Sophia
The red coat is still heavy on my shoulders, soft against my neck. The hot chocolate lingers on my tongue, sweet and faintly bitter, and I can still hear the echo of the bells in the valley as we slowly wind our way up the mountain. For the first time since he came to my door, I don’t feel hollow.
The town was so alive it almost hurt. Laughter, joy, light in every window. For a few hours, I forgot what I was. Standing beside him while the snow fell and the world moved around us, I didn’t feel like property or payment. I felt human.
When we reach the house, night is already falling again.
Yury opens the door for me, his hand at the small of my back, a quiet touch that steadies more than it controls.
I step inside and turn back toward the window.
From here, the valley glows gold through the dark.
Tiny specks of light pulse against the snow, like the world is breathing.
“I didn’t think anywhere could still look like that,” I say, my voice barely a whisper.
He sets his gloves on the table. “It’s old here. Things stay the way they’re meant to.”
“I like it.”
“Good.” He studies me, expression unreadable. “We can go again, whenever you want.”
The words make something flutter low in my stomach. I shouldn’t want to go anywhere with him. But the thought of walking those narrow streets again, of hearing the bells while his hand brushes my back the way it just did… I can’t quite convince myself not to want it.
The fire is still burning from earlier. I move closer, holding my hands out to the heat.
My gloves are damp from the snow, and when I peel them off, my fingers sting from warmth meeting cold.
He watches me from across the room, jacket off, sweater open at the throat.
There’s something quieter about him tonight. Less Pakhan, more man.
“You’re still cold,” he says.
“I’m fine.”
He steps closer anyway. “Turn around.”
I do, though my heartbeat picks up in a way that has nothing to do with the chill. He reaches for the toggles of the coat and twists them, his knuckles grazing the base of my throat as he opens it. The air catches in my lungs.
“You shouldn’t wear wet things,” he murmurs. “You’ll make yourself sick.”
The coat slides down my arms, bunching in a pile at my feet. I don’t move to pick it up. His fingers linger just long enough to make me feel it somewhere deeper, the heat of his skin, the restraint in his touch.
I pick it up and place it on the arm of the sofa before turning back toward the window, because I need to breathe. The glass has fogged slightly from the warmth of the fire. Beyond it, the snow keeps falling, slow and endless.
“It’s beautiful here,” I say. “The lights. The people. The smell of cinnamon. I can’t remember the last time I was somewhere that felt so alive.”
He’s closer again. I feel him behind me before his reflection materializes with mine in the window pane. “You’re alive.”
I meet his eyes in our joined reflection. “Maybe, but I don’t feel like I’ve been living for the longest time.”
His hands slide into his pockets, but the air between us hums. I can feel him watching me, can feel every place the heat from him touches my body.
“You said I could have anything,” I say.
“I did.”
“Even if what I want doesn’t make sense?”
“Especially then.”
I take a breath, not sure if I’m brave or foolish. “I think I just want to feel something good again. Something real.”
His hands are on me before I finish the sentence. Slow, deliberate strokes over my arms, my shoulders. His breath ghosts across my hair at the crown of my head.
“You only have to ask, angelu.”
I turn to face him, his gaze dropping to my mouth, and the world narrows to that one point of gravity between us.
“Yury,” I whisper.
He reaches up, brushing his thumb along my lower lip. “Say it again.”
“Yury.”
It sounds different the second time, softer, like a confession.
His hand cups my jaw, tilting my face up. “You’re not cold anymore.”
“No.”
“Good.”
He kisses me before I can think to stop him.
It’s not gentle, but not cruel either. It’s something in between. A claiming, a question, a warning. My fingers clutch the front of his shirt before I realise what I’m doing, and he groans against my mouth, deep and low. The sound goes straight through me.
When he pulls back, his forehead rests against mine. “Are you still afraid?”
I nod and lick my lips, missing the taste of him and trying to press away the tingling feeling he left behind because it’s confusing and wonderful all at once.
His mouth covers mine again, not waiting for me to open to him. He pushes his tongue against the seam of my lips until it slides against mine. His hands hold either side of my face, angling me up so he can go deeper, take more.
Anxiety about what we’re doing, where this will lead, my obvious inexperience, begins to melt away as he expertly coaxes a whimper from me.
When he ends the kiss, drawing out the last stroke of his lips against mine, I can’t open my eyes immediately.
“Why do I feel like you’ve never done this before?” he asks when my eyes flutter open. He is looking at me with such intensity that I feel every inch of me blush. He blinks, momentarily startled. “Because you haven’t.”
Yury drops his hands from my face and steps back. His arousal is obvious now, tenting his pants. He never takes his dark gray eyes from my face, but his own is expressionless.
“Did I do something wrong?” I ask, and instantly wonder why. Why do I care so much about pleasing him? About seeing how far that kiss could go? He is supposed to be my captor. A man who would have killed my father had I refused to come with him.
Why can’t I make myself hate him?
“No,” he finally says, his eyes still steady. “You should go upstairs. Lock your door. Don’t let me in when I come knocking.”
His words tie themselves in knots in my brain, and I can’t move while I try to figure it all out.
“Go!” he barks, and the tone of his voice startles me.
I run from the living room and bolt up the stairs, taking them two at a time until I hit the landing and charge toward my room.
Just as I turn to close the door behind me, I see him at the end of the hall, stalking toward me with a look on his face so fierce it sets me on fire from the inside. I hesitate for just a moment before slamming the door shut and turning the key.