Chapter Thirteen
Leonid
“You can do that all you want. Burn a hole in the carpet; I’ll replace it. It’s not going to change anything. You know why?”
Elena stops pacing to look me dead in the eyes. Her green eyes spark with rage and defiance when she says, “Let me guess: you’re in charge. You get to say or do whatever the hell you want while the world around you either burns or submits.”
I shrug, then stick my hands into my pockets. “Your words, not mine. But that nails it perfectly. I’m glad to see that you might have fucking dumb ideas, but at least you’re paying attention to how this shit works.”
I struggle to remain calm. Ever since she made an appearance on those docks, I tend to lose my shit a lot faster than I should.
“You think this is funny, don’t you?” She shakes her head. “You really do think this is funny.”
She starts pacing again, with her arms wrapped protectively around her body and her eyes drifting far away, lost in thought.
She’s been doing this for hours after I caught her in the foyer trying to make a run for it—pacing the floor in the bedroom, sulking, and muttering curses under her breath.
Her hair bounces below her shoulders in a wavy mess, with some strands sticking out across her forehead and her neck. With each glimpse into her eyes, I see an immense sadness she doesn’t even bother to hide.
She plops down on the side of the bed, but keeps her gaze lowered and her arms wrapped around her body.
I shift my weight from one leg to the other while I watch her intently.
“Are you tired already?” I raise an eyebrow. “Here I was thinking you wanted to start a fire.”
“Can you just stop?” She shoots back to her feet and crosses the room until she’s almost chest to chest with me. “You’re making light of my misery and, honestly, I’m sick of it. None of this is funny.”
I narrow my eyes. The pain in her voice rubs me the wrong way. I can take anything else from her—aggression, insults—but not pain. Not when I know I caused it.
I grit my teeth. “Would you prefer I bind your hands and feet to that fucking bedpost so you’d never have to move again?”
She blinks. “You wouldn’t.”
“Oh, but I would. You don’t know half of what I could do to you for that stunt you pulled, ptichka.” I move forward, eliminating one of the last inches of space separating us. “And you really don’t want to push me to go there.”
“Leonid…” She inhales deeply. “Please...can you...take a step back? I need space to think. I need to breathe!”
“No.”
“I said please.”
“And I said no,” I snarl. “I’ll fucking stand where I want.”
Elena tips her head backward, her eyes burning with barely contained annoyance. “I want to hate you.”
“You have free will.”
Tears fill her eyes, but she blinks them away rapidly. I know she’ll fight as much as she can not to shed a single tear in front of me.
I respect her bravery.
I respect it even more when she shoves my chest. “I hate you.”
And yet, she doesn’t take a step back in repulsion.
“Why do you want to keep me trapped?” she continues. “Does it amuse you? Do you feel excited when I’m drowning in misery? Because I am. I’m drowning.”
I cock my head to the side, my gaze hardening with every second.
“You’re not drowning, and even if you were, I wouldn’t let you.
But let’s switch things up a bit, shall we?
I’ll be asking the questions and you’ll fucking answer me.
Are we clear? Yes? Good. Now, what I want to know is, what the fuck was that? Why’d you do it?”
“Why?”
“Yes, Elena. Why?”
The sadness returns to her eyes, more intense than before, and there’s something else brewing underneath her gaze—conflict.
She hesitates.
Then her eyes dart across my face, searching for a mercy I rarely possess, before she finally blurts it out.
“Because you’re suffocating me! You confuse me!
You infuriate me! I’m not sure I understand myself when I’m around you.
It drives me crazy. Correction: you drive me crazy.
You know you’re the dominant force that subdues everything else around him, and...
it terrifies me because I’m caught right at the center of it.
” The defiance drains from her posture, leaving something raw and painfully unprotected.
“And that’s not the worst part.” She looks down and quietly admits, “I need to be far away from you.”
I know it’ll irritate her, but I press further. “Why?”
“Oh my God. Enough with the whys. Don’t you see?
