Page 41 of Bride of Vengeance

Mariana

I can't sleep.

I've been lying in this ridiculously expensive bed for three hours, staring at the ceiling and trying not to think about the man in the living room who kissed me like I was air and he'd been drowning.

Trying not to think about how much I wanted him to keep going.

The silk sheets feel cool against my overheated skin, but they can't chase away the memory of Mikhail's hands in my hair, his mouth moving against mine with desperate hunger. The way he looked at me afterward.

Like I was his.

The thought should terrify me. Should remind me that I'm a federal agent who's supposed to arrest him, not fantasize about what would have happened if his phone hadn't interrupted us.

Instead, it sends heat spiraling through my core in ways that make sleep impossible.

This is insane.

But it doesn't make it less true. Doesn't change the fact that kissing Mikhail Kozlov felt more right than anything I've done in years. Doesn't erase the way my body responded to his touch like it had been waiting for him specifically.

He's a killer.

He's also the man who saved my life. Twice.

I roll onto my side, pulling a pillow over my head like I can smother the thoughts that are keeping me awake. But even through expensive down and silk, I can hear sounds from the living room. Movement. The soft clink of glass against granite.

He can't sleep either.

The realization makes something flutter in my chest. Maybe he's out there thinking about the same thing I am. Maybe he's remembering how I felt when he kissed me.

And what would have happened if we hadn't been interrupted.

Stop.

But I can't. Can't turn off the voice in my head that's been getting louder since we arrived at this house. The voice that whispers dangerous things about trust and attraction and the possibility that everything I thought I knew about right and wrong might be more complicated than I realized.

The voice that sounds dangerously like want.

I throw off the covers and pad to the door in bare feet, pressing my ear against the wood. More movement. The soft sound of pages turning. He's reading something, which means he's as awake as I am.

Which means you could go out there. Could finish the conversation that got interrupted by federal manhunts and survival instincts.

Could finish what you started with that kiss.

My hand hovers over the door handle, heart racing like I'm about to defuse a bomb instead of having a conversation. But this feels just as dangerous. Just as likely to explode in my face and change everything.

Maybe some things need to change.

The thought surprises me with its clarity.

I open the door before I can change my mind.

Mikhail sits at the dining table, surrounded by documents and illuminated by a single lamp. He's changed from his black sweater into a white button-down with the sleeves rolled up, and the sight of his forearms makes my mouth go dry. There's something intimate about seeing him relaxed, working in comfortable clothes instead of the careful armor he wears when he's being Ghost.

Something that makes him look more like a man and less like a myth.

He looks up when I enter, and the intensity in his dark eyes makes heat unfurl in my chest. "Can't sleep?"

"Too much thinking."