matter way too damn much.
“What is wrong with you?” she demanded, stubborn and strong, not flinching or shy at all.
Women who came into my life for no-strings sex never talked back to me. Not even the Ivanov soldiers or staff members would dare to raise an opinion against me. Only my brothers, father, and grandmother could take that kind of scolding tone with me.
But hearing Sloane speak to me like this pushed my buttons.
“What’s wrong with me?” I growled as I pinned her to the wall as the elevator car lifted. Her eyes, open wide with alarm, were on me. Her lips, pinched in a defiant frown, didn’t change as she tipped her chin up.
She wouldn’t back down.
Deep inside me, my dark soul rejoiced that she could handle me like this. I craved her resistance. I wanted the fight so that the moment I tamed her and got her submission, it would be all the sweeter.
“I’m furious that another man would touch you when you. Are. Mine.” I punctuated those last words with pushes of her against the wall.
Still, she maintained that hot glare.
“And I’m taking you upstairs to remind you of that.” I stepped back as the elevator reached my floor. Pulling her with me, we exited as I glowered down at her. “You said you’d be a good girl,” I reminded her.
“I—”
“You said you’d be a good girl, Sloane.” I released her with a shove, letting her backpedal through my apartment as I chased her toward the bedroom. As I stalked her, I began to roughly pull at my jacket and tie, shedding my clothes as I steered her to where I’d show her how she belonged to me. No one else. “I didn’t expect to come home and see your hand on another man.”
“I was helping him with a cut!” She growled, furrowing her brow as she backed up further. “I wasn’t groping him!”
“It doesn’t matter. You are here for me. You are here to give me an heir and to be here for me alone.”
She snarled as I put my hand up and reached over her shoulder to slam the bedroom door open.
“I don’t belong to you,” she argued as we entered the room, facing each other off. “Not like that. Not where you’ll be a fucking caveman about my helping someone on your staff when they’re hurt.”
“Want to bet?” I taunted as I grabbed the waistband of her skirt to tug her flush to me. I wasn’t waiting for a reply. I crushed my lips against hers and muffled her with a brutal kiss.
