LOVE ME LIKE SIN 2

The silence that followed was not merely quiet. It was the sound of a detonator clicking down to zero.

The hiss of the steam fading against the cold Italian marble was the only noise in the sprawling spa suite. The rose-gold wand sat between Killian’s long, scarred fingers, its faint, rhythmic hum sounding absurdly loud in the cavernous space.

Killian did not move. He did not blink.

Every trace of his arrogant, teasing smirk had vanished, wiped away with surgical precision. His chiseled jaw locked so tightly that a sharp muscle ticked beneath his dark morning stubble. Water droplets dripped in agonizing slow motion from the dark tips of his damp hair, tracking down the corded lines of his neck, across the jagged silver blade scars over his broad chest, and disappearing into the low-slung black towel hitched around his narrow hips.

His slate-gray eyes, usually glacial and unreadable, flared with something so dark and ravenous that Zoya instinctively shrank back against the porcelain slope of the clawfoot tub, the lavender foam swirling up to her collarbone.

He knows,her panicked mind screamed.He knows I saw him.

For three agonizing seconds, Killian merely stared at her, processing the gravity of what she had just thrown in his face. Then, with deliberate, terrifying slowness, he clicked the power button on the wand.

The vibration died.

He set the device down on the marble ledge with a soft, ominous clink.

“Say that again,” Killian murmured. His voice was no longer smooth. It was gravel dragged over broken glass, raw and stripped of all civil veneer.

Zoya swallowed hard, her pulse hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. Her heart was beating so violently she was certain he could see it vibrating against the water’s surface. Every instinct told her to submerge herself back beneath the safety of the bubbles, to hide from the towering apex predator looking down at her.

Instead, she forced her chin up. She refused to cower. Not after Jonathan had spent two years making her feel small, and certainly not after seeing the untouchable Killian Orlov completely undone by his own hands just minutes ago.

“You heard me,” Zoya whispered, though her voice trembled slightly at the edges. “You asked if I was thinking of you. But you didn’t need to ask... because you were doing the exact same thing.”

Killian took a single step forward.

The air in the room grew instantly thinner. The heat radiating off his body cut straight through the lavender-scented steam. He moved until the tips of his bare feet touched the base of the clawfoot tub, towering over her like a dark, looming storm.

Then, he braced his hands against opposite edges of the tub and leaned down.

Zoya gasped, her breath catching in her throat as his face came level with hers. He was so close she could smell the crisp mint of his breath, the dark cedarwood soap from his shower, and the raw, electric musk of a man completely on the brink of losing control.

“You stood in my doorway,” Killian rasped, his gaze dropping to her parted lips, then to the exposed, glistening skin of her throat where her pulse was leaping. “You opened my door, little bird... and you watched me.”

It wasn’t a question. It was a dark, possessive indictment.

“The door was open,” Zoya breathed, unable to look away from the storm in his eyes. “I came to talk to you. I didn’t mean to—”

“Did you look away?” he cut her off, his voice dropping an octave lower, vibrating right through the warm water and straight into her core. “When you saw what I was doing to myself... did you turn around and walk away, Zoya?”

The bluntness of his words struck her like a physical blow. A fierce, crimson blush erupted across her cheeks, burning all the way down to her chest.

“Killian...”

“Answer me,” he growled softly, shifting his weight. His massive, scarred hand left the rim of the tub and slowly dipped beneath the surface of the water.

Zoya’s whole body seized.

The contrast was intoxicating—the steaming water versus the rough, calloused heat of his fingers. He didn’t touch her intimate skin; instead, his large hand gently closed around her submerged knee, his thumb pressing into the soft skin just above her joint. A slow, liquid shockwave rippled through her lower belly, making her arch slightly.

“Did you watch?” he demanded, his gray eyes darkening to pitch black.

“Yes,” she confessed in a shattered whisper. The admission cost her everything, stripping away the last defense she had left. “I watched.”

A harsh, ragged breath tore from Killian’s chest. His grip on her knee tightened—not painfully, but with a desperate, anchoring possessiveness.

