Page 7 of Hostage with Benefits'

He noticed.Of coursehe noticed. His eyes narrowed, and for a moment, the tension between us shifted into something else entirely.

Then he laughed, a short, bitter sound. “You really are as fucked up in the head as I am, aren’t you? Four years of therapy, you said, yeah? Must have been a scam.”

He pushed away from the wall and walked off, leaving me breathing hard, my skin burning where he’d been close to it.

I made my way back to the hostage room, equal parts furious and uncomfortably aroused. The door locked behind me, and I sank onto the bed.

What was wrong with me? Stockholm syndrome didn’t set in this fast, did it? No, this was just… adrenaline. Basic biology confused by danger signals…right?

I tried to distract myself by examining the room more carefully, looking for anything I might have missed. But my body was still humming with this unwanted awareness that I washorny, embarrassingly so. All this tension was coiling into a tight spiral…

After twenty minutes of restless pacing around the room, I gave up. I was alone, locked in, and overwhelmed by a day that had contained more bizarre emotional whiplash than the past year combined. If there was ever a time whenself-careof this manner was justified, this was it.

I lay back on the bed, sliding a hand beneath the waistband of my jeans. I closed my eyes, trying to conjure up safe, generic fantasies (not blue eyes and full lips and strong hands that could lift me effortlessly and throw me over a shoulder).

I was just finding a rhythm with my fingers when the door opened without warning.

Mikhail stood in the doorway, my laptop bag in one hand (he had really gotten it?!). He took in the scene: me on the bed, hand down my pants, face flushed.

“Don’t stop on my account,” he said, as he stepped inside. He set the laptop down on the desk. “The password is on a sticky note inside. I’ll leave you to… finish your business.”

CHAPTER 3

I should have been mortified.I should have yanked my hand out of my pants and apologized or made some excuse. That’s what a normal person would have done.

But something had short-circuited in my brain over the course of this endless Tuesday. Maybe it was the stress, the fear, or the absurdity of my situation. Maybe it was just that I’d finally reached the limit of how many fucks I could give in one day and had simply run out.

So instead of stopping, I held his gaze and moved my hand deliberately beneath the fabric. My whole body woke up, and goosebumps covered my skin all over.

His pupils dilated instantly, darkening those blue eyes. I heard the slight catch in his breath and saw the tightening of his jaw. He hadn’t expected that.

For a long moment, he didn’t move. Then, with deliberate slowness, he closed the door behind him, locked it from the inside, and turned to me fully.

He crossed the room in two steps, never breaking eye contact.

My heart hammered against my ribs, but I didn’t stop and moved my fingers again. Some distant part of my brain was screaming that this was insane and dangerous, but my body wasn’t listening anymore.

He looked down at me, his expression unreadable.

“This is a very bad idea.”

“I’ve been having a lot of those lately,” I said, my voice huskier than I’d intended. “Join the club.”

“I could hurt you.”

“You said you weren’t planning to.”

“This is different.” He sat on the edge of the bed but didn’t touch me. “There are many ways to hurt someone.”

I stilled my hand but didn’t remove it. “I’m a big girl. I can make my own bad decisions.”

“Is that what this is?”

“Isn’t it?”

His hand moved to my wrist, where it disappeared down my jeans. “If we do this, there are rules.”

“Of course there are,” I said, unable to keep the edge from my voice. “You seem like a man who likes rules.”

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