Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
ALEKSEI
I kick the door shut with my heel and carry her to the sofa, setting her down like she’s fragile when she’s far from it. But something about seeing her hurt makes me want to be gentle.
Shto ya zdest delayu? What the hell am I doing here?
Why didn’t I leave her in those woods? Why couldn’t I just walk away?
Blyat. Ti vapshe idiot. Fuck. You’re a real idiot. She tried to put you in prison, and you’re here making sure her little boo-boo is okay? You are not her doctor. And you are definitely not her husband.
I need to go. This is not my damn job. She shouldn’t be a priority, and definitely not someone who deserves my mercy.
But when I heard her cry out, when I saw her limp through the woods like that with pain shadowing her features, something inside me twisted. Something I don’t want.
She moves against the cushions and winces. And there’s that damn unwelcome feeling again. Her nose scrunches with her pain, and she looks even more irresistible right now than she did in those woods.
“Uh, thanks.” She positions herself higher on the sofa. “But you can go now.”
Instead of leaving, I head for the stairs.
Ty bol’noy na golovu, I scold myself as she calls out after me. You’re sick in the head.
“Where the hell are you going?”
A smile winds up my mouth from how pissed she sounds while my footsteps climb higher up her stairs, knowing how much she hates me being in her space. If she only knew how many times I’ve been in her panty drawer, she would rip my eyes out…and I’d probably enjoy it a little too much.
The first time I visited, it was curiosity. The second, compulsion. By the third, it was full-blown obsession.
I knew the scent of her shampoo before I ever ran my fingers through her hair. I know where she keeps her pills. Her razor. Her vibrator. I know which panties she avoids when she’s on her period. Or how she sleeps facing the window—unless it’s storming. Then she turns in.
I know too much. And I’m not sorry.
Because while she burns with hate for me, I have already built a cathedral out of her name in my mind. And every time she trembles or cries out my name, it only confirms what I already know.
She doesn’t belong to anyone else. Ona moya. She’s mine.
After grabbing a T-shirt and a pair of her sleep shorts, I head toward her bathroom and pick up the first aid kit too before heading back down.
Her eyes lock on to mine the second I enter, and the fire in them singes the air between us.
I toss the clothes onto the cushion beside her, and she gives the most dramatic huff I’ve ever heard, like I have offended her royal sensibilities.
It’s maddening. And fucking adorable.
“What the hell? How did you know where those were?” Her eyes narrow. “Have you been inside my house before?”
My lips twitch. “Of course not.” I drag the ottoman closer and drop onto it, lifting her foot onto my lap like it belongs there. “Merely a lucky guess.”
“Yeah, okay.” She crosses her arms. “You’re not even trying to lie well anymore.”
“I’m losing my touch, it seems.” My gaze sinks deeper into hers, my thumb grazing over the bruised curve of her heel. “Must be your effect on me.”
“I can’t wait until we’re done with whatever the hell this is,” she mutters, shifting like she’s about to yank her foot back, but she doesn’t.
“You make it sound like you’re not enjoying yourself.” I grin. “I’m almost offended.”
“That is…if you had feelings.”
“Oof.” I clutch my chest. “The cruelty. Truly. You wound me.”
She shoots me a glare hot enough to scorch flesh, and I want to chase the fire.
“Now, if you’re done with your dramatics, I need you to change so I can clean your feet before you die of an infection.”
“How noble,” she drawls, dry as dust. “Isn’t that what you want? To watch me die?”
The smile instantly vanishes from my mouth.
No.
The thought hits harder than it should. Her body cold, breathless… It cracks something in my chest.
I don’t want her dead. I just want to leave her on the ground gasping for air, knowing I’m the one who took it away.
“I said change, Fiona.” My gaze cuts to hers. “Before I strip those clothes myself. Then again…” I tilt my head, eyes trailing down her body. “Considering how you moaned for my cock just minutes ago, I’m guessing that is exactly what you want.”
Her jaw clenches, nostrils flaming. “Look away, asshole.”
“Say please.”
She launches a pillow at my head, and I catch it midair, grinning like the bastard she knows I am. I turn, though not before imagining all the ways I’ll get to know her body all over again before the week is over.
I listen to her movements, each rustle of fabric feeding my sickness. She’s taking her sweet time, knowing exactly what she’s doing. Letting me stew in it. Letting me remember how she looked. Flushed, panting. How she begged with her body even as her mouth spat venom.
It’s not just hate between us. It’s combustion. And I’m a fucking arsonist.
“Okay,” she says from behind me. “I’m decent.”
I glance over my shoulder. “I could’ve flown to Moscow and back in the time it took you.”
She rolls her eyes. “Do us all a favor and make it a one-way ticket.”
I pivot fully, stepping into her space. My knuckles brush her cheek, and her lashes flutter.
“Just admit it…you’d miss me.”
“Yeah, as much as a cavity.”
I chuckle, but it dies fast.
Because she’s right. It would be smarter to leave. To forget this madness. To burn every trace of her from my life and pretend she never happened.
But the second I try…something in me snaps.
