Chapter 22
Alina
I’m still fuming at Alexei when we enter the penthouse.
We were having such a nice outing, and I was just about to get Birgit’s number so we could stay in touch when Alexei abruptly went all cold and dragged me away, not even letting me say goodbye.
The only reason I didn’t put up a fight was because I didn’t want Birgit to think that Alexei was abusive to me or whatever it was she initially suspected at the hostel.
In general, she seems to have a low opinion of men, and I don’t want to feed into it. Once things settle down further, I’m hoping to invite her to Moscow for a visit, or to go see her in Thailand, if that’s where she ends up.
For now, though, I need to figure out what happened to have Alexei acting so rudely and—
“Hey.” Ruslan materializes out of the kitchen, causing my pulse to jump. Before I can fully register his grim expression, he says, “It’s over. He’s dead.”
My stomach drops. At my side, Alexei freezes. When he speaks a beat later, his voice is hoarse. “But I spoke to him today. Just hours ago.”
Ruslan nods, his jaw tight. “So did I. He called me from Katya’s phone. I thought she was calling to… you know.”
Alexei stabs his fingers through his hair. “Same.”
I suck in a breath. Their father. They’re talking about Boris Leonov.
He’s dead.
My anger deflates, my grievances suddenly petty in light of Alexei and Ruslan’s loss.
And it is a loss, however tense their relationship with their father seemed to be.
I can see it on their faces—Alexei’s, especially.
The tight set of his shoulders and the emptiness in his gaze speaks volumes to me.
Without thinking, I reach over and clasp his hand in both of mine, seeking to alleviate his hurt in any way I can.
His gaze swings to me, but there’s no warmth in it. His hand is stiff in mine, his fingers cold. I squeeze his palm anyway. I know how pain can be so vast it makes you numb, how grief can smother everything, stamping out every emotion until you feel like you are dead yourself. Like you don’t exist.
Like you don’t deserve to exist.
“The funeral is set for tomorrow evening,” Ruslan says. “I’m making the arrangements. You’ll be there, right?”
Alexei’s hand is still cold in mine, his fingers unbending in my grip. “We’re flying back first thing tomorrow, so yes.”
“Chekhov filled me in,” Ruslan says. “I’m going to fly separately tonight. Just in case.”
I blink. In case of what? But Alexei seems to understand because he nods and says, “See you at the funeral.”
Without another word, Ruslan heads for the elevator. As he walks past us, I touch his arm and murmur, “I’m sorry.”
He flashes me an indecipherable look. “Thanks.” He steps into the elevator, and the doors slide shut behind him, leaving us alone.
I turn my full attention to Alexei, who’s stepped away to remove his jacket and boots.
I remove mine as well. My chest aches for him and Ruslan, for the ordeal that’s still ahead of them.
Because the death of a loved one is just the beginning.
What awaits them is the funeral, the sorting of the belongings, and all the other painful things that go along with the end of a life.
I was in no shape to handle that after my parents’ traumatic passing, so my brothers took on that burden.
I heard them talking about it quietly, when they thought I was asleep or drugged.
I heard the strain in their voices, the stress that no amount of wealth or power can shield you from.
My brothers stepped in for me, but there’s no one who can step in for Alexei and Ruslan. Their sister is gone as well—another loss they’ve recently endured.
I wasn’t there to help him with his grief then—we were still enemies at that point—but I can be now. The way he was there for me during my battle with cancer.
The way he would’ve been there for me after my parents’ deaths… if I’d let him.
The thought ambushes me, cutting into me like a butcher’s knife.
And for the first time, I let myself wonder about the “what ifs.” What if I hadn’t sent Alexei away when he brought me home after my one-and-only shrink visit?
What if I’d leaned on him in my trauma and grief instead of pushing him away and relying on the pills?
What if I’d gone with him that awful winter evening instead of returning home to find my parents in the middle of their last, deadly fight?
Would the outcome of that fight have been different if I hadn’t been there?
