Page 94 of Filthy Promises

“Tell me to stop,” he murmurs, fingers sliding into my hair. “Tell me, and I will.”

I should.

I know I should.

I don’t.

28

ROWAN

There are times in this life when you know you’re standing at a crossroads. It’s so obvious that a choice splits your fate in two.

Left is one world.

Right is another.

I’m standing here at one of those points. A fork in the path.

On one side is Vincent Akopov. A winking, bloodstained, secretive, snarling, furious enigma of a man. He will never give me all of him and I should be terrified if he ever tries, because “all of him” means being discarded like used-up trash at best and executed on some godforsaken sidewalk at worst.

On the other side, though, is… what?

Nothing.More of the same bleak emptiness I’ve lived for so long. For twenty-seven years, I’ve drowned in it. I’ve longed so badly for someone to sweep me out of the dull, dreary grayness of my loneliness.

He came and offered me that.

So in the end, the choice isn’t a choice at all.

When Vince bends down to kiss me, I let him.

No, I don’t justlethim.

I kiss Vincent Akopov back like I’m drowning and his mouth contains the last sip of oxygen on earth.

His response is as immediate as it is brutal. He crushes me against him, one hand fisted in my hair, the other gripping my hip with enough force to bruise.

I hope it does. I want a souvenir of the moment I chose the wrong path willingly. I want a memento of the only sin that ever mattered.

There’s no gentleness here. No romance. It’s a fucking collision that’s been scripted and building and brewing and heating. Two comets rocketing toward one another, on an irreversible course since the moment I walked in on him fucking his secretary, since he looked me in the eye and winked.

You’re next,that wink seemed to say.You’re mine.

And now, at last, I am.

He walks me backward until my legs hit the couch, and then we’re falling, his weight pinning me down, his hands already shoving up my borrowed sweater. My body arches into his touch, desperate for more.

“I hate that you’re making me need this,” I gasp against his mouth.

He bites my lower lip hard enough to make me cry out. “No, you don’t. You hate that you’vealwaysneeded it.”

He’s right. That’s the worst part. Five years of watching him from afar, of building elaborate fantasies around a man who didn’t know I existed—all of it leading to this moment where I’m writhing beneath him on my secondhand couch like some desperate, touch-starved animal.

Which, let’s be honest, is exactly what I am.

His mouth moves to my neck, teeth scraping over my pulse point. I dig my nails into his shoulders. I’m trying to ground myself against the onslaught of sensation. But it’s impossible. He’s everywhere—his scent, his touch, his weight pressing me into the cushions.

I’m drowning inhim.

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