his taut ass filling out the seat of his pants.
Facing me from feet away, he dried off negligently.
He toed out of his shoes and socks and lashed his belt from the loops with a body-tingling hiss.
He dropped everything on the floor where he stood.
Fierce determination etched across his face as he came back to me.
I breathed raggedly, aware that simply by watching him undertake such masculine ablutions, I was turned on despite the night’s wild reckonings or because of them.
“Is Maksim still here? Was anyone shot? What was that outside?” I threw questions at him, hoping to stave off whatever punishment he had in mind for me.
“None of your concern.” Hard bodied, he stood in front of me, looking like a vengeful Slavic god.
Unwelcome and unwanted, pure heat licked up and down my body as he loomed over me in silent perusal.
Suddenly, a very wicked smile curled one corner of his mouth. “Maksim is gone. And the soldiers have strict instructions to ignore your screams from now until morning.”
My screams?
Fear prickled my flesh, but I couldn’t look away from him not even when he bent at the waist and his broad chest filled my vision.
I can’t move away from him.
His arms enveloped me—sturdy with strength—and he lifted me up.
Pivoting, he stalked from the bedroom and took the staircase. Without a misstep, Arkady carried me upstairs.
Trepidation filled me, but that wasn’t all. Forbidden attraction flittered through my belly and drew wet heat from my very depths.
He looked so foreboding. He’d hardly said a word. Tension coursed through all the unyielding muscles I pressed against as he carried me up to the very top of his beautiful home.
At the third floor, there was only one door, and Arkady fit a key in the lock.
A whimper dragged up the back of my throat while he pressed the door open, stepped inside, and shut it behind him.
The instinct to flee awoke when he locked us in there, breath hastening from my chest, but there was nowhere to run to and no way to get out.
At last he lowered me to my feet and moved to my side where his blue, blue eyes roamed all over me to kindle the shocking flames only he brought to life.
I scanned across the room as he watched me.
Beneath my feet, the warmth of the refinished floorboards made my toes curl. But across from me—attached to one wall—a wrought iron shelving unit held implements of torture.
Handcuffs.
Whips.
Canes.
Gags?
I gasped loudly, spinning for some way to get out of there. Then I saw the most unexpected thing in the middle of this attic of torture.
A massive bed filled a large area of the room, looking so out of place. The bedding consisted of fluffy pillows and covers in sumptuous, pristine silks in the deepest tone of champagne.
My throat worked, and I pulled the heavy cuffs of Arkady’s sweater over my hands that I clenched. “What is this place?”
He gave no answer, features entirely wolfish as he looked me over from head to toe.
With intensely predatory moves, he walked to his wall of implements and took down a bone-handled knife.
His hand swallowed the hilt of the delicately carved weapon, and I remained frozen in place when he returned, captured by the sudden searing heat of his eyes.
He could kill me if he wished.
My head tilted back but my gaze steadied, locked inextricably on his when he slid the slim blade up the outside of my thigh.
His voice held an edge as sharp as the dagger when he asked, “Do you like knives, dragotsennaya printsessa?”
Breath struggled from within my lungs, and my nipples rubbed against the coarse fabric of his cable knit sweater.
I nodded.
His grin grew absolutely dirty, the blade rasping over my hip and into the indent of my waist. Goosebumps erupted across my tummy, and his forearm shoved beneath the sweater, which he slowly hauled up and up.
I stopped breathing altogether when he dragged the flat of the knife down the center of my belly to nick the upper band of my panties.
Swaying slightly, my eyes began to drift shut.
I had to brace my hands on his chest, and I felt the heat of him radiating, the power of him overtaking everything else.
His low, thoroughly naughty chuckle spun chills and thrills through my body.
The knife and his arm emerged from beneath the sweater and I was wet through—pining for some sort of release—before he’d even touched me with anything other than smooth steel.
I opened dizzied eyes. I could almost feel him. I