Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
I RINA
I think I'm going mad.
I lie perfectly still on the bed, staring at the elaborate crown molding while the gray October light bleeds across the ceiling.
My skin feels too tight, too heavy, too… skin. My head aches, my throat is dry, anxiety pounds hard in my chest and it feels like I’m hungover… from Mikhail’s hands in the bathroom last night. I can still feel the ghost of his palms—heavy, callous-rough, and utterly unyielding.
I need to move. If I stay in this bed for another five minutes, I'm going to scream and then I’ll really go mad.
Without another thought, I slide out of bed, as silent and graceful as I can. I can’t afford to wake the whole estate. Right now, I need to be alone. If I see one more face apart from mine, I’ll stab it.
I walk towards my huge walk-in closet and grab my gear. Black compression leggings that feel like a second skin. A fitted slate-gray tank top and sneakers.
I'm silent as I put on my outfit because even the sound of my breathing feels too loud right now and anything will tip me over the edge if I’m not careful. I’m double-knotting my sneakers when the atmosphere in the room shifts. A dark, sensual presence fills the room and I freeze.
Fuck…
"Going somewhere, dorogaya ?"
His voice is like a low, gravelly vibration that travels straight up my spine and settles in my core.
I grit my teeth and make sure I don’t look up. I don’t even have to. Somehow, I know how he is probably standing behind me, head tilted, hair mussed and messy and so fucking sexy.
So annoying.
"For a run, Mikhail," I bite, my fingers yanking at the rope on my sneakers. "Unless you’ve decided oxygen is a luxury I haven't earned today?”
I finally stand and face him with a glare.
Just like I thought, he is leaning against the doorframe, looking like the stuff from wet dreams, dressed in a white shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest. His sleeves are rolled up, revealing the dark serpents coiling around his forearms, their ink-black tails disappearing into his cuffs. He looks devastating.
"It’s barely six," he rumbles, his eyes scanning me from head to toe, and then darkening. They linger on the swell of my breasts beneath the thin tank, then drop to the curve of my hips. "The city isn’t even awake yet."
"Exactly," I snap, stretching. The movement makes the fabric of my leggings strain. "It’s the perfect time to be alone. You should try it. It’s great for the soul—assuming you haven't traded yours for that hitman’s reputation."
He raises a brow and pushes off the wall, stepping into my space. His heat envelopes me, he smells of expensive tobacco and cold rain. "I’ll call Lev and Viktor. They’ll trail you in the SUV."
"The hell they will!" My anger flares, hot and bright. "I am not a shipment of contraband. I am going for a thirty-minute run on your estate grounds. I don't need a four-ton armored vehicle tailing me and making my life hell!”
"This world is not a foreign one to you, Irina," he says, his voice dropping to that dangerous, quiet register. "The city is full of people who would love to see you disappear again. That will not happen as long as I’m alive.”
I let out a sharp, mocking laugh. "Is that what you're worried about then? Your reputation? Or are you just terrified that if I get five minutes of peace, I’ll remember how much I hate you and keep running until the Atlantic stops me?"
"Very funny, dorogaya ," he growls. "Choose. The guards, or I go with you."
I glare at him, my heart slamming against my ribs. I want to tell him to go to hell. I want to scream and punch his face, break his nose and all the expensive things here. But the look in his eyes is that of the mad man and I know he won’t let this go.
"Fine!" I hiss, grabbing a hair tie and pulling my golden-brown hair into a tight, high ponytail. "You come. But stay ten feet back. I need to fucking breathe, and you tend to suck the air out of every room you're in."
"I’ll give you your space," he hums in agreement.
The air outside is crisp, the October chill biting at my exposed arms, but it feels like heaven compared to the house.
I start at a slow jog, my sneakers hitting the gravel path that winds through the back of the estate.
I can hear him behind me. He isn't wearing running gear; he’s changed to a black hoodie and sweats, but he moves with a terrifying, silent grace that has turned the tables on me.
I wanted to go for a run, feel free, and be able to fucking think but now it feels like I’m being hunted and I have to run for my life.
I pick up the pace. I want to outrun him.
I want to hear his breath hitch, to feel him struggle, but the bastard stays perfectly in sync with my rhythm.
The gravel gives way to a paved path that leads toward the wooded edge of the property.
The trees are skeletons against the gray sky, their damp leaves slick underfoot.
"Isn’t this the part where you tell me to slow down?" I shout over my shoulder.
"Keep going, Irina," he calls back, his voice steady, not even slightly winded. "I’m not complaining.”
"Bastard," I mutter, pushing my legs harder.
I run until my lungs burn. I can feel the sweat beginning to trail down the valley between my breasts, dampening the fabric of my tank.
I feel his eyes on me, hot and fiery, tracing a trail of fire over my skin.
I know he’s watching the way my body moves, the rhythmic sway of my hips, the way my leggings stretch and pull over my muscles. The thought makes my skin prickle.
I reach the edge of the pond, the water a flat, gray mirror. I turn, intending to double back, but he’s there, cutting off the path. He didn't stay ten feet back. He’s right there, stepping out from the shadows of the trees like a goddamn phantom. I almost slam right into his chest.
I stop abruptly, heaving for air, sweat slicking my forehead. The anger that’s been simmering since I woke up—since I was dragged out of Mexico—finally boils over.
"What the hell is this, Mikhail?" I demand, gesturing wildly at the empty space between us. "Is this going to be the rest of my life? Never taking a step without you or one of your thugs watching? Never deciding what I want to eat, or where I want to go, or who I want to be?"
He stops, his hands shoved into his hoodie pockets, watching me with a stillness that is more unnerving than his rage. "You’re my wife. That comes with a certain set of rules."
