Page 99 of Reckless Obsession

“Shit,” I whisper, tilting my head back toward the indifferent sky. “This is so fucked up.”

I leave the balcony and head back to my bedroom, moving quietly because the last thing I want is to wake him up. When I get to the bed, he’s still on his stomach. The duvet I used to cover him after I cleaned him off has ended up on the other side of the mattress entirely, leaving him completely naked, sprawled out and sleeping peacefully like he doesn’t have a care in the world.

Lucky bastard.

My eyes drag over him before I can stop them.

His broad shoulders. The smooth plane of his back. The narrow line of his waist. The curve of his ass, still faintly flushed from the imprints of my palms. My gaze moves lower, over his thighs, over the length of him, then back up again, helplessly, because no matter how many times I look at him, it never seems to be enough. Half his face is pressed into the pillow, but it doesn’t hide a damn thing. The sharp line of his jaw, his mouth, his nose. The absurd, almost arrogant perfection of his features. He looks sculpted, like someone took their time making him and forgot to leave a single flaw behind.

“Fuck.” I whisper.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I sit on the edge of the bed and drag both hands through my hair, staring back at him as if he’s a problem I should solve and already know I won’t.

“Pavel Petrov,” I mutter quietly, more to myself than to anyone, “is gonna murder me.”

Chapter 20

MAKSIM

“You know you’re annoying as fuck, right?” Igor says, glaring at me as I crouch in front of the man strapped to the chair, tipping the water bottle just out of reach of his mouth for the third time.

The man’s lips part instinctively, his cracked mouth chasing the bottle with the kind of desperate focus that would almost make me feel bad if I were, in any measurable way, a better person.

I’m not.

The container reeks of sweat, blood, rust, and fear baked into overheated metal. The men tied up in here have been marinating in it for three days. Our men brought them in after I spent the better part of a week identifying and tracking them down. The same charming group who thought planting dead bodies on our construction site was a sound life decision. Tracking them should have been faster, but they were careful. Not careful enough, because I’m better.

Still, they’re here now. Strapped down, dehydrated, and deeply regretting their choices.

I call that a win.

“Stop that, you psycho,” Igor mutters, snatching the bottle out of my hand just as I’m about to offer the poor bastard another fake sip.

I look up at him with exaggerated offense. “What’s got your panties in a twist, cousin? Didn’t get your dick sucked properly, or are you still emotional because Caleb rearranged your face at the Elite Circuit last night?”

Igor turns his head slowly and gives me a flat look over the rim of his black sunglasses.

“He didn’t rearrange my face, dipshit. It was a fair fight.”

“You’re the one wearing shades indoors like a divorced celebrity in a custody battle,” I say, glancing pointedly at his face. “So from where I’m standing, it looks like he won.”

His jaw ticks, and that’s how I know I’ve landed the hit.

Igor and I have been doing this our whole lives. The insults, the bickering, the specific kind of mutual irritation that only exists between two people who are genuinely, unconditionally ride-or-die for each other. He’s my cousin the same way he’s my best friend, which is to say completely, and without any real boundary between the two. We know everything about each other. The ugly stuff, the embarrassing stuff, the things neither of us would ever say out loud to anyone else. It’s the same dynamic Alex has with Viktor—built on years, on blood, on the silent understanding that no matter what stupid thing the other one does, you’re going to be standing right there next to them when it all goes sideways.

“I didn’t want to punch his face,” Igor mutters, folding his thick arms across his chest.

I blink at him. “What?”

His expression hardens immediately, like he regrets the sentence the second it leaves his mouth.

“Nothing,” he says dismissively. “Never mind.”

Oh?

Oh, that is interesting.