Page 39 of Bratva Stalker Kidnaps His Bride

“Talk to me,” he says.

It is not a demand, which is what surprises me into looking up. It feels like a request which is crazy because Mikhail Korovin does not request things.

So I tell him about everything: the contacts going dark, the pattern that points in one direction. Records disappearing from databases I had been monitoring, the shell designation SABLE-7, the physical location I believe holds the original documentation.

Spreading it across the desk between us, I watch him expectantly.

“I need to go back to Dubai,” I conclude, peering into those unreadable eyes. I want to see the resistance arrive, want to be ready for the negotiation that is about to begin and the fourteen reasons it is not the right moment.

He looks at the map at the bottom of my notebook for a long moment.

“All right.”

“All right…?” I echo dubiously.

“One condition,” he adds. “I go with you.”

At least he is not blocking my path or redirecting it. He only wants to be in the loop, choosing to go where I am going.

He has been a wall, a force, a presence that acted upon my movement from outside. This is something different. This is him walking through the same door.

“Agreed,” I breathe.

He holds my gaze for a moment; he doesn’t move and neither do I. I close the laptop. The notebook goes with it, cover shut. I rise from the chair, the wheels squeaking against the floor. Two steps close the distance, and I don’t let myself think.

My hands pull at the front of his shirt. The fabric is worn soft, warm from his skin. Our mouths meet, teeth and tongue and the small desperate sound I make against his lips.

His hands find my hips. Long fingers press into the curve of me, and I arch into the contact, needing more, needing to be closer. The taste of him is coffee and something sharper, something metallic like adrenaline and danger.

He presses me backward, my spine hitting the edge of the desk and a stapler clatters to the floor. Neither of us breaks apart.

“Zara, you—” he breathes against my mouth.

“I want you.” My voice splinters.

A wall crumbles behind his eyes. He kisses me again, deeper, one hand sliding up my spine to cradle the back of my neck. Those tattooed vines brush my knuckles when I reach for him. I trace them with my fingertips, following the ink down to where it disappears beneath his collar, and his breath hitches—an unguarded sound that sends heat cascading through my belly.

I tug his shirt upward. He helps, pulling it over his head in one fluid motion. The lamplight spills across his torso. Lean muscle shifts beneath skin mapped with ink. A garden of shadows.

“You’re staring,” he murmurs.

“Memorizing.”

My blouse comes undone button by button. His fingers are surprisingly deft for a man with hands that could break things. He pushes the fabric off my shoulders, lets it whisper to the floor, and my bra follows. The air is cool against my bare skin, tightening everything, but his gaze is warm and hungry.

He lifts me onto the desk. The wood is solid beneath me, something else falling with a plastic crack I can’t be bothered to identify. I wrap my legs around his waist and pull him flush against me. The friction of his jeans against the thin fabric of my leggings draws a gasp from somewhere deep in my chest.

Mikhail’s mouth traces my jaw, my throat, the hollow beneath my ear. Each kiss is worshipful. His stubble rasps against my collarbone and I shudder.

“You have no idea,” he says against my skin, “how much I’ve missed this.”

“Show me.”

He pulls back just enough to meet my eyes. His are dark, nearly black in the low light, but there’s something searching in them. Checking. I answer by reaching for his belt.

The leather slides free with a soft hiss. The button of his jeans gives way. He mirrors me, hands finding the waistband of my leggings, and I lift my hips so he can drag them down. The fabric catches on my ankles before I kick it free.

My hand closes around him. He’s hot silk over iron, and the groan he releases vibrates against my palm like a struck bell. I stroke once, twice, learning the weight of him, the shape. His forehead drops to my shoulder.