wondered if he was dining on Nadia at the moment; if he was fucking her how she needed it. The thought soured in my stomach, so I pushed it away. I headed down the stairs, which gave a quiet creak under my weight. Moonlight cast the library in rays of silver that sparkled with particles of dust. I stretched to my toes to put The Grapes of Wrath back in its rightful place. And then the familiar smell of cigar smoke—spice and eucalyptus— filled my senses. “Kotyonok.” The book slipped from my fingers, and I spun around, my heartbeat shaking. Ronan sat behind his desk, a formidable shadow below a white cloud of smoke. I put a hand on my chest. “God, you scared me.” It was at that moment I realized I no longer feared his presence and that the monster I once dreaded was now the one I was relieved to run into in the dark. “Tf I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were trying to seduce me,” he drawled, his dark gaze running down my bare thighs with a tingling glide of heat. “But we both know your efforts are more forward—and, shall we say, awkward—than that.” He looked and sounded like a gentleman, but as he exhaled an indifferent breath of smoke, tendrils curled like horns above his head. He was talking about the first time I kissed him—how I almost missed his mouth completely. The annoying comment should stamp down all lust inside, but it didn’t. “Its not as if your seduction efforts couldn’t use a little more tact,” I told him. He watched me for a second. “Don’t worry about my efforts, kotyonok.” I raised a brow. “Then don’t worry about mine.” His eyes held mine, something darker than the shadows slithering through them. Silence settled in the air, putting pressure on my lungs. Trying to find my breath, I pulled my attention from him, picked up the book, and made sure I didn’t damage the spine before putting it back in its spot. I felt his gaze trail down my back, over my ass, and to the backs of my thighs. The look seared—hot and cold, like the burn of an ice cube on skin. I skimmed my fingers across the old spines, unable to focus on anything besides his presence wrapping around my body like black silk.