Page 67 of Claimed By My Ex’s Brother

Once her breathing finally evens out and she sleeps like the dead, I get up, bracing myself against the bed so I don’t jostle her, and let myself out.

I drive back through the dark, leaves chattering in the trees along the road, with Yelena’s perfume still on my collar and something restless working under my ribs, and I don’t slow down until I’m in the elevator up to my own floor, stripping off my tie.

Delaney’s desk is no longer empty. Her things are arranged across it in neat, pristine little rows, her pens lined up, a paperweight holding down a stack of invoices, and there is a faint lipstick print on the rim of her coffee cup. The sight of that one small mark fills a space in my chest I didn’t know was standing hollow. Somewhere between the warehouse and this desk, she became the thing my day arranges itself around.

She comes in with a stack of files and stops dead, curious and wary all at once, when she sees me sitting there. Days have passed since I was last in this office, and I watch her decide, in the space of one breath, that she’s not going to let me see whether she missed me. She’s wearing a cream knit dress that clings to every line of her, a grown woman’s shape filling it out.

She presses her arms tight to her sides, which pushes her chest higher without her meaning it to, and my gaze drops there before I can govern it. She notices, and her jaw tightens, and she doesn’t cover herself, which is its own small dare, a taste of what could be.

“There’s a party this weekend, on the Lebedev yacht,” I say, pushing back from the massive desk. “You are coming with me.”

I set two black boxes on the desk in front of her.

“What are these?” she asks.

“Open them for me, vorovka.”

Inside sit two swimsuits, a black one cut to provoke and a modest blue one.

“You want me to change twice?” she says, and inhales sharply.

“I need to see which one suits you,” I say with a grin. “I cannot tell until you are actually wearing it.”

“You want me to do this right now, in the office? People will think you’re fucking the help.”

I nod toward the lounge. “You can change in there, if you would prefer.”

She snatches up one of the boxes and marches off with a ferocity I secretly admire.

I already know both of them will fit. I had them cut through one of my shell companies from her measurements, the ones I have carried in my head since the first night. The only real question is her generous body and what these two fabrics will choose to cover and what they will choose to leave for me. I sit back in my chair and wait, and I’m not ashamed of how much I’m looking forward to it.

She comes out in the black one, and it barely contains her. For a second I go dizzy. Her chest, her waist, the length of each thigh are all on display, and she’s trying very hard to look composed while her toes curl into the carpet, though she has nothing to be self-conscious of.

“Turn around for me,” I say, rougher than I mean to.

She turns, slow, and the ties leave her whole back bare, all the way down to the sublime curve of her ass.

I picture the men at that party looking at her like this, and the thought turns something dark over in me, end over end.

I cross the room, circle behind her, set my hands on her bare waist, and pull her back against me until there is no space left between us. Her soft ass presses into my palm, and she gasps at the contact. It makes my skin feel scalded. I squeeze the flesh once, slow, and feel her go still against me.

“Is this part of the party preparation?” she asks, provoking me, her voice not quite steady.

“I’m calculating how many eyes I will have to gouge out this weekend,” I murmur against her ear.

“You could just not look at me.”

“You cannot dress like this and expect me not to look.” I press her back into me and cage her in with my arms. “Don’t make demands you don’t mean for one second. You want me to look. You put this on and walked into the snake pit for exactly that.”

“I didn’t,” she starts, and her voice gives her away before she finishes.

“You did,” I say against her hair, and breathe her in.

She spins around, snarling, to glare at me, her face flushed, her breath quick. For a moment neither of us moves, and the air in the room goes thick and hot. It’s taking everything in me to hold back.

“Go and change into the blue one,” I tell her at last, and send her on her way with a swat, the sound of my hand slapping her ass ringing off the glass. She bites her lip, hiding something that might be disappointment, and goes.

She comes back in the blue swimsuit, which covers far more of her torso, the crystal straps catching the light as she walks toward me.