Chapter 34 #2
His lips touch the corner of my mouth, a soft, aching brush that loosens something deep inside me even as I try to hold myself together.
“I want you,” he says, the words coming out rough, almost breaking. “I want you with everything I am. I don’t want to lose you.”
He stays close, his breath warm against my lips, and my eyes sting under the weight of what he’s giving me so openly. Then he pulls back just enough to see my face, as if he needs to watch every glimmer of my reaction.
“So please, tell me you want this too.” His next words are barely a whisper. “I don’t know how to do this, Fiona. I wasn’t raised to love. I wasn’t built for it. But I will do whatever you need, however you need it. Just…don’t walk away. Teach me.”
I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I can’t reconcile this man with the one who once threatened everything I cared about. My gaze drops, completely overwhelmed, and he lifts my chin with gentle fingers, guiding my eyes back to his.
“Look at me, Fiona. I’m yours. I always have been.”
Something inside me slices wide open, and before I can stop myself, I’m already reaching for him, closing the space in a rush of need I can’t contain. I crash my mouth to his with a desperation that feels like stepping off a cliff and somehow surviving the fall.
My hands tangle in his hair, my legs wrapping around his waist while water sloshes around us as he lifts me against him.
I don’t want space. I don’t want distance.
I want to feel him, all of him, pressed against me like he’s part of my body.
Like maybe if I hold on tight enough, he won’t disappear when the sun comes up.
His hands grip my hips, and we kiss like it’s the only language either of us understands. There’s nothing careful about it. It’s fire meeting gasoline. Violent, needy, real.
I’ve spent so long running from this man, hating him, fearing him. But right now, all I want is him holding me like I’m his lifeline.
And maybe, just maybe, he’s mine too.
ALEKSEI
Her laughter bounces off the stone path as I hoist her over my shoulder like she weighs nothing. She squeals, telling me to put her down.
“Net.” My voice rumbles low as I grip the backs of her thighs to keep her steady. “This will teach you to walk away from me.”
I smack her ass hard enough to make her yelp, then she laughs louder. That sound—her laughter, wild and unguarded—has become my favorite thing in this world.
I carry her through the back doors and down the hallway, past a startled Galya who makes a sound of disapproval and mutters something about soaking wet floors. I ignore her. My entire focus is on the woman in my arms as I bring her into a guest bathroom.
She’s still laughing when I kick the door closed behind us and set her down carefully, fingers curling around her waist to keep her close.
Her hair is dripping, her hoodie clinging to her in a way that does things to me.
She tilts her head up, eyes wide and uncertain, lips parted like she’s trying to understand whatever is happening between us.
I’m not sure either. I have never said anything like that to any other woman. But with her, all I do is feel.
“Davay,” I say, tugging the soaked hoodie over her head. Come on. “Let’s warm you up.”
Her arms lift, letting me strip her bare. I peel away every piece of fabric. Her breathing stutters, and I can’t tell if it’s the cold or me that has her shaking. She bites her lip, eyes never leaving me as I step out of my sweats and leave them on the tile.
When I turn on the shower, steam begins to fill the space, spiraling upward in soft clouds.
She steps under the water without a word, and I follow, the heat closing around us.
The water runs over her in steady, warm streams, sliding through her hair and down the curve of her neck.
She tilts her head back, eyes drifting shut, and I’m not sure she realizes what that simple movement does to me, how it pulls something deep inside my chest.
Reaching for the shampoo, I pour a small amount into my palm and guide her to turn away from me. My fingers slip into her hair, spreading the lather slowly, working it through each strand with a kind of patience I have never given anyone in my life.
The warmth of her, the quiet of the water around us, makes me want this moment to last for as long as she will allow it. She releases the softest sound when my fingertips glide across her scalp, and the sound shoots through me. She relaxes back, her head resting against me.
“That feels nice.” Her words drift in a hazy, content sigh.
“I want to make you feel good.”
A faint smile curves her lips. “I bet you say that to all the girls.”
“Nikogda.”
Her eyes open, lifting to meet mine. “What does that mean?”
“It means never,” I tell her, cupping her cheek.
“Oh…” The word comes out shallow, almost shaky.
She looks at me like she wants to say something more, something she is not sure she should.
But I told her the truth. Every woman before her was nothing. A forgettable night or a power play. Maybe it started out that way with her too, but it’s more now.
I rinse the shampoo out before adding conditioner to her ends, working it through her long hair, and she leans against me again.
Water rushes down her back as I rinse her strands, my palms trailing down her shoulders, her arms. She’s soft and wet and perfect, and it terrifies me how much I want to protect that softness. How much I need it.
My knuckles trail slowly down her spine, and she shivers at the touch. “I can’t remember what life felt like before you.”
She goes still for a moment, then turns to face me, water gliding down her skin. “Was it better or worse?”
Reaching for the soap, I take my time working it between my hands, wanting to trace every inch of her with the care I’ve never shown anyone. “Would it make me weak to admit I prefer my life with you in it?”