I can’t kill what she makes me feel. The obsession. The rage. The way my blood sings with the urge to destroy anything that touches her, that makes her feel something I didn’t give her first.
Only I get to break her. Only I get to make her come undone.
Nu blyat.
Raking a hand through my hair, I mutter under my breath as I stalk toward her kitchen.
Behind me, she says dryly, “My God, I’m never getting rid of you, am I?”
I don’t bother looking back. “Not until you’re dead, moya ptichka. And not then either. Because heaven or hell, I’ll find you.”
Her muttered curse from behind me makes me grin, the sound like music—angry, indignant music, but music all the same.
I grab a clean dishcloth and soak it in warm water, watching it darken in my fist. When I return, she’s sitting stiffly, legs stretched out, arms crossed like a shield.
Her eyes are sharp, guarded, but something in them flickers when I kneel in front of her.
Like she’s not sure whether to run or breathe me in.
I take her ankle, resting it over my bent knee. She flinches when my fingers skim up the delicate line of bone.
“Relax, detka.” My voice is a whisper meant just for her.
She swallows hard, throat bobbing, but she doesn’t pull away. And when our eyes meet, everything slows. The time, my heartbeats, the world around me. It all ceases.
I should hate her. I do hate her. But right now, it doesn’t feel too much like hate.
It’s like possession. Like punishment wrapped in desire. Like my darkness has finally found a home in hers.
She’s the enemy. She’s everything I swore I would destroy. And still, I want to bury myself so deep inside her that neither of us remembers who is in control.
I press the warm cloth to her foot, gently wiping away blood and dirt. Her skin’s scraped raw in places. Nothing deep, but it still carves a hole in my chest. Guilt gnaws at the edges of my control. A feeling I thought was long dead…if I ever had it to begin with.
I’ve ended lives without a second thought. Buried men without a trace of regret. But with her? All it takes is a scratch.
Her breathing changes, shallow and uneven. Like she doesn’t know what to do with gentleness from me. Like it rattles her more than violence ever could. My touch is careful instead of cruel, something that might look like mercy if she was foolish enough to believe me capable of it.
But this isn’t mercy. I just don’t know what the hell it is.
Her lips part, her chest rising unevenly, and I can’t stop staring. Not at her mouth. Not at the way her lashes lower with each stroke of the cloth. Every inch of her is a trigger I want to pull.
And this—this quiet intimacy between us—is more dangerous than fucking her against that tree. There’s no adrenaline to hide behind. No fury to use as armor. Just the truth, pressed between us like a fuse waiting to blow.
I drop the cloth to the floor, muscles tight, and grab the antibiotic from the kit. My hands move on instinct, brushing ointment over the wounds like I’ve done it a thousand times.
But I haven’t. Not for anyone.
I go to the other foot, slower this time, dragging it out like a sick bastard just for the excuse to keep touching her. My fingers graze her skin, memorizing the warmth, the fragility she hides so well.
Zachem ty mne nuzhna? Why do I need you?
None of this makes sense. I want to walk out, slam the door, and pretend this didn’t happen. But the thought of her here alone, hurting, even with just a cut, makes something vicious twist in my gut.
I want to leave. I need to stay. And the war between those two truths is tearing me apart from the inside out.
When I’m done, I reach for the last scrape and press a Band-Aid over it, letting my thumb trace slow, soothing circles against the soft skin of her ankle.
“Does it hurt?” My voice is quieter now, rough at the edges. “Do you want something for the pain?”
She looks down at me, eyes dark and unreadable.
“No,” she breathes. “I’ll live.”
But I’m not so sure I will. Not if she keeps looking at me like that. Not when every second I spend touching her feels like a confession. Not when I know down to the marrow in my bones that she was meant to ruin me.
I lower her foot gently to the floor, but neither of us moves. The air between us pulls taut. One wrong breath, and it’ll snap.
Her hair clings to her temples, damp with sweat, strands wild and curling like they’ve been gripped by desperation. Her lipstick is smeared, bitten raw from holding back the sounds I’ll replay in my mind until they drive me insane.
She looks like a mess. And it is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
My fingers twitch against my thigh. The urge to touch her again, just one more time, rips through me. To taste what I’ve already claimed. To feel her fall apart again just to prove I can make her do it.
But I don’t do a thing. Because if I touch her now, I won’t stop.
And God help us both if that happens.
Forcing myself to step back, I put distance between us before the hate curdling in my blood shifts into something worse. Something dangerous. Something I do not know how to survive.
Hate, I can handle. Rage, I can harness. But anything more? Anything real? That could break me.
And I do not break. Not for anyone.
I start for the door and grasp the knob, ready to leave her behind.
“Aleksei.”
As soon as she calls me, I’m pulled to a halt. I don’t look at her as I wait for what she has to say.
“Thank you.” Her voice…it’s low and sincere, and I’ve never heard it that way.
But I say nothing. Because there is nothing to say. Instead, I walk out into the night, my footsteps loud in the quiet, every one of them echoing with the same question I refuse to answer.
How the hell did I go from wanting to destroy her to needing to protect her more than anything else in this world?