Chapter Twenty-One #2
I take it, flashing her the kind of hollow smile I reserve for the press when I have to pretend I’m happy to see them. "Great. Thanks."
She heads back to the back wall to get another mat, swinging her hips as if I cared to watch. I don’t.
I glance back at Natalia as I unroll the mat next to hers. "Look at that. Meant to be."
"I swear to God," she says through clenched teeth, "if you stay—"
The instructor beams at me. "Perfect. We love to have men join. Welcome to our class."
Natalia bites the inside of her lip so hard I'm surprised she doesn't draw blood, doing everything in her power not to scream.
Now she knows how I feel when someone decides to change the plan without a conversation first. If she wanted space, fine… but couldn’t she have told me?
Why the hell infuriating her feels like foreplay is beyond me, but it does.
I lean closer, voice low. "If you come with me now so we can talk, I'll leave. Otherwise, we can have this conversation right here about how I came back from the gym, and you were gone—"
"That's extortion," she snaps, voice sharp but quiet. "And you wouldn't dare."
"Try me, Bunny Hill."
She glances around again, and I can see the exact moment she weighs her options.
But she's as stubborn as I am… maybe more, and I just backed her into a corner.
Which means she's not going to back down. I should have figured.
Class starts, and the instructor launches into some speech about intention-setting and breathing through discomfort, and I stretch out on my mat like I'm actually planning to participate.
Natalia's doing everything she can to ignore me, eyes fixed forward, shoulders rigid.
I wait until we're in the first pose—something called downward dog that feels like it's designed to make my hamstrings snap—before I start talking.
I talk just barely above a whisper. Just loud enough for her to hear.
"You know," I say casually, adjusting my hands on the mat, "I didn't expect you to be a runner."
She doesn't look at me. "I'm not a runner."
"Could've fooled me."
"Shhh… You’re going to get us kicked out—"
"I mean, you were pretty clear last night about what you wanted." I shift into the next pose. Some kind of lunge that makes my hip flexors scream. "Didn't seem like someone who'd disappear before sunrise."
Her breathing stutters, but I can’t tell if it’s this torture she’s agreed to put herself through or if it’s from what I said.
The instructor walks past, adjusting someone's alignment, oblivious.
"Stop," Natalia mutters.
"Stop what?" I glance at her, all innocence. "I'm just saying, if you wanted to leave, you could've at least woken me up. Said goodbye. Or at least maybe left a note."
"I did leave a note—"
"No, Nattie, I left a note, telling you I was going to the gym… what you left? That was a goodbye," I pause, letting that sit. "Or maybe you're one of those people who doesn't like the morning-after part. Which is fine. I get it. Things get messy in the light of day."
She turns her head sharply, eyes blazing. "There’s nothing messy about it. It was once."
"Right." I nod slowly. "That's why you left a ‘Dear John’ sticky note. Because it was all straightforward?"
"It wasn’t a ‘Dear John’ sticky note. And yes, everything that happened last night was straightforward."
"So if I told everyone here what you sounded like when you—"
"Luka." Her voice comes through threatening. There's panic underneath it. "Don't."
I grin. I’m not here to embarrass her, but if she thinks I’m going to buy that last night was a clean break, then her reaction proves it wasn’t.
The next pose is something called Warrior Two, and I settle into it, arms extended, gaze forward. "Relax, Natalia. I'm just making conversation."
"You're being an asshole."
"I'm being honest."
She shifts into the pose beside me, and I can feel the tension radiating off her in waves.
Fine… Let her squirm. Like I did when I returned to the chalet to see her, and she was gone.
The instructor's voice drones on about breathing and centering, and I lean just slightly closer.
"You know what I think?" I say quietly.
"I don't care what you think," she muffles out, looking around to make sure no one around us is listening.
"I think you're scared."
Finally, somewhere between tree pose and whatever the hell comes after it, she breaks.
She straightens out of her pose and grabs my arm, pulling me toward the door.
"Excuse us," she says to the instructor, voice tight and too bright for the death stare she just gave me. "Emergency."
The instructor nods, almost looking relieved that we’re leaving.
Natalia pulls me into the hallway. Not because she can drag a man my size anywhere, but because she doesn't have to. This is what I wanted.
The corridor is dim with amber sconces, the kind that make everything look like a ski lodge in a movie.
The smell of eucalyptus still clings to the air like it followed us out.
