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  I wanted everything he could give me, even if it made me combust.

  Maxim

  From the second she dropped the straps of her dress, Elizabeth had my attention. I was riveted in place. Nothing could have pulled me away from the window.

  I'd followed the car back to the house, expecting Pierce would follow his usual routine of another nightcap in his study before passing out in a stupor. I hadn't expected Elizabeth to do this.

  I was transfixed by the sight of her naked body pressed against the glass of the window. Her perfect, pale skin stood out against the darkness of the room behind her, catching an orange toned glow from the streetlight. I could see every fading mark along her ribcage and I wanted to close my mouth over every one of them and cover them over with kisses. I was harder at the sight of her than I'd ever been in my entire life. My cock was diamond hard. I could have cut glass.

  No one compared to her. She was reckless and fearless and - fuck

  I wanted to storm across the street, race up the stairs, drag her back into her bed and show her exactly what a real man could do for her. In my arms she'd know the power she had, and I'd give her everything I had, filling her up with all of me until she knew she was mine, because I was already hers.

  At the same time, the growl rumbling in my throat rose higher. She needed to step away. She needed to stop. To cover herself up. Get herself out of view. Because she was meant to be for me and me alone. But she had no shame.

  This show was all for me and the way she looked at me across the distance, with that twinkle of a smile at the corner of her mouth - she had me frozen to the window. All I could do was shudder as I watched her hand trail across her stomach, wishing I was touching her instead.

  She couldn't hear me growl and groan to be with her, could only see my hand splayed flat against the glass like the caged wild beast it felt like I'd become. I'd tear down walls to get to my mate. This was primal. Instinctual. She had to feel it too.

  My fingers twitched as I fought the urge to pull open my fly and start tugging at myself to get some kind of release. It wasn't going to happen. I'd vowed that from the first time I'd seen her. When I came for her, it would be when she knew exactly what she'd done for me. I wanted to be in the same room, not spying on her like some kind of creep.

  I nearly gave in when she started to touch herself. I couldn't take much more. She was going to be mine. But until the day when I could show her that this was all we had.

  Whatever game she was playing, she knew I was out here watching, and all of this was for my benefit. For me and me alone. She wanted this. She wanted me. There was no other way to read what she was doing.

  Breathing heavily, I rubbed my hand over my fly, gritting my teeth at the imprint my zipper was making and I let out a low groan. I didn't want this. Didn't want to make a lonely mess of myself watching her writhe against her own fingers, when I should be the one over there with her, taking her apart piece by piece.

  She was hurrying, pushing herself, and I wanted to show her how to take it slow.

  With a low groan, I unzipped and pulled my cock out, heavy and leaking. It was straining towards the window, as though it wanted to stretch across the street right to her. I knew it belonged in her instead of in my hand.

  She held my eye as I started to touch myself and her rhythm settled in with each slow stroke I drew along the length of my erection. So hard it hurt, every stroke only wound me up even more, but I wasn't going to let myself come. Her face fluttered with the pleasure she was giving herself, and sweat was starting to slick her short, fine hair to the back of her neck.

  Across the distance, we used our hands on ourselves in time with each other. I watched her, knowing she was watching me, and it was as close to touching as we could get. But it left me with a hollow ache, and a maddening need for more.

  With my eyes on her, I did my best to let her know how well I'd fuck her. From fifty feet away she knew that, I could see it in the way her breathing deepened and she arched her neck towards me. When she was finally mine, the explosions would be cataclysmic.

  Her mouth opened, eyes fluttering closed briefly, though she tried to keep them open and I knew she was struggling to hold herself back. I didn't want her to try.

  The pull of pleasure over her body was beautiful to watch. I wanted to rub myself all over her, feel the weight of her perfect breasts in my hands, suck at her skin to taste her. I wanted to slide my fingers into her and feel her walls clench tight, to feel how slick and slippery and ready for me she was. But all I had was the friction of my own palm and the coldness of the window glass beneath my touch.

  Her breath was fogging up the glass and mine was too.

  I wanted to kiss her. Wanted to tangle my tongue in her mouth and fuck her with it until she groaned. I wanted to lift her up and plunge inside her, without a care for who saw me claim her.

  But right then, the only thing I was doing was stroking my cock, alone in a dusty building site, drinking in the sight of her like she was some cash-grabbing whore. I wasn't prepared to disrespect her like that.

  I wasn't going to let myself come until I could come inside her. That was where I was meant to be, and this wasn't going to give me the satisfaction I was craving. She might have thought she wanted this, but I didn't. I wanted more.

  Already the glass under my hand felt wrong.

  She looked so beautiful, still panting and flushed, and she'd look all the more perfect up close, next to me. I wasn't going to ruin it by giving in when I was so close to having her for real.

  When her eyes fluttered closed and her body convulsed beautifully, I forced my hand away from my heavy cock, knowing the ache in my balls was going to be excruciating.

  Blue balls was a feeling I'd gotten used to in all the weeks of watching her. But this was going to trump anything I'd felt so far. The ache of them would keep me focused and true. My seed was all for her, and I wasn't going to waste one single drop. Every single sperm belonged to her. They all held the building blocks of our future and for the first time in my life, I knew I wasn't meant to end my days alone.

