The door creaked open, and Volkov's massive frame loomed in the threshold. He looked like a man chewing on broken glass. His eyes darted from my bare, sweat-slicked chest to the sight of Monet sprawled out on the silk sheets behind me, looking thoroughly wrecked and radiant. The power dynamic hadn't just shifted; it had been demolished.
"Thanks, baldy," I said, my voice dripping with casual arrogance as I snatched the towels from his hand.
A vein in his temple throbbed, a violent tremor passing through his jaw. For a split second, I saw the raw urge to kill flash in his grey eyes—he wanted to wrap those shovel-sized hands around my throat and finish what he'd started months ago. But then he glanced toward the bed, seeing Monet watching us with a lazy, possessive smirk, and the fire in him hit a wall of cold reality.
I didn't give him a chance to recover his dignity.
