My eyes drop to her plump lower lip, to the way it glistens enticingly in the darkness. It fucks me up some. I tell myself, stay cool, but excitement is like an electric current in my blood, zipping through my veins. Fuck, I have never known such blind urgency.

I want to grab her and take her there and then. And damn if it won’t feel good.

I clench my jaw and turn away. There’s a jeering voice in my head. Stay firm, Noah. It’s just one fucking night. Don’t get your knickers in a twist. I stare out of the window as the familiar streets rush by. I have done this journey thousands of times, but there is something surreal about this night.

Its name is Tasha Evanoff. Her perfume. Her presence, the creamy whiteness of her soft skin, the innocence in her wide eyes. I am a monster. I can bring her nothing but pain and ruin. Even touching the Princess would be defiling her, and yet, I cannot stop myself.

She is my one weakness. The beloved daughter of the Mafia king is about to become my worst fucking nightmare. I cannot resist her call. I’ve played this out in my fantasies too many times. Just one night. It’s just lust. When the sun comes up it will be over. I won’t chase her. I won’t ruin her life. Just one night.

As the car eats up the miles, every cell in my body heats up, becomes super alert. Like a wolf I can hear her heartbeat, feel the heat coming from her body.

The car comes to a smooth stop. Here we are Noah, you and your fantasy woman. I get out and Viktor rushes to open the door for her. She gets out and looks at me. I thank Viktor and he drives off.

Cold wind drags at her clothes and hair. She hugs herself.

‘My place,’ I say softly.

‘It’s nice,’ she replies without sarcasm. It’s just a six-bedroom Regency town house with high ceilings and tall windows. But modest. Certainly nothing compared to the gold and marble palace she lives in. Russians with money are like Arabs. Flashy. They invest in ostentation.

‘Sure you want to do this?’

She reaches out a hand and, with her thumb and forefinger, picks something from my right cheek. Staring at me she holds it in front of my lips. It is an old Russian superstition: if an eyelash falls out you will receive a gift. My chest feels tight. My mother used to do this to me, take the eyelash, and let me blow it away while making a wish.

I blow. Strands of her blonde hair lift away from her neck.

She blinks. ‘Did you make a wish?’

I nod. How surprised she would be if she knew what I wished for. How surprised I am at my fucking wish. None of the wishes I made when my mother held the eyelash ever came true. There is absolutely no way this one is going to either.

We walk up the steps and I put the key in my door. I close the door and watch her look at her surroundings.

‘Want a drink?’ I offer.

‘If you’ll have one too?’

I walk to the first reception room and switch on the light.

She laughs, a breathless sound. ‘Wow, it’s beautiful.’

I look at the decor as if for the first time. Through her eyes. I never notice it anymore. I follow her eyes as she takes in the pale ice cream colors on the walls, the charcoal grey floor, and the dark silk curtains. There are red velvet cushions on the white fainting couch. She moves deeper into the room to stand on the soft-lilac shag carpet.

‘I never would have imagined you lived in a house like this.’

I shrug casually. This is my house, but it is not a home. I don’t really live here. In fact, I hardly come. Often I crash in the apartment above my restaurant. ‘I didn’t actually decorate it. I hired someone.’

‘Of course, I knew that, but you approved her design.’

‘When I buy a dog I tend not to bark myself.’

She laughs again, but this time it is for real. A lovely sound. It’s the way I thought she might sound. Rich, sexy, and exhilarating. ‘I just expected more black leather and chrome somehow.’ She stops and shrugs. ‘I mean being bratva and all.’

‘I’m not in the brotherhood anymore,’ I say quietly.

She cocks an eyebrow. ‘Oh, since when?’

‘Years,’ I say simply.

‘So you just walked away from it?’ she asks curiously.

‘You never walk away from it. It walks beside you.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Your sins, every one of them, they never leave you, no matter how far you run, or how long you live.’

She stares at me.

‘But you didn’t come here to talk about my sins.’

She doesn’t say anything so I move to the drinks cabinet and pour us each a large measure of cognac. She takes hers from my hand and raises it.

‘To tonight,’ she says.

‘Tonight,’ I reply and we both drink.

To my surprise she knocks it back as fast as me. She is so beautiful she makes my cock weep. I want to tear the clothes off her, but she will need to go home in them before the sun rises again. The thought doesn’t sit well. I already dread having to let her go tomorrow. Once I possess her …

She reaches out a hand and unbuttons my shirt, exposing my chest. Her pale finger, the nail painted pearly pink, traces the tattoo of a roaring tiger on my chest.

