“You know, I’ve lived in this city my whole life, and I’ve never visited the rare book division,” I heard Arya say behind my back. I couldn’t show it to her today, since we needed a key for that, too, but it was on the tip of my tongue to tell her that I’d make it happen. That I’d take her there. Only I couldn’t take her there. Being seen with her in public in broad daylight would be disastrous. The kiss of death to our careers—not to mention her nearly nonexistent relationship with her family. We could only exist in the dark, two thieves of pleasure.
The study room was never ending. All the table lamps were turned off. In the dark, it looked almost like a deserted factory. Of ideas and dreams and potential. I tugged at Arya’s hand to come inside, feeling fourteen again.
“Please don’t tell me you hid my book somewhere in here.” She glanced around the room, which was framed with shelves laden with books.
I let out a metallic laugh. “I’m not that sadistic.”
“Debatable.” She walked over to one of the shelves, checking out the books. I watched her. I always watched her. Her hair—the only untamed thing about her appearance—curled around her face like an angel’s. I wondered if she’d taste as sweet, as sinful, as lovely, if I had her openly. If I could parade her around. Take her to company events. If her belly swelled with my offspring inside it. I wondered if my obsession with her stemmed from pure vengeance or something more. A sense of entitlement, of ownership, after everything she’d put me through.
“Christian?” she asked, and I realized that in my stupor, I hadn’t noticed she was talking to me. I shook my head slightly. It always disoriented me when she called me that.
“Yes?”
“Did you listen to anything I said?” She smiled, hugging a book to her chest as she advanced toward me, a mischievous glint in her eyes.
“Not one word,” I admitted. “I was preoccupied.”
“With what?”
“Envisioning my hands on your ass as I take you from behind right on this table.”
She sashayed to me, one hand lazily caressing the long wooden table by her side. When she reached me, she handed me a book.
“Open it randomly and read me a paragraph.”
“Why?”
“Because I asked.”
“That’s your selling point? Because you asked?”
She gave me a blank stare.
I laughed. “Okay, then.”
For the first time—I had this feeling she was onto me. That she knew who I was. Because fourteen-year-old Arya had known damn well that fourteen-year-old Nicholai would do anything within his power at her order. I took the book, flipping the pages, my eyes still holding hers. Very well. We were going to play it like that. I stopped at a random page, my eyes gliding over the text that stuck out to me. I read it out loud. It was about women being poisonous.
I turned the book around. First Love by Ivan Turgenev.
“Why did you pick this book?” I asked.
“Why did you pick this paragraph?” she quipped back, not missing a beat.
“I didn’t.”
“Neither did I.” She smiled. “I just wanted to see if you’d play my games too.”
I put the book aside, gliding toward her. She took a step back.
“I always seem to be in the market for whatever the hell you’re offering.”
She took another step back. Only a few feet from one of the tables. “Why is that, Christian? You don’t strike me as a big romantic.”
I took a step forward. “I’m not.”
“Why, then?” She retreated one last time, the backs of her legs hitting the table, and stopped. I grinned, eating the space between us with one final step.
“Because, unfortunately, Ms. Roth, no one else will do.”
Pinning her to the table by pressing my hands on either side of her thighs, I lowered my head to hers, my mouth pressing against her warm lips. She opened for me, tasting of powdered sugar and Nutella and peppermint tea. Of poison and destruction and inevitability. She pressed one hand against my chest, the other one circling my shoulder, her nails scraping at my hair. I groaned into our kiss, thinking she might pull me away, when her hand descended my abs, down to the button of my dress pants. My erection was impossible to manage, my cock standing to attention between us, waiting to be acknowledged.
Her hand slid down to cup it through my pants. I could no longer kiss her and concentrate at the same time, so I dropped my head to the side of her neck, covering every inch of it with lazy kisses. My body wrenched and spasmed to see what she’d do next.
Arya grabbed me by the dick—and balls—and jerked me forward, until there was no more space between us. I almost came on impact. And then she was gone, the space where her neck had been just a moment ago cold. I looked left and right, confused. I found her on her knees in front of me, undoing my button and zipper.