Page List

Font Size:

I feel a flash of heat that isn’t lust this time. It’s anger. Not at her. At the faceless men she’s describing, the ones who kept her in cupcake columns while they patted each other on the back for taking bribes and screwing interns.

She sits up, dragging the sheet over her breasts like it’s armor. “This will destroy me. Even if I write it, even if I prove everything, they’ll never see me as anything but the woman who got too close to the Bratva heir. The woman who—” her breath catches “—let herself be used for a story.”

I lean forward, bracing my palms on either side of her thighs, caging her without touching. “Used?” I say, my voice low, dangerous. “You think that’s what this is?”

Her chin trembles, but she lifts it anyway. “That’s what they’ll say.”

“Then let them say it,” I growl. “Let them choke on it. You walked into my world on your own two feet. You came hunting, and you caught the wolf. That’s not weakness. That’s power.”

Her eyes flash. “Power? I’ll be radioactive. Untouchable. They’ll blacklist me from every paper in the country.”

I reach out, catch her wrist, press her palm flat to my chest where my heart hammers. “Good,” I murmur. “Then you don’t owe them a damn thing anymore.”

She tries to pull back, but I tighten my grip enough to hold her still. “Listen to me, Natasha. You think you can go back to your old life after tonight? You can’t. Not because of what they’ll say. Because of what you’ve seen. Because of what you know. Because of what you are now.”

Her breath hitches.

I lean closer, until my mouth is at her ear, my words a rumble she can feel down her spine. “You’ve stepped into a world where people disappear for asking the wrong questions. You think your editors will protect you? You think your story will save you? It won’t. The only thing standing between you and a shallow grave is me.”

She stiffens at that, but she doesn’t pull away.

“You will always need my protection now,” I go on, softer but no less certain. “Not because you’re weak. Because you’re too dangerous. Because you’ve tasted power you can’t untaste. Every senator, every cop, every man and woman you’re trying toexpose, if they find out you’ve been here, with me, they won’t just smear you and blacklist you. They’ll kill you.”

I slide my hand from her wrist to the back of her neck, thumb stroking the pulse there. “With me, you’re untouchable. With me, you get to write your story and live to see it printed. Without me…” I let the silence stretch, heavy, inevitable.

She swallows, her eyes wide, the sheet clutched to her chest.

“You’ll never be safe again,” I finish quietly.

She looks so small like this, sheet clutched to her chest, bare face lifted to me, eyes wide and storm-grey. But I can see the steel under the trembling. She didn’t crumble when she spoke. She bared her teeth. She told me everything the world tried to take from her.

And it makes me want to give her everything.

I brush my thumb along her jaw, slow, tracing the curve of her mouth. “You’ve been clawing for scraps in a world built to shut you out,” I murmur. “Let them keep their scraps. With me, you never have to beg again. With me, you stop being a byline. You become a name.”

Her breath catches.

I lean closer, letting my voice wrap around her like silk. “You’ll have your story. You’ll have a home. You’ll have protection. You’ll have an empire that bows when you speak. You’ll sit at my table, not as a guest, but as the queen of it. The only one I trust at my side. The only one I want there.”

I see it land. The flicker in her eyes, fear and hunger twisting together. Her world is burning down behind her, and I’m holding out my hand in the fire.

“Natasha,” I whisper, her name rough on my tongue. “Stop fighting ghosts. Stop chasing crumbs. Take what you came for. Take me. Take all of it.”

“Now,” I say, my voice low and dark and certain, “sit on my face and let me make you come…” My mouth curves into a slow, wicked smile. “…and then ride my cock like the queen you were always meant to be.”

Natasha

For a heartbeat the room holds its breath.

He’s sprawled against the pillows, mask still gleaming. His command lingers in the air between us —sit on my face and let me make you come, then ride my cock like the queen you were always meant to be.

I want to laugh it off, I want to tell him he’s insane, but the words won’t come. My whole body is shaking with a heat I can’t name.

Then he reaches up, unhooks the mask from his face, and sets it aside on the nightstand.

The sight of him steals my breath. High cheekbones, dark eyes, a faint scar running along his jaw. Everything he’s ever hidden from the ballroom laid bare just for me. The mask was power. This is something else entirely.

“No more masks,” he murmurs. “Not between us.”