Would my mother have ended up with bruises and maybe a broken jaw instead of getting slashed beyond recognition by the blade that I used to attack my father in order to help her?
Bile fills my throat, and it takes everything I have to swallow it down and force back the tears stinging my eyes. I can’t think about all of that now, or I’ll unravel. This isn’t about me—it’s about Alexei and his pain, his loss and grief.
Drawing in a steadying breath, I cross the room and do what I wanted to do when I heard about his sister’s accident.
I wrap my arms around his waist and hold him tight.
His powerful body goes stiff. For several long moments, his arms remain at his sides, unmoving.
But then he wraps them around me, hugging me so tightly air vacates my lungs.
Bending his head, he presses his face against my hair, and a shudder ripples through him, his own breath exiting in an audible exhale.
His familiar pine-and-leather scent surrounds me, and the rough stubble on his jaw scrapes against my temple, a grounding, masculine abrasion in the midst of the silent storm of his grief.
We stand like that, holding each other, for a minute or two.
Maybe ten. Time melts away, like ice dissolving on windows in the spring.
There are no words I can say to lessen his pain, but I can do this—I can lend him the physical warmth of my body, the animal comfort of my embrace.
I can give him at least a fraction of the support he’s given me in recent weeks.
The support he would’ve always given me if I’d accepted it, I now realize.
When he finally pulls away, everything feels different. Not resolved, not fixed—nothing that simple. We’re just more… attuned to each other in some subtle way.
Silently, we walk together to the bedroom.
I hold his gaze as I undress, and I see the bleakness in his eyes transform into dark, volcanic heat.
Once, I would’ve been frightened by it—and by my body’s irrepressible response to it—but no longer.
He’s taught me to crave it. To crave him.
Or maybe that craving has always been there, so potent and uncontrollable that the only way to fight the violent pull of it was to reject it altogether, to run as far away from it—and thus from him—as I could.
Maybe the reason he always scared me was not his family’s reputation or the darkness I could sense in him, but the way everything about him drew me in from the moment we met, back when I was just barely fourteen… too young to handle that overwhelming pull without losing myself to it.
Maybe I won’t be able to handle it even now, but I’m willing to try.
When I’m naked, I reach for his clothes.
He lets me push up his T-shirt, exposing his flat, ridged stomach, but he has to be the one to pull the shirt off over his head since I can’t reach that high.
What I can do is lean in and tongue his small, masculine nipple as soon as his hard-muscled, tattooed chest is bared.
Simultaneously, I work on his belt buckle, purposefully rubbing my hand over the hard, massive bulge in his jeans in the process.
At the first touch of my tongue, his breath catches, a low groan rumbling in his throat as he grips my head to keep my mouth pressed against his chest. Encouraged, I graze his nipple with my teeth and then suck on it, and he shudders all over, his hips jerking violently to push his jean-clad erection harder against my hand as he swears explosively, uttering Russian curses so filthy that my face burns and liquid heat streaks down my body.
Seeking more of that response, I switch my attention to his other nipple, but he’s not having it. Instead, he guides my head lower, to where I’ve just managed to unzip him.
“Suck it,” he orders in a raspy voice, pulling out his cock with one hand while holding my head with the other, and I gladly fall to my knees, wrapping my lips around the thick, smooth column.
Unlike the time he fucked my mouth back on the yacht, he’s gentle.
Careful. Even as the vibrating tension of his muscles betrays his raw desperation, he makes sure not to press on the still-healing scars on my head or to otherwise cause me any discomfort.
He lets me set the pace, to lick and stroke and suck him as I wish, and I revel in the freedom of it, in my ability to please him, to drive him as mad as he drives me.
Every groan I elicit, every involuntary thrust of his hips, is a small victory, though I no longer know in which war.
All I know is that he’s magnificent like this, a stunning male animal lost in lust, his powerful muscles bunching and quivering from the effort of restraining himself, his throat corded as he throws his head back with a stifled groan and pours his cum down my throat.
