Page 6 of Crystal Wrath (Rostov Bratva #1)
I perch on a leather armchair across from him, crossing my legs carefully. The slit in my dress reveals more thigh than I intend, and I notice his eyes tracking the movement.
“I observe. I ask questions. I look for patterns.” All true, if deliberately vague.
“A detective?”
I smile. “Of sorts.”
He leans forward, elbows on his knees, studying me intently. “You’re very good at answering questions without actually answering them.”
“I learned from the best.” I take another sip of champagne. “You haven’t exactly been forthcoming about your own business dealings.”
“Because you haven’t asked.” He sets his glass aside and rises, crossing the short distance between us. He crouches before my chair, his large hands coming to rest on the arms, effectively caging me in. “Ask me, Elena. Whatever you want to know.”
His proximity is overwhelming. I can see the flecks of amber and green in his eyes, the faint stubble along his jaw, and the way his shirt stretches across his shoulders.
“Are you responsible for the evictions in Little Havana?” The question slips out before I can stop it. It’s direct, possibly too direct, revealing my true interests.
His expression doesn’t change, but something darkens in his eyes. “Business is complicated.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’ll get tonight.” His hand moves to my knee, fingers trailing along the exposed skin of my thigh. “Unless you’d prefer to discuss real estate laws rather than continue what we started downstairs.”
His touch sends shivers up my spine, heat pooling low in my belly. This is dangerous territory. He is dangerous territory. I came here for a story, not…whatever this is becoming.
“What are we doing here, Renat?” I exhale.
“Testing boundaries,” he breathes, his hand continuing its slow exploration upward. “Yours. Mine. Seeing how far curiosity will take us.”
I should stop him. I should remind myself that this man is potentially linked to criminal activity, which may be related to the very evictions I’m investigating.
But his touch leaves a trail of fire on my skin, and when he leans in, his lips brushing the sensitive spot just below my ear, rational thought flees.
“Tell me to stop,” he murmurs against my neck, “and I will.”
My hands find his shoulders, intending to push him away. Instead, they slide up to the nape of his neck, fingers threading through his dark, wavy hair.
“I should tell you to stop,” I whisper.
He pulls back just enough to meet my eyes. “But you won’t.”
It isn’t a question, but I answer anyway by pulling him toward me, my lips finding his in a kiss that contains none of the restraint of our earlier encounter. This is heat and need and the thrill of crossing lines I never thought I would cross.
His hands slide up my sides, fingers brushing the undersides of my breasts through the thin fabric of my dress. I gasp into his mouth, and he takes advantage, deepening the kiss, his tongue tangling with mine in a primal dance.
In one fluid motion, he lifts me from the chair, my legs wrapping instinctively around his waist as he carries me the short distance to the bed.
The mattress is soft beneath my back as he lowers me onto it, his body following, covering mine in a way that should feel threatening but instead feels like shelter.
His body presses me into the mattress. One of his hands finds mine, the fingers intertwining and pinning it gently above my head. The other traces the neckline of my dress, fingertips ghosting over the swell of my breasts.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmurs, lips trailing down my neck. “Even more so now that you’re not pretending to be someone else.”
My back arches as his teeth graze my collarbone, sending sparks of pleasure shooting through me. “How do you know I’m not still pretending?”
He chuckles against my skin. “Because your body can’t lie, Elena.” His hand slides beneath the hem of my dress, fingers tracing patterns on my inner thigh. “Not to me.”
As if to prove his point, my breath hitches when his fingers move higher, finding the lace edge of my panties. My hips shift instinctively, seeking more contact.
“Tell me you want this,” he says, his voice rough with desire but his eyes serious. “I need to hear it.”
At that moment, I made a choice. Not as a journalist chasing a story, not as Elena Martinez with her moral compass and professional ethics, but as a woman drawn to a man who sets her blood on fire.
“I want this,” I whisper. “I want you.”
His smile is slow and satisfied, like that of a predator who has finally cornered its prey. But there’s genuine heat there, too, a connection that transcends the physical.
“Then let me show you what happens when you get exactly what you want.”
His lips claim mine again as his fingers slip past the barrier of lace, finding the heat at my center. I gasp into his mouth, my free hand clutching at his shoulder as pleasure courses through me.
The dress becomes an obstacle, and he deals with it efficiently, the zipper sliding down my back under his expert touch. The cool air hits my exposed skin, raising goosebumps that his mouth soothes away, trailing kisses down my body as he peels the fabric away.
My hands find his shirt buttons, fumbling in my urgency to feel his skin against mine. He helps, shrugging out of the expensive fabric with little concern for where it lands.
His chest is a marvel of sculpted muscle and scattered scars that tell stories of a life far removed from the polished businessman he presents to the world. I trace one particularly vicious mark with my fingertip, a puckered line that curves around his ribs.
“Knife fight,” he explains, watching my face. “Saint Petersburg, a long time ago.”
I don’t ask for details. Tonight isn’t about his past or mine. It’s about the present, about the heat building between us, about the way his hands make my skin burn, and my mind forgets why I should be cautious.
When he finally lowers himself onto me, skin to skin, the contact is electric. His weight is substantial but not crushing, his body hard where mine is soft. The contrast is intoxicating.
“Tell me to fuck you,” he murmurs, his control evident in the tension of his muscles and the careful way he holds himself above me.
In answer, I wrap my legs around his hips, drawing him closer, feeling the hard evidence of his desire press against me.
“I’m exactly where I want to be,” I tell him, surprised by the truth in my words.
At this moment, I’m not an investigative journalist with a story to uncover. I’m not the daughter of a Cuban immigrant with something to prove. I’m simply Elena, a woman in the arms of a dangerous man, falling into a passion that threatens to consume us both.
And for tonight, at least, I let myself burn.