"Rules?" I shout, the word tasting like ash. "Fuck that, Mikhail, this is not about your stupid rules! This is just because you’re trying to make my life hell, trying to hold on to your pride and ego.”
"You think this is about my pride?" he asks, taking a slow, heavy step toward me.
"Isn't it?" I counter, my chin lifting. "I get it, you’ve said it over and over, the whole world has not let me forget that you were humiliated.
The 'madman' lost his bride, and you had to go on a six-month hunt to prove you still had your teeth.
You don't want a wife. You want a trophy you can lock in a vault to show the world you’re still a man. "
His eyes flash and for a second, I think I’ve finally gotten myself into trouble, he’s going to snap and break me in half.
I bite my lips and slowly take a step back.
He watches me with those maddened eyes and I’m this close to screaming bloody murder.
"You have no idea what’s out there," he finally says. "You think Boris is the only threat you have? There are people moving against us. People who see you as the weakest link in the Morozov chain."
"I am not a link!" I scream, forgetting the fact that I was scared of this man just a few minutes ago. "I am a person! I have my own thoughts, my own fucking rights and past! You can’t keep doing this to me!"
My lungs burn from the cold air and the shouting. I’m shaking, but it’s not from the cold. Mikhail doesn't yell back. He doesn't even flinch. He just steps into my space, his presence so heavy it feels like the oxygen around us has suddenly vanished.
He reaches out, his large, calloused hand wrapping around the back of my neck. His thumb rests right against the pulse point in my throat, pinning me in place.
I gulp.
"You want to know what this is, Irina?" he says, his voice dropping to a rough, quiet tone that’s far scarier than a shout. "It’s very simple. You’re mine.
You belong to the Morozov name now, and in this city, that makes you the most precious thing I own.
I don't care about your 'rights' or your 'past'.
I care about the fact that there are men out there who would cut your throat just to see me suffer. "
He pulls me a fraction closer, his face inches from mine. I can smell the cold morning air and the faint, intoxicating scent of him. My heart is slamming against my ribs in a way that makes my stomach flip.
"No one else is going to touch you," he growls, his eyes dark and fixed on mine. "No one else is ever going to take you from me again. If that means I have to watch you run, stand over you while you fucking sleep, then that’s exactly what I’m going to do. Do you understand?"
I want to spit in his face. I want to tell him he’s a psycho and that I hate him.
But the words are stuck in my throat because the way he’s looking at me—like he’d burn this whole city down just to keep me in his sight—is doing something terrifying to my blood.
My anger is still there, hot and sharp, but it’s twisting into a desperate, jagged kind of heat.
I’m furious that he’s holding me like this, but I’m suddenly, painfully aware of the way my chest is heaving against his. The thin, sweat-damp fabric of my running tank does nothing to hide the hard peaks of my nipples, scraping against the solid wall of his chest with every frantic breath I take.
"Y-You're a monster," I whisper, my voice trembling more than I want it to. I try to convince myself that it’s because I’m just so angry. Not because my nipples are hard, my core is clenched and all I can think of is kissing his lips.
"I don’t deny that," he murmurs. He lets his gaze drop to my lips for one long, agonizing beat before his thumb brushes over my pulse one last time. He lets go of my neck, and the sudden absence of his touch feels like a cold draft.
The silence that follows is deafening. I stand there, my skin burning where his hand was, watching him. I realize then that maybe… just maybe this isn't just about his ego or the fact that I ran away.
He is right. I’m familiar with this world and the dangers are not a joke.
"Thirty minutes," I finally manage to say, "I'm finishing my run. Stay ten feet back."
Mikhail watches me for a second, his expression unreadable. Then he gives a single, sharp nod.
"Ten feet," he agrees. "But I'm not taking my eyes off you."
I turn and start to run again, my sneakers hitting the gravel with a frantic rhythm. I can feel him behind me, a dark, constant presence.
Every time my foot strikes the ground, a jolt goes through me.
I realize it’s not from the impact. It’s from the knowledge that his eyes are once again on the swing of my hips, the tight pull of my leggings over my ass, the sweat tracing the line of my spine.
My skin is too tight, too hot. My breaths come in ragged pants that have nothing to do with the pace and everything to do with the man ten feet behind me.
I feel a treacherous ache, a deep, hollow pulse between my legs.
It’s an ache of pure want, sharp and undeniable, slickening me in a way that makes my thighs rub together with every stride.
I hate it. I crave it. The anger is still there, a white-hot coal in my gut, but it’s fueling this.
The more I think about his hand on my neck, his thumb on my pulse, the heavier the ache becomes.
I pick up speed, trying to outrun the sensation. It’s useless. Every time I imagine him watching me, the wetness between my legs increases, the fabric of my leggings rubbing against me in a maddening rhythm.
I came here to escape the madness but it seems I’ve run straight into what I was avoiding.
A low whimper escapes me, lost to the wind.
I’m wet. Soaking. The thin seam of my leggings is a maddening pressure against my clit.
I imagine his hands, not restraining, but claiming.
Pushing the fabric aside. Testing that wetness with his fingers.
A violent shiver wracks my body, and for a second, my knees almost buckle.
I glance over my shoulder, just for a second.
He’s there, matching my pace effortlessly, his eyes like dark embers in the dawn light. They’re not on the path. They’re locked on me. On the desperate flush he must see on my neck. On the way I’m running now—not to escape him, but because my body doesn’t know what else to do with this energy.
He knows. I can see it in the tilt of his head. He knows exactly what his gaze is doing to me.
As the sun finally breaks through the gray, casting long, sharp shadows across the path, I realize the terrifying truth.
I am doomed.