“My sanity, baby. If there is even a single hair maimed on your pretty little head, I will tear this fucking place apart. So do me a favor — be a good girl for me and stay within our compound so I don’t have to hurt anyone, alright?”
“You’re very bossy,” I muttered. “In two languages.”
His mouth curved faintly. “You like it.”
I absolutely did and I hated myself for it.
Sasha crowded me against the marble counter. His hand came up, his silver rings glinting in the sunlight as his tattooed knuckles brushed under my chin and tilted my face upwards.
“This place doesn’t make me safer,” he said softly. “It just makes it easier to protect what’s mine.”
My breath caught. “I’m not your property.”
“No,” he agreed calmly. His thumb traced the edge of my jaw. “You’re mypriority.”
Something shifted in Sasha’s expression, then. It wasn’t anger or irritation, and I struggled for a moment to identify it. It was possession. Not the playful kind, but the very real kind that should’ve had me running for the hills.
“If any of them forget that,” he added softly, “I will remind them.”
That shouldnothave been attractive, but it absolutely was.
“Are you jealous?” Apparently I just couldn’t fucking help but poke the goddamn Russian bear.
Sasha’s eyes darkened immediately. “Yes.”
The honesty of it hit harder than denial would have, and I blinked. “I just shook someone’s hand.”
“You smiled at him.”
“That’s illegal now?”
“Here?” His thumb pressed slightly into my lower lip before dragging away. “It can be.”
My brain short-circuited briefly. He leaned closer, his mouth near my ear, and spoke a few quiet words in Russian I didn’t understand but absolutely felt.
Heat bloomed under my skin.
“What did you just say?” I asked.
“I told them they’ll have to address you through me.”
I raised an eyebrow. “That’s kind of excessive.”
“Thatis how this works.”
Sasha was being territorial, and I felt a swoop in my stomach as I realized the extent of his obsession. Why did it feel good to be wanted like this? Unapologetically and wholly.
Suddenly, I was acutely aware of how tightly wound he had been since we docked. Over a decade of being locked up. Over a decade of having very little power and almost no control and of not being able to truly claim anything.
Now he had territory again. Men. Infrastructure.
… and me.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
I could feel the heat rising to my cheeks and averted my gaze.
His jaw flexed as he pulled me closer by my hip, showing me he was affected by my presence too. My pulse stuttered and I couldn’t help the teasing tone in my voice. “So … you’re territorial, huh?”