Chapter 40 #2
His body rests against mine, and there’s something beautiful about how naturally we fit, the warmth of him surrounding me like it was always meant to. For one reckless second, I let myself believe nothing can tear us apart.
That this—right here—is how it will always be.
He exhales against my lips and leans back just enough to look at me. “When I was thirteen, my father found out a woman who worked for him was stealing.”
My fingers curl against his back.
“She was helping launder money for the family and decided to take some for herself, so he killed her and her husband.”
Goose bumps rise along my arms.
“They had a baby,” he continues, glancing down before our eyes meet. “Four months old.”
I don’t know if I like where this is going.
“He brought the baby home and handed him to me…” Bitterness creeps into his tone. “Told me it was my responsibility now. My job.”
My arm tightens around him without thinking, like some part of me needs to hold him closer through this.
“I didn’t know anything about babies. But my father told me to do it, so I did. I fed him. Changed him. Carried him around the house. For months.” His gaze turns distant. “Even my brothers liked him.”
My heart aches, because I can already sense where this is going, and I don’t want it to.
“I grew to care about him. But that was the point. That’s what my father wanted. He needed something to destroy.”
“I…I don’t understand.”
“For my father, nothing was worse than weak sons.” His expression hardens. “And if we loved something, anything—even each other—he would kill it.”
“Oh, no…” Grief rips through me, right alongside that thirteen-year-old boy who had to hear those words. I can’t even begin to imagine it.
He nods once. “He told me to kill him.”
My hand flies to my mouth.
“Oh my God,” I whisper. “Please tell me you didn’t.”
He shakes his head. “No. Of course not. I couldn’t.”
Relief crashes through me so fast, it almost leaves me dizzy.
Then he says, “So my father killed the child right in front of me.”
The relief vanishes just as quickly as it came. Nausea rolls through me instead, hard and sudden, and the room seems to shrink around us. I press my palm harder over my mouth, trying not to be sick.
“I’m so sorry.” Tears spill faster now. “Your father was a monster.”
A humorless sound leaves him. “That’s actually a kind way to describe him.”
For a second, I think that must be the end of it. But I’m wrong.
“After he killed the baby, he punished me for not being able to do it myself. Locked me in a pitch-black cellar for a week. Barely any food or water.” He says it so casually that it doesn’t even sound real. “No one could get me out. He would’ve killed my brothers if they tried.”
The air in my lungs grows too thin.
“He beat me every time he came down there. That’s where some of those scars came from.”
My fingers spread across his back, holding him more tightly now, each raised line beneath my hand feeling unbearable in a different way.
“Thank you for trusting me with this.” I press my palm to his cheek, forcing him to look at me. “You are nothing like him. I want you to know that. Look at how you are with your son. Look at the way you love him. The way you protect him. You are a good man, Kirill.”
And as I say it, as I trace the line of a single scar, I realize that somewhere between his darkness and mine, I’ve fallen in love with the parts of him that survived it.
“Say that again.”
Before I can react, he flips me beneath him in one swift motion, his mouth brushing over my lips, staying just close enough to make my pulse stutter.
“Tell me I’m a good man, detka.”
His body arches into me, his hardness pressing into my core, and I cry out, unable to stop.
“You’re a good man, Kirill Marinov.”
The sound that leaves him is low and rough, almost a growl, before his mouth crashes down on mine. One hand grips my hip while the other slides under me, yanking me closer until there isn’t even the smallest space left between us.
He tilts my head back the way he wants it, guiding the kiss without asking. His grip tightens as he deepens it, holding me there while it grows hotter, more demanding, like there’s something inside him he can’t put into words any other way.
My fingers slide into his hair, and he responds instantly, a deep rumble vibrating through him as I meet his kiss with the same fierce hunger.
He pulls back, breathing hard against my lips, his forehead resting against mine. But the pause lasts only a second before he drags me back into the kiss, harder this time.
There’s something different about it now. Something deeper than the ones we shared before. Like everything he just told me, every dark piece of his past, has fused us together in a way neither of us can undo.
He reaches down and pushes his boxers off, lifting my nightgown over my hips before leaning back and staring at me with something almost conflicted in his eyes.
“Forgive me,” he says.
Before I can ask what he means, he drives into me hard enough that it stings, his hand tightening in my hair as his fierce gaze fixes on me.
“I need you.”
The beastly hunger on his face makes me want to give him everything he’s been denied for so long.
“I’m yours.”
“That’s right, you are.”
He tosses my leg over his shoulder, circling his hips, giving it to me so deep, I’m already close.
He rises to his knees, gripping my hips and lifting me with him until my back arches off the mattress.
The rhythm turns relentless, powerful, like he needs this—needs me—to outrun whatever ghosts still cling to him.
“Oh God,” I gasp.
But he doesn’t slow. If anything, he pushes harder, each thrust knocking the breath from my chest until words are impossible and all that escapes me is broken cries, my body clenching around him as the need builds faster than I can hold it back.
“Moya. Svegda, moya,” he grunts, staring right into my eyes.
When he hits that spot inside me, the tension snaps. The orgasm tears through me in a wild rush, sending me tumbling over the edge like there’s no end to the fall.
“Yes…don’t stop!”
His hands clamp around my hips as he moves with fierce intensity before a brutal growl rips from him and he comes inside me, spilling into me, giving me what I want.
When it’s over, he presses a kiss to my shoulder before dropping back beside me with a quiet chuckle. “I meant to take that slow.”
“Liar.”
He groans and pulls me across his chest. “Thank you.”
I’m not even sure what he’s thanking me for, but it doesn’t really matter.
“You don’t have to thank me.”
He reaches over and switches off the light. “You have no idea how wrong you are.”