“His eyes? They were open when I found him. There weren't any circles, nothing noticeably broken or bruised...”
Anton walked me over to the little nightstand. I watched him pull open the drawer and fish out a manila folder. He held me, eased me onto the bed to sit, while I opened it.
“Autopsy report. Only fucking copy of that record without a buncha shit blacked out and redacted in the official record. Your Uncle did a helluva job pulling his strings and hiding the proof in the official shit. Guess he didn't know everything about your family runs through mine first.”
I opened it and rifled through the pages. They were old, crisp, like they'd sat in a musty vault for a long time.
If this was another elaborate fabrication, he'd done an incredible job.
Anton pushed his hands over mine, planted his fingers on the pages, and opened to the one he wanted. His finger stabbed down on a long line – some medical term. “Says right here they found poison in his system. There's another tucked back here that says the syringe at the crime scene was half full. Your old man didn't even shoot himself up with a full dose of that fucking trash he was hooked to. He didn't kill himself on bad coke – somebody else gave him this shit I can't pronounce.”
For a minute, I was frozen. He held me, taking my whole fucking world into his hands, all while everything I knew before splintered and fractured into pieces.
I was too stunned to cry. Too sick to choke. Too furious to know who the hell my anger should be pointed at. I tried to jerk away, but he wouldn't let me.
The folder dropped from my shaking hands and the pages went spilling across the floor. “Anton, I can't –“
“You don't fucking have to. You can look at that shit tomorrow. There's no rush.”
Asshole. I shook my head, more vigorously when one of his hands began sliding up my thigh. He knew how to press buttons I didn't understand.
No way was I coming unraveled like this. Not here. Not now.
“Whatever. I still don't trust you.” I hissed it through my teeth.
“I don't need you to, babe. I just need you to listen to what I'm saying and cooperate. You want to work with me, Sabrina. Stop acting like you don't.” His chest shook as he took a deep, long breath. “Fuck. You can keep spitting nothing but lies and doubts outta those lips. But your body doesn't lie. There's no bullshit here. Just want. Need.”
His fingers pinched my bare thigh, higher than I thought he'd climbed, dangerously close to my panties. Tremors shot through me. The starry void behind me opened up and came through the glass, circled my head, drowned my senses in its glowing lights.
When I sucked in oxygen and tried to steady myself, I smelled him. It was all Anton Ivankov, that evilly masculine scent singeing my nostrils, leaving me pleading for more.
His hand wasn't stopping. His fingers slipped up, brushed my stomach, and then dove down the waistband to my panties. There was no stopping him from feeling how ruined I was, how soaked he'd made me without even knowing it.
“Tonight's the night, babe. You fucking know it, and so do I.” He rubbed lower, spreading his fingers in my folds, holding his fingers apart so near my clit. I started shaking all over again. “I'm gonna lay you down and fuck you. That'll clear both our heads. That'll wreck walls. And if it doesn't, tough shit, because I don't think all the brick in the world could hold my dick back from your * right now.”
“Anton...”
Stop. But please don't stop.
I'm dying. Losing my mind. Drowning in my own slick pool of fire.
What the hell's happening to me? Really?
My mind wouldn't work. The questions and sensations were coming so fast. He must've sensed the unease crawling through my skin because the next thing I felt was his stubble. It brushed my cheek as he pulled away from my ear, dragging his hot breath across my face, centering himself just right.
His kiss came before I could say another word.
I wondered if I'd ever speak again. Our lips locked in a fury, captured a black energy burning through my skin, straight down to my bones. Muscles clenched so hard deep inside me my entire body rocked.
My ass jerked through the red dress, unintentionally grinding against him, hitting the sweet spot raging between his legs. His next kiss came a whole lot harder, barely breaking for air. He smothered me, caught my lower lip between his teeth, and ripped me open for his tongue.
He was in me. One part of him, at least, and it was only a fraction as intense as it would be to have him inside me somewhere else.
The same tongue that barked endless filth and orders at me for the first week wasn't any less commanding on my flesh. He swirled laps around my tongue, caught it, and led it in a hypnotic dance. He sucked the air right out of my lungs in one long, hungry, panty wetting kiss.
Jesus. I wondered if I still had anything on underneath the dress at all when he finally let me rest.