Chapter 22 #2
I almost tell him he’s being dramatic. Then I see the look in his eyes shift, the laughter gentling all the way into something warmer and quieter, and I realize too late that he’s reading something else in me.
The worry.
Of course, he sees it. He always did. Even when I thought I hid it better, even when I was young and cruel and convinced that wanting him made me dangerous rather than exposed. He always saw the exact point where my arrogance thinned out while the real fear underneath started bleeding through.
He reaches out and caresses my cheek, touching me like I’m some skittish creature he doesn’t want to startle, thumb brushing once over my cheekbone.
“Mio re,” he says, so softly it nearly undoes me on the spot, “I’ve been waiting eight years. I will wait however long I need to until I see you again.”
I should say something filthy or cutting. Something that gets us back on familiar ground before the tenderness starts feeling too large to survive. I cup his face with both hands, and what comes out is bigger than that and far less controlled.
“I love you.”
The words land in the room with all the force of a gunshot and all the quietude of a prayer.
Vincenzo’s whole body goes still, eyes widening enough to show the crack in him before the emotion hits. It moves across his face in one devastating wave.
Shock first. Then pain. Then joy so raw it’s almost ugly.
His eyes go glassy immediately, and my heart lurches in panic because it is not how I pictured this. I didn’t picture it at all, which was probably the point. I just knew I needed him to hear it from me, cleanly, before anything else got in the way.
“Oh, don’t,” I say before I can stop myself. “Don’t cry, lyubumiy.”
The plea comes out more desperate than teasing, and the sight of him looking at me like this is enough to make me tighten my grip on his face, thumbs brushing uselessly under his eyes as if I can stop the tears by making contact first.
He laughs once, half-breath, half-break. “I never thought I’d hear that again.”
I brush my thumbs under his eyes again. “Well,” I say, trying for steadiness and landing somewhere near reverent instead, “I suppose you’d better get used to hearing it again.”
A soft laugh slips out of him at that, and he shakes his head once like I’m impossible, and he hates that he loves it. I hold his face, look at him, and feel the full gravity of the moment settle in.
Not Vintermoor. Not the wreck of youth. Not memory pulling old phrases up from some buried place. This is now. Me, knowing exactly what I’m saying and choosing to say it first because if I don’t hand him that certainty with both hands, I’ll hate myself for another eight years.
“Korol’ moego serdtsa,” I murmur, the old language wrapping around the words more naturally than any title ever has. “Don’t look at me like that or I’ll drag you back into bed.”
That gets another broken laugh out of him, and his hands come up over mine, holding them there against his face. “You say the sweetest things at the strangest moments.”
“You inspire me.”
“Dangerous.”
“You started this.”
“I believe that’s your argument for everything.”
“Because it keeps being true.”
He smiles then, small and wrecked and so beautiful it hurts.
I kiss him before the expression can disappear, gentle this time, no rush to it, just my mouth on his like I’m sealing something in place.
He answers with all the trembling gratitude of a man who has been starving quietly for too long and doesn’t quite trust the meal yet.
When we part, the clock on the bedside table has marched farther forward than I like. But he doesn’t move, and neither do I.
This is the problem with leaving once you’ve let yourself believe in staying. Every second becomes an argument. Every look is another excuse to delay.
“Nikolaj—”
“No.” I shake my head once, smile already threatening because the reluctance is written so clearly over his face it almost makes me drunk with it.
“If you stay another hour, I’m not letting you out of this room at all, and while that has appeal, I’d rather not start our reunion with an international incident. ”
The corner of his mouth lifts despite himself. “You’re very bossy for a man who was talking about buying islands ten minutes ago.”
“I can multitask.”
He lets out a breath that sounds suspiciously like a laugh and leans into my hand for one tiny second before catching himself. “I don’t want to go.”
The honesty of the admission nearly kills me.
“I know.” I smooth my thumb over the line of his jaw once. “Which is why you’re going now, while I still have the strength to send you.”
His eyes search mine, looking for loopholes. For mercy. For a reason to stay that doesn’t make us both weaker. I give him none, because that’s what love looks like when it has to survive reality.
When he’s done getting dressed, I walk him toward the door by the hand because apparently I’ve decided subtlety can go fuck itself where he’s concerned, and because I want the feel of him with me for as many steps as I can steal before the corridor and the world and all the titles come rushing back in.
He follows, but only physically. Emotionally, he’s dragging enough to make the point, and I know it. Every time I take a step, he takes one half a beat later, like a man obeying under protest.
At the door, I turn to him and find that he’s looking at me with that same terrible softness again, all the old arrogance burnt down into something more dangerous because it’s honest.
“You really know how to ruin a man before breakfast,” he murmurs.
I smile and reach for the handle, but he catches my wrist. The touch stops me—of course it does.
Then he steals the kiss. Hard enough to make the point, soft enough to hurt. He kisses me like a thief and a king and the love of my life all at once, and when he pulls back, I’m the one half dazed now.
“I love you,” he says quietly.
I close my eyes and bask in those words, feeling the truth in them. I should let him go then. Instead, I lean in and say the first sweet thing that comes to mind. Loving him openly has made me reckless in entirely new ways.
“You still look best with my mouth on you.”
He pulls back, and his pupils flare. “Nikolaj.”
“Go home before I keep you, My King.”
“That sounds promising.”
“It wasn’t.”
He smiles, slow and helpless this time. “Liar.”
I open the door and push him out before either of us can make good on any more threats disguised as flirting.
He lingers just beyond the threