White Nights (White Nights 1)

I glare at him. “What were you doing at the bar tonight? How did you know I was there?” A disconcerting thought rattles me. “Are you still having me followed?”

“For your safety.”

Holy shit. He doesn’t even bother to deny it.

“Dimitri?” I ask as my anger bubbles up and threatens to spill over into something uglier, something like the violence I condemn in his life.

“Yes,” he says with a straight face.

“I haven’t seen him in a week.”

“His presence upsets you, so I told him to keep out of sight.”

I’m at a loss for words. “You’re a bastard.”

“That’s not what you said when I had you pinned underneath me in my bed.”

Heat creeps over my cheeks. I glance in Yuri’s direction, at which he presses a button to lift the partition that gives us privacy. Too little too late.

Humiliation burns in my gut. “For that, you’re a double bastard.”

Something flashes in Alex’s eyes, but he turns his face away, preventing me from seeing his expression.

I fall quiet. Getting into a war with Alex won’t gain me anything. He’s a master at warfare. There’s no way I can win. Not for the first time, I think that maybe I should just give in and let him have his way until the novelty wears off and he goes looking for another challenge.

The strained atmosphere prevails until we park outside my building. Alex is out of the car before I can reach for my door. He offers me a hand to help me out, and when I ignore it, he takes my arm and pulls me to my feet on the sidewalk.

Like a considerate lover, he snakes an arm around my waist and shelters me from the cold as he guides me to the entrance of my apartment block. It’s warm in the crook of his arm, and I resent the welcome heat that seeps through the layers of his clothes and envelops my body.

He ushers me inside and up the stairs. When he takes a pair of keys from his pocket and unlocks my door, I lose it.

My voice echoes shrilly in the hallway. “You can’t do that.” I hold out my palm. “Give them to me.”

“Keep your voice down,” he says through gritted teeth. “You’ll wake every goddamn person in the building.”

“Then so be it. You can’t change my lock and keep a set of keys for yourself.”

Holding my gaze, he makes a statement by dropping the keys back into his pocket.

Son of a bitch. “Give them to me!”

He’s on top of me in a flash, slamming a hand over my mouth and lifting me off my feet. I swallow the gasp that’s trapped behind his palm as he opens my door, punches in the code to deactivate the alarm, and shuts the door with a click before lowering me to the floor.

The minute he removes his hand from my mouth, I back up into the small living space.

He frowns. “You don’t have to be frightened of me, Katyusha. I’d never hurt you.”

I hate that I’m shaking and that it reflects in my tremulous words. “I want you to leave. I told you, it’s over.”

“Is it?” He advances, making me scoot around the table. “I don’t think it is.”

“That’s not for just you to decide.” I lift my chin as my back hits the wall. I’ve run out of space to flee.

“No, it takes two to tango.” He watches me with the intensity of a snake about to strike. “And I bet if I touch you, your body will sing another tune.”

He stops flush in front of me, so close that when he leans in, the lengths of our bodies are pressed together. He must’ve put a spell on me, because on cue, my skin catches fire. The flames creep over my cheeks and down to my core. Every molecule in my body comes alive. The hair on my arms rises, drawn to him as if by static electricity. I flatten myself against the wall in an attempt to put space between us, but it’s futile. His hard-on grows against my stomach, and in answer, my nipples tighten and my center clenches.

“You want me,” he says, victory riding on the words.

The way he searches my eyes to confirm the truth is just an afterthought. My body has already told him everything.

“It’s not that simple,” I whisper.

He leans a hand on the wall next to my face and drags a finger over my leg, catching the hem of my dress. “What if it is?”

“With you?” I utter a soft laugh. “Nothing is simple.”

He lowers his head and brushes soft words over the shell of my ear. “For you, I can try.”

“Try what?” I tilt my head away. “Try to make it simple, or try to make it more complicated?”

“I’ve already tried more.” He slides his palm under my dress and up the inside of my thigh. “You don’t seem to like it.”