18
Kira stretched in bed, floating in the space between sleep and wakefulness. She’d forgotten to pull the drapes closed the night before, and the morning sun streamed in through the big windows, casting a beam of light across the big comfortable bed.
A second later, the events of the night before came crashing in around her.
She groaned and rolled onto her stomach, punching the bed.
Lyonya Antonov was a bastard.
He’d let her think he was warming to her, let her believe they were making a connection.
Worse, he’d gotten her more aroused than she’d ever been in her life, her body humming with need, a ravenous maw of desire opening in her belly, desperate for him to lick her, to fuck her, to occupy every inch of her body.
Then he’d withdrawn, asserting his control over her in the most humiliating way imaginable, when she was at her most vulnerable. He was just as vile as she’d thought.
She’d been so close to begging.
So. Close.
It was only her long years of planning, her future ambitions, that had reeled her back from the brink of surrender.
She’d been so out of her mind by the time he left her standing on the terrace that she’d retreated to her rooms, where she’d given herself multiple orgasms with the vibrator she kept in the top drawer of the nightstand.
It should have felt like a victory. She didn’t need Lyonya Antonov. She could take care of herself, in more ways than one.
Except it had been his face behind her eyelids when she stroked herself, his tongue she imagined sliding through her swollen folds, his cock she imagined driving into her as she came again and again.
Bastard.
Her body had been loose and spent by the time she settled under the covers of the bed, but her mind had still been reeling. How could she let her guard down? How could she let him affect her the way he had on the terrace? She needed to get her act together, and she’d finally fallen into a fitful sleep, determined to start fresh the next morning, to remember that she and Lyonya were business partners, nothing more.
She would never let him get that close to her again.
Odette and Dimitri chirped from within their covered cage, and she forced herself to a sitting position on the bed, remembering her resolve. She forced herself to her feet, uncovered the cage, and fed the birds as she greeted them. Then she slipped a robe over her T-shirt and underwear, just in case Lyonya was still in the apartment.
She stepped into the hall and planned her day. At the top of the list was to make calls to the women she’d invited to lunch the week before. She’d felt good about their conversation, had been almost positive they would convince the men in their lives to support Lyonya, but she wanted to be sure.
The apartment was quiet as usual. She entered the living room to find Rurick punching buttons on the security system keypad on the wall.
He looked at her as she stepped off the stairs. ”Good morning.”
“Good morning.”
“I’ve just changed the codes on the security system.” His brown eyes were inscrutable.
“Why?” She hoped the question wasn’t too forward, then banished the notion. This was her home. She was entitled to know about it.
“We change them every few days as a matter of course,” he said. “I’ll send you a text with the new code.”
“Thank you,” she said, continuing into the kitchen. She hadn’t been around him long enough to be comfortable in his presence. Despite his size, he moved like a cat, drifting in and out of rooms without a sound, making himself scarce when she was outside of her suite.
She had the distinct feeling there was more to him than met the eye, and she made a mental note to call the man her father used for investigative work. She needed to know all she could about everyone in Lyonya’s orbit, and that included the man who lived under their roof, ostensibly as a house manager.
She stepped into the kitchen and found Zoya loading the dishwasher with the previous night’s dishes.
Kira headed for the cabinet that held the coffee mugs. “Good morning.”
“Yes, it would be a good morning if I wasn’t doing dishes,” Zoya grumbled.