Chapter 3: Yes. Touch me. Please.

She took the water, sipped it obediently, then patted the seat next to her. "Sit with me. Please. I don't... I don't want to be alone right now."

Fuck.

He sat, keeping a careful distance between them. It lasted exactly thirty seconds.

Eve scooted closer, then closer still, until she was pressed against his side. Then, with the easy affection of someone too drunk to remember boundaries, she climbed into his lap.

Every muscle in Dimitri's body locked.

"Eve...."

"You're warm," she murmured, curling into him like a cat. "And you smell good. Simon never smells good anymore. He smells like perfume. Other women's perfume."

His jaw clenched so hard it hurt. His hands hovered, not sure where to land, before settling on her back. Just to steady her. Just to keep her from falling.

That's what he told himself.

"Tell me what happened tonight," he said quietly.

And she did.

The words came tumbling out in a slurred, broken stream. Finding Simon with her assistant. On her desk. The assistant she'd trusted, the desk she'd chosen, the marriage she'd tried so hard to save.

"I asked him why," she whispered against his chest. "Why wasn't I enough? What do men want, Dimitri? What's wrong with me?"

His hand came up to cup the back of her head, fingers threading through her soft hair. "Nothing is wrong with you."

"Then why did he..."

"Because he's a fucking idiot who doesn't deserve you."

She pulled back to look at him, her eyes swimming with tears and alcohol and something that made his cock harden despite every attempt at control.

"You're just saying that."

"I don't just say things, Eve. Your husband is a weak, stupid man who had everything and threw it away. That's not your fault. That's his."

She stared at him, processing, and then she smiled. A real smile, sad but genuine.

"You're a good friend, Dimitri."

Friend.

The word should have been a relief. A reminder. A line in the sand.

Instead, it felt like a knife.

"You should go home," he made himself say. "Sleep this off. Tomorrow...."

"I don't want to go home." She shifted in his lap, and he bit back a groan as her ass pressed directly against his rapidly hardening dick. "I don't want to sleep it off. I don't want tomorrow. I just want..."

She moved again, restless, and this time there was no hiding his body's reaction.

Her eyes widened. She looked down, then back up at him, and her lips curved into a smile that was pure feminine satisfaction.

"Oh," she breathed. "You want me."

"Eve." Her name came out as a warning. "You're drunk."

"Not that drunk." Another shift, deliberate this time, grinding against him. "You want me. Don't you?"

"It doesn't matter what I...."

"It matters to me." Her hands came up to his chest, fingers spreading over his heart. "I need to know. Need to feel like someone wants me. Please, Dimitri. Touch me."

Christ.

"You don't know what you're asking for."

"I'm asking you to make me forget. To make me feel something other than this... this horrible emptiness. Please."

Her hands slid up to his shoulders, then his neck. She was so close he could smell her perfume, something light and floral that was completely at odds with the situation they were in.

"If I touch you," he said, each word carefully controlled, "you need to understand something. This isn't casual for me, Eve. It's never been casual."

She blinked, confused. "What do you mean?"

Instead of answering, he cupped her face in his hands, forcing her to hold his gaze.

"I mean that I've wanted you since you were eighteen years old and kissed me on the cheek at your brother's graduation party. I mean that I've spent seven years staying away from you because you were Mike's sister and too good for a man like me. I mean that if I touch you now, if I give you what you're asking for, I'm not going to be able to let you go."

The confession hung between them, dangerous and raw.

Eve's lips parted. "Dimitri..."

"So I'm going to ask you one more time, and you need to think very carefully before you answer." His thumbs stroked her cheekbones, gentle despite the steel in his voice. "Do you want me to touch you?"

She should say no. She was drunk, vulnerable, married to another man. This was Mike's best friend, for fuck's sake.

But Eve Thorne, perfect wife, good girl, had apparently left the building.

Because she leaned in, pressed her lips to his jaw, and whispered, "Yes. Touch me. Please. I need to know why I wasn't enough for him. Show me what I've been missing."

Something snapped inside Dimitri.

His control, maybe. His conscience. Every promise he'd ever made to Mike about respecting boundaries.

All of it, gone in the space of a heartbeat.

"You want to know why you weren't enough?" he growled, one hand sliding into her hair, fisting it, pulling her head back to expose her throat. "Because your husband is a fucking fool. You want to know what men want?"

"Yes," she breathed.

"We want this." His other hand slid down her side, over the curve of her hip, to grip her thigh. "We want a woman who surrenders. Who trusts us to take care of her. Who isn't afraid to need us."

"I'm not afraid."

"You should be." His lips ghosted over her exposed throat. "Because once I touch you, piccola, you belong to me. Not for tonight. Not for a week. Forever."

She shivered, whether from fear or desire, he couldn't tell.

"Any man who touches you after me dies," he continued, his voice dropping to something dark and deadly.

"I don't share. I don't let go. Once you're mine, you're mine. Do you understand?"

The smart thing would be to run. To push him away. To remember that he wasn't making idle threats...Dimitri Valentino didn't make idle threats.

But Eve, drunk on whiskey and heartbreak and seven years of denied attraction she hadn't even known existed, just smiled.

"I understand."

"Say it."

"I'm yours."

"Fuck." The word was both prayer and curse.

And then his mouth was on hers.