Page 29 of The Darkness is Calling

She freezes.

“What do you mean, fine?”

“I mean you’ll sleep in this room.”

I think I have lost my mind because of her. Otherwise, I cannot imagine why I would allow such a thing.

“And where will you sleep?”

I glance around, pretending not to understand what she means.

“Here.”

My bored reply is followed by me beginning to strip off my bloodstained clothes, without taking my eyes off her.

“What are you doing?” she asks, almost panicked.

“I need a shower,” I just say to her, gesturing toward the blood I know is staining my hands as I pull off my shirt in one motion, already unbuttoned partway from when I was in the car.

She immediately gets to her feet, but in two long strides, I am in front of her, blocking her path.

“Stay exactly where you are, dusha moya.” My words are cold, with just enough sarcasm to mask the weight of the title I’m using for the first time in my life. “I told you I don’t negotiate, but do not imagine blackmail works any better on me. So you had better be right here, in this room, when I get out of the shower, then we will go downstairs to dinner together.”

“But I wasn’t serious...”

“Do I strike you as the kind of man you can joke with like that?”

She draws in a deep breath, but this time she has no biting reply.

I take one more step, until I am almost pressed against her.

A grave mistake.

Her scent demolishes every wall of reason I have left, dragging the voices closer and closer.

“Answer me,” I say, my voice hard.

“No.”

“Good. Because this is the last time you pull that kind of stunt with me and walk away without scars. One more offense, and I’ll cut off one of your fingers. I assume they’re useful when you play the piano.”

“As if I haven’t heard that one before...” she mutters, her eyes fixed on mine.

I think the shiver that travels down my spine now goes in two entirely different directions, because I lean toward her and inhale the sweet, cool scent of her, one that drifts toward an even more forbidden place in this situation.

Delicious.

“Keep that attitude, and there is a very good chance it will happen.”

“From what I understand, I’m supposed to be safe with you.”

“You follow my rules, you are safe. You don’t follow them, you are dead. And it doesn’t matter whether you are killed by the people trying to finish a mission, or by me.”

That seems to finally make her quiet, and I am damn proud of myself.

I thought she would keep pressing button after button until I threw her onto the bed and fucked her.

Or strangled her.