Nine
Caiden
One second, I’m standing there, in the showers, with the steam burning my lungs, and Arseny Zakirov’s thumb stroking my bottom lip like he’s trying to rewire my nerves and the next, I’m stumbling into the corridor, the cold air slamming into my face so hard it feels like punishment.
I can feel my heart beating everywhere, in my throat, my hands, even my teeth. My legs carry me fast, as if I’m running from an explosion in the opposite direction of one naked Russian with a god complex.
I don’t breathe until I reach the first corner, and even then, it comes out in a wrecked, shaky exhale that echoes off the empty hall. “Fuck.” It’s the only word I have left. I grip the wall, bracing one hand against the cold brick to stop myself from sliding down it.
It’s the look he gave me, like he’d known — really known — what I wanted before I even admitted to myself I did. The way he stepped toward me, steam curling around him, skin soaked, his eyes amused like he was peeling me open with his gaze alone. And that touch, Christ.
He knew exactly what he was doing.
I squeeze my hands into fists and force myself to stand up straight.
The corridor is empty, thank God. If anyone saw me right now, they’d think I’d been hit by a fucking grenade.
I drag in another breath, but it barely helps.
My body is buzzing, not with adrenaline or fear, but with something hotter and more dangerous.
I scrub my palms over my face and mentally kick myself. “You absolute idiot,” I whisper, half at myself, half at him, or maybe at whatever God oversees soldiers who make catastrophically bad decisions.
I slam my back against the wall and stare at the ceiling like it might have mercy on me.
He was right, and that was the frustrating part.
He saw straight through me. Every layer, denial, and carefully arranged boundary I built to keep my life controlled, stable, and survivable.
He tore through it just by existing and looking at me with those sharp, knowing eyes and saying things in that low, effortless voice.
“Detka.” My knees nearly buckle again. “What the fuck am I doing?” I whisper. I’m not supposed to want him. I’m not supposed to want any man here, not like this, not openly, and definitely not someone like him.
I push off the wall and force myself to walk with slow, steady steps.
My body feels too hot, and every nerve feels rewired.
I reach the other locker room closer to the barracks.
It’s empty, thank God. My hands are still shaking.
I grab the edge of the metal bench and lean down, breathing hard like I’ve run fifty miles.
I press my forehead against my arm with my eyes squeezed shut.
He shouldn’t get under my skin this easily or be able to take my composure apart like it’s a puzzle he’s played with before.
I sink onto the bench, with my elbows on my knees, and my palms pressed to my eyes. Everything is a game to him. But what terrifies me is that some part of me wants to play.
I stay sitting until my heartbeat stops trying to kick a hole through my ribs, and when I finally lift my head, my face is flushed; I look like someone who just got fucked, and he barely touched me.
I stand abruptly, shove my hands into my pockets, and force myself to breathe like a functioning human being again. I swallow hard, take some deep breaths, and head for my bunk.
My body feels too tense the whole way there.
I’m too fixated on the memory of heat, steam, and the touch that wasn’t supposed to happen.
By the time I collapse into my bed, burying my face in the pillow, one final truth strikes me.
It’s humiliating and electric at the same time.
I’m not scared because Ari touched me; I’m scared because I wanted him to.
And I don’t know what’s worse, that he knows it, or that I want him to do it again.
I’d love to say that I slept last night, but I didn’t. I lay there staring at the cracked ceiling of the barracks, blanket shoved down around my hips because the room always feels ten degrees hotter when you’re fighting thoughts you shouldn’t be having.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Ari naked, dripping from the showers, and looking at me like he knew every filthy thought I tried to strangle in my own skull.
He wasn’t embarrassed in the slightest. He wasn’t coy or even surprised.
He was amused, as if watching me unravel was his new favourite hobby.
Pathetic doesn’t begin to cover how I feel. I don’t want him; I don’t even like him, for Christ’s sake. I repeat it in my head so many times that the words lose all meaning.
The obstacle course is carved out of a patch of frozen earth that hates us all equally. We line up with our Russian counterparts. I remind myself I’m here for training, not because he’s here. Then he steps onto the course, and whatever lie I was trying to swallow lodges painfully in my throat.
