The room felt smaller. Hotter, all of a sudden. Like the air itself was holding its breath with us. But he didn't move. At least, not yet.
He stood up so fast his chair slammed into the wall. And before I could breathe, lips parted, staring at him with stunned silence, his hand was already on my neck. Cold and firm, like he was claiming the space he had no right to.
Syrup and cream were still dripping down on my lips, sliding down to my chin, pooling messily on his wrist. But I didn't bother wiping it away. I didn't even bother to fight him. I just let him look.
His grip wasn't tight, but it was a warning. A promise. "I could kill you right now," he said. No hesitation. No warmth. Just fact.
I glared up at him, hatred burning through every inch of me. "Then do it."
His jaw twitched, though just barely. A flicker of something he didn't want me to see. "You mean nothing to me."
I let out a low, humorless laugh. "Right. That's why you're hovering over me like you don't know whether to strangle me or shove me back into whatever filthy place you want me quiet in."
His nostrils flared.
"Please," I scoffed, leaning into the grip on my neck. "Don't pretend you're offended. You've been picturing what to do with my mouth since the moment you walked in."
His fingers dug in, sharp and merciless. The pain screamed through me, a brutal reminder of how easily he could snap my neck and end it all. Yet, he held back. "You're right about that. I am picturing exactly that, just like the filthy whore you are."
The words didn't sting. It ignited something in me.
I shot him a glare, pure venom coursing through every fiber of my being. "Then fucking do it. Use me."
I shouldn't have said that. But they slipped out anyway, as natural as they sky is blue. And the second they did, the air changed. It was then, that I knew I've pushed too far.
One second he was glaring, jaw clenched, breath sharp. The next, he yanked me by my neck and crushed his mouth down on mine. Hard and merciless.
The syrup smeared between us, dragging sticky sweetness across my lips, my chin, his mouth. And I tasted it. Sweet and furious. And god help me, somehow he kissed like he wanted to break me and keep me all at once.
Our mouths tore at each other. Messy, starving, almost vicious and yet, somehow it wasn't just violence. There was something fragile buried underneath. Something neither of us should've felt, much less fed on.
He didn't just kiss me. He consumed me.
His hand tightened at the back of my neck as if he was anchoring himself, not restraining me. His breath shuddered against my lips, like he hated how much he needed this. Needed me. And before I could catch another breath, he yanked me up from my chair, the room tilting as my feet was lifted off the ground.
My back hit the edge of the dining table with a thud.
Shock of heat tearing through me from the pain as he pressed into me. Solid, unyielding, every line of his body saying things his mouth would never dare. The tension between us blurred, twisting up into something harsh and electric, unbearably intimate.
The syrup smeared between us, sweet and sticky on our mouths, our cheeks, our skin. It made everything feel dirtier. Yet softer. More real.
But this was wrong. It shouldn't feel like this.
I could feel the hard outline of him, rigid and insistent, pressed against me like both a threat and a promise. Heat and restraint, tangled and suffocating. The cold metal, biting into my wrists, slicing through my haze. Handcuffs. The reason how we were all tangled in this mess. The pain dragged me back to the reality he kept pretending didn't exist.
I was at his mercy. Pinned beneath a man who wanted me so fiercely he didn't know what to do with it. A man trying, and failing, to convince himself that I was nothing but a body he could simply use and discard.
I drew in a sharp breath, fury coiling tight in my chest, fueled by his lie and my own weakness for him. Then, with every ounce of strength left in me, I drove my bound fists upward, smashing them into his jaw.
The crack echoed through the room. Sharp, violent and beautifully defiant.
He jerked back hard, stumbling a half step as his hand fell away from my throat, caught off guard.
For a moment, just one suspended, breathless moment, he froze. His chest rose and fell, sharp and uneven. His lips were still swollen from our kiss. Syrup smeared across the corner of his mouth like some sinful mark I've left on him.
And the way he looked at me, filled with heat. Rage and want.
God.
Those emotions were burning in those green eyes like he couldn't tell which one he hated more.
His jaw clenched as he touched where I had hit him, his fingers dragging slowly across the bruise that was already forming. And it wasn't gentle. He was testing the pain, feeding on it.
He muttered something in Russian. I couldn't understand it, but his voice was hoarse before he cut himself off, something feral sparking behind his eyes.
I was barely on my feet before the guards burst back into the room. Their heavy footsteps stomping on the wooden floors, and he didn't even do anything to stop it. He just stood there, nonchalantly, hand on his jaw, pressing and testing on the pain.
Two of them grabbed me and yanked me off the table. My back hit their chests hard as they pinned my arms, the metal cuffs biting deeper into my skin, hurting my bandaged wrists.
Still, I thrashed anyway. That kind of pain is nothing to me. I've been through worse.
"Let go!" I spat, kicking, twisting, anything to get free. Anything to not give him the satisfaction of seeing me restrained again.
I need to get out of here.
Across from where we stood, he straightened slowly. Like a man rebuilding his armor piece by piece. But the heat in his stare. God, he didn't even try to hide it. Not even a little.
He wiped the smear syrup from his lip his thumb, his eyes locked on mine. Dark with a hunger a he didn't even bother to swallow down.
Then quietly, dangerously, he finally said, "Take her back to her room."
Like he was afraid of what he might do if he touched me again.
You and me both, Barinov.