Page 19 of Claimed By the Masked BRATVA
The last word hits me like a blow. My throat tightens. He sees too much.
I look away, blinking hard. “You don’t know me.”
He tips my chin up, forcing me to meet his gaze. “I know enough. Enough to know I want you forever.”
And then he kisses me, not with the wild hunger of last night, but with slow, devastating certainty. His lips move against mine like he’s writing a promise I’ll never be able to erase.
When he pulls back, my knees are weak, my mind spinning.
He smiles faintly, triumphant. “Come upstairs. Let me show you your room.”
My laugh is shaky. “Your room, you mean.”
“No.” His gaze burns. “Ours.”
The word steals my breath.
I follow him.
Sebastian
I never bring women here.
This house is mine. My fortress, my sanctuary, my throne. It isn’t a playground for forgettable bodies and painted smiles. Those women stayed in penthouse suites, their perfume washed from my sheets before the sun rose.
But Caitlyn walks across my marble floors barefoot, wearing my shirt, her hair still tangled from my hands, and all I feel is pride. Possession.
She belongs here.
I follow her slowly, watching the way she trails her fingers along the smooth banister, the way her gaze flicks to every detail as though cataloguing it for later. Of course she does. Her mind is a scientist’s, hungry, logical, restless. She doesn’t move like the women I usually see at parties, gliding with calculated grace. She moves like she’s actually here, present, unpretending.
That was what caught me at the masquerade.
I’d gone out of boredom, truth be told. Another annual ball where men in masks toast to their empires and measure their dicks in wealth and violence. Women lined up like ornaments, polished, rehearsed, empty. I was already half-drunk on vodka and disinterest when she appeared.
I saw her before I touched her. Standing near the orchids, her mask slightly askew, her shoulders tense with nerves. She wasn’t there for us. She wasn’t performing.
And every man in that room noticed.
I saw the way Anton’s eyes lingered. The way Dragunov leaned toward his men and muttered in Russian, the worddevushkacurling with hunger. Predators, all of them, scenting something new.
I wanted to kill them for looking.
Instead, I claimed her first.
And now she’s here, in my home, still too innocent to realize how dangerous last night really was.
She pauses in front of a painting, oil on canvas, abstract streaks of black and red. “This feels… violent,” she murmurs.
“It is,” I say simply, stepping behind her, sliding my hands onto her hips. “But so is life.”
She shivers, leaning back into me, her scientist’s curiosity and her body’s instinct warring. I lower my mouth to her ear. “You’re safe here. With me.”
Her breath hitches. She believes me. Good.
I guide her upstairs, into the master suite. The room is stark, clean lines, dark wood, white sheets. No softness, no clutter. She hesitates at the threshold.
“You really live like this?” she asks.