I swallow it all and lick him clean, a part of me disappointed it’s over so quickly. Except it’s not. Even after his orgasm, he’s barely softened, and by the time I’m done cleaning him off, his cock is fully rigid again, thick and massive, ready for more.
Ready for me.
Always ready for me.
“Come here,” he says hoarsely, pulling me to my feet, and what follows is the closest we’ve ever gotten to making love.
He explores and worships every part of my body, finding erogenous areas I didn’t even know I possessed—like the backs of my knees and the undersides of my breasts.
I come twice before he enters me, and when he does, he fucks me so tenderly it makes me want to weep.
And I come again. And again. Until I’m utterly wrung out yet unwilling to close my eyes for fear that this is just a dream, that if I fall asleep and wake up, we’ll be back to what we were instead of… what we are becoming.
So I stay awake even as the light fades outside, day transitioning smoothly into night.
Lying on my side, I trace circles on his chest, studying his intricate dragon tattoos in the dim light of the bedside lamp he’s flipped on, and we still don’t speak.
Not really. Nothing beyond a few sex words and my reassurances that I’m okay, that I’m still not too tired… though I definitely am.
Finally, I break the silence. “So why the dragons?”
I asked him this on the yacht, and he brushed me off with some bullshit answer. I wait to see if he’ll do that again, but he sighs and says, “It’s stupid. Just a children’s fairy tale I used to like.”
I lift my head off the pillow to look at him. “What kind of fairy tale?”
He’s staring at the ceiling, not meeting my gaze. “A generic one. Nothing special, really. My mother used to read it to me when I was little, and after she was gone, I… read it to myself for a bit.”
His mother. My chest squeezes. “What was it about?”
He lets out a huff of air. “Dragons, what else? And a prince and a princess. Like I said, generic and unimaginative. I don’t even remember the title of that story.”
He’s lying again. The story was special to him. Special enough that he’s subjected himself to hours upon hours of needle torture to carry it on his skin.
“What did the dragons do?” I ask softly. “Were they heroes or villains in the story?”
“Villains, of course.” His dark eyes glint as he turns his head to look at me. “Aren’t they always? Their job was to die. The prince needed to slay them in order to win the princess’s hand in marriage and her heart.”
“Ah. And were they hard to slay?”
“Very.” His mouth twists. “It took him many years, but he finally succeeded.”
I sit up, holding a corner of the blanket against my chest to keep myself warm. “Did he?”
The glint in his eyes intensifies. “You tell me.”
We’re not talking about a fairy tale anymore. Maybe we never were.
My first instinct is to avert my gaze, to pretend I don’t understand the question. And before today, that’s what I might’ve done. But things are different now. I can no longer see him as the demon who’s haunted my life for so long.
He’s all too human, his pain and grief all too real. All too familiar to me.
Despite what I’ve told myself over the years, Alexei Leonov is not a cruel monster. Or at least that’s not all he is.
“I…” I inhale deeply, holding his gaze. “Yes. I think he did.”
Something moves in his eyes, a peculiar tension tightening his jaw. “Is that right?”
I nod, fighting the urge to look away, to deny the truth.
That’s what I’ve done for years. Maybe even for the full decade-plus that we’ve known each other.
I’ve told myself he’s too much like my father, too much like his father.
Over and over, I’ve reminded myself that he’s ruthless and dangerous, manipulative and obsessive, a lethally possessive killer with no conscience—and he is all of those things.
But he’s also loyal, and caring, and… mine.
The word comes out of nowhere, but as it settles into my mind, I feel the truth of it, the sheer inevitability.
He’s mine.
My monster.
My demon.
My ruthless stalker.
When I thought he no longer wanted me, it was like being diagnosed with cancer all over again.
So instead of hiding from it, I take a deep breath and say what I haven’t dared to admit even to myself.
“I love you, Alexei. I think a part of me has always loved you… even when I thought I hated you. It just took me time to realize it.”
And tightening my grip on the blanket, I wait for his response.