The bathroom is a sanctuary—steam blurring the shards of strategy, suspicion, and Burçu’s steel-edged words.

Hot water scours off every diplomatic layer until nothing’s left but pulse and skin, the day’s political foreplay rinsed down to soap and heat. Stepping out, I’m my own ghost in the mirror: hair dripping, towel knotted at my hips, eyes reminding me I own this body even when the city borrows my mind. I brace on the marble, just long enough to enjoy being nobody’s agent.

A sound—click. That sound. Not staff. Not error.

The lock turning with a trained, deliberate snick. Adrenaline vaporizes steam; my spine locks as Istanbul’s sense of privacy takes a holiday.

I march into the bedroom, trailing fog like vengeance—hair wild, feet bare, towel barely holding up my last shred of patience.

“How, or who—the bloody hell? I pay for locks, for wolfish bodyguards, and yet my door’s opened more often than a bakery before sunrise.”

The latch rolls. Tarmo enters, composed, radiating that special billionaire blend of suit, arrogance, and cologne—plus enough rain‑spatter to claim he came on foot.

“You again.” I hitch the towel tighter, leaning in the doorway, damp hair fanning my shoulder. “Just once, could you try knocking—or is the concept of privacy a cultural barrier?”

He closes the door with a grace born of old money and seasoned espionage.

“You and I don’t have privacy. Only unfinished business.”

“Unfinished business sounds suspiciously like you want dessert before interrogation. You know, most intruders at least bring baklava.”

He smirks, stepping closer—the smell of Allure and expensive ambition weaving into the humid citrus of my shampoo.

“I should throw you out for trespassing,” I say, arching a brow.

“So do it,” he purrs, stepping into my space. His hands claim diplomatic immunity over towel and skin alike.

There’s no negotiation—his mouth finds mine, not gentle, not slow. Muscle memory and want collide with something dangerously close to need.

“Shut up,” he mutters against my jaw. “Let me prove some of what I feel isn’t strategy.”

He lifts me easily—heat through fabric, breath catching between us as the world narrows to mattress and air.

“Nice trick,” I breathe. “Next time, maybe break in with the room service tray.”

His jacket falls—one fluid, unhurried motion. Lamplight sketches a crime scene of muscle and intent. The belt follows, pooled steel and surrender. At the foot of the bed, he holds still—blue eyes pinning every unspoken answer to my skin.

“May I?” he asks, etiquette held tight as restraint.

Tension sizzles. I tilt my head.

“Just this once—since you’ve only broken protocol.”

His mouth twists, half a smirk, half a promise. Then the city dissolves, leaving only heat, silence, and the slow negotiation of breath.

The mattress dips beneath him—a seismic tremor traveling straight through my still‑damp skin.

His heat arrives before his hands: every inch of him radiates that insufferable Tarmo certainty, the kind you spend years trying to unlearn and fail.

His mouth finds mine—no preamble, no decorum, just possession.

Boardrooms, glass towers, those damn suits—all stripped away. It’s Tarmo distilled, intent narrowed to the square meter he apparently plans to govern tonight. My hair tangles in his fingers as he frames my face, thumbs sweeping my cheekbones with the reverence of someone revisiting a crime scene.

I know this rhythm; let’s be honest, we designed it. The surge, the deliberate pause, the breath he lets hang between us before taking more.

He covers me, weight grounding, anchoring the chaos beyond these walls with the uncivilized fact that he knows exactly what trained muscle memory feels like when it’s turned on me.

His mouth traces my throat—oh, hello, old stubble ache, where have you been? The slide of skin against skin is a forgotten song suddenly on repeat, lyrics indecent, melody unashamed.

“By Odin, Elena…” he groans into my skin, voice fraying at the edges.

Of course. Scandinavian gods in the bedroom—classic Tarmo. Zurich déjà vu: some men never change their obsessions, only their cities. My name from his lips is half plea, half legally binding contract.

I meet his eyes—steel‑blue, unrepentant—and in them is something raw that has nothing to do with his billion‑dollar altitude, everything to do with wanting to keep me for five more minutes, no matter the cost.

I hook my legs around him, breaking his concentration with surgical intent. His groan is the sound of surrender—and, quite possibly, asset depreciation. When he enters, it’s deliberate. No committees, no false starts—just two conspirators who know where tension lives and how to drag it out mercilessly.

The bed, the air—steam, sweat, and that infuriating cologne—form a closed circuit, a meeting neither of us will ever put in the minutes.

My nails sign their own statement, and the low, rough sounds he makes are truths no NDA could contain. There’s no Burçu, no trade corridor, no Africa—only heat, and the undeniable fact that we never burned the bridge.

When it peaks, it isn’t polite or choreographed—it’s raw, a breach in both our defenses. He stays tangled with me, forehead pressed to mine, breath stuttering as though he might, for once, be afraid to move too soon. Silence.

Then that half‑smile—the one that says negotiations are about to resume.

“Now… will you tell me what she said?”

I laugh, breathless, snark tangled with affection.

“Of course. But only if you promise dessert next time you break and enter.”

Even here, breath thinning, skin cooling, the game never ends.

I.Ph.