‘Oskal (bared teeth) You were a thief,’ she breathes.

I don’t say anything. My tattoos tell their own tale of bloodshed, violence, and the unspoken moral code of my past. My time of treading a fine line between life and death. The punishment for getting a tattoo you have not earned is severe so they work as my CV, and being the daughter of a mafia king she can read each letter and design like a language.

She undoes the rest of the buttons on my shirt, pulls the shirttails out, and slips it off me. I watch her eyes hungrily take in the width of me, before her eyes alight on the tattoo of an epaulette inked onto my right shoulder.

‘High ranking,’ she whispers.

She rises to her tiptoes and kisses me right on the skull in the middle of the epaulette. It is a gesture of approval. She knows it signifies that I am not, or will ever be a slave to anyone.

I stand as still as a statue when she touches the rose. So many memories come crowding back. No other woman has touched it quite the same way. It is Delilah holding Samson’s hair.

‘You spent your eighteenth birthday in prison,’ she notes. Her voice grave.

Then her finger delicately trails the blade of a dagger. ‘You have taken life.’ She touches the drops of blood as she counts aloud the lives I have taken. ‘One, two, three, four …’ There are more drops, but she doesn’t go on. She looks up at me, our gazes touch, and she exhales a long breath. It sounds like regret or pain.

She walks around the back and looks at the massive tattoo of the Madonna and Child surrounded by saints and angels. In the background a cathedral. It is a thieves’ talisman. I know I am a sinner but protect me, guide me, bring me luck.

‘So … you were a thief from an early age,’ she deciphers. I feel her breath warm on my back.

‘Fifteen,’ I say quietly.

‘Mmmm.’ She lays her palm on my back and I close my eyes at the incredible softness of her skin.

She reads aloud the Russian words. Oh Lord, forgive me for the tears of my mother.

I twist around and grab her wrist. ‘That’s enough.’

Something flashes in her eyes, but it’s not fear.

‘So now you know all about me,’ I say. ‘What is there to know about Tasha Evanoff?’

‘There is only one thing you need to know about me. Tonight I am yours.’

‘Let me see what is mine tonight, then,’ I say.

Pink rushes up her neck and cheeks. She sinks her teeth into her bottom lip and holds her empty glass out to me. I take it from her and she steps out of her shoes. How cute. No other woman I know would dream of taking her shoes off first. Every one of them is sophisticated enough to know a naked woman wearing nothing but her high heels is the ultimate sexual turn on.

She takes her cardigan off and folds it before laying it neatly over the edge of the couch closest to her. As her hands move to the back of her dress, I see them shake and realize she is nervous as hell. She unzips her dress and lowers it slowly. Underneath is only the lacy white bra. She doesn’t try to fold the dress as it pools around her ankles. Swallowing hard, she removes her last item of clothing and lets it drop to the carpet.

And I behold a body of classical proportions.

My fingers tighten around the glasses in my hands. A word I don’t think I have ever used comes into my head. Willowy. Her breasts are small and round, the nipples pink and erect, and her waist gently flares out into delicious curves that part into slender thighs. And between them pink folds protrude.

Other than the hair on her head she is completely hairless. Her flawless pale skin shimmers gently in the soft light. There is not a single mark on her body. As if she never fell over as a child and grazed her knees or hurt her elbows. Lost in awe I drag my eyes back to her face.

Anticipation and excitement have made her eyes glitter a brilliant blue. Here she is, on the wrong side of respectability, with the baddest of the bad boys. A dangerous, cold-blooded killer. It is in her eyes: the good girl is expecting a dirty, thrilling, wild, forbidden night of lust and passion.

A night like no other.

And she will get it.

Looking into her shining eyes, I remember the birthday present Vasily and the rest of my staff gave me. It was meant to be a joke. Like a blow up doll only better. Much better. Even I had been surprised by how incredibly real it looked when they presented it amongst blankets, but I never thought I’d have use for it.

Until tonight …

I scoop her up, she weighs so little. I carry her upstairs and lay her on the bed. She looks up at me with huge eyes. She appears so innocent and beautiful I almost cannot bear to look at her. The simple truth is I cannot bear to return her tomorrow.

I feel anger grow from deep inside me that she cannot be mine. Not just for tonight, but forever.

I’ve always wanted her, and now I’m being offered one little taste before she is yanked away and given to a bully who does not deserve her.

I already know what he will do. He will break her with neglect.

She, who is mine.