The dressing room had approximately four square feet of breathing space. Viktor was using all of it.
His breath was warm against the back of her neck, deliberate, unhurried, the patience of a man who understood that stillness was its own kind of pressure. His lips grazed the curve where her neck met her shoulder, and Sienna stared straight ahead into the mirror and performed the most demanding role of her 25 years, a woman completely unbothered.
"No one touches you." His voice was barely above a murmur, lips moving against her skin. "Not even a thread of this dress." She held his gaze in the mirror.
"How romantic, Viktor Kessler." She kept her voice sweet. Crisp. The verbal equivalent of a door shutting politely in someone’s face. "Do I have to thank you for letting me breathe on my own as well? Or is that also a privilege you’re considering revoking?"
Something moved at the corner of his mouth.
"You’re breathing just fine right now, baby girl." His arm tightened fractionally at her waist, not rough, not violent, the quiet authority of a man demonstrating that he could. His lips found her ear. "Not for long."
He pulled her closer. The mirror showed her everything, and she hated the mirror for it, the white of the dress, the darkness of his jacket behind it, the way they looked together like something that had been composed. Like something intentional.
"Tell me something." The words landed just beneath her ear. "Be honest." His hand rose slowly, fingers spreading at the base of her throat, not squeezing, just there, warm and encompassing, a collar made of nothing but intention.
His other hand splayed at her waist. She felt his thumb trace the bone of her hip through layers of tulle like he was looking for something he’d already decided was his.
"Has anyone..." his lips brushed her jaw, "made you tremble like this?"
The hand at her hip found the hem of the gown. Found her thigh beneath it. Began a slow and catastrophically patient journey north.
Sienna kept her eyes open. Kept her chin level. Watched herself in the mirror and reached for the most useful weapon she owned.
"I’ve had better." The words arrived with a small, serene smile, faint as morning frost. "Men who didn’t need a loaded gun to get me where they wanted." Viktor went still for exactly one second.
Then, and this was somehow worse than anything else he’d done, he smiled. Real this time. Quiet and certain, the smile of a man who has been handed exactly the information he needed.
"That’s my honest girl." His hand moved between her thighs. "This pretty mouth." His voice dropped to something she felt more than heard. "Fights me every time."
Her breath caught. She couldn’t stop it. The sound escaped before the decision to suppress it could arrive.
"But these hips," his hands settled there, firm, deliberate, learning her through layers of silk like he had all afternoon and intended to use it "these hips tremble at my touch."
And God help her, her body was not on her side. Her body had apparently decided to conduct its own negotiations completely independent of her brain, her survival instincts, and her extensive list of reasons why Viktor Kessler was the last person on earth she should desire.
"I need to use the bathroom."
The words landed cleanly. She stepped forward, out of his hands, out of the small warm orbit he’d built around them both, and pushed through the curtain into the open air of the boutique before the sentence had finished echoing.
The saleswoman materialized immediately from wherever she’d arranged herself to look busy and uninformed.
"Oh, you look stunning. Do you need any adjustments? We have a seamstress on-site who could take in the waist just slightly, or if the hem needs..."
Sienna smiled at her. Broad. Bright. Completely genuine. The back door was fourteen feet away. She’d been counting since she came out of the first dressing room.
Fourteen feet, one corridor turn, and a door that swung outward she could tell from the hinge placement, she’d made a point of noticing, which meant no fumbling, no delay, just push and move.
"Or we could look at one more style, something with a lower back perhaps, the boss did seem to respond to..."
Twelve feet.
Ten.
"Boss."
The saleswoman’s voice had changed, gone sideways toward something that sounded like a prayer.
"Boss ...she’s..."
Sienna hit the door at a dead run. West Philadelphia received her without ceremony.
Back alley. Service entrance. The smell of the city exhaust and concrete and a dumpster making its presence known, and the particular quality of outdoor light that meant free, free, you’re free, go...
She ran.
In the wedding dress. In the ivory heels. Both of which were, objectively, catastrophic choices for a foot chase, but she hadn’t had the luxury of a wardrobe consultation.
The tulle caught at her knees with every stride, and she gathered it in both fists, yanking it up to mid-thigh, and ran past the dumpster, past the delivery door, toward the mouth of the alley where the street opened up, and streets meant people and people meant survival.
Behind her, she heard nothing.
No footsteps. No shouts. No, the particular sound of Viktor Kessler deciding to run, which she suspected would be unlike anything she’d ever heard before, and she did not want to find out.
Just nothing.
Back in the boutique, the saleswoman stood in the corridor with the expression of a woman who had just watched something happen and was deeply uncertain about her role in it.
Viktor walked out of the dressing room corridor at a pace that could only be described as leisurely. The jacket was still straight. Hair still in order. The expression on his face was not the expression of a man whose captive had just fled a luxury bridal boutique in a ten-thousand-dollar gown.
It was the expression of a man who was mildly, privately, deeply entertained.
He stood at the back door. Looked down the alley. A girl in white, growing smaller, gathering tulle in her fists like she intended to outrun physics itself.
The corner of his mouth moved.
"Run, Sienna." Quiet. To no one. Or maybe to himself. The smile settled into something that didn’t belong on the face of a reasonable man. "You only make chasing you sweeter, and I enjoy a good chase."
He reached into his jacket pocket. Pulled out his phone. Dialed a single number, the kind of number you only need to press once, because the person on the other end has been waiting.
The call connected before the second ring.
"Bring her back." He turned from the door, unhurried, already moving back toward the showroom. "Now."
He slid the phone into his pocket. Turned to the saleswoman, who was doing an admirable impression of a woman who had seen nothing and expected to be asked about it.
"We’ll take the first dress," Viktor said pleasantly. "Have it delivered."