You took me away from the life I’ve always known.
I was kidnapped, for Christ’s sake! I should be disgusted by you and all you represent.
But I’m not. I try hard to be, but it’s not working.
” Her voice falters. “I’m afraid. I’m so afraid that I might…
” She gulps, then murmurs, “I might actually fall for a monster like you.”
My jaw tightens.
A surge of anger flashes through me at the label she carelessly gives me. But right beneath it, a profound intrigue takes root.
Her honesty cuts straight through the carefully constructed layer of ignorance and teasing games we’ve been playing for days. She had an opportunity to plead for her life; instead, she exposed her soul.
Her sudden admission is a like an avalanche shaking the foundation of my world.
I thought I was entirely alone in this twisted obsession. I thought I was the only one burning.
But she’s confirmed that she feels it, too.
Deep beneath my ribs, a ridiculous, unwelcome warmth blooms. My heart is doing a little happy dance, fluttering with the pathetic energy of a love-struck teenager.
And I absolutely, thoroughly hate it.
I’m not supposed to feel this soft, almost humiliating rush of joy because a girl admitted she was falling for me.
I try to crush the feeling, but the fierce, juvenile warmth in my chest only grows hotter.
***
Later in the day, I’m supposed to be reviewing warehouse distributions, but my eyes keep drifting across the room.
The tension is lesser now, with neither of us acknowledging our conversation or her admission from hours ago.
Elena sits by the window, busying herself with her work tablet. She tries so hard to appear detached, to blend into the curtains, but I begin to notice the small emotional cues she thinks she’s hiding.
Every once in a while, I see the nervous glances she shoots toward the doorway, where I sit in a chair by the wall.
I spot the slight trembling of her hands whenever she swipes the screen, and then, the rarest sight: a small, fleeting smile when she reads something on the display.
I close my ledger with a quiet thud, opting to break the silence. “Are you not going to have something to eat?” I ask, keeping my tone casual, conversational, hoping she doesn’t misunderstand it as seeking to start another fight. “You’ve been staring at that screen for three hours.”
She doesn’t look up immediately, but her jaw sets in that familiar, stubborn line. “I’m not hungry,” she replies tightly. “Thanks for the offer, though.”
That fiery defiance, wrapped in the lingering fear of what happened this morning, is intoxicating.
Most people collapse under my attention, but she holds her ground with a stubbornness that completely fascinates me.
I watch her carefully, the reality of the situation sinking in deeper than before.
When we started this craziness, my initial plan only had her as my wife on a piece of paper—an asset that belonged only to me, giving no one else the opportunity to claim what I wanted.
But now she’s more than that, actively shifting something inside me. She doesn’t know it, but she’s breaking through the defenses I spent a lifetime building, affecting me emotionally in ways I’m still trying to comprehend.
The tension in the room thickens as she finally stands up, deciding she’s done with the window. She walks toward the dresser, intentionally ignoring me as she moves.
As she bends over to pick up the heavy leather messenger bag resting by the floor, my breath catches in my throat.
I let my gaze linger shamelessly on her curvaceous body.
Her movements pull the fabric of her shirt taut, tracing the flawless, elegant curve of her back and highlighting the softness of her exposed skin at the nape of her neck.
Heat floods my veins, my throat going completely dry as the urge to cross the room and pull her against me burns hotter than ever.
I stare longer than is appropriate, my gaze tracking the slow, elegant line of her spine. My mind is a battleground between a burning, feral desire and the absolute, ironclad need to remain in control.
A man in my position survives on his discipline. The moment he lets his desires dictate his actions, he’s a dead man.
Yet, looking at her, the rules feel incredibly flimsy.
And the throbbing between my legs only worsens by the minute.
The heat flares again later in the evening.
She’s at the wardrobe, quietly adjusting a heavy woolen coat on a hanger. Her attention is entirely focused on the task.
I step out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped loosely around my waist.
I move silently across the floor, stepping up right behind her.
