22. Erik
ERIK
F our hours until the exchange. Each minute feels like a blade sliding between my ribs.
I check my weapons for the third time in twenty minutes. Field strip the Glock. Reassemble. Check the action. Again. The familiar routine should calm me, but nothing does. My hands move with mechanical precision while my mind drowns in fury.
She agreed too easily.
The thought circles like a predator. Katarina—brilliant, defiant Katarina—simply nodded and accepted that tomorrow she would return to her father. To Igor fucking Lebedev.
I slam the magazine home harder than necessary. The sound echoes across my quarters.
“Breaking your gun won't help anyone.” Nikolai leans against my doorframe, arms crossed.
“Get out.”
He doesn't move. “We need to discuss the exchange parameters.”
“We already have. Three times.” I holster the weapon and reach for my combat knife. “Unless something's changed?”
“No. I'm more concerned about you.”
The whetstone sings against steel as I drag the blade across it. “Don't be.”
“Erik.” The way he says my name—part command, part concern—reminds me of our father. “Your focus is compromised.”
“My focus is perfect.” Each word drops like ice. “The mission comes first. Always has.”
“Then why are you sharpening a blade that could already split hairs?”
I set the knife down, fighting the urge to throw it. “Natasha's safety depends on this exchange going smoothly. I'm preparing.”
“This isn't about Natasha.” Nikolai steps closer. “It's about the Lebedev woman.”
My jaw clenches so tight my teeth might crack. “Her name is Katarina.”
“You can't keep her.”
Something dark and territorial roars inside me. My hands curl into fists at my sides.
“We need peace with the Petrovs more than we need your... whatever this is.” Nikolai's voice softens. “She was never meant to stay.”
But she fits here with me. The thought flashes through my mind before I can extinguish it.
“The car leaves at 11:30.” I turn away from him. “I'll be ready.”
I slam my bedroom door and lean against it, letting my head fall back with a dull thud. The silence mocks me.
Three hours, forty-seven minutes.
This compound used to be my sanctuary. Now, it's haunted by her. Every corner holds Katarina's ghost, and I can't escape her.
I push away from the door and pace the empty room. My bed—where she slept next to me, where I felt her warmth against my chest—looks cold now. Sterile. The sheets were changed, but I swear I can still smell her perfume.
Down the hall, the bathroom door stands partially open. She showered there. Naked. Water cascaded down her body while I watched, wanting her with an intensity that nearly broke me. I slam the door shut as I pass.
The compound was meant to be my space. My fortress. The one place where I could let my guard down, away from the constant vigilance required outside these walls. Now, every room has been infiltrated by memories of her.
The kitchen where she leaned against the counter, defiant even as a prisoner. The gym where she worked out her frustrations until sweat glistened on her skin. The library where I found her lost in a book, her mind temporarily free even while her body remained captive.
My footsteps echo through the empty corridor as I walk without a destination. This place was mine before her. I chose the security systems. Designed the training room to my specifications. Selected each weapon in the armory.
Now, it's contaminated with feelings I never wanted to have. Weakness I can't afford.
I pass the spot where she stood during the security breach, her brilliant mind working in tandem with mine to stop the attack. Her fingers flying across the keyboard, eyes bright with intelligence and purpose.
The security office. The library. The kitchen. My room. All tainted.
I stop at the window overlooking the compound grounds. This used to feel like home. The only home I truly claimed for myself after leaving Russia.
Now, it's just another prison. Not for her anymore—for me.
A soft pad of feet behind me catches my attention. I don't turn. Don't need to. My body recognizes her presence before my mind does—a soldier's instinct perverted into something else entirely.
Katarina.
“You shouldn't be here.” My voice sounds foreign. Too hollow.
She stops several feet away. Close enough that I can smell her shampoo, far enough that we don't risk touching. Smart girl.
“I couldn't stay in that room anymore.” Her voice carries no anger now, just resignation. “Four walls. Four hours. Too much time to think.”
I nod once, still facing the window. The compound's floodlights cast harsh shadows across the grounds. Armed men patrol the perimeter—no longer keeping her in, but keeping others out until the exchange.
“Your father will be waiting.” The words taste like ash.
“Yes.” A single syllable, heavy with meaning.
I turn, finally, allowing myself to look at her. Her face is composed, that brilliant mind already calculating survival strategies for her return. Only her eyes betray her—the same devastation I feel clawing at my insides.
“You'll be safe.”
“Of course.”
We stand in silence, two soldiers before battle, knowing what comes next but unable to retreat. The space between us stretches like a minefield. One wrong step and everything detonates.
“I need to check the transport vehicles.” Another lie. They've been ready for hours.
She nods, arms crossed protectively over her chest. “And I should try to sleep.”
Neither of us moves. The clock on the wall counts down our remaining time together. Tick. Tick. Tick.
When she finally speaks again, her voice is so quiet I almost miss it.
“In another life, Erik Ivanov...”
I swallow hard, forcing steel into my spine. “There is no other life, Katarina. Only this one.”
