There he was.

The wolf free of his cage. Hungry, focused and poised to take what he wanted.

Keeping his fingers manacled around one of her wrists, he inched backward and tugged her arm. “Come.”

If he kept looking at her like that and talking in that low, throaty voice, coming wouldn’t be a verb that entailed walking. Her feet got on board despite the ache quickly building between her thighs, and she followed him up the stairs.

Sun slanted through the master suite’s wide window, the boldness of the early evening rays bleaching the blue from the skies beyond and painting the horizon with hints of gold. Before she could get her bearings, Kir veered to the bathroom, led her inside and spun her so her hips pressed against the vanity’s ledge. Not pausing, he turned, padded to the glass-fronted shower and cranked all three showerheads to life.

Her brain tried to keep up. Struggled to match his actions with the libidinous weight of his stare as he approached her. “What are we doing?”

He lifted the hem of the soft cotton tank she’d donned shortly after her early return home and peeled it over her head. “You want to forget, yes?”

She nodded. Or tried to. Between the wanton promise in his expression and the erotic sweep of the room’s chilled air against her bared breasts, anything more was impossible.

“Then I will wash it all away.” He slipped his fingertips in the waistband of her cotton pants and pushed them past her hips until gravity took over and made them pool around her ankles. “Drown the day with my touch. My kiss. My body.” He stepped back and raked her naked body with a long and covetous perusal. Only once he’d taken his fill did his eyes lock onto hers once more and he began to undress himself. “All you will know is us. All you will need is us. And when you fall asleep, you will do it beside me. Where you belong. Free from worry. Relaxed and drifting from the pleasure delivered by the man who will give you everything.”

All too quickly, the story of his mother and father leapt to the front of her thoughts. “I’m not asking for everything, Kir. Only you. As you are.”

Steam from the shower drifted from the open glass door and coiled near his feet. He pushed his boxer briefs to the floor, stepped free of them and prowled toward her, his shaft fully erect and straining toward his belly. “Nyet. You are not my mother. You are wise. Grounded in the ways of the world and driven by a good heart.” The weight of his hands at her hips was a godsend. An anchor to keep her steady as his words rushed over her. “But I understand my father’s actions now. Knew when I heard the pain and frustration in your voice downstairs that there is nothing I would not do to give you what you need.” He pressed his body against her, his cock an insistent rod above her mound, and his lips a whisper that teased her mouth. “My heart is hard and unskilled in love. But it is yours.”