My father would be among the loudest of those people.
I, however, should probably have shut my big, dumb mouth. In a flash, Mikhail crosses the distance between us and cages me in.
His palm is flat against the wall next to my head. He holds his body stubbornly away from mine, but he might as well be smothering me. I feel him everywhere. Heat pours off of him and tingles across my skin.
He smells like mint and champagne as he dips his chin and whispers in my ear. "Do you want me to make good on that agreement, Viviana? Is that why you're still here?"
Truth be told, I don't know why I'm still here.
Fear? Habit? Curiosity?
I wrote Mikhail Novikov off the first night we met. I assumed he was a pompous asshole and never thought of him again, no matter how much I enjoyed the sight of him at functions Trofim dragged me along to.
No women dared get close to him. Mikhail didn't deign to talk to anyone else. He was a shadow on the edge of the room.
But now, he's revealing himself to be something else entirely.
I want to find out what.
"I'm still here because..." I duck under his arm and walk across the suite. "I'm still here because helping clean up some of this mess is the least I can do for the man who saved me."
I bend over and scoop a handful of glass shards into my palm. It's only when I turn around to find the trash can that I remember what I'm wearing. Or what I'm not wearing. Full coverage underwear, for one.
Mikhail is standing rigid against the wall. And he isn't the only one. There's a noticeable bulge at the front of his pants. A large, noticeable bulge.
My gaze drops down, back up, down again, and finally back up to the dark holes where his eyes once were. His pupils are blown wide.
Mikhail Novikov may be difficult to read, but I know desire when I see it.
He blinks a few times and seems to snap himself out of it. His mouth twists down into a scowl. "Me being here has nothing to do with saving you."
"Really? You had me fooled. 'Touch her again and I'll kill you,'" I say in a terrible impression of his voice. "Seems like it had at least a little to do with saving me."
"You think I came to save you? Is that why you're putting on this little show for me?" He crosses the distance between us and swats the glass shards out of my hand. They rain down over my bare feet, but I barely feel it. Not when Mikhail is staring into my soul. "Am I to collect my reward now?"
My cheeks burn. "I'm not putting on a show! I'm cleaning up the mess you and your brother made."
"This is why you're not the right fit for this world," he says almost to himself. "Someone does one nice thing for you and you're throwing away your chance at freedom. You don't owe me anything, Viviana. I didn't come here to save you."
If he keeps saying that, I might start to believe him.
Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing, though. As it is, my heart is doing an interesting little dubstep in my chest.
"You said Trofim wasn't a good fit for this world."
"He wasn't."
"But now, I'm not a good fit, either? Why not?" It doesn't matter. I shouldn't care. I don't care, actually. Still, I find myself adding, "Is that why I've never seen you with a woman before? Because no one is good enough for you?"
He's silent for a moment. His breath rasps in his chest, his throat, past his lips in plumes of mint and champagne. Then he sighs.
"Leave," he snarls even as he shifts closer to me. My hip brushes against his leg.
I stretch onto my toes. "You don't want to honor the deal our fathers made because you think you're better than me."
The words are barely out of my mouth when Mikhail's hand grips my neck. His thumb works into my pulse point as he tilts my head back so he's towering over me. "This has nothing to do with me being better than you."
I swallow, my neck bobbing against his fingers. "Then what's it about?"
He dips his head. More mint and sweet champagne wash over me as he whispers, "It's about me being the worst possible thing for you."
Who could be worse than Trofim?
Mikhail seems to see the question in my frown. He slides closer. His erection pushes against the lace of my nightgown and my eyes flare wide.
"My brother wanted you for a wife. He wanted an alliance. I couldn't care less about that. Fuck the deal our fathers made." His thumb strokes possessively along the column of my neck. "There is only one thing I want from you, Viviana."
"Take it," I breathe.
It's out of me before I can stop myself.
Mikhail shakes his head and walks me backwards. His long legs brush against mine until I fall back onto the bed.
"You shouldn't let yourself be someone's pawn. Not in this world." He looks down at me for a second before he wraps his big hands around my hips and jerks me to the edge of the bed. "I'm going to teach you why."
3
VIVIANA
"Trofim didn't deserve this," he muses as he strokes the outer curve of my ass, discovering an erogenous zone I didn't know existed five seconds ago.
Didn't deserve me?
No, he must mean sex in general.
I tend to agree. For the sake of the human race and future generations, Trofim and his evil seed shouldn't be allowed near any vaginas.
"Trofim and I never... We didn't... It was part of the arrangement. He never even came to my apartment."
I don't know why I feel the need to explain, but I do.
As soon as Iakov Novikov informed his son he couldn't touch me until we were married, I expected Trofim to throw a temper tantrum. Our engagement was planned by our respective paternal overlords to be just over six months long. That kind of celibacy was a lot to ask, even for me. Not that I had any desire to do the dirty with Trofim.
But the only desire Trofim had was to knock me around.
"You were together for six months." Mikhail sounds confused. Like that math isn't even close to mathing. Six months with no sex? Impossible.
I can practically hear his thoughts now. What's the point of living if I can't rip off my shirt and ravage maidens on the daily?
To be fair, as a maiden about to be ravaged, I get it. The promise of seeing what's going on beneath Mikhail's shirt is the current singular focus of my life.
"I'm sure six months without sex is like a lifetime for you," I drawl.
"Only the last six months."
I don't have time to understand what that means before he strokes his thumb over the soaked front of my panties. He groans a single time. Just one deep sound, low in his throat, before he slips his thumb under the lace. He plays in my wetness, dragging it up and down until I'm covered in myself. When the calloused pad of his thumb brushes over my clit, I jerk off the bed.
Mikhail arches a brow like I'm an interesting puzzle and does it again.
