Chapter 10
Nikolai
The reality show flickered to an end, the screen dimming into black as the credits rolled in silence. I didn’t move.
Mina’s head rested on my shoulder, light and warm. Her breathing had fallen into a steady rhythm sometime during the second meltdown of the episode. I wasn’t sure which dramatic breakup finally lulled her to sleep, but I wasn’t about to wake her now.
Her body was soft against mine, her presence a strange kind of gravity that pulled everything in me closer to stillness. The way her fingers curled tightly around a throw pillow made me smirk—like she needed a shield, even in dreams. She looked peaceful. Not defeated. Not fragile. Just… still.
I let my gaze drift over her features—the slight crease between her brows, the curve of her cheek, her lips parted just slightly as she exhaled. It should’ve felt invasive. It didn’t. It felt inevitable.
A girl in a stolen hoodie, sprawled across my couch like she belonged there, had managed to rearrange the furniture in my head without ever lifting a finger.
Her trust scared me more than any hit I’d taken on the ice. It was quiet and complete. Unarmored. She’d given it to me without ceremony, without expectation. Like she didn’t know how easily I could ruin it.
I shifted, barely, just enough to relieve the tension in my spine—but even that movement made her lean in closer.
Her arm brushed mine, skin warm where we touched.
My chest tightened, a visceral urge rising inside me.
Not lust. Not exactly. Something deeper.
More dangerous. A need to keep her safe. To deserve this moment.
She smiled in her sleep. Just a little. The kind of smile that made something deep in my chest crack open. Maybe she was dreaming of something soft. Something safe. Maybe—somehow—she was dreaming of me.
I stared at the blank TV screen, unsure what to do with the weight settling in my ribs. This wasn’t a game anymore. It hadn’t been for a while.
I didn’t know what came next. What she’d choose. What I’d allow myself to want.
But I knew this much: I’d burn down the world before I let it hurt her again.
Even if it meant burning part of myself with it.
I lifted her without effort, her weight barely more than the gear bag I carried every day—but nothing about this felt light.
Mina stirred in my arms, just a soft breath and a quiet shift of her head as she nestled into the crook of my neck like she’d always belonged there.
The warmth of her body seeped into mine, and something deep inside me tightened.
Something dangerous. Something that wanted to keep her like this. Forever.
She looked ridiculous in my hoodie—drowning in it, swallowed whole—but somehow she made it beautiful.
The sleeves covered her hands; the hem brushed her thighs, and her bare legs peeked out like a secret.
She smelled like vanilla and fire and something wild that didn’t belong in a world as cold as mine.
My pulse kicked up, but it wasn’t just lust. That, I could handle. This was worse. This was affection. Tenderness. It curled around my ribs like a question I didn’t want to answer.
I carried her to my bed, my grip firm but careful. She didn’t stir. Her breath hitched once, then settled, and I felt the soft thump of her heart against my chest. Fragile. Steady. Too trusting.
She didn’t know how easily people could break.
I did.
I laid her down gently, tucking the blanket around her like she might shatter if I got it wrong. She sighed and curled onto her side, one hand fisting the edge of the hoodie, still clinging to it like armor. My chest ached.
She didn’t need another man who mistook her for property. Another man who made promises with conditions. The bet hovered in the back of my mind, sour and heavy. Thirty days. That was all this had started as. A game.
But it wasn’t a game anymore.
I stepped back, every muscle in my body screaming to stay near her. To touch her. To lie down beside her and pretend, just for a moment, that this could be something easy.
Instead, I turned. Walked to the far wall. Leaned against it like it could hold me up while I wrestled down the heat curling through my blood.
She was beautiful.
She was here.
And I couldn’t touch her—not the way I wanted to. Not if I wanted to live with myself in the morning.
This wasn’t about what I wanted. It was about what she needed.
And right now, she needed space. Safety. The kind that came without expectations.
So I stood there, keeping watch in the silence, knowing the only way to keep from ruining this—ruining her—was to keep myself carefully, painfully, on the other side of the room.
I walked into the kitchen, needing to put a wall between us. Between her softness and the way it clawed at everything hard and careful I’d built inside myself.
I filled a glass with water. Let it run a little longer than necessary, just for the sound.
Something steady. Something I could control.
I stared out the window as the water pooled, the glass cool against my palm.
Outside, the garden glistened beneath a thin sheen of frost. Streetlights stretched long shadows across the pavement—everything sharp, cold, quiet. Fitting.
Mikel’s face surged into my mind. Not the one he wore for press conferences, for fans, for her. The real one—the one I’d seen right before he raised his hand.
The memory of his voice, sharp and venomous, echoed louder than I wanted to admit.
I could still see the way she froze under it.
Like the noise alone had knocked the breath out of her.
She’d folded in on herself—not physically, not fully, but enough for me to feel it across the room.
Like someone had flipped a switch in her and she’d dimmed without thinking.
And over what? This bet.
And the ice cream?
She hadn’t cried. That was what haunted me. She hadn’t cried—she’d apologized. Over and over. Like she was afraid. Like she expected me to shout, to snap, to break something just to prove I could.
It wasn’t the cone.
It was muscle memory.
I set the glass down on the counter, untouched. The granite was cold under my hand, grounding. I stayed there, unmoving, staring into nothing while the truth circled like a vulture in my chest: She’s been taught to shrink.
And I hated that.
She was made of wildfire and sarcasm and bright, inconvenient honesty. She should’ve never had to learn how to go quiet just to stay safe.
And yet, now here I was—standing in a kitchen full of shadows, wondering if I had any right to keep her close. I didn’t want to be just another man with rules and conditions. She deserved space. Safety. A place to grow louder, not smaller.
But a darker thought twisted in the back of my mind: What if I wanted more than that?
