18. Viktor
VIKTOR
Dimitri catches me on my way out of the club, phone already in hand.
“Nothing solid yet on the logistics man,” he says. “He’s cautious. Won’t meet in person, won’t talk on any line he doesn’t control himself. I’ve got someone building trust with him slowly. Could take another few weeks.”
“Keep at it. Quietly.”
“Always.” He studies me for a second longer than the update requires. “You’ve been better lately. Less on edge.”
“Things have been good.”
“I noticed.” He says it without judgment, just an observation, and lets me go without pushing further, which I’m grateful for, because I don’t have a clean way to explain to him what’s actually changed in the last few weeks, only that it has.
“For what it’s worth,” he adds, catching me at the door, “whatever it is, it looks good on you. You’re easier to be around lately. I’m not the only one who’s noticed.”
“Careful, Dimitri. You’re starting to sound sentimental.”
“Don’t get used to it.” He waves me off, already turning back toward his office, and I leave with the strange, unfamiliar sensation of my own brother approving of something in my life that isn’t business.
I drive home thinking about logistics men and borrowed names and a threat still sitting unresolved somewhere out there, and by the time I walk through my own front door, all of it quiets, the way it always does now the second I hear her voice somewhere in the house.
I find them in the kitchen, Harper crouched down helping Ginger ice a lopsided cake that looks like it survived a minor structural collapse, flour dusted across both of them, Ginger narrating every swipe of the knife like it’s a surgical procedure.
“It’s supposed to be a dinosaur,” Ginger informs me, without looking up. “It looks more like a rock.”
“It looks like a very ambitious rock.”
“That’s what Harper said too.”
“Great minds,” Harper says, not looking up from smoothing frosting into something vaguely resembling a spike. “Come hold the piping bag, you have steadier hands than either of us.”
I do as I’m told, and for the next ten minutes the three of us work on a cake that has no realistic chance of resembling any dinosaur that ever existed, Ginger directing the operation with total confidence, Harper laughing every time the frosting slides in a direction nobody intended.
I lean against the counter and just watch them for a while once my piping duties are dismissed, the two of them completely absorbed in a project that means nothing and everything at once, and my chest goes warm and tight in a way I don’t try to name right away.
Harper catches me watching and smiles, easy, unguarded, flour on her cheek she hasn’t noticed yet, and I think, not for the first time, that I could stand in this doorway for the rest of my life and never once feel like I was missing anything.
Later, once Ginger’s asleep and the kitchen’s been cleaned of most of the evidence, Harper finds me on the back porch, same spot as always.
“You were quiet at dinner,” she says, sitting beside me.
“I was thinking.”
“About?”
I could give her the easy answer, deflect the way I’ve trained myself to for fifteen years. Instead, I look at her, and decide I’m done doing that with her specifically.
“About how much I don’t want to keep any part of myself separate from you anymore.
” My voice comes out rougher than I intend.
“I’ve spent my whole life keeping distance from everyone, treating closeness like a liability.
I don’t want that with you. I haven’t wanted it in weeks, if I’m honest, and I’m done pretending otherwise. ”
Harper goes still, studying my face like she’s checking whether I mean it as much as it sounds like I do. “That’s not a small thing to say.”
“No. It isn’t.” I reach for her hand, lace our fingers together. “I’m not asking you to say it back tonight. I just needed you to hear it.”
“I don’t need until tonight to say it back.” Her voice is quiet, certain. “I’ve been done pretending for a while now too.”
I kiss her before either of us can say anything else, slower than the porch kiss weeks ago, none of the restraint that held both of us back that first almost-time, and this time nothing interrupts it, no hesitation, nothing standing between what we both clearly want.
I stand, pulling her up with me, and this time there’s no question of whose room we’re heading toward.
I close the bedroom door behind us, and the lock turns with a soft click.
Harper stands a few feet away, watching me. There’s no nervousness in her face this time. Just waiting. I walk to her slowly, stop close enough that I can feel the heat coming off her body, and start with the buttons of her shirt.
One. Two. Three. My fingers don’t rush. I watch each inch of skin as it appears.
When the shirt is open, I push it off her shoulders. It falls. I unhook her bra next, slide the straps down her arms, and let that fall too. She doesn’t try to cover herself. She just lets me look.
“You’re quiet,” she says softly.
“I’m deciding something.”
“What?”
I meet her eyes. “How much I’m going to give you tonight.”
Her breath catches, but she doesn’t look away.
I step closer, brush my knuckles down the center of her chest, between her breasts, over her stomach, until I reach the waistband of her jeans.