Behind the closed door, I can hear the instructor's muffled voice guiding the class through more torturous stretches that I’m grateful not to be a part of.
Twenty feet. That's all that separates this from being completely insane.
Her grip doesn't loosen until the studio door feels like a different country. Then she spins on me.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" she hissed.
"You left," I say flatly. "What’s wrong with you?"
"I told you—my room opened up."
"And you couldn't wait for me to get back from the gym before you packed all your shit and disappeared?"
Her eyebrows knitted together, her arms crossing over her chest like armor. The worst of it, it’s armor against me. "Why does it matter?"
"Why does it—" I stop, jaw clenching so hard my teeth ache. "You don't get to do that. You don't get to—"
"Get to what, Luka?" Her voice rises. "Have my own room? Make my own decisions?"
I tilt my head to her, my lips pursed. "That’s not fair… You know that's not what this is about. I’m not trying to control you, Natalia, I just want to know what’s going on in your head."
"Then what is it about? Because ever since I got here, you’ve wanted me to turn right back around and leave. You’ve mentioned multiple times how you want me to fly back home and leave you alone."
I stare at her, and for a second, I don't know how to answer.
Because the truth is ugly.
The truth is I woke up this morning, and I'd slept through the night with a woman in my bed for the first time in my life, and when I came back from the gym to slide back into bed with her, she was gone. Like she'd never been there. Or maybe it was the idea that she didn’t want to be there anymore.
For one brief, gut-twisting moment, I thought she'd left. Not just the bed or the chalet, but left Switzerland without so much as a goodbye.
"I thought you were gone," I say finally, voice rough.
Her throat works as she swallows.
"We slept together last night." I remind her.
"I know," she says quickly, like she wants to keep the emotion out of it. Like she can press it flat and make it manageable. "I just didn’t think you’d take it like this. I thought you’d be relieved."
"Relieved?" I ask, my eyes searching hers. "I lost my mind."
She stares at me, and I can see the moment she starts connecting dots she doesn’t want to connect.
That this isn’t about logistics or a room assignment.
That this is about goodbyes.
I step closer. Not enough to crowd her, just enough that she’d have to choose to move away. She doesn’t, so I reach for her hands. She doesn’t pull them out of mine.
"I know what running looks like," I say, voice dropping, her hands in mine. "I should. I’ve mastered it."
"I’m not running," she insists. "I’m doing my job and getting out of your way like you asked." Her chin lifts a fraction, stubborn. "Now you can sleep naked in your bed, remember?"
The words are a jab, but her eyes aren’t. Her eyes are searching mine as if she’s trying to figure out what the rules are now. What changed last night, and what didn’t.
My chest tightens with something I don’t have a clean name for.
"Maybe I want you there when I do," I say, pulling her hands up to lay flat against my chest. I want her to feel the heat between us, the erratic thumping of my heart against my chest that still hasn’t eased since I found her stuff missing.
"You don’t get to say things like that," she whispers, and her voice shakes on the last word.
"Then tell me to stop," I tell her.
"Your heart rate… It’s pounding against your chest." She says, her fingers pressing tighter against my chest.
"It hasn’t slowed since I walked into the chalet and found you gone."
The sentence lands between us like a mistake. As if a truth that wasn’t supposed to make it past my teeth.
I watch the moment her face changed. Watch her lips part like she has an answer and can’t find it fast enough.
For a second, neither of us moved.
Her gaze drops to my mouth. Then back to my eyes.
Slowly, like she’s testing the edge of a line, she lifts her hand. Her fingers brush my throat first, just a touch, as if she’s making sure I’m real. My hands slide over her hips as I step even closer, no more space between us.
Then she slides her palm to the back of my neck.
"I don’t want you to leave, Nattie. I want you to come back to bed."
She pulls me down, and her mouth meets mine—harder than it should, like she’s angry at the timing and the feelings and me. I kiss her back, deepening it. My hands pull her hips flush against me, anchoring her before she can change her mind.
She makes a small sound into my mouth, and it’s all the permission I need.
I hook my hands under her thighs and lift. Her legs lock around me automatically, like her body decided before her brain could object.
I walk us back until her shoulders meet the wall.
Pinned, but only because she lets herself be.
My mouth leaves hers just long enough to breathe, forehead hovering near hers, both of us wrecked and still pretending we’re in control.
"You’re going to text me, no more sticky notes next time," I say, my voice rough.