Chapter 12 - Kliment
The last one to leave was Sera.
She paused at the door, her hand resting lightly against the frame as her gaze flicked between Misha and me. There was calculation in her eyes, sharp and assessing, but beneath it, I could sense a tinge of approval. It might not have been spoken, but was instead offered freely.
“Don’t do anything reckless,” she said to Misha, her tone light but edged with meaning.
Misha didn’t look up from the papers she was stacking. “That eliminates most of our options.”
Sera smirked faintly. “Then at least survive whatever you decide to do.”
Her gaze shifted to me then, lingering for a fraction of a second longer than necessary.
“If she doesn’t,” she added quietly, “that’s on you.”
I didn’t respond. I didn’t need to. She nodded once, as if that was answer enough, and stepped out.
The door closed behind her with a soft, final click and was followed by a deep silence.
Not the kind that came from absence but the kind that settled when everything unnecessary had been stripped away.
I remained where I was, leaning slightly against the edge of the table, watching her.
Misha didn’t stop moving immediately. She gathered the last of the files, aligning edges with precise, controlled motions. Her mind was still working. I could see it in the slight tension in her shoulders and in the way her gaze shifted over the documents, even as she organized them.
She was three steps ahead. Always. It should have been frustrating, but instead, I admired her completely.
I wanted her to win. I wanted her safe. I wanted her alive.
I wanted whatever future she was carving out of this mess to bend in her favor.
And that was dangerous. Because I had never wanted anything like that for anyone before.
But Misha Chernykh was making everything difficult.
“Misha.”
She finally looked up. There was no hesitation in her expression and no softness. Just that same steady awareness she carried into everything.
“Yes?”
I crossed the room before I gave myself time to think and closed the distance between us. It took me no effort as I pulled her into me. The movement was abrupt and deliberate and left no space for interpretation. My hand came up to her jaw, tilting her face towards mine as I kissed her.
There was nothing hesitant about it. This wasn’t the careful tension of before.
This wasn’t anger bleeding into something else.
This was intent. Clear and undeniable, and she responded instantly.
Her hands came up, gripping my shirt as she leaned into me, matching the force of it without hesitation.
There was no surprise in her reaction and no resistance. Only reciprocation.
Weeks of tension broke in a single moment.
“I have been dreaming of kissing you all day,” she whispered against my lips, her voice causing tremors all over my skin.
“Is that so?” I asked, pulling her head back through her hair and looking deeply into her icy blue eyes that were just the right amount of hazy for me.
I could sense her emotions. My hand slid from her jaw to her waist, pulling her closer, closing what little space remained between us.
I wanted her flush against me. I felt her breath shift and the way her body responded to me.
It was not yielding or passive, but it met me with equal intensity and stripped everything else away.
The war. The names. The weight of what we had just uncovered. The weight of our individual identities. All of it fell silent beneath the heat of that moment.
“Yes,” she whispered, “I have been imagining nothing but your hands all over me. Exactly like this.”
Fuck. She knew exactly what she was doing to me, and she was having fun with it.
Her fingers tightened against me, pulling me closer as the kiss deepened, slower now but no less consuming.
There was something deliberate in it, something that wasn’t about control or power.
I broke the kiss only long enough to catch my breath, my forehead resting briefly against hers.
For a second, neither of us moved. Then she tilted her head slightly, her lips brushing mine again, softer this time, but no less certain.
That was all it took.
“Are you sure you want this?” I asked, picking her up in my arms effortlessly.
“I haven’t wanted anything more in my life than this,” she answered, sounding sure of her decision.
Without wasting a single second, I walked towards my bedroom and carefully placed her atop the sheets while she still clung to me, refusing to let go. She pulled me towards her, and I fell on top of her, carefully balancing my weight on my elbows.
“A little too desperate, are we?” I teased, my thumbs tracing circles over the exposed skin of her neck.
“I have been wanting this since the first day I came here, Kliment,” she replied, shrugging her jacket off. “You were rescuing me and keeping me alive, and all I could think about was how much I wanted to feel your touch and taste your mouth and know what it would be like when you are inside me.”
My cock strained against my pants at her words, making it impossible to hold on much longer.
“You could have taken advantage of me earlier,” I smiled. “I probably would have been more than fine with it.”
“Please shut up and fuck me already.”
