Chapter 34 Serafina
SERAFINA
For three days, “Let’s head to your next one” is the longest sentence Lev says to me.
His morning greeting is a head nod. He avoids the mansion most evenings.
Vanessa mentioned him returning to work for good and helping her to track her cousin, Dimitri, who I’ve only ever seen the brief time he and the others came for Vanessa when she was being trapped by Zeno.
Apparently, he isn’t responding to texts or calls from any of them.
It hurts.
Lev’s completely switched from agreeing we’re friends to this. It’s worse than when we were two strangers thrown together, because at least then, he tried to be polite. This isn’t nice. It’s flat-out ignoring me.
Friday comes with a big sigh of relief. With Lev acting strange, the week sucked.
Classes have been steady, and thankfully, Daniil hasn’t brought up the prospect of us going out again.
I had a lengthy call with Madre on Wednesday, catching her up on all the positives, and my ever-growing pile of studying has been keeping me busy while Lev’s away.
I haven’t dared go downstairs once. Facing the empty basement, watching shows alone that now feel like ours, holds no appeal.
It’s with all these thoughts circulating that sleep evades me.
Social media, staring at the ceiling, pacing the room—none of it is helping me pass out.
With a sigh, I flip onto my stomach, burying my face in the pillow.
At this point, I’ll take suffocation in order to sleep.
A silly notion, and once my lungs use up their reserve, I take a trip to the bathroom.
Maybe I’m too sleep-deprived to make sense of my next actions, but I turn for my door instead of the bed. Wrapping my arms around myself for warmth, I tip-toe through the hallways, heading to the place I’ve been avoiding.
He might be out. He might be there. I’m bracing for either option.
The basement door cracks loudly, so if he is here, my arrival’s been announced. The light is on, and with one foot on the top step, this is my chance to bolt or to face him.
I walk down the stairs.
He’s at his usual place behind his desk, his long fingers clacking away at the keyboard. A rapid succession of action, which looks like a shooter game, moves across the monitor, the sound silenced by the bulky headphones atop his head.
Leaving is still an option. He’d never know. Yet, I cross the room, hovering behind him.
Once he ends the round as a winner, I tap his shoulder, expecting some surprise. But this is Lev—calm, cool, collected—and he merely twists in his chair and slides his headphones down to loop his neck. “Hey,” he greets gruffly. “What are you doing here? It’s late.”
One in the morning, to be precise.
“Couldn’t sleep. Figured you wouldn’t be either.” My gaze drifts from his face to the paused game. “Fun game?”
“Could be better. Want to try?”
Try? I stare at the screen, deciphering the images making up a first player shooting game. From my short time down here, the rapid succession of keys told me I’d fail at this.
“You said you always wanted to.”
Without waiting for a response, Lev nudges his chair back a few inches, and large hands encompass my waist before any of it processes in my overtired mind. He moves me between his legs, backs me up, and settles me over his lap.
I’m sitting on Lev.
Lev’s hands are on my hips.
What. The. Fuck?
He’s barely interacted with me for half the week, and now, he’s pulling me onto his lap like nothing’s changed? Lev makes my head spin, and not always in a good way.
Logically, I understand why I’m sitting on him. There’s no second chair, and teaching me is probably too difficult while standing. But still…
He seems unfazed as he loops one arm around to pull the keyboard closer, and he takes my right hand, resting it on top of the mouse before covering it with his own. He directs me to the keys, murmuring instructions about which key does what, but my out-of-body experience makes focusing a challenge.
I’m sitting on Lev, and his hand is on mine, like this is normal.
“You think you got it?” Warm breath blows across my nape. His chest comes against my back as he straightens, shifting me into a better position. His hand slides off mine to instead rest on my thigh, keeping me stable—which is useful, considering I’m seconds from toppling over.
He slips the headphones from his neck onto my head, keeping the ear closest to him bare. “So you can hear both me and the game. Now…go.” He taps the space key to un-pause the game, throwing our character into deadly chaos.
My fingers start jabbing at keys with no actual pattern or process. The sound of enemy’s gunfire ricochets in my ear, my other picking up his murmured instructions. Too soon, the screen flashes red with my virtual blood splattered across it, and a GAME OVER takes over the monitor.
He grunts. “Go again.”
Without checking if I’m prepared, he restarts the round. It’s more of the same, with me dying quickly, but after successfully taking out one enemy soldier.
“Good,” he hisses. “Keep it up.”
His compliment, while simple, embeds in my senses in a way that feels like more, praise I didn’t realize could affect me.
After the third round, I managed to kill a handful before dying myself.
“You’re getting it now.”
I play four more rounds, managing to stay alive longer and longer each time. By the end, my fingers are somewhat managing to coordinate my hits. With every kill, Lev’s warmth disappears as he leans away to give me the space to play, throwing out suggestions less and less.
After the next round, my hands slump onto the desk. “That was intense.”
“Did it tire you out?”
I twist to speak directly to him. His legs are spread around mine, arms tense along the armrests, hands curled around the edges. The veins in his arms pop, and my gaze follows them up over his chest to his face, realizing too late he’s caught me checking him out.
“A bit. Thanks.”
“Anytime.”
“Maybe next time, I’ll be better at it.”
“I don’t know,” he rumbles, words paced. “You did pretty well for a first timer.”
My thighs press together, making me accidentally shift over top of him. It throws my balance, and though I lower a foot to catch myself, so does his hand, moving from the armrest to my thigh, taking up so much of my bare skin. His touch will imprint there, surely; an outline charred.
Lev is touching my bare skin. His fingers curl around my thigh. After ignoring me for days.