Her chin lifts slightly—that defiance I've come to crave—but her eyes glisten with unshed tears. I look away before mine do the same.
Three heartbeats pass. The distance between us suddenly becomes unbearable.
“Fuck rationality,” I growl, closing the space between us in two strides.
My hands find her face, tilting it up as my mouth crashes down on hers. She makes a small sound—surprise or relief, I can't tell—before her body melts against mine. Her fingers dig into my shoulders, pulling me closer with desperate strength.
This kiss is different. Raw. Final. Everything we can't say aloud poured into the press of lips and clash of teeth. I taste salt and realize she's crying. Or maybe I am. It doesn't matter anymore.
I back her against the wall, lifting her easily. Her legs wrap around my waist, ankles locking behind me like she'll never let go. But she will. In under four hours, she will.
“I can't—” The words break against her neck as I press my face there, breathing her in one last time. “I can't just hand you over to him.”
Her fingers thread through my hair, pulling back, so I have to look at her. Those fierce green eyes bore into mine, wet with tears but still defiant.
“You can. You will.” Her voice doesn't waver. “We both knew this wasn't forever.”
“It could be.” The words escape before I can stop them.
She silences me with another kiss, gentler this time, her thumbs stroking my cheekbones. When she pulls back, her smile is heartbreaking.
“Not in this life.” She whispers, but they're softened by the way her body still clings to mine. “But right now is still ours.”
I carry Katarina to my room, her legs still wrapped around my waist, our lips never parting. Each step feels like a march toward something inevitable—not just the exchange, but this moment between us.
When I lower her to my bed, I don't crush her beneath my weight as I've done before. Instead, I hover above her, studying her face like I'm memorizing every detail. Maybe I am.
“I want to remember you,” I whisper, brushing her hair from her forehead. “Every part of you.”
Her eyes meet mine, and I see the same desperate memorization happening behind them. Her fingers trace my jawline, feather-light.
“Then remember me,” she breathes.
I've fucked Katarina before. Claimed her brutally against walls and in showers. Dominated her body with mine. But I've never made love to her.
I'm not sure I know how.
My hands are unsteady as I undress her—not with the urgent ripping of fabric, but with reverence. Each newly revealed inch of skin receives my gentle touch, my lips following the path of my fingers.
When she's naked beneath me, I stand to remove my own clothes. Her eyes never leave mine as layer after layer falls away.
“I've never seen you like this,” she whispers.
“Like what?”
“Vulnerable.”
The word should make me flinch, but tonight, I accept it. For her, only for her, I'll be vulnerable.
I lower myself beside her, our bodies facing each other. For long moments, we just look. Touch. Her palm is against my chest, feeling my heartbeat. My fingers trace the curve of her waist. No urgency. No battle for dominance.
When I finally move over her, I keep my weight on my forearms. Our foreheads touch as I enter her slowly—so slowly it's almost painful. Her gasp catches in her throat.
“Erik,” she breathes my name like a prayer.
I move inside her with measured strokes, watching her eyes, feeling her breath against my lips. This isn't the frantic coupling we've known before. This is something else entirely.
“Look at me,” I whisper when her eyes begin to close. “Stay with me.”
Our measured pace doesn't last. It can't last.
The tenderness shatters as her nails dig into my shoulders. A force awakens between us—the knowledge that these moments are finite, slipping away with each tick of the clock.
“Please,” she gasps, her hips rising to meet mine with increasing urgency. “I need?—”
I know what she needs because I need it, too. All restraint evaporates like morning dew under a blowtorch.
My thrusts turn harder, deeper. Her legs wrap tighter around my waist, heels digging into my lower back, urging me closer. Gone is the careful lover. The animal returns—the soldier, the fighter, the man who takes what he wants.
She meets my savagery with her own, teeth finding my shoulder, marking me as I've marked her so many times before. The pain sends electricity down my spine.
“Harder,” she demands, and I comply.
The bed frame hits the wall with each thrust. Her fingers tangle in my hair, pulling hard enough to hurt. I growl against her neck, tasting the salt of her skin, feeling her pulse race beneath my tongue.
“Mine,” I snarl, beyond rational thought. “You're mine.”
“Yes,” she hisses, her back arching. “Yours.”
We're frantic now, desperate to crawl inside each other's skin. To merge completely. Sweat slicks our bodies as we move together, finding a chaotic rhythm born of pure need.
I drive into her with abandon, flooded with blind, desperate want. She meets every thrust, her body tensing and yet demanding more.
My vision narrows to just her face—flushed and wild beneath me. Her eyes flash with the same madness I feel consuming me. We're both coming undone, racing toward something more significant than release.
“Don't let go,” she gasps, and I'm not sure if she means now or later.
“Never,” I answer to both of them.
Our movements grow erratic and uncoordinated. Nothing matters but this connection—this moment suspended between passion and despair. Every touch burns hotter, and every kiss tastes more essential than the last.
We're drowning together, clutching at each other like survivors in a storm-tossed sea. And maybe we are. Maybe this desperate, frantic coupling is the only thing keeping us from being swept away completely.