♞Chapter Seventeen♞
Mikhail
I don’t know when exactly I lost my mind.
Maybe it was the first time she snuck into my apartment.
Maybe it was the first time we kissed. Or maybe it was after she left me.
Maybe that was the moment I snapped. Now, there’s something inside me, something vile, something starving.
It sits in my chest, whispering in her voice, mocking and taunting, always out of reach. Do something. Get her back.
She left her apartment again this morning.
I should be at work. Instead, I’m here, pacing through my place like a fucking caged animal.
My skin burns, my head feels like it’s splitting open.
My body aches like I’m dying. Lara stopped by yesterday.
She cleaned up the wreckage, swept away the shards of my TV, the broken glass from the whiskey bottle I shattered.
She even wiped my blood from the wall where I punched it.
I was a fool. I thought I could have her like this, my lover in the dark, tangled in my sheets, but to the world, she’d be nothing. A convenient escape. I convinced myself I could keep her at arm’s length, close enough to taste, never close enough to lose. I thought I could let her go.
She didn’t want just my body. She wanted all of me. The parts I don’t give. The pieces no one gets to hold. And I gave her scraps, expecting her to stay. I pushed her away, thinking distance would protect her. Believing I could survive without her.
I was wrong. There is no life where I let her go. No reality where she walks away from me and keeps walking. I will drag her back, kicking and screaming if I have to. She’ll hate me. She’ll curse me. And she will be mine.
She thinks I can’t protect her. That I can’t keep her.
Just the thought makes me see red. I did all of this for her.
I kept my distance to keep her safe. But that space is killing me.
And no matter what it takes, I will have her again.
I can’t take it anymore. I need something of hers.
Anything. Her scent, her space, a trace of her touch left behind in something she forgot.
I make it out of my apartment before reason can catch up.
It’s pathetic, this sickness inside me, this fever only she can break.
Her door appears in front of me before I even realize I’m moving.
I drag my fingers over the lock, feeling the cold bite of metal under my skin. A locked door won’t stop me.
I pick it easily and slip inside. Her apartment is neat.
Nothing out of place. Everything arranged with care.
I spot the canvases, lined against the walls and propped on easels.
Sunsets. Sunrises. Vast skies over empty fields.
She doesn’t usually paint like this. Not this many.
Not these kinds of views. These are commissions, aren’t they?
Her way of drowning in work. Of forgetting.
She will never forget me. I swear it.
The scent of her is everywhere, filling my lungs. I close my eyes and inhale, slow and deep, letting her consume me. My hands tremble at my sides as I move, my body running on autopilot.
I’m drawn to her bed. It’s the only thing left untouched. Unmade. The sheets are tangled, like she tossed and turned all night, unable to sleep.
I lower myself onto the mattress, rolling onto my back, letting the smell of her engulf me. God, Lola. I fist the sheets, drag them up to my face, and breathe in the ghost of her warmth, the scent of her shampoo, her skin. I shouldn’t be here. But I’ll die without this.
My legs carry me toward the bathroom, where I spot her lotion bottle on the counter. I flip the cap and pour some into my palm, rubbing it into my skin, over my pulse points. Still not enough.
I lift the lid on the laundry hamper. Her panties sit like a prize, right on top of everything else. I clutch them in my hand, lift them to my face, and press my lips to the seam. She has no idea how wrecked I am. How I’d burn cities to have her back.
My tongue drags across the fabric, tasting the faintest hint of her.
Fuck.
I miss her taste. The way she’d pull my hair, press my face between her thighs, how her soft gasps would turn into desperate moans as she came undone against my tongue. I’m hard beyond relief, but she’s the only one who gets to touch me. Not my hand. Not anything else. Only her.
Even my own damn palm feels wrong, it would be some cheap imitation of the real thing. I’d rather suffer. I shove the panties into my pocket. My trophy. My salvation. I need to leave before I do something stupid, something I can’t take back.
But something catches my eye. A simple sketch resting on the counter. My fingers twitch as I reach for it, my stomach twisting, my jaw tightening before I even flip it over. Rage detonates inside me.
Because it’s not just any sketch. It’s a man . Another fucking man.
The paper crumples in my grip as I stare at his face, my vision darkening at the edges. Is this professional? Just a subject? Just a drawing?
No. Doesn’t matter. She doesn’t get to draw other men. She doesn’t get to let them live in her mind, exist under her hands, be brought to life by her strokes.
That belongs to me. I am her only muse. I am the one. I’d hate for some bastard to believe otherwise. To think he was special. That he meant something to her.
I’d rip his heart out.
But then—another thought.
Something worse.
What if he’s not just a subject?
What if this is him? The man she gave herself to the night I shattered her. A coil of venom wraps around my throat, tightening, choking me.
I’ll find out. I grab a pencil, grip like a vice, knuckles popping. I need to ruin it. I need to drag the graphite across his smug face, scratch through every line she drew, erase him completely.
I bring the pencil down, pressing too hard. The lead snaps, piercing my palm. A tiny dot of blood rises. Fuck me. I can’t do it. Because it’s hers.
It came from her beautiful mind, her delicate hands. The same hands that once cupped my face and clung to me while I took her apart. I can’t destroy anything she made.
So I do the next best thing. I fold the paper and shove it into my pocket. This man… whoever he is, wherever he’s hiding, whatever he meant to her—
I’ll find him.
And when I do—
God help him.