I didn’t need to be asked twice. I traced the edges of her collarbones with my mouth while my hand slipped inside her shirt, unhooking her bra and taking it off, even without taking the black top off.
She wrapped her legs around me, her pussy forming the perfect curve over my already throbbing cock.
“I know you want to rush it, Misha,” I whispered. “But I want to take my time with you.”
I traced the smoothness of her skin until my tongue lapped onto her hardened nipple from over her shirt, making her moan in pleasure.
She clung to me in a way that made me feel as if she never wanted to let go.
I waited for her to arch her back and quickly took off her shirt, just as she pried mine off my body as well.
“You are so freakishly hot,” she whispered, but I could not register a single word.
She was beautiful in all the ways I had imagined.
I took one of her nipples in my mouth as I sucked on it while I flicked the other with my thumb, making her moan my name in ways I had been imagining for days now.
I rubbed her pussy from over her jeans within seconds, both of us were naked, her wet cunt not raw against my cock.
“Please, please, Kliment, I need you,” she whispered as I inserted one finger inside her warmth. She was already soaking wet and began to moan, arching her back in ways that told me she was close.
“Do you want me to make you come with my mouth, love?” I asked, and she nodded, clearly incapable of speaking out loud.
I crawled over her body until my face was level with her wet pussy and traced my tongue over her folds.
She shivered from head to toe, and I quickly traced her clitoris with my thumb while my tongue continued to taste her sweetness.
Within minutes, she was coming all over my face.
I allowed her to maintain the momentum and got in position, shoving my cock deep into her warmth, and she took me with all the hunger she claimed to possess.
The two of us moved in unison with one another, our bodies collapsing and colliding until she was coming all over again, her cunt tightening around my dick. I collapsed on top of her, filling her up with my cum, both of us panting each other’s name.
It felt as if I had just made Misha Chernykh mine. But more importantly, it felt as if she had made me hers as well.
***
Later, the room was quiet again, but it wasn’t the same silence as before.
This one was softer. Heavier in a different way.
She lay against me, her head resting lightly against my chest, her breathing gradually evening out as the tension left her body.
My arm was around her, holding her without thought now, no hesitation left in the movement.
I stared at the ceiling, wide awake. Again. But this time, my mind wasn’t running through strategies or contingencies. It was simply still for the first time in a long time. Her fingers shifted slightly against my side, a small, unconscious movement that grounded me more than it should have.
“You’re thinking too much,” she murmured, her voice quiet, edged with sleep.
I let out a faint breath. “I always do.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It is.”
“Stop,” she muttered softly.
I almost laughed at that. Almost. Instead, I looked down at her. Her eyes were still closed, her expression calmer than I had ever seen it. It was not unguarded but appeared to be settled. As if she were satisfied. For now.
“You should rest,” I said quietly.
“I will.”
She didn’t move and didn’t pull away. Another silence stretched between us, but it felt different now. Easier.
“You’re not alone,” I said.
The words came out before I could reconsider them, but they weren’t calculated or strategic. They were true. Her eyes opened slowly, and she looked up at me. Something shifted in her gaze as if something had just aligned for her.
“That sounds like a promise,” she said.
“It is.”
I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t qualify it. For me, that mattered. A lot. She studied me for a long moment, as if weighing the meaning of it, testing it the way she tested everything else.
Then she nodded once.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
None of it was dramatic or overplayed. Something in my chest tightened at that, because I knew exactly what that meant coming from her.
And I knew exactly what I was offering in return.
I was offering support without interference.
I knew she didn’t need saving, but she needed someone who wouldn’t stand in her way while still being there for her.
“I’m not taking this from you,” I added after a moment, my voice lower now. “This is your operation. Your war.”
“I know.”
“But you won’t fight it alone.”
Her gaze held mine.
“I don’t want to fight it alone,” she admitted.
That was the closest she would come to vulnerability, and I understood the weight of it.
“Good,” I said quietly. Because that settled it. Whatever this had started as, it wasn’t that anymore. I looked down at her again, at the way she had already begun to relax back into me, her breathing slowing once more.
Sergei Volkov.
The name echoed in the back of my mind. It was a problem and a threat.
A man who believed himself untouchable. I felt something cold settle into place beneath everything else.
It was not rage. Not yet. Something sharper and more deliberate.
If he touched her world or came anywhere near what she was building, I would burn everything he had. Not for power or control. But for her.
And that realization was the most dangerous thing of all.