  Over the years I'd seen my colleagues find women and settle down. I'd always thought them selfish, careless. Thought they were wrong to bring a woman into a life like this, where there can never be guarantees. But I never knew it was possible to feel the way I already felt about Elizabeth. I was converted. Love was real and that had to be what I was feeling. Nothing apart from her mattered. My life plan had only one goal and that was to give her the family that she didn't have.

  I was going to make her mine, and when it happened, there wasn't going to be a sheet of glass between us. That much I could promise. This had gone on far too long.

  CHAPTER 13

  Elizabeth

  He was meant to take what I'd given him in the window. That show I gave was meant to be all I let him have. All I let myself give. I was supposed to get him out of my head so I could do what I had to do. No more games.

  But then there was a note through the door.

  10:30 Patisserie Valerie. Kings Road. I'll be waiting for you Sugar.

  I got there early.

  How ridiculous could a girl be?

  I waited in the back of the French patisserie, in the small room packed with tables. It was part of a chain, which meant that although the food was perfect and the place was small, verging on cramped, it was crowded. And it seemed wise that I didn't go anywhere where I could be cornered.

  I was early enough to choose a table in full view of the rest of the small dining area. Though I don't know why I bothered. Maybe I was worried he'd try to drag me off to the back room to dissolve my brain through my ears with more of his fantastic tongue torture.

  Coincidentally, I managed to pick the table in the corner, though with the way the tables were packed in, and lined up directly with the entryway, it was far from tucked away or private.

  I ordered a hot chocolate and did mental calculations about the amount of money in my wallet and what I w
as going to have for dinner before I ordered a pastry to go with it.

  When Maxim walked in, a table full of kids who couldn't have been more than twelve were dominating the small space, loud and uncaring that not everybody in the world cared about their friend's latest picture on instagram or who had a crush on some boy named Aaron. His jaw visibly rippled, and I had to struggle not to laugh.

  His entire body stiffened as he tried to walk around them, and they stubbornly refused to acknowledge he was trying to get past. Twice, he lifted his arm up high, reactions almost catlike, as he dexterously avoiding tipping his tray with a pot of coffee on the loudest girl's head.

  When he cleared his throat and four sets of eyes swivelled up to meet him, I almost snorted hot chocolate the wrong way. Suddenly, the kids were solidly in their seats and impeccably well behaved.

  "You don't like kids?" I asked as he joined me at the table, his shoulders still stiff.

  "I don't like other people's kids."

  "You have your own?"

  He almost looked wounded at the suggestion. "No."

  My eyes lingered on his for a lot longer than I should have let them. My heart was pounding. It was ridiculous that I should even care what he thought about children. The man was staking out my house, following me to the place I worked out, turning up at my school to take advantage of me and my virgin ways.

  Who was I kidding? I'd practically begged him for more.

  He plunged the coffee, pushing down on the little handle with a steady force. I realised he'd brought two cups over on the tray as well as a little jug of what I thought was milk, but turned out to be cream, when he poured it in it settled on top, rich and pale, until he stirred it in.

  "Coffee?"

  "No, thank you. I have this."

  He eyed my hot chocolate and the vanilla millefeui on my plate and I straightened up in my seat a little defensively. Mum and I used to get hot chocolate and cake on the weekend sometimes, or after school if she got out of work early enough to come and pick me up. I was being nostalgic, but he didn't know that and I wasn't about to apologise for it.

  "In Russia we do better cream cakes than this."

  I tilted my head, peering down at my plate and then looking back up at him.

  "You don't sound very Russian."

  "I came over here as a boy. Now, I am a citizen of the world. I go where my work takes me, but London is my base."

  "What brings you here?"

  "I think you already know."

  My eyes went to his and I felt myself breathe in all too raggedly. Under the table I could feel the heat coming off his leg, even though he didn't so much as brush his thigh against mine. I wished he would. The urge to spread my legs for him had never been so strong and I hated that, as predicted, this was all about Sutherland.

  If this was what having a crush was like I couldn't understand how any of my classmates got anything done. The only thing I could focus on was how much I wanted him to kiss me, to touch me and teach me everything my body had to offer.

  I'd never understood the fascination with cocks, but I was thinking about his, and what it would take to get it hard for me. What it would feel like in my hand, and how I'd fit my lips around it and learn to suck him off with half as much talent as he'd displayed eating me out. Maybe I'd be good at it, and he'd keep looking at me the way he was looking at me now.

  "You want to know what Pierce is planning to publish."

  Maxim's head tilted very slightly in a nod to the affirmative that I would have missed had I not been watching him so closely.

  "My employer is very keen on the information staying out of the public eye."

  He reached into his pocket and drew out a large-screened mobile phone and opened it up. "I want something quite different."

  "What is that?"

  "To get you out."

  He tilted the phone so that I could see the screen, and I drew in a sharp breath when I realised I was looking at a picture I'd taken not two weeks ago, of the bruise Pierce had left on my left hip. Instinctively, my hand went to the site of the injury.

