Page 50

I keep replaying it in my head. The gunshots. The glass shattering around us. The way Maxim threw himself over me without hesitation, his body a shield between mine and the bullets.

Most of all, I think of the way Maxim looked at me when Callum threatened me.

I don’t know what to do with that. I don’t know how to fit it into the picture I’ve built of him in my head—the cold strategist, the manipulator, the man who was going to use me and throw me away.

Neither version seems true anymore. Or maybe they’re both true, existing side by side, contradicting each other.

By the time we reach the mansion, my hands have stopped shaking. Maxim climbs out of the car and reaches for me, his grip firm as he helps me out. His hand is warm and steady, and I hate that I notice that. I hate that I’m grateful.

“Are you hurt?” he asks again.

“I’m fine.” I pull away from him and head for the door. I need distance. I need space to think.

He follows me. Of course he does.

I make it as far as the hallway outside my room before he catches up. His hand closes around my arm, spinning me around, and suddenly I’m pressed against the wall with him looming over me.

His eyes are dark, intense, still burning with the adrenaline from the attack. There’s blood on his shirt and glass in his hair, and he’s looking at me like I’m something he almost lost.

“You could have died tonight,” he says.

“I know.”

“If I hadn’t been there—”

“Well, you were.” I try to push him away, but he doesn’t move. “Let me go, Maxim.”

“No.”

The word is simple, final. He leans closer, and I can smell the gunpowder and blood on him, underneath the expensive cologne. He’s still in his suit from the dinner, but it’s ruined now—torn and stained and nothing like the controlled, powerful man who sat across from Avrorin just hours ago.

He looks wild. Undone.

I should push him away, but his hand is on my waist, and his breath is warm against my face, and I can feel the heat of his body through the thin fabric of my dress.

The black dress. The one he chose for me. The one that made his eyes darken every time another man looked at me tonight.

“You were mine tonight,” he says, his voice low. “In that dress, on my arm, in front of everyone. Mine.”

“I’m not yours.”

“You are.” His hand slides up my side, tracing the curve of my waist, and I shiver. “You’ve been mine since the moment you walked into my systems. Since the moment I saw you.”

“That’s not true.”

He kisses me.

It’s desperate and hungry and angry, like he’s trying to prove something to both of us. I should stop him. I should turn my head, push him away, walk away while I still can.

Instead, I kiss him back.

He makes a sound against my mouth, and then his hands are everywhere. Pulling at my dress, sliding up my thighs, gripping my hips hard enough to bruise. I’m pulling at him too, my fingers tangling in his hair, dragging him closer, needing more.

“Here,” he says, and then he’s lifting me, carrying me, and I don’t know where we’re going until my back hits something soft, and he’s following me down, covering my body with his.

The dress doesn’t survive. He pulls it up and off, tossing it somewhere behind him, and then his mouth is on my neck, my collarbone, my breast. I arch into him, gasping, and he takes advantage of the movement to settle more firmly between my thighs.

He makes that sound again—that raw, desperate noise—and then he’s moving, positioning himself, pushing inside me with one smooth thrust that makes me cry out.