Page 44 of Toxic Attraction
My cock is so hard it's painful. Every instinct screams to press her against this wall and find out what other sounds I can pull from her. What she'd do if I slid my hand under her skirt right here, right now, with Marco's blood still wet on my knuckles.
Would she fight? Or would that darkness surface, and she'd take what I gave her?
I step back before I find out. Before I do something that crosses lines I'm not ready to cross yet.
Not until she breaks first.
"Clean this up." I gesture to the blood on the floor. "And Valerie?"
She looks up, still pressed against the wall, still trembling.
"Next time you witness something you shouldn't, try not to look quite so aroused by it. It's fucking distracting."
I walk away before she can respond.
Before I can change my mind and take what I want.
My hands are shaking slightly. From adrenaline or desire or the effort of walking away, I don't know.
Don't fucking care.
Because tomorrow I'll push harder. Test more boundaries. See how far I can bend her before she breaks or that viper surfaces.
One way or another, I'm going to drag her darkness out.
And when I do, she'll be mine.
I try to work that night.
Pull up files. Review contracts. Go through security reports, but my focus isn’t worth shit.
My mind keeps circling back to Valerie against that wall. The way her pulse raced under my palm. The heat in her eyes before terror drowned it.
The burner phone records sit on my desk. Mikhail traced the number as far as possible—dead end. Routed through multiple proxies, encrypted, would take resources I don't want to spend to crack.
Someone with serious money and connections is running her.
Who the hell could it be?
The smart play is elimination. Put a bullet in her brain. Problem solved. Message sent.
But I don't want her dead.
I want her corrupted. Want to drag her so deep into darkness she forgets what light looks like. Want to own every part of her—the fear, the arousal, the twisted desire, and especially that flash of cold calculation I saw in my bathroom.
The mouse is useful. Good with Mila. Easy to manipulate.
But the viper? The viper is what I'm really hunting.
And I'm going to find it even if I have to break her completely to do it.
I close the files and pull up the security feeds instead.
The hallway camera outside her room shows her door slightly ajar. Light spilling out. Movement inside.
I shouldn't look.
I adjust the camera angle anyway.
