The shock hit me first, cold and blinding.
Then the rage followed, sharp enough to tear through my bones.
He wouldn't even look at me. He couldn't. But I could see the way he was breathing hard, his jaw clenched, pretending like this was just another moment he could command and contain. That he could put himself back together while I was coming apart in pieces.
Something inside me snapped.
I lunged at him.
My fists connected to the closest thing I could reach. His chest, his shoulder, then the side of his jaw. He staggered back, stunned, but I didn't stop. I didn't want to stop. All the hurt and terror and betrayal poured out of my in brutal, shaking blows.
"How...dare...you..." The words broke out of me between strikes, my voice raw, unrecognizable.
He caught my wrists on the next swing, twisting, then shoving me back with enough force that my heel slid out from under me. I hit the ground hard, breath knocked clean from my lungs.
But I wasn't done.
I scrambled up and lunged at him again. Trying to push him, hurt him, make him feel something, anything, even just a sliver of what was tearing through me.
This time though, he didn't let me touch him.
He grabbed me mid-strike, pivoted then slammed me down onto the cold floor. I landed on my back, a burst of pain shooting through me as his weight pinned me there. His breath was ragged, harsh, his eyes were blown wide with something between fury and panic.
"Stop," he ground out, his voice shaking in a way I had never heard from him. "Stop before I—"
"Before you what?" I hissed up at him, thrashing against his grip. "Before you do it again? Before you fuck me over the same way?"
His jaw clenched so hard I thought it might crack. A shadow swept across his face. Regret, rage and something darker, something terrifyingly human.
He looked away. Just for a second. But it was enough to expose the fracture in him.
"I didn't mean...to forget," he said quietly. The words scraping out of him like they hurt. "I didn't mean for it to happen like that." His throat bobbed, pained, as if the possibility of...that was clawing at him as viciously as it clawed at me. "I'll remember next time."
My breath stuttered. A fresh crack splintered through my chest.
"There won't be a next time," I bit out. My voice shook with fury and something heartbreakingly close to grief. I lifted my head, despite the weight of his hands pinning my shoulders, despite the solid press of his hips trapping me against the ground. "I won't let you use me like that, ever again. I'm not yours to play with, Barinov."
His eyes snapped back to mine, and for a sliver of a moment, our breaths tangled, ragged and furious. His face was so close. Too close. Close enough that I could feel how his control trembled.
Everything between us felt like a live wire, sparking and burning, begging to break. All it would've taken was just one single word. That was all it would take for this fragile thing between us to shatter.
"What makes you think I'm using you, Isla?" he murmured, his voice low, dangerous. Those green eyes pinned me the way his body did. Unyielding and unrelenting, as if he could peel back every layer I was hiding behind.
"You are," I breathed. The vulnerability in my voice startled even me. "I'm going to get out of here one day. Somehow. And when I do..." My throat tightened, but I forced the words out anyway. "What happens when your wife comes back and finds out that her husband has been sleeping with his enemy?"
His jaw tensed. A muscle jumped. "She's gone."
The words hit me harder than his weight pressing me into the ground.
I flinched. Not because I pitied him, but because I didn't trust what this sudden ache in my chest had meant.
"You can't be sure," I whispered, trying to swallow the sting, bury the tug of something I truly couldn't afford to feel.
"Trust me," he said. His voice scraped rough, as if dragged from somewhere raw. "You know I have my ways."
Something cold was sliding down my spine, but something warm had tightened in my chest, all at the same time. But neither feeling was supposed to belong there.
"Why are you doing this?" My voice broke, thin and helpless. "You're making this harder than it needs to be."
"Because..." His jaw flexed, as if he had to force the words out through his teeth. "I don't want to feel this way for you anymore. Think of it like a purge."
A purge. Of me. Of whatever this was between us. My chest ached.
"Let me go," I said steadily, holding his gaze even as his grip bruised into my arms. "And we'll pretend that none of this ever happened. No purging required."
"I can't," he replied, low and unyielding. "Not when you know too much." He leaned in, voice brushing my cheek like a threat disguised as a whisper. "Besides...your grandfather is this close to giving me exactly what I want. What makes you think I'd let you slip away now?"
My stomach dropped. "What?"
That slow, poisonous smirk curved his lips. Soft, beautiful and merciless. It made him look every inch the villain that my body seemed to forget.
"You didn't honestly think I'd get my hands on his only heir and not use that to my advantage, did you?" he murmured.
"Maybe I'll even send him that little clip you gifted me through the camera in your room. The one where you stripped yourself bare for me." His fingers skimmed a dangerous line down my waist, reminding me too vividly the rage and frustration I had for him. "Let him see how his good granddaughter is lusting for the man she's supposed to kill."
A cold, hollow terror opened inside me.
This wouldn't just ruin me. Hell, it wouldn't just strip me of my legacy. By doing so, he would've signed my death warrant.
"You wouldn't dare," I breathed. Rage and something deeper, like hurt, surged through me like wildfire. I hated him. Hated the way he pushed me, trapped me, twisted everything until I couldn't tell where the fury ended and something else began.
His smirk only deepened, cruel and devastatingly calm. "Oh, I would. And tell me, Isla...what exactly do I have to lose?"
The answer carved itself through the silence between us. His wife. Him taking out his grief on me. Then there was something unspoken and dangerous that neither of us wanted to name.
It made my pulse snap.
Before I even realized I had moved, my hand cracked across his cheek. Sharp and furious, a sound that echoed in the narrow space between our bodies.
His head jerked to the side.
And when he twisted back at me, the smirk was gone.
"Fight me, Princess," he chuckled, his fingers tightening around my neck with fierce possession while the other slid beneath my dress, diving deep between my thighs. "I love it when you bare your claws."
It was as if I had awakened a dark, primal storm inside him.
My back arched instinctively, even as every fiber of my being struggled against him. His fingers toyed with my slick heat, swirling with deliberate cruelty that burned through me. Rage and humiliation surged, tangled with a raw hunger that I've fought hard to bury deep inside.
He chuckled low, as he coaxed my wetness that was now mingled with his own mark, pushing it deeper into me. I tried to fight him, but his thrusts only grew harder, more demanding. A moan tore out of me, hating that he could pull such reactions out of me.
My legs trembled, caught between the instinct to pull him closer and the violent urge to push him away.
"Maybe then," he whispered, his breath scorching my ear, "you'll finally be mine. Nowhere to run. No one left to protect you but me."
Something snapped.
I twisted beneath him, using the slip of his grip, the angle of his shoulders, anything I could steal.
In a breathless scramble, I rolled us to the side with a jiujitsu maneuver until I ended up straddling him. My thighs clamped around his hips, his hard length pressing against my slick entrance, palms braced against his chest.
He froze.
Not because he couldn't fight back, but because with me on top of him, breath ragged, hair wild, seemed to hit him like a blow.
His eyes dragged over me, dark and hungry and he didn't even bother to hide it.
My voice shook, but I forced every word out like a blade.
"I hate you," I whispered, leaning over him, my breath ghosting his mouth. "More than anything, Barinov. I'd rather die than spend the rest of my life under your fucking protection."