  I felt more exposed than when he'd seen me fully naked.

  "How the hell did you get that?"

  "I'm sorry, Elizabeth that your privacy has been violated in the process of our investigations. I didn't want it to be this way."

  I glared at him and put the phone back on the table top, turning the screen face down.

  "I don't need you to rescue me. If that's what this is. How dare you go through my things?"

  "I can assure you I've never set foot in your house. Our hackers were very targeted. I've not seen anything other than these photos and your notes on them from your computer."

  He sounded almost pained, and it made some of the tension in me fade. "Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

  "I still need your help," he said softly, leaning in, and the soft tone he used was impossible to ignore. His voice tugged at something deep inside me and I would have given him anything he asked for. "I've been following your step father for weeks and the miserable excuse for a human being either doesn't have a thing on anybody, or he's hidden it too well to be found unless you already know where to look."

  I felt my jaw tighten. "He did the digging. His claims aren't fraudulent. But I don't know where he would have hidden anything. Is that what you're asking me?"

  Maxim nodded shortly and his lips pursed together, rounding in on each other. His large hands cradled the coffee cup and he set it down gently on the rough wooden table top. "We need you to search his agent's office. And anywhere else you can think that he might have hidden a pen drive or a notebook. We need you to look on the computer he writes on. He doesn't connect it to the internet."

  I felt my breathing level, steadying as I came to terms with what was being asked of me.

  "And where will you be, while I'm going through all of his things?"

  "Making sure he's nowhere near you."

  "What if I say no?"

  Maxim's head tilted and his smile pulled thin and pained, eyes crinkling closed. "I really hoped you wouldn't do that."

  "What if I do?"

  He let out a heavy breath and folded his hands onto the table in front of him. They were powerful hands, hands that had probably strangled people, broken bones, maybe even necks, but right now they looked inviting.

  "Then you need to know that Russia's enemies are always dealt with, and that my loyalty is to the country of my birth, and my brothers who have given me the opportunities they have. That, above all other things, is what must drive my actions."

  He wasn't looking at me, but I knew from the steady nature of his voice that he was deadly serious. If I made a move against them, I got added to the hit list. Whatever had already passed between us, he wasn't going to make exceptions. And I respected that, even if I didn't like it.

  "Is that a threat, Maxim Toropov?"

  "Only if you plan to be an enemy."

  His eyes flashed up to mine again. The thought of the world I was getting tangled up in was almost exciting. I had nothing left to lose, and while I knew that it was stupid not to be scared, it felt like this man would do anything in his power to avoid hurting me if he could.

  I wasn't the target, unless I decided to be.

  I let out a slow breath of my own. "And after I help you - if I help you - what happens then?"

  "We look after our friends, Ms Harrington."

  "Am I your friend, or their friend, Mr Toropov?"

  Under the table, I nudged my leg against his, unmistakably pressing the warmth of my calf against his and Maxim's eyes burnt into mine. I remembered the way he'd looked at me from the other side of the street. I was playing with fire and I liked it far too much to stop. My breathing visibly shifted as his hand left the tabletop and slipped underneath, resting solidly on my knee.

  "It's one and the same."

  "I don't think it can be."

  "That is because you don't understand yet. You will, soon enough." Maxim leaned in c
loser, stretching an arm across the back of my chair and lowering his voice, his breath grazing over my neck. I closed my eyes as his hand smoothed along the inside of my thigh. "You shouldn't start games like this, Elizabeth. When I get you alone, you're going to regret it."

  I all but felt my pupils flare with lust as I opened my eyes. That was the kind of threat I didn't mind at all. He was almost close enough to kiss, and I would have, except for his other hand on my forearm keeping me forcibly rooted where I was.

  I loved the strength of him, holding me there, keeping me from tormenting him in front of all these people.

  "I won't regret a thing. I can't wait to find out what you want to do to me."

  But he was right: I was acting fearless, but I didn't know what game I was playing, or the rules to it. Flirting like this was all new and I didn't really trust he wanted me, not knowing that he'd seen what Sutherland had done. I must have seemed pathetic to him. A spineless kid in need of rescue. If he saw me as a woman at all, he probably thought he could take whatever he wanted. And I didn't want that kind of man. I promised myself I never would.

  So where did that leave me, knowing that I'd give him all in a heartbeat?

  Maxim let out a little growl, so low it almost felt like the air was rippling and his hand shifted away. "You deserve a hell of a lot better than being diddled under the table."

  I bit my lip, feeling a flush of heat go all the way through me, strong enough for me to know I'd gone bright pink from head to toe. I was shameless. I would have taken that and loved it.

  He was the one holding back on some moral point I didn't care about. Maybe I should have. I cared more when he looked at me that way.

  His brow notched higher, amusement curling the edge of his lips. "Oh, sweetheart, I'm going to take such good care of you. But there isn't a single thing I want to show you that I can do here without being arrested for indecency. And when I touch you again, I'm going to make you scream."

  It took every ounce of self control I had, which was a whole lot more than I thought I did, to gather myself when he leaned back.