Ari moves through the cold like the weather is an obedient dog that wouldn’t dare nip him. He’s in full gear, sleeves shoved up just enough to show his forearms, his muscles flexing under skin. He doesn’t even look at me, which is a hundred times worse.
All I can think of in this moment is water sliding down his skin yesterday, and the way he tilted his head at me in the showers like I was entertainment. I shove the image down so hard it nearly knocks the breath out of me.
Niko blows the start whistle and launches himself down the course. The two Brits beside me take off. I should follow them and focus, but my eyes drag to my left.
Ari is hitting the first wall.
He doesn’t climb it, he attacks it, scaling the boards in three movements, so smoothly that it seems the obstacle was designed for him alone.
I hate him. I absolutely fucking hate him.
My feet finally start moving, my feet punching the cold mud, and the air hurting my teeth. The course is brutal. It’s a mess of rope climbs, iced-over balance beams, crawl trenches, and hurdles.
But all I can focus on is him.
He clears the next obstacles with the same infuriating ease, hits the ground, rolls, and keeps running without a stutter. Someone to my right whistles low. “Fucking hell, Zakirov can move.” Yeah. I’ve noticed. Thanks.
I shouldn’t stare. It’s unprofessional, humiliating, and everything Ari warned me not to do, except the warning wasn’t for this. It was the complicated crush I used to have before Ari exploded into my sights like a land mine made of bad decisions and his beautiful damn fucking face.
I hit the beam harder than intended. I grit my teeth and force balance into my legs. A shout snaps my attention back, and I see Ari is at the rope net, climbing fast, his fingers catching frost-slick rope like it’s nothing. He’s poetry in motion—violent, smug poetry.
“Move, Varrik!” Hall barks behind me.
Right. Moving. Yes.
I take the rope net two rungs at a time. My muscles burning in the cold, but all the burn does is make my brain sharper, and that’s bad, because all it sharpens toward is him.
Ari reaches the top, swings one leg over the beam, then glances down at me.
Our eyes lock briefly, and I almost slip on a rung.
His mouth twitches. The bastard fucking saw.
I grit my teeth harder and push myself faster.
My hands are burning, and my arms are starting to shake.
This is ridiculous, genuinely ridiculous.
The most ridiculous thing that has ever happened to me.
I’ve fought grown men twice my size without this much difficulty, and without my balance going to hell because someone looked at me.
But Ari looks at me for a few seconds, and I nearly fall off a net. Truly pathetic.
I haul myself up, refusing to let him have the victory, even a small one, until I’m level with the top beam. When I swing a leg over, he’s already descended on the other side. I want him to slip, just once, just enough to make him mortal. But he hits the ground low and graceful, then sprints off.
Why is he so fast? Why is he so good at this? Why is he making everything harder than it needs to be?
I drop down, hit the ground, and take off again.
The mud crawl is next. It’s a long trench under low wooden slats that scrape your back if you’re not careful.
The Russians drop to their bellies and us Brits follow.
Ari slides under the slats, and his shirt rides up, just a sliver, showing the tight line of muscle disappearing under the fabric, and I almost choke on air.
I stop paying attention to my surroundings, and my face hits the mud.
I deserved that.
“Eyes forward, Varrik!” someone shouts from behind me.
I don’t answer because if I open my mouth, I’ll drown in mud and humiliation.
I pull myself through the crawl. The mud is freezing into my clothes, and my chest is burning, but all I can see is the smear of dirt across Ari’s lower back and the way he moves with terrifying efficiency.
He doesn’t look back again, but he doesn’t need to, he knows I’m watching.
He always fucking knows.
Finally, it’s the last stretch and on to the fireman carry.
Pairs are assigned quickly, Hall pointing between me and the nightmare himself.
“Zakirov. Varrik. You two,” he says, and my stomach drops.
Ari raises one eyebrow. It’s the slow, taunting kind that suggests he can and will ruin my life for fun.
I want to strangle him, but I also want to push him against a wall.
“Ladies first?” he asks.
“I’ll carry you,” I snap before my brain is fully online enough to stop me.
“Oh? You’re just dying to touch me, aren’t you Varrik?” God. Kill me now.