10 Days to Ruin (Ozerov Bratva Book 1)
10 Days to Ruin: Chapter 17

The door clicks shut, sealing us in a silence thick enough to choke on. I don’t move. Can’t move. Not with her standing there, looking like every forbidden fantasy I’ve ever crushed beneath my boot.

The glasses. The shirt straining over her breasts. The skirt that should be illegal.

One nail in my coffin after the next.

My blood roars in my ears, a primal drumbeat. It’s accompanied by voices saying things I can’t let myself do.

Grab her.

Bend her.

Fucking take her.

Ariel tilts her head, lips curving into a coy smile. “You look tense, darling.” She drags the word out like a blade, testing its edge against my patience.

It’s fucking embarrassing how well it works.

“What are you doing here?” My voice is gravel, my fists clenched at my sides.

It’s a rhetorical question; I know exactly what she’s doing. But I want to hear her say it. I want her to admit this is a game, so I can tear it the fuck apart.

She shrugs. Her blouse slips just enough to reveal the lace strap of her bra. “Can’t a fiancée visit her future husband at work?”

“You’re not my fiancée yet.”

“Oh, but I will be.” She sashays closer, hips switching wildly with every step. “Ten days, right? Or nine now, I suppose. Might as well get acquainted until then.”

Her scent hits me—jasmine and peaches, the same as that night in the bathroom. It floods my lungs, my throat, my skull. I’m drowning in it.

She stops inches from my desk, her hip brushing the edge. “You’re not working, are you?” Her fingers trail over my closed laptop, painted nails tapping the lid. “Seems like you’re just sitting here. Brooding. Menacing.”

“‘Menacing’?”

“Mm.” She leans forward, bracing her hands on the desk. The blouse gapes, and I force my gaze to stay locked on hers, because if I peek down the cups of her bra again, I might implode. “All that scowling can’t be good for your blood pressure.”

“You’re the one giving me a stroke.”

Her laugh is low, honeyed. “Poor thing!” She straightens up and simpers out with that lower lip. “Maybe you need a distraction. A ‘stroke’ isn’t such a bad idea, actually…”

I don’t flinch when her palm lands on my tie, fingers toying with the silk. But my breath hitches, betraying me.

She notices—of course she does. Her smile sharpens.

“Careful, ptichka,” I warn.

“Or what?” She tugs the tie, pulling me closer. Our faces are level now, her breath warm against my lips. “You’ll… spank me?”

My hand twitches, itching to grab her, to flip her over the desk and show her exactly what happens to brats who play with fire. But I stay rooted, muscles coiled, letting her think she’s in control.

For now.

“You’re testing me,” I growl.

“Testing what?” Her thumb brushes the hollow of my throat, right along the line of my scar. “Your self-control?”

“My mercy.”

Ariel titters. “You don’t know the meaning of the word.”

Before I can retort, she swings a leg over me and settles into my lap. Her skirt rides up her thighs. My hands fly to her hips on instinct, gripping hard enough to bruise. She doesn’t wince, though. Just grinds down, slow and deliberate, until my vision whites out. “Ariel, I⁠—”

“Shh.” She presses a finger to my lips. Her other hand slides up my chest, popping the top button of my shirt. Then the next. And the next. “You talk too much.”

I could stop her. Should stop her. But her skin is fever-hot through the thin cotton of her blouse, her hips rolling in a rhythm that’s fucking obscene. My cock aches, straining against my zipper, and she smirks like she knows. Like she’s winning.

“You’re not the only one who can play games, Sasha.” Her nails scrape my collarbone. Soft, soft, and then pang, a scratch that draws blood. “You think you’re so scary? So untouchable?” She leans in, her lips grazing my ear. “But I’ve seen you come undone. I’ve felt it.”

Her teeth graze my earlobe and reality fractures. My hands slide up her back, memorizing each curve through silk. She arches into my touch like a cat, but when I try to capture her lips, she turns her head.

“Ah-ah.” Her fingertip presses against my mouth again. “No kissing.”

I growl. “Why not?”

“Because.” She rocks her hips, drawing a groan from deep in my chest. “I make the rules today.”

My laugh is dark, dangerous, delirious. “Since when?”

“Since… now.” Her lips trail down my neck, tongue flicking out to taste the salt of my skin. But when I lean in, she pulls back just enough to deny me. “Hands above the waist, darling.”

I grip her ass in defiance. “Make me.”

She clicks her tongue and stills completely. “I could leave.”

“You won’t.”

“Try me.”

We lock eyes, neither willing to back down. Then slowly, deliberately, she starts to rise from my lap.

“Fine.” I slide my hands up to her waist, surrendering. For now.

Her smile is pure sin as she settles back down. “Good boy.”

My fingers dig into her ribs in warning, but she just laughs and goes back to work on my shirt buttons. Each new inch of exposed skin gets the same treatment—lips, teeth, tongue—while her hips maintain that maddening rhythm.