That was the part I didn’t trust in myself.
I dragged a hand through my hair and turned back toward the living room. The house felt too still. She was still curled on the bed, small in my hoodie, barely moving. Peaceful.
And all I could think was: Let her sleep. Let her breathe. Let her be mine only if she chooses it.
Because anything else?
Would make me no better than him.
I leaned against the counter, eyes fixed on the stairs like they might answer something I couldn’t.
She was up there.
Wrapped in my sheets. Wearing my hoodie. Breathing easy in a room that had never held anyone but me. Safe, for now.
That had been the whole point—thirty days. Just thirty. Keep her out of Mikel’s reach, give her space to breathe, keep things simple.
But nothing about this felt simple anymore.
Every time I looked at those stairs, my chest pulled tighter, like something unseen had wrapped itself around my ribs and started to squeeze.
It wasn’t about the bet anymore. It hadn’t been for a while.
I could lie to myself, call it protection, duty, decency—but that wasn’t what twisted in my gut when I thought about her.
It was the question: What if this was more?
What would she do if I said something?
If I crossed that line?
Would she smile—soft, surprised, maybe even happy? Or would she go still the way she did when she braced for disappointment? Would she look at me like I was just another man who wanted too much from her?
I didn’t want to be that man.
But I didn’t want to be the one who let her go, either.
I pressed the heels of my hands against the counter, grounding myself in the cold stone. The kitchen felt too quiet, the shadows too long, my own thoughts echoing too loudly in the stillness she’d left behind.
She chipped away at me without trying—every laugh, every sarcastic quip, every goddamn reality show rant. The way she talked with her hands. The way she curled up on my couch like she belonged there. Like maybe she wanted to.
And it terrified me.
Because what I felt wasn’t careful. It wasn’t slow. It was fire beneath ice—quiet until it burned through everything.
She was upstairs, asleep. And all I could think about was how easy it would be to ruin it. To tell her how much space she already took up in me, when she didn’t even know it.
She deserved peace.
Not pressure.
Not me folding under the weight of want and calling it protection.
I took a breath, long and slow, and let it settle into my lungs like a warning.
This wasn’t just about keeping her safe anymore.
And I was in no shape to tell her the truth.
I stepped back into the bedroom, the soft creak of the door swallowed by the hush that had settled over everything.
The room was dark, lit only by the thin strip of moonlight slicing across the bed.
She was still there—small beneath the weight of my comforter, curled like a secret the night had decided to keep.
I sat down, not too close.
But not far enough.
Just near enough to watch her breathe, to feel her presence like a heat I couldn’t walk away from. I told myself I was only here to check on her. That was a lie I didn’t bother dressing up anymore.
I leaned in—slow, cautious. My fingers reached before I gave them permission. I brushed a lock of hair from her cheek, soft as a whisper, and let my hand linger there longer than I should’ve.
Her skin was warm. Too warm for someone who always claimed my house was freezing. She shifted slightly, breath hitching just once.
Then she murmured my name in her sleep.
Barely audible. Barely real.
But it landed like a blade in the center of my chest.
I didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Just sat there, watching her dream of me—whatever version of me she saw when her guard was down and the world couldn’t touch her.
My heart twisted. Tightened.
She had no idea.
No idea how deep I was already in.
And time—this ridiculous, stupid bet, this deadline hanging over our heads—was running out. Every hour ticked louder than the last.
But for now, I sat in the dark, watching her sleep, pretending it didn’t already feel like loss.
The heat caught up with me before I even made it to the bed. Too much. Too close. Too her.
I pulled my shirt over my head and tossed it onto the chair with more force than necessary, like shedding the weight in my chest could start with fabric. It didn’t help. Nothing could help.
I slid beneath the covers slowly, careful not to jostle her.
The sheets were still warm from her body, soft and lived-in in a way my bed had never felt until now.
Her breath ghosted across my bare shoulder—slow, steady, unaware.
And yet it rippled through me like thunder, shaking loose things I wasn’t prepared to confront.
This… this wasn’t sex. It wasn’t lust or adrenaline or noise. It was quiet. And it was worse.
All the nights I’d filled with cold bodies and colder exits couldn’t hold a candle to this—her, sleeping, mouth slightly open, sighing like the weight of the world had finally slipped off her shoulders. Like she felt safe here. With me.
And that was the part that undid me.
I stared at her for a long moment. The freckles along her nose. The way her lashes fanned against her cheeks. There was something innocent about her in sleep that didn’t exist when she was awake—when she was fire and sarcasm and bite.
“What are you doing to me?” I asked the dark, my voice a whisper torn from the part of me that still pretended to be in control.
She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to.
My arm found its way around her waist. I didn’t think. I just moved, pulled her a little closer, feeling her body melt into mine like it had always known how.
She didn’t flinch. She leaned in, like her bones had been waiting for mine to press against them.
And that was it.
That was the moment.
My pulse slowed to match hers, our chests rising and falling in time like some fragile rhythm neither of us had intended to share. I breathed her in—vanilla and sleep and maybe something sweeter underneath—and felt the tight coil of tension start to unwind inside me.
She made me feel like I could be gentle. Like I wanted to be.
Sleep pulled at the edges of my mind, but I fought it for a few seconds longer—just to memorize how this felt. The softness. The closeness. The unbearable rightness of it.
Then I let go.
Just for tonight.
Just this once.
I didn’t know how, but the nightmares didn’t come when she was beside me. The shadows stayed quiet; the memories stayed buried, and the violence that usually clawed its way into my sleep never showed its face.
With her curled against me, the darkness receded like it knew better—like her presence rewrote the script before it could start.
All that remained was warmth, breath, and the steady rhythm of a peace I hadn’t felt in years.