“Then you saw what you do to me,” he said, the words torn straight from his chest. “You saw what kind of sick, depraved bastard I become the second I close my eyes. I have spent thirty-eight years mastering every instinct in my body. I have built empires. I have killed men with my bare hands without my pulse rising a single beat. But you...”

He leaned in closer, his lips hovering millimeters from her ear, the heat of his skin searing her damp temple.

“...you look at me with those wide, innocent brown eyes, and I am reduced to a starving animal in his own bed, spilling himself into the sheets just to keep from kicking down your door.”

Zoya let out a choked sound, her hands curling into fists beneath the water. Her head spun with the sheer weight of his confession. No one had ever spoken to her like this. Jonathan had treated her desire like a transaction, a debt she owed him for his time. But Killian spoke of her like she was a fever in his blood, a magnificent, ruinous obsession.

“Killian,” she whispered, her voice thick with emotion, her dark eyes searching his scarred, beautiful face. “You said my name.”

Killian froze. His jaw tightened so hard a vein bulged along his temple.

“I heard you,” Zoya continued softly, braving the fire. “Before I closed the door. You groaned my name.”

Killian’s eyes snapped back to hers. The raw vulnerability in his expression lasted only a fraction of a second before a dark, wicked heat replaced it.

His hand slid slowly up her thigh beneath the water, stopping just shy of the apex of her legs, leaving a trail of pure fire in its wake. Zoya’s breath hitched violently, her thighs parting a fraction of an inch purely on instinct.

“I say your name every time I close my eyes, Zoya,” he murmured, his thumb grazing the ultra-sensitive inner curve of her upper thigh. “And if you don’t get out of this water and put some clothes on right now... I am going to get into this tub and make you scream mine until the whole city hears it.”

Zoya’s heart stopped. Liquid heat pooled between her thighs, heavy and aching. She wasn’t afraid. For the first time in her life, she didn’t feel the urge to guard herself, to hide behind the rigid walls she had built to survive. She wanted him to cross the line. She wanted him to ruin her.

“What if I don’t want to get out?” she challenged, her voice a breathless, defiant dare.

Killian let out a low, guttural groan from deep in his chest. His fingers twitched against her inner thigh, sliding higher, the heat between them reaching an unbearable, explosive zenith—

BAM. BAM. BAM.

The sudden, violent pounding on the outer suite door shattered the heavy air like a gunshot.

“ZOYAAA?!” Kira’s bright, loud voice echoed straight through the wood from the hallway. “Are you awake? Where did you go? The private chef is setting up the terrace for brunch, and you HAVE to try the passionfruit mimosas before my dad wakes up and ruins the mood!”

The spell broke with the force of a tidal wave.

Killian pulled his hand from the water instantly, stepping back from the tub in one fluid, silent motion. The cold detachment slammed back over his features like an iron portcullis, though the heavy rise and fall of his chest and the dark fire lingering in his eyes gave him away.

Zoya gasped, sinking back down into the foam, her chest heaving as she pulled the bubbles up to her chin, her entire body trembling from the sudden withdrawal of his heat.

“Zoya?” Kira’s voice called again, the doorknob jiggling. “Are you in the spa bathroom?”

Killian looked down at Zoya. He held her gaze for three agonizing seconds, his expression an intricate tapestry of savage hunger, lethal warning, and unspoken promises.

He leaned down just enough to whisper a single, final decree into the steam:

“This conversation isn’t over, little bird. Not by a long shot.”

He turned on his heel, grabbed his dry charcoal shirt from the bench, and slipped silently through the private connecting service door that led directly to his master wing just a split second before the main suite door clicked open.

“There you are!” Kira chirped, bounding into the steamy room in a vibrant silk robe, completely oblivious to the war zone she had just walked into. “Girl, why are you taking a bath at ten in the morning? And why is your face as red as a tomato?”

Zoya sat frozen in the water, her skin still burning where Killian’s fingers had traced her thigh, her ears ringing with the echo of his voice.

She looked at her best friend, then at the lingering droplets of water on the marble floor where Killian had stood.

“The... the water,” Zoya managed to choke out, her voice trembling as she fought to steady her breathing. “The water was just... really hot.”