The air grows thick with want, with need, with the memory of that night in the bathroom. But every time I try to take control, to speed things up or draw her closer, she pulls back. Denies. Teases.

It’s torture.

It’s ecstasy.

It’s driving me fucking insane.

Her nails rake down my chest, leaving angry red trails in their wake. “Getting frustrated?”

I catch her wrist, squeezing just hard enough to remind her who she’s playing with. “You have no idea.”

“Oh, I think I do.” She leans in close, her breath hot against my lips. Close enough to taste, but not quite touching. “The question is… what are you going to do about it?”

My grip on her wrist tightens as the blood pounds through my veins. We’re headed towards the point of no return.

“You’re playing with fire, Ariel.”

She shifts in my lap, and I bite back a groan. The friction is fucking killing me.

Her free hand meanders down my abs and toys with the buckle of my belt. “Hm. You sure seem to be enjoying it.”

I capture her other wrist, but she just rolls her hips again, and my grip falters. My head falls back against the chair, a curse escaping through clenched teeth.

“Look at you,” she purrs. “The big bad Bratva boss, coming apart because of little old me.”

My eyes snap open—when did I close them?—to replace her watching me with dark satisfaction.

She knows exactly what she’s doing. How close I am to breaking.

Her weight shifts, and suddenly, she’s standing. The loss of contact is the cruelest wakeup I’ve ever had.

“What—” My hands reach for her automatically, but she dances back, straightening her skirt.

“I didn’t even realize how much of your time I was taking up!” She says it so innocently, with such a pure flutter of her eyelashes, that I almost buy it. “You did say you were busy, right? I didn’t come here to interrupt. And besides…” Her tongue darts out to wet her lips. “I’m not that hungry, anyway.”

Then she turns and, hips swaying, saunters out. Hips go left. Hips go right. Her hair goes back up in its neat little bun.

And the door goes click once more.

Gone. Just like that.

I stare at the empty doorway, my cock throbbing painfully against my zipper. My hands are still tingling from where they’d gripped her hips, her waist, her⁠—

Fuck.

I haven’t felt this raw, this exposed, since… since the bathroom, actually. Since I walked out on her, shaking with unspent lust and the gnawing certainty that I’d made a mistake.

Now, she’s returned the favor, leaving me with the same bitter taste of what could have been. What almost was.

What I almost let happen.

I push myself up from the chair. The leather creaks beneath me. The room feels too small, too hot. The air is thick with her scent. Peaches, like I work in a fucking orchard now.

I stalk to the window, wishing I could wrench it open, but ripping my tie loose instead. Below, the city sprawls, a concrete jungle teeming with life. Usually, the view calms me. Reminds me of everything I’ve built, everything I control.

But today, it’s a mockery. A reminder of how easily I can lose control. How quickly she can unravel me.

I slam my fist against the glass, the vibration jarring my teeth.

What the fuck was that?

It wasn’t a seduction. Not exactly. It was a… a declaration of war. Not foreplay—a power play.

And I almost let her win. I almost forgot who I am, what I’m capable of.

Almost.

I turn, surveying the room. Her presence lingers everywhere—in the scattered papers on my desk, in the faint scent of her perfume, in the throbbing ache of my frustrated cock.

I snatch up the laptop she’d toyed with and flip it open. The screen glows, illuminating the spreadsheet I’d been working on before she walked in. Before she turned my world upside down.

Serbian distribution routes. Profit margins. Logistics. The things that matter. The things I should be focused on.

Not the way her blouse strained over her breasts. Not the curve of her hip as she straddled me. Not the⁠—

Fuck yet again.

I slam the laptop shut again. It’s no use. I can’t think. Can’t focus. All I can see is her, perched on my desk like a queen on her throne, her eyes mocking me from behind those ridiculous glasses.

Ridiculous, yes. And yet… devastatingly effective.

Women have thrown themselves at me all my life. Models. Actresses. Heiresses. They’ve offered me everything—their bodies, their fortunes, their souls. But none of them have ever made me feel like this. Like I’m the one being hunted. Like I’m the prey.

It’s infuriating. It’s exhilarating.

It’s very, very dangerous.

I pace the room, my mind racing. What is she playing? What does she want? Does she even know?

One thing’s for certain: I know. I know what I want and what I’m playing for. I’ve known since the day my father wound that barbed wire around my neck and kept it there until the scar had set deep into my skin.

I have a business to run. An empire to protect.

And, apparently, a bride to tame.

Yes. Tame. That’s the right word. She thinks she can control me. Thinks she can manipulate me with her games, her teasing.

I snarl, kicking my chair so it goes spinning across the room and thumps into the far wall. She’s wrong. Dead wrong.

I’m the one in control here. I’m the one who calls the shots.

And I will not be played.