I wake up to fresh sheets, perfumed pillows, and a four-poster bed.
Shit.
I sit up like a cartoon spring, minus the sound effect. Memories of last night flood my mind, turning my cheeks redder by the second.
Yulian kissed me. After the meeting with his vores or whatever, he—hekissedme.
And I let him.
Then he did a whole lot more to me, and I let him do that, too.
Panicked, I check the other side of the bed.
Empty.
Which doesn’t mean what happened last night was a fever dream, though. At least, a very specific part of me seems to remember every detail.
Oh. My. God.We fucked. Like, seriously fucked. I saw his cheese grater abs and every other kitchen implement he’s been endowed with by nature, and holy shit, the tabloids did not lie for once.
I bury my face in my hands. This is the most mortifying day of my life. I didn’t just fuck my boss—I begged my boss to fuck me. I was so far gone, the brain upstairs took its PTO while the brain downstairs overhauled every single rational decision I’ve ever made.
That’s what you get for letting cobwebs grow down there.I can hear Kallie’s voice like she’s physically here, snickering at my expenses.
Then I remember.
Kallie.
Eli.
Shit!
I glance at the snazzy curtains again and realize it’s light outside. Double-triple shit with a cherry on top.
I spring to my feet before realizing I’m still naked, then wrap the sheets around me. The effect isn’t quite modest-but-sexy Hollywood starlet, but I couldn’t care less. Yulian isn’t evenhere,for fuck’s sake.
I try not to linger on how empty that thought makes me feel. That, after last night, he couldn’t even stick around.
Instead, I rush into the bathroom to grab the fastest shower of my life?—
—and I collide with a brick wall.
No, not a brick wall. Acheese graterwall. The very same eight-pack I’ve been ogling since day one. What’s that they always say in children’s movies?“Careful what you wish for”?
“You’re in a hurry.” Yulian’s husky voice snaps me out of my panic. It isn’t a question—it never is.
“Sorry,” I blurt, “it’s just, it’s super late and I was supposed to be back last night and I can’t even remember if Kallie had a shift and?—”
“Car’s downstairs,” he cuts me off. “Maks will take you.”
It’s only then that I finally meet his gaze.
Cold.It’s the first thing I notice, a feeling more than a thought. A chilly, unwelcome sensation spreading down my naked body.
Last night, there was a storm in Yulian’s gray eyes. It was a storm of desire, ofwant,so raw no one could possibly deny it existed.
Now, they’re as cold as steel.
He sidesteps me, giving me space to enter the bathroom.