I’m so lost.
I’m also not breathing.
“What kept you up?” he asks.
“Mind’s too full, I guess.”
“With?”
“School. Life. Alessio.” You. That, I keep to myself, because it’ll be smarter to hide, but the moment I think it, my stupid mouth also forms the words, pushing the admittance out. “You.”
“Me?” His head pushes back into the headrest, but his hand tightens around on my thigh. “I shouldn’t be keeping you up.”
“But you are.” My tone takes on an unintended whininess, yet I can’t stop my self-destruction. “Why have you been so off the past few days?”
“Fina…” His tone, his eyes, his very body, are overlaid with the very regret embedding into the base of my stomach.
Suddenly, I want—no, need—off him, and like he senses my abrupt demand for safety, his grip gets heavier.
“I’m just—” His eyes briefly shut, and a ripple of despair flits through them.
His next words carve out my own. “When you want to go out with that guy, let me know. I’ll need his name.
Should have done this days ago, but my mind’s been elsewhere.
” His free hand suddenly darts for his cell off to the side.
“Although, he’s probably fine, when it comes to your safety, I won’t be taking any chances.
After I finish the checks, and you want to see him, tell me.
If not me, then Vanessa or Anastasia. Actually, maybe it’d be better if it’s them. ” That last point is a mumble.
I block him from reaching his phone by grabbing his wrist. “Not needed, since I won’t be going out with him. I froze when he took my phone, nothing more. I’m not interested in him.”
Lev pauses, his hand beneath mine. His gaze drops, and although he’s only looking at my mouth, his eyes are everywhere. In my soul, injecting into my veins. There isn’t a safe place.
“Was that it?” I demand. “This is over Daniil?”
He turns his head to the side in an attempt to hide what he’s unable to—the green filtering through the soft brown.
He’s jealous.
I twist further, until my side is against his stomach.
He’s stiff but soft, the predator caught in a trap of his own making.
My movements are slow, tentative, as I drag my hand from his wrist and up his arm, brushing over the artwork towards his shoulder.
His chest stops moving, his breath hiking when I settle my hand over his heart and lean forward.
Jaw cracking, he turns his head. “Fina, no. We can’t.”
Can’t is a strange word. It implies someone else decides who can and can’t kiss me when I’m the only one who gets that choice.
“You’re not saying you don’t want to.”
“Serafina…”
My hand continues its path from his heart to his neck, resting along his pulse, which thrums quickly. “What if I wanted you to?”
“I can’t. We can’t.” Despite his disproval, he shifts his arm around my waist, dragging me closer.
“Why?”
He stares at me, trying to search for every reason to push me away. The moment his internal fight ends flashes through his eyes with a glint—a warning. His pulse jumps twice beneath my palm before he officially snaps.
“I don’t know anymore.”
Lev hauls me against his chest and buries a hand into my hair, wrenching me against him until there isn’t a breath between us.
Fire ignites and explodes with the first press of his lips, the stroke of his tongue.
He takes, devours, and consumes. There’s nothing left of the man who’s tip-toed around me for weeks.
It’s the kind of kiss that tears souls apart. I hand mine to him for safekeeping, for him to own and destroy as he sees fit.
Abruptly, he stands, lifting me onto the desk and standing between my legs. His grip on my hair tightens the harder he kisses, and, despite the sting, I don’t want it to ever end.
This can never stop…
I kiss him back just as fiercely, releasing weeks of pent-up desire. My arms tighten around his neck, holding me to him as firmly as I’m in his grip.
He wrenches my hair back until he’s kissing from my mouth, down my jaw, and towards my neck, my body lurching beneath his touch. It—I—want more. I want the kind of things I never wanted with Alessio. I trust Lev, and he should have the rest of me.
He nips over my pulse, enticing a breathy, “Lev,” from my throat.
It becomes the moment’s downfall.
He freezes, lips hovering. His grasp slowly loosens, fingers tangling in the strands as he escapes. Once his hand is free, he rips his entire body away, backing up a few feet and turning around. Hands that were just holding me like he wasn’t ever willing to let go scrub his face.
“Lev—”
“You should go upstairs. I’m sorry. Go out with that guy. Date people you can be with.”
I slide off the desk and slowly walk towards him, trying to limit the distance between us, even though he’s slipping further and further away. “What if I don’t want him?”
“Then find someone else. Anyone but me. I’m sorry, but we can’t. My family—your family—” He sighs, finally facing me. Apology darkens his eyes, hiding the truth he’s trying so hard to bury: longing and regret. “You’re not meant for me. Have anyone else.”
“Lev—”
“Leave. Pozhaluysta…please.” The second plea is a whisper unable to climb the barrier he’s erected.
Denying him is tempting, considering it’s coming from Zeno’s misplaced rhetoric; that just because he didn’t force me into being a Cosa Nostra woman doesn’t mean I have to get with someone outside the mob.
But Lev’s tormented expression shatters my resolve.
He’s done so much for me, and it’s my turn.
So, for him, I give him his peace. I let him end what could be by turning for the stairs and hiding the sob that bubbles up.
Once I’m gone, he’ll have his space without wrecking this friendship more than I already have.
“I can’t do this anymore.” His whisper carries across the basement, yanking my heart—and my stupid, silly hope—from my chest.
My foot lifts to the bottom stair, about to crush the broken organ beneath it.
Near-silent steps cross the room by the time I reach the second. He snatches my arm, twists me back around, and hauls me down to his level. Crazed eyes devour me seconds before the rest of him does.
“Fuck it.”
His mouth descends on mine.