She was going to be the death of me. Not only had she sauntered into my office like she owned the damn place, but now here she was. Smelling up the elevator with her fruity scent. Teasing me by adjusting the mile-high black studded shoes she was wearing.

Did the silly woman not own a sensible pair of flats or tennis shoes? She seemed to live in heels lately, and while I enjoyed the curve of her ass when she wore them, it was impossible to treat her like a weak thing that needed protecting when all I wanted to do was wrap those long legs around my waist, shoes intact on those tiny Cinderella feet of hers.

She kept shifting, pushing closer to me. I looked down and nearly groaned. From this angle, I could see down her sleek dress into the vee of her cleavage and the swell of her breasts, which looked tantalizing enough to eat. In fact, my mouth watered just thinking about it. I wanted it. I wanted her. Again. The only thing that was stopping me was the fact that we were in an elevator, and while I had showered at work I hadn’t brought in a change of clothes. I wasn’t a fastidious man, but I preferred not to be wearing the same clothes that I had been wearing yesterday when I slept with her again.

Dammit. I needed to stop thinking like that. We should not sleep together again. Not ever. She was invading my thoughts. I needed space. I needed to treat her like an object.

If only she’d stop leaning against me that way, pushing the globes of her breasts against my shoulder, leaning into me as she fussed with her shoes. Swearing, I gave in to temptation. I could only be expected to be in control for so long around someone as beautiful and tempting as Anya.

I pivoted, grabbing her around the waist and balancing her back against the stainless steel walls of the elevator. I pushed up her skirt, moaning at the sensation of the smooth, soft skin that I’d just revealed. I wrapped her legs around me, her ankles hooking. In the reflective panels of the elevator, I saw the back of us – I saw my once-crisp suit now wrinkled, her head leaned back against the cool surface, and her ridiculous stripper heels locked just above my ass.

We looked like a high-end client and an escort, and something about that image just turned me on further. I leaned down and pressed my mouth against hers, biting her lower lip until it was plump and red. She moaned, pushing her fingers through my hair, rubbing against the thin layer of my facial hair. I sucked on her lips, her neck, the tops of her breasts. My cock pressed against the thin barrier of her lacy underwear and it was everything I could do not to free myself and enter her right there, in this elevator. Suddenly a ding went off indicating that the doors were going to open.

I dropped her and luckily she didn’t fall. She straightened her skirt hastily right before two Asian men got on the elevator. They both looked at us and then start jabbering in another language. I looked down at her and realized that she looked like pure sex. If I hadn’t known any better, I would’ve assumed we’d literally just finished the act.

Her bodice was pulled askew, almost revealing her bra; her hair mussed and cheeks bright. Her lips—those lips—were red and juicy, and there was beard burn on her neck from my passion.

Some part of me was satisfied with that fact, that I’d marked my territory and claimed her, but something told me that she wouldn’t be too happy if I pointed that out right now.

“Going down?” I asked them. They nodded and I pressed the lobby button.

Anya and I were headed to the basement to get my car, which would afford us exactly one floor of privacy in the elevator. I think I could control myself for one floor. Although, looking down and catching her laughing gaze, one could never be too certain of that fact.

She was the devil, and somehow, I didn’t mind that at all.

When the Asian men got off at the lobby and the doors closed, I started to laugh. Somehow the complete recklessness of what we’d done, what we’d almost done suddenly hit me.

This was my place of work. Granted, it wasn’t where I did the dirtiest and most loathsome aspects of my job, but this was a place that I had to appear professional and in control. And instead, I’d almost banged my new Russian wife to within an inch of both our sanity in a public elevator—equipped with cameras, with witnesses nearby.

It was official. I had lost my mind over this woman.

Anya looked up at me curiously, but I couldn’t stop laughing. Her giggle sounded like pure joy as we arrived at the basement. I walked out of the elevator, pulling her along with me until we got to my car. She walked around to the passenger side, hopping in.

“Don’t come to my office again,” I warned her after I sat down and shut my door. She tried to look innocent, but I knew that she’d come here on purpose to make me uncomfortable.

“I wouldn’t have if you’d just come home, Viktor.” She crossed her arms, which only served to plump up her breasts like a sexual offering.

I groaned, tempted to take her up on the offer. But there was my office, and then there was my car. Some things were sacrosanct.

When we got home, I pushed her up the stairs and told her to change into something more appropriate.

“You didn’t seem to mind what I was wearing earlier,” she reminded me.

“And it was inappropriate then, too.” I swatted her ass.

She glared at me but did as I asked, teetering up the stairs on those sharp little heels of hers. I’d enjoyed every moment of the inappropriate way they dug into my ass when her legs were wrapped around me.

Tired, I tugged the black tie from my neck and watched her disappear to the upstairs hallway. Despite my emotional and physical fatigue, my body stirred at the mere memory of where that tie had been, what it had witnessed. After a few minutes, I went upstairs to hop in the shower.

Cold water was what I needed, and a lot of it.

After donning on a low-slung pair of sweatpants, I laid down on my bed and reached for the remote. The news didn’t relax me, nor did a movie. My mind raced with the possibilities of what could be—what Anya and I could be, or could not. Hope chased me relentlessly, like a wolf.

When I heard a knock on my door, I knew it could be Vlad or a member of my security detail. But I also knew that it would only be her.

Anya’s silky white nightgown didn’t leave much to the imagination, though I didn’t need much when it came to her body. Somehow she had imprinted on my brain, like the negative of a photograph. To bring her image to mind, all I had to do was reverse the darkness in my soul to light.

She had her beautiful hair tied high in a curled ponytail and she had washed her face. In short, she looked good enough to eat. I willed my cock into submission, knowing that my sweatpants wouldn’t hide the kind of erection I got when Anya was around, especially in skimpy clothes like those.

She looked up at me and then around me, into my bedroom. “I’m bored.”

I sighed, rubbing the wrinkles that were probably forming right this second on my forehead. “Read a book. Watch a movie. Go to bed.” My gaze swept up and down her body. “You’re ready for it.”

The thought of her in bed was not a good way to start the night. Suddenly, all I could picture was her, naked and writhing, on my black silk sheets. Then I realized she was ogling me, too.

“Looks like you’re ready for… bed, too.” Her gaze was drawn to my traitorous dick, poking at her through the material of my pants.

My chest felt tight. I was really trying to be a gentleman, here.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “That I’m trying to seduce you. But I’m not. I’m just bored. I can’t read any more Russian literature, and that’s all you seem to have in this house.” She glared at me, as though I should apologize for not providing a bookstore-style selection.

“Haven’t you heard of ebooks?” I asked.

She waved a pale hand, making her breast shimmy under the satin. “I like to turn the pages. I can’t watch any more television shows. Can we just…talk?”

I sighed again. “Anya…”

“Please,” she cajoled. “I won’t push you to answer anything you don’t want to talk about, but I just want to talk to a living human being and have them answer back to me. Please.”

It occurred to me that she wasn’t so much bored, as she was lonely. I empathized, more than she knew. But letting her in now meant more than entry to my bedroom. She was this close to getting into my heart, and I couldn’t let that happen.

“Please, Viktor.”

After a moment of trying to talk myself out of this very bad idea, I ended up opening the door a little wider. She flounced by me, leaving me standing there with an erection and a smell of her fruity perfume.

It was going to be a long night.