Chapter 16
Sofia
Maksim came to me, same as always, but something was different.
I’m sure he didn’t think I noticed the way he braced himself like a man expecting a fight the moment he stepped into my home. Or the way his eyes swept through the shadows before he kissed me.
Except by then, I knew him. His kiss was distracted—his body present, but yet not.
“You okay?” I asked as I brushed my fingers over the hard line of his jaw.
“Fine,” he replied—too fast. The word sat between us like a lie we both agreed we wouldn’t touch.
His hands found my ass and I wrapped my legs around him. There were no more words as he carried me to my bed, and we tore at each other’s clothing.
When he thrust deep, I gasped. There was no gentleness that night.
One hand cradled the back of my head, the other gripped the front of my throat, and he kissed me as he drove repeatedly into my welcoming body.
My nails scored his biceps as I fought for a deep breath but only got the bare necessity.
“You’re mine, Sofia,” he ground out, his mouth moving against mine.
My eyes locked on his.
“Say it,” he demanded as he let up the pressure of his fingers.
“I’m yours,” I agreed.
He plunged into my throbbing core as he coarsely breathed against my lips. “This is my pussy. My body. Understood?”
Swallowing hard against the palm of his hand, I nodded.
With a guttural groan, he released my neck and hooked my leg over his arm.
His face nestled into the crook of my neck, and he fucked me like the world was ending.
By the time he poured his cum into me, we were slick with sweat.
The sheets were tangled around our legs and trailing on the floor.
I had no idea where the pillows had gone.
“That was… intense,” I breathlessly whispered as he held the majority of his weight up but remained blanketed across me.
He grunted noncommittally and then tugged me into the curve of his big, warm body.
Exhausted, we fell asleep.
* * *
Over the next few days, he slid into a pattern I pretended not to see forming. He was always near, always watching—but his energy had shifted. He was taut, coiled like a snake prepared to strike at a second’s notice.
When we went out to eat, he barely touched his food. He seemed to be smoking more. Sometimes, when he thought I wasn’t looking, his gaze would find the window as though he expected to find someone on the other side.
I did my best to lose myself in the bar, in the steady rhythm of pouring drinks and wiping spills. Yet I would constantly find him at the end of the counter, jaw locked, fingers thrumming a soundless beat on the surface. He no longer flirted. He didn’t even smirk. He simply watched.
And waited.
Each day it was the same. Work. Maksim. Sleep. That is, if you could call the few hours I spent drifting in and out as I lay in his arms, sleep. Repeat.
“Sorry, I’m late,” he murmured as he kissed me after I’d locked up the front door one night. “I had some… things… to take care of.”
I didn’t ask what those “things” were, and he didn’t elaborate.
He held my hand as he guided me to his blacked-out SUV. Holding my hand, he helped me up inside.
As I settled into the soft leather, I watched him walk around the front, gaze already scanning. Smelling of stale smoke and cheap beer, I almost hated riding in his vehicle when I got off work. He never complained, though.
Instead, he appeared like the tide—predictable only in that he always came. Sometimes he waited across the street until I locked up; sometimes he waited inside, occupying the same stool like it belonged only to him. It pretty much did now.
Always, he left with me—whether we walked or drove.
“How was work?” he asked, keeping his eyes on the road. The crazy thing was, he actually seemed to care.
“Eh, same old, same old. Benito and Mike were arguing about baseball all night.”
He chuckled. I loved that sound.
It was crazy that this ruggedly handsome man—this dangerous man—had integrated himself into my little universe. He had taken the time to learn the timing of my world—when the kitchen closed, when the dishwasher rattled the floor, when Brody counted out the drawer.
Early on, he’d figured out which nights I walked home and which nights I took the bus. Then, he realized that after the alley, I no longer walked—unless he strolled along with me.
He walked me upstairs, casting a scowl at my downstairs neighbor’s door as we passed. Inside my apartment, he paused and pulled out his phone.
“Are you hungry? I could order something?” he offered.
“I’m good,” I assured him. “I’m not hungry for food.”
A rare grin tilted the corner of his mouth up, and he let me lead him to my tiny bathroom. His size made it seem smaller than it already was. We quickly showered so I could scrub the grime of the bar from my skin. Then we moved to the bed and got dirty again.
In bed, there was nothing careful left in either of us. He kissed me like he was doing his best to erase the night in that alley from my skin. I clung to him like I could anchor him to me—and safety.
He didn’t make love. He took me apart and rebuilt me, piece by piece, until I didn’t know where I ended and he began. All I knew was the tremble in my thighs and the breathless state in which he left me.
Sometimes he was rough, possessive, fingers practically leaving behind heated prints that turned into bruises by morning. Others, he was so gentle it made my chest ache and my eyes sting, as his mouth worshipped its way down my ribs like a prayer. Tonight was one of those desperate nights.
He marked me. I marked him back. Scratches along his neck and shoulders. A crescent bite at his collarbone that made him hiss and laugh in one breath, the sound low and shocked, like he’d forgotten he could make it.
Despite him insisting I was his, I told myself it was only sex—a need that my body had found a willing, dangerous answer for.
But there were moments like when I was making coffee while he stood behind me.
The way he reached around to steal the mug, his chin hooked on my shoulder; or the way he automatically reached to tuck my hair behind my ear as he passed; the way he checked the windows and the chain on my door without comment—all the little things that cracked that blatant lie open.
Whether I wanted to admit it or not, this was more than bodies colliding with animalistic need.
Sometimes, he fell asleep with his hand splayed over my sternum, as if to feel proof that my heart was still beating. Other times, I woke to find him in the rickety chair in the corner of the room, elbows on his knees, eyes on me as if he could stand guard against the night itself.
“You don’t sleep,” I murmured once as I rubbed my eyes.
His mouth tilted. “I sleep enough.”
“For what?” I scoffed.
“To keep you satisfied,” he replied. Nothing else. The words should have been corny. They weren’t. They landed heavy and hot, a brand on my chest I clung to.
I’d never been anybody’s anything. Not like this. The realization scared me so much I got up and pulled him back to bed just to drown it out.