Page 60 of Dangerous Promises

I sigh as the shadows repeat their pattern on the ceiling. Once again, I can't sleep. Not when I know he's down the hall. Probably plotting to kill me again. Not when I could be plotting to kill him instead.

I slip out of bed and pull the hunting knife from my nightstand. My door opens and shuts with a creak. It's pitch black, but I have no problem navigating with just the light of the moon. I know well enough now which guest room belongs to Alexei. I know well enough which space in my house is somehow his.

The door, stupidly unlocked, opens easily as I turn the knob. I step in hesitantly, assaulted with the familiar smell of him. Spirits and geranium.

My breath hitches when I see him sleeping peacefully in the bed, a light snore in his throat. The sheets are that ridiculous silky black that he insisted on last time. I scoff at the fact that he's managed to get them back on the bed before going to sleep. Like he's too good for the sheets that usually grace this room.Why do we even have these on hand? Is that how far we've deviated from being enemies?

I tip-toe closer to the bed until I get a good look at him. He's laying on his back, his face upward and his eyes closed. His tattooed chest is bare and just exposed by the sheets that slip over his hips.

It's disconcerting to see him at ease, without that signature intensity behind his eyes. He almost looks peaceful without his gaze boring into me like a drill. I survey his body, eyes drawn down his chest and tracing over the patterns of his tattoos. Colorless but mesmerizingly beautiful swirls of ink.

I widen my eyes on a startle as a small snore rips my attention back to him.

His chest rises and falls peacefully, but his breathing has changed. His face, which was before peaceful and almost innocent, even with his eyes closed, has hardened.

I tilt my head curiously. But still, I lift the knife, holding it above my head for only a few seconds before I take a deep breath and plunge it towards his heart.

I stifle a scream as Alexei's eyes snap open and he grabs my wrist. My heart floods as the intensity returns to his eyes and focuses right on me, quickly darting between me and the knife.

Using the grip on my wrist, he yanks me forward until I fall into a heap in his bed and over his lap. Huffing, I sit up and straddle him, struggling for the knife that he keeps just out of reach.

He begins a slow gaze from where our bodies meet up my chest until he's looking into my eyes. "Trying to kill me in my sleep, princess?"

"Unsuccessfully, it seems," I reply. He yanks at my wrist until I release the knife, and it settles firmly in his hand instead.

My heart sinks when he smirks. He's got me right where he wants me.

He grabs both my wrists and flips us, his hands holding mine hostage behind my back. My face is smothered in pillows that already smell exactly like him and his weight presses against me from behind. I can feel every inch of him as he holds me down and runs the knife over my back.

It is gentle but still threatening, and the tickles of the blade over my skin do something horrible to me. All I can do is close my eyes and try not to get lost.

"I'll always see you coming. There's nothing you can do to surprise me."

I buck as much as I can, but it doesn't dislodge him. Each time he only chuckles and presses me further down into the bed.

"I like it when you struggle."

His words, filthy and out of line, send shivers down my spine. He presses his lips against my ear. "You like it, too, don't you?" He releases my wrists and instead pushes his hand into the back of my head to hold me down by my hair. His rough calloused fingers press into my temples, my nape and just below my ears.

This is bad. I can feel myself submitting to him even as I struggle for breath. Worse, I think I want to. Alexei starts to grind on me until against all my better judgment I let out a low mewl.

He grunts in satisfaction. "That's what I thought."

It's at that moment that I notice something hard pressing into my butt.

"Sssh," he says, grinding against me again. "I need you to tell me no. I need you to tell me to stop."

I open my mouth to say the word, but then hear the sound of a buckle being undone and that noise alone sends warmth flooding right to my center.

"Tell me," he says, as the belt flies across the room and his other hand returns to my silk shorts, pulling them down untilI'm bare and exposed, the cool night air hitting my skin. "All you have to stay is stop."

His arm comes down next to my head for balance. The moment when his hard cock presses against me from behind and starts to rub against my cheeks, I lose all thought.

What the fuck am I doing? I can't connect the two warring parts of my brain right now. The one that wants him dead and the one that just… wants him. I could push him away. I could tell him to stop. I could turn the tables and use this vulnerable time to make my move against his life.

But I don't.

Instead, I say the worst thing I could possibly say.