Page 36 of The Last Dance

I kissed him, because words had never worked and this was the only language we both spoke. His mouth was dry, but he bit me anyway, open-mouthed and greedy. The taste was unfamiliar, not smoke or vodka but the stripped-down salt of a man who’d been up all night thinking about the shape of a bullet and the geometry of my skull.

I pressed in harder. It wasn’t a gentle kiss; it was a hand-off, a transfer of something desperate. He let me drive it for three seconds, then wrenched me onto my back with both hands like he’d finally decided to check if I was real all the way through.

The weight of him was the first thing I noticed. Every muscle flexed, every movement precise, but the rest of him stayed loose, like a panther mid-pounce, deciding whether to hunt or just tear you open for the hell of it.

He pinned my hands above my head, not rough, but with a force that left no room for negotiation. His eyes were black. Not the warm brown they pretended at breakfast, not even the dark gold I’d seen once or twice when he let his guard down. They were pure night, and they did not blink.

He said nothing at first. He just held me there, watching me. I could feel the vibrations in his chest, a hum so deep I wondered if he was even aware of it. His mouth hovered above mine, not touching, just sampling the air between us.

When he spoke, it was flat. “The first shot was aimed at your chest.”

I stared back, refusing to look away.

“The second, at your head,” he continued, voice so level it bordered on a threat. “If you hadn’t ducked, you’d be dead.”

“Not my best look,” I said, trying to keep it light, but he wasn’t having it. He squeezed my wrists until I shut up.

“You would be dead,” he repeated, as if rehearsal might make it less true.

I didn’t want to admit how much that fucked with me. So instead I twisted my hands in his grip and tested the hold. He let me try, watched the effort, and then made a decision. He slid both my wrists into one hand, freeing the other to run down the side of my face, tracing the cut the glass had left. His touch was clinical, but his hand shook—so faint you’d have missed it if you weren’t pressed against him in a bed built for the last tsar.

I licked my lips and went for the direct route. “I’m fine, Vadim. You fixed me up. No scars, no holes.”

He blinked, just once, and then his mouth crashed into mine again, tongue rough and not searching, but demanding. There was no choreography. He bit, sucked, tried to devour every syllable I hadn’t said out loud. His hand dropped from my face to my hip, fingers digging in with the kind of pressure that would leave a fingerprint tomorrow.

I moaned into his mouth, not because it hurt, but because it was the first honest thing I’d felt all day.

He broke the kiss with a sound that was almost a snarl. “Don’t joke about it,” he said, breath hot against my jaw.

“I wasn’t,” I said. It was a lie, but he didn’t punish it. Instead, he gripped my hip harder, so tight the bones ached.

His other hand never left my wrists. He wanted me pinned, not for fun, but for certainty. The second he let go, I’d disappear, and we both knew it.

I arched up, using leverage to slide my body against his. The silk of the sheets made it easy, frictionless. His cock was hard now, heavy and hot through the thin fabric of his shorts. I didn’t even try to play coy about noticing.

He pressed his thigh between my legs, forcing them apart, and ground down, the pressure perfectly calculated. Not too much, not enough to leave me bruised, but enough to get the message across.

I bit his lip, hard enough to taste blood. “You’re not going to lose me,” I said, the words coming out somewhere between a promise and a challenge.

His jaw flexed. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

He let go of my wrists, just long enough to flip me face-down on the sheets. The move was so fast it made my head spin, but he caught my shoulders before I could process it. He pressed his mouth to the back of my neck, teeth scraping the skin, then licking away the sting. His hands mapped my spine, pressing down each vertebra like a piano key.

I rocked my hips up, shameless, needing friction. I wanted him to fuck me so bad it bordered on a medical condition, but he wasn’t going to make it that easy for me.

He tore my boxers down my legs and tossed them off the bed, and then kneaded my ass, spreading me open. He ran his tongue down my back, stopping just above the curve. His breath was wet and hot, his stubble scraping a line of sensation down to my tailbone.

I twisted around, planting an elbow under me so I could see his face. It was tight, almost pained, like he was fighting an urge he didn’t want to admit.

“Vadim,” I said, and his name came out like a plea.

He bent to my ear. “I’m going to leave marks,” he said, voice low and barely human.

“Good,” I said, and he laughed, a huff of air that was mostly relief.

He rolled me onto my side, caging me with his body. His hands moved everywhere, fast, then slow, then fast again, like he couldn’t decide whether to savor or consume. He caught my nipple between his teeth, bit hard, then soothed it with his tongue. My whole body jerked, pleasure and pain perfectly balanced.

I tried to grab his hair, but he caught my wrist midair and pinned it to the mattress. His mouth never left my chest, but his free hand snaked down my stomach. I was so hard it hurt. He palmed me, stroking once, then letting go.