The silence stretches between us. Not cold. Not awkward. Just tight with meaning.
Thunder cracks, close enough to rattle the windows. The lights dim for a breath, then return. She doesn’t look away.
“Maybe I don’t see you the way they do,” she says.
Abandoning pretense, I move closer, setting my tea aside untouched. One step. Then another. She doesn’t retreat. I watch her chest rise with each breath, slow but deep, like she’s steadying herself for impact.
“You should,” I say. “I’ve orchestrated kidnappings. I’ve ended lives for less than what you’ve dared to ask me in a session.”
Her voice doesn’t waver. “I know you won’t hurt me.”
I stop just short of touching her, my hands braced on either side of the counter behind her, trapping her without contact.
“You see too much,” I say, eyes locked on hers.
She exhales slowly, eyes scanning mine like she’s searching for the moment I might flinch. I don’t.
“I see a man trying to hold himself together with anger and control because grief broke him,” she says. “And I see that he’s tired of it.”
No one’s said that to me before. Not in that way. Not like they mean it.
“This is reckless,” I murmur, even as I lean in. Her scent—vanilla and rain and the impossible calm she somehow carries—pulls me tighter into the moment.
“Yes.” Her voice falters just slightly, just enough. “Ethically, professionally…”
“Will that stop you?” I’m closer now. Breath to breath.
She’s silent. Her eyes flicker to my mouth, then back. That hesitation—raw, real—is louder than any confession.
“No.” She shakes her head, voice like a thread pulled tight. “Even though I’m afraid you’re playing me. That I’m just part of your game.”
“And if it’s true?”
“Then you’ve already lost,” she whispers. “Because connection isn’t something you fake and win. It’s something you either feel…or you don’t.”
The air frays between us.
And then I snap.
My mouth crashes down on hers, not gentle, not questioning. She opens for me eagerly, and I almost lose it right then andthere. Her mug hits the floor, shattering, but neither of us cares. She gasps against my lips, and I swallow the sound, pressing her back against the counter.
“Yakov—” she breathes, but I cut her off with another bruising kiss, deeper this time. My tongue slides against hers, and she moans, her hands fisting in my shirt.
I lift her onto the counter, stepping between her thighs. She’s wet—I can feel the heat of her through the silk—and it takes every ounce of my control not to tear the fabric away.
“We can’t,” she gasps, even as she arches against me.
“I know.” But my hands are already sliding up her thighs. “Tell me to stop, little doctor.”
“I—” Lightning flashes, illuminating her face—lips swollen, eyes wild. “I don’t want you to stop.”
Footsteps in the hallway. Guards doing rounds.
We freeze, her legs still clinching my waist. My hand inches from where she’s burning for me.
“Fuck.” With a growl of pure frustration, I tear myself away. My cock throbs. My hands shake. She looks wrecked—hair messed, lips swollen, silk rucked up around her hips.
“Fix your clothes,” I growl, turning away before I lose the last thread of control. “They can’t find us like this.”
