My smile fell.

The heat of his stare seeped into my chest, weighing it down with warmth. I slid my hands to the sheets on either side of him and pressed my front against his. I was so much smaller than him, and there was a vivid contrast of my olive skin and his lighter tone amongst waves of chocolate hair and black tattoos.

“Tell me why you kiss me,” I breathed against his lips.

I thought he might answer me this time.

He didn’t.

He rolled me onto my back and made me forget my own name.

“So, do you have a day job . . . or do you just sit around like a superhero villain in your suit and tie, waiting for them to tell you which old lady’s apartment to burn down?” I asked him the next morning, while I still lay in bed and he was buttoning his shirt.

“I have a day job, like most adult Americans,” he said, amused. “I start back tomorrow.”

I pursed my lips. “Was that a dig on me, Officer? I’ll have you know, I have a very busy schedule as it is. You’re lucky I can even pencil you in.”

On his way out of the room, he grabbed my ankle and dragged me down the bed toward him. His voice was rough as he pulled my face up to his. “Move shit around if you have to and pencil me in for tonight.” Then, he kissed me, placing a sharp nip on my bottom lip.

When he left, I fell back to the bed with a sigh and a smarting lip.

I tried to stop it, but I couldn’t.

A stupid smile overtook my face.

He got home around eight o’clock that night and stopped short in his bedroom doorway. I was lying on his bed on my stomach, with my feet in the air and my ankles crossed. Naked.

It was bold.

And it was scary.

My palms were sweaty, and my heart galloped at an inconsistent pace.

I lifted a coy shoulder. “I wasn’t sure if this appointment was casual or black-tie, so I decided to come with a blank canvas.”

His gaze coasted the length of my body so heavily it brought goosebumps to my skin. Walking toward me, he stopped in front of me at the foot of the bed and ran a rough palm across my cheek. If I wasn’t mistaken, the smallest tremor ran through his hand.

His voice was soft, but the finest threat wove through. “I can find anyone . . . anywhere.” A thumb brushed my jawline. “Makes me a desirable person to have around. Antonio showed his interest in a partnership, but I had enough obligations and didn’t want to get mixed up with the Italians. I was going to meet with him and decline. But then I saw you.”

My heart went still.

“I sought you out, just to see if you were as interesting as you looked.” His grip on my face tightened, like he was angry that I had been. “And I agreed to work with your husband. You fascinated me, but I began to hate you, too. Because I couldn’t stop thinking about you, and I couldn’t have you. And you were so fucking beautiful.” His thumb ran down my lips. “Then, you were single, and I’d already made you hate me, too.”

I swallowed as his hand slid down my throat.

“It was a relief, malyshka, because we were everything wrong for each other. But nothing has ever felt more right than finding you like this in my bed.”

I didn’t say anything, because the words became wedged in my throat.

“Come shower with me,” he said roughly.

He pulled me to my feet, and I padded into the bathroom behind him. In the shower, he pressed me up against the wall, I wrapped my legs around his waist, and then he showed me just how right we fit together—in one way, at least.

I woke up in his bed the next morning to an awful grinding noise. Glancing at the clock, six a.m. stared back at me in ungodly red. I groaned and pulled a pillow over my face to mute the annoying sound.

He’d kept me up until after two in the morning, running his hands and mouth all over me until it felt like I’d been turned inside out, bringing that raw and elusive feeling to the forefront.

The line was blurring.

But it was like trying to stop a train with mere willpower at one-hundred miles per hour.

When I’d tried to return to my own bed, his response had been a simple, “No,” and then he’d wrapped an arm around me, and I’d forgotten why I wanted to leave in the first place.

Getting to my feet, I opened his dresser drawer and slipped on one of his undershirts. I found him at the kitchen counter, already dressed in a suit and tie, pouring green liquid into a glass from the blender.

Amusement filled his gaze at my moody expression.

I narrowed my eyes further. “Since all your other women must have been too scared to inform you, I will. There’s an unwritten rule—nobody starts the blender until the sun rises, and even then, if it’s not margaritas, other conditions apply. Like green, Christian. Liquids should never be green.”

“You have never looked more beautiful than you do right now, malyshka.”

I flushed, my heart growing ridiculously warm. “I’m trying to be annoyed with you, if you can’t tell.”

He smiled. “Ah, my mistake.”

I swallowed. Shifted. “Do you eat?”

He raised a brow, consuming that glass of green yuck in one drink.

“Like, solids? Or do you blend all the children’s souls beforehand?”

He rinsed his glass out and then put it in the dishwasher. How very neat and tidy. It felt like I was messing up his space just by standing in it.

“Yes, I eat.”

He grabbed my hips and set me on the island, spreading my legs to stand between them. He slid his hands up the sides of my thighs, and the warmth of them made me shiver.

I bit my lip. “Italian?”

“It happens to be my favorite.” He sucked on that sensitive spot behind my ear, and every vein in my body melted into a puddle at his feet.

“What about allergies? Do you have any?” I gasped, as he pressed his hard-on against my clit in a slow roll. “Well, besides affection, warmth, and sunshine?”

His chuckle was low and dark. “Keep it up, and you’ll be too sore to make me dinner.”

I hated that he could read me well enough to know I was excited to cook for him, while I still knew nothing about him.

“I should warn you, though, I don’t usually cook for men. It’s just too much of a risk they’ll fall in love with me.”

“I thought you were a gambler,” he drawled.

All I could respond with was a low moan, because his fingers slid inside of me and then he fucked me so hard I could still feel him hours later.

I had therapy at ten and felt guilty every time I had to evade the topic of Christian and this just sex relationship. I didn’t want anyone to pop this exciting, sex-crazed bubble I was in, least of all Dr. Rosamund. I wanted to enjoy this while it lasted because I knew it wouldn’t be forever. We were everything wrong for each other. He was going to realize nothing had changed eventually.

I just didn’t know at the time it would only take a few days.

I made dinner at my apartment because I was too afraid of leaving even a speck of flour on Christian’s sparkling countertops.

I stared at him intently from the other side of his kitchen island while he took the first bite. A half-smile pulled on his lips, but he otherwise ignored me and ate in silence.