Page 4 of Sexting the Bikers

I smile like it’s a compliment.

Inside, my skin crawls.

He says nothing else. No greeting. No plans for the ceremony. Not even a demand for obedience.

He turns his attention back to the papers on his desk, dismissing me with the tilt of his head, as if I’m nothing more than another piece of furniture to decorate this hollow, rotting mansion.

My fingers twitch at my sides.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

I had a plan—a simple one. Use charm, use beauty, use everything I’ve been taught to wield. Seduce him into underestimating me.

Manipulate him until I find a way out.

But it’s hard to seduce a man who doesn’t even see you as a human being.

I shift my weight, glancing around the room until my gaze lands on a small bar cart in the corner. Glass decanters shimmerunder the dim light, filled with amber and clear spirits. Vodka. Whiskey. Rum.

Perfect.

I saunter toward it, every sway of my hips deliberate, casual. I run my fingers lightly over the rim of a crystal glass, tilting my head back toward him.

“Vodka, Mr. Novikov?” I offer, my voice syrupy sweet.

He lifts his eyes slowly from his paperwork.

Black. Flat. Soulless.

“I didn’t tell you that you could drink,” he says.

The bottle freezes midair in my hand.

For one long, horrible second, I see it.

My future.

A life of quiet orders and brutal corrections.

A husband who won’t see me, won’t love me, won’t even desire me—except as a piece of his empire to own and punish.

A cage so much smaller than I imagined.

I set the bottle down carefully, my hands steady even as something inside me frays apart.

“In my position,” I say, voice cool and precise, “and as your future wife, I would think I deserve a little respect.”

For the first time, something flickers behind his eyes—not warmth, not admiration.

Amusement.

The kind a man shows when a dog bares its teeth before being kicked.

He opens his mouth?—

—but a deep, sudden roar cuts through the air, rattling the old windows in their frames.

2