I don’t touch her, but I get close enough that the cool water droplets on my bare skin skim the hair on her neck. Close enough that the solid heat of my chest radiates directly against her back.
“Do you need help with that?”
She freezes instantly, the hanger rattling against the metal rod. She doesn’t pull away, and I don’t step back.
“No,” she says, then clears her throat to assert more firmly, “I don’t need your help. Thank you.”
I bend my head lower, until my lips are a hairsbreadth away from the soft curve of her earlobe. “You’re so fucking stubborn.”
I watch a burst of pink settle on her cheeks and rush to the tips of her ears. Her lashes flutter as she blinks, and her lips open and close, but no words come out.
“What’s that? Cat got your tongue?”
“No,” she fires back. “I just don’t want to talk to you. How does it feel not getting what you want all the time?”
I seize the moment, stretching out a hand to snatch the hanger and fix it on the metal rod before she can protest. Defiantly, she spins on her heels, coming face to face with my bare chest. The pink on her cheeks turns a deep scarlet and her gaze loses focus for a moment before it scorches my face again.
I lower my head, making sure we’re eye to eye. “That’s where you have a problem, ptichka.” Slowly, with enough suspense to drive anyone insane, I crook a finger under her chin and slightly tilt her head backward. “Somehow, I don’t think you have the slightest idea what I want.”
I sense the tension rising between us. It’s thick and suffocating, filling every square inch of the room.
It’s a dense, mutual awareness of the raw, undeniable attraction that we’re both too proud and too terrified to name.
Her breath hitches and her shoulders tighten as she feels the weight of my presence enveloping her. The silence is the only shield between us, like a fragile barrier keeping the floodgates from bursting open.
“Well, whatever it is, trust me when I tell you, I’m going to say no.”
“You sure?” I raise a brow. “What if you want it, too?”
“Want what?” Her eyes crinkle at the corners, widening only for a fraction of a second, like she’s been caught. Then her walls rise back up and she squares her chin. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure, you don’t.” I chuckle, then tip her head farther back.
I drag my eyes to her lips, letting my gaze linger until she draws in a sharp breath.
“When you’re not stubborn, you’re oblivious.
But I know you know, Elena. There’s that nagging voice at the back of your head telling you exactly what I want. ”
Elena jerks her chin out of my grasp and takes a sharp step backward, like she’s been burned by my touch.
“Okay, I know one thing: you want me to eat, so I’ll go now, to have a cup of water and pancakes or...or something,” she whispers, as if she’s out of breath. “But I need you to move out of the way first.”
I suppress a smile, enjoying how flustered she is. “I’ll consider it.” I lean backward, folding my arms across my chest. “Why a cup of water?”
“Cold water,” she murmurs, then looks away and fans her neck. “I’m hot and thirsty. That’s why I need to go get it now, if you would grant me passage, your highness.”
A sizzle ignites in my chest, then travels straight to my groin. “Look who’s cracking jokes now. Say please.”
She flashes a smile that barely lights up her eyes. “Please.”
My obsession grows by the second, twisting into something deeply dangerous.
This is no longer just about possession or curiosity.
It’s a mix of both. I want to understand the brilliant, stubborn gears of her mind; I want to completely control her world so nothing can ever harm her; I just want to be near her, to feel her heartbeat matching mine in the dark.
I angle my head to the side again, intently watching her mouth when I say, “Say it again, slower, and say my name.”
She steps forward, holding my gaze with a soft confidence when she smiles, brighter this time. “I need to go get a cup of water to quench my thirst. Will you please move out of the way, Leo?”
I clench my jaw, immediately thinking of many other ways we could quench her thirst.
We stand there in the quiet of the bedroom, and as I stare down at the woman who’s supposed to be a stranger in my heart and my home, the truth finally forces its way into the light.
I’m falling for her.
The realization is a crack in my armor. I know it will bring nothing but further conflict outside these walls and within my own chest.
But as I look at the soft curve of her jaw, I know I’m already too far gone to care about the heat of the fire.