I unbutton them, lower the zipper, and ease them down her hips along with her underwear. She steps out of them without being asked. Now, she’s completely bare in front of me, and I’m still fully dressed. The imbalance feels intentional.
I walk her backward until the backs of her knees hit the bed. She sits. I stay standing for a moment, just looking at her—the way the low light sits on her skin, the slight rise and fall of her chest, the trust in her eyes that still undoes me more than it should.
Then I start talking as I undress.
“I’ve spent fifteen years making sure no one got close enough to matter.
” My shirt hits the floor. “It was the only way I knew how to keep people alive. Including myself.” I unbuckle my belt, push my pants and boxers down, kick them aside.
“You’re the first person I’ve ever wanted to fail at that with. ”
I kneel on the bed and move over her, bracing my weight on my forearms so I’m close but not yet pressing her down. My mouth is near her ear.
“I used to think wanting someone like this made me weak. That needing them made me dangerous to the people I was supposed to protect.” My hand slides up her side, slow, claiming nothing yet. “With you it doesn’t feel like weakness. It just feels true.”
I lift my head enough to look at her face. Her eyes are darker now, lips parted. She reaches up and rests her palm against my cheek. The simple touch nearly undoes the rest of my restraint.
“I don’t know how to be careful with you anymore,” I tell her. “And I don’t want to learn.”
I kiss her then—nothing held back. My hand finds her breast, thumb brushing over her nipple until she makes a soft sound into my mouth.
I swallow it and keep going, kissing down her throat, across her collarbone, taking my time with each place that makes her breathe change.
When I finally settle between her legs, I don’t push inside yet. I just rest there, the hard length of me against her, feeling how wet she already is. I stay still and keep talking, voice lower now.
“You walked into my club and asked me to marry you like it was the only door left open. I said yes because something in me already knew I wasn’t going to be able to stay away from you.
” My forehead rests against hers. “I’ve been yours longer than I’ve admitted out loud. I’m done pretending otherwise.”
I push into her slowly, watching her face the entire time.
The heat of her takes me inch by inch until I’m fully seated, buried deep, and neither of us moves. Her breath shudders out against my mouth. I stay exactly there, letting her feel the full weight of me inside her while I keep my eyes on hers.
“This is what I meant,” I say, voice rough. “No distance. Not with you.”
I start to move—long, measured strokes that drag almost all the way out before I sink back in. Every thrust is intentional. I can feel her walls tighten around me each time I bottom out, can feel the way her thighs press against my hips when I go particularly deep.
“Viktor—”
“I know.” I kiss the corner of her mouth, then her cheek, then the soft place just below her ear. “I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you. Not once. Not even close.”
My rhythm stays steady for a while, almost reverent, until the need starts clawing higher. I feel it in the base of my spine, in the way my arms start to shake slightly where I’m braced above her. I don’t fight it this time. I let the control slip on purpose.
The thrusts get deeper, harder. Still not frantic—just heavier, more honest. Her nails dig into my back. A broken sound leaves her throat, and I swallow it with another kiss.
“You’re the only person I’ve ever wanted to keep,” I tell her, the words coming out low and raw against her lips as I drive into her. “The only one I didn’t calculate my way around. You walked in and every plan I had stopped mattering.”
Her back arches. I feel her start to tighten around me, close already. I slide one hand under her knee and push it higher, changing the angle so every stroke hits deeper. Her eyes stay open, locked on mine, and that unbroken eye contact is what finally undoes me more than anything physical.
“Come with me,” I say.
She does—body locking tight around me, a soft, shattered cry against my mouth as she comes. The feel of her pulsing around my cock pulls me under right after her. I bury myself to the hilt and let go with a low, guttural sound, spilling deep inside her while my forehead drops against hers.
I stay there, still joined, breathing hard. My heart is slamming against my ribs. Hers is racing just as fast beneath me.
After a long moment, I ease out carefully and shift onto my side, pulling her with me so her head rests on my chest. My arm settles around her shoulders. One of her hands curls loosely against my ribs.
I don’t speak. Neither does she. The things I already said sit between us heavier than any silence I’ve ever kept.
I watch the slow rise and fall of her breathing as it starts to even out. My hand moves absently along her back, tracing the same path over and over. Outside this room there are still threats, still men who would use anything soft in my life as a weapon.
Tonight, none of that reaches the bed.
She falls asleep against me within minutes, trusting, completely unguarded. I stay awake longer, staring at the ceiling, feeling the weight of every word I gave her and finding that I don’t want a single one of them back.