A soft smile lifts her lips, her lashes lowering as I smooth the lather over her. Her fingertips slide up my back, and the simple touch quiets the dark restlessness inside me.
“Not as much as it makes me to admit I’ve fallen for a man I had no business falling for.”
I let out a growl, backing her up against the wall. “We are two very complicated people, aren’t we, Ms. Prosecutor?”
My cock grows thicker at the sight of her brows knitting, the way her beaded tips beg for my tongue.
“We are…” She lifts to me, nipping my lower lip, and I curse under my breath. “But maybe a little complication makes life worth living.”
In an instant, my mouth is on hers, the kiss hard and demanding. She tastes like everything I have never deserved and everything I wish I was worthy of.
When we finally break, her fingertips brush along the rough stubble of my jaw, and my eyes fall shut as I take in the warmth of her touch, the way it sinks straight through my skin.
Every time my hands move over her, I feel it: the subtle tremble in her muscles, the small catch in her breath.
Her body responds to me in ways she does not seem fully aware of, and it pulls something fierce out of me.
It makes me want to test the limits of that quiet trust she keeps giving me, to see just how far it might reach.
I kneel slightly, picking up the soap and gliding it along the backs of her legs, behind her knees, between her thighs. Her gaze is on me, strong and unwavering, like every part of her always is.
When I’m done, she takes the soap from me as she starts working it over my chest, dragging the bar down the center, then using her palms to spread the suds. My muscles tighten as she traces along the edges of the scars on my chest, cracking open something buried deep.
“Where’d you get these?” Her voice is quiet. Careful. Like she’s afraid of the answer.
I watch her hand. Not because I don’t know what to say, but because I’m not sure I’ve ever said it out loud.
“My father,” I finally answer, and the words taste like rust. “He liked to play games.”
She lifts her eyes to mine, and I see it there: pity.
“Games? What kind of games?”
I let out a dry laugh. “Loyalty. Strength. Obedience. Whatever he decided we needed to prove that day.”
She doesn’t interrupt, just listens, her hands still moving like they can erase the past.
“I was maybe six the first time he made me hold a knife to my brother’s palm. Said if I didn’t do it, he would hurt him worse. Said it was love. That proving you would sacrifice anything for your family was the highest honor.”
“Jesus, Aleksei.”
“I could not do it.” My head shakes from the memory. “So Konstantin took the punishment for me. I was always a failure in our father’s eyes.”
“No.” Her emotions twist in her features as she curls her body closer to mine, arms wrapping around me like she’s trying to shield me from something she never could. “You’re not a failure. He was.” Her hand holds my cheek, and I ache for it. “He wasn’t a father to you. That’s not love.”
I lean into her touch, like I’m surrendering into something bigger. “I swore if I ever had children, I would never be like him. Never raise my hand, never make love something they had to earn by bleeding for it.”
I pause, pressing my forehead to hers, breathing her in like she’s the only thing tethering me to the present.
“You’re the only person I’ve ever told that to.”
“Why me?” she asks, barely above a whisper.
“Because I think…you’re the only person I’ve ever trusted to hold it.”
Tears fill her eyes as she rises on her feet and presses a kiss to my mouth. “I’m so sorry.”
My palm slides into the back of her neck, gripping tight. “There’s nothing to be sorry for.” I kiss her temple. “This is the life I had, and I accepted it a long time ago. But what I can’t accept…is you continuing to think I don’t care.”
A small inhale shudders through her.
“I did push you away, yes, but only out of necessity. More for my own survival. Or for the survival of the man I thought I had to be.”
“And now?”
I pull back just enough to see her face, my fingers sliding through her hair. “Now, I don’t know what our future looks like. I don’t know if we even get one. But I want to try. I want you to tell me you want that too, moya ptichka.”
A smile appears through her tears. “This whole thing is crazy, and I don’t know how the hell we can make it work, but I want to. I want you, Aleksei.”
My chest tightens in a way I can’t explain.
I’m used to violence. Power. Revenge. But not this. Not the hope that I have a future.
She stares at me like she’s seeing past the darkness, and my lips meet hers softly, carefully. Like she’s breakable and I’m learning how not to destroy everything I touch.
“What does moya ptichka mean?” she asks as she pulls away.
I brush a damp strand of hair from her face. “It means my little bird.”
She tilts her head. “Why that?”
“Because you’re the only thing I’ve ever wanted to cage and set free at the same time.”
Her eyes glisten. “That’s beautiful. And a little terrifying.”
“I’m not a good man, Fiona.” My knuckles slope down her cheek. “But you make me want to be.”
She lays her head against my chest, right over the scars, and I hold her there, wondering if this is what it feels like to be forgiven for sins you haven’t stopped committing.
I want to tell her I’m falling in love with her. But the words don’t come. Not yet. The ghosts in my head still whisper too loud.
But maybe…she’s the one who will silence them.