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This was the type of kiss that made time stop. I never wanted to leave. I never wanted it to end.

My soft pants mingled with his heavy breaths. His palm burned into my skin as it slid over the curve of my shoulder and down, down past my waist to?—

A loud crash yanked us out of the moment and dumped us into a vat of ice water.

Vuk’s touch disappeared. Goosebumps popped up in the resulting chill, and our eyes flew to the door.

The noise had come from the hall. Whoever made it hadn’t come inyet, but the boisterous laughter followed by a giddy giggle proved we weren’t the only ones who’d snuck out of the ballroom in search of privacy.

Vuk’s attention returned to me. My high from the kiss came crashing down at the ice in his eyes.

Reality had set in.

His gaze swept over me. A muscle ticked in his jaw, and his throat flexed with an unspoken curse before he tore his eyes away and left. The doors shut behind him, harder this time.

He didn’t have to say the curse for me to hear it.Fuck.

As in, what thefuckhad we done?

The laughter in the hall faded. Whoever it belonged to wasn’t coming in here.

So I sat there, my heart racing, my hair and dress mussed from the most thorough ravishing of my life. My ring had fallen onto the carpet, where it glinted accusingly up at me.

I should’ve felt guilty. My fiancé was probably downstairs looking for me while I was busy kissing his best man. If Vuk and I hadn’t been interrupted, we would’ve done more than kiss.

I let out a small breath. I didn’t move to pick up the ring.

Yes, Ishouldfeel guilty, but I didn’t.

It was hard to regret what happened when I’d never felt so beautifully, wonderfully alive.

CHAPTER25

Vuk

It took all my willpower to walk away from Ayana in the library. It took even more not to reach out to her in the week after our kiss.

I literally had to have my cyber team install a fucking code that would wipe everything from my devices if I emailed, called, or texted her first. It was that bad.

I’d made a lot of mistakes in my life, but kissing Ayana? It was the biggest damn mistake I’d ever made.

If I hadn’t kissed her, I wouldn’t have known. I’d have suspected, but I wouldn’t haveknownthat she wanted me the way I wanted her. I wouldn’t have tasted her desire or heard her fucking moans.

That knowledge spelled the beginning of my end because there was only one obstacle left between us, and my loyalty to him grew more tenuous every day.

I glanced at Jordan. He scrolled through the movie options in his den, his brow furrowed with concentration. He’d called and said he needed a break from the wedding prep. We usually hung out at my house because I avoided going out in public whenever possible, but I’d opted to visit him today instead of the other way around.

Ever since Roman’s break-in, I’d locked down security at home and limited access to everyone except essential staff. Ayana was the only person on my Always Receive list.

I wasn’t worried about Jordan being a security threat, but I suspected the Brotherhood had eyes on my house. I didn’t want to throw any potential targets their way.

Roman was still pissy about me shooting him and refused to confirm or deny the Brothers’ surveillance efforts. He said he’d gotten called away on business, but he’d promised to give me a heads-up when Shepherd’s faction was planning to strike again. He couldn’t guarantee solid intel for the other faction.

I trusted the bastard as far as I could throw him. So far, everything he’d told me came up clean, but blindly trusting someone like Roman Davenport was the equivalent of signing one’s own death warrant.

I’d cornered Dominic at the Valhalla gala to gauge whether he was aware of his former foster brother’s comings and goings. It didn’t seem like he was, but I was keeping an eye on him anyway.

The Brotherhood, Beaumont, the Davenports…at this point, I might as well run my own spy ring. My security team was already stretched thin, and I hoped nothing blew up in our faces before we solved one of our other problems first. We didn’t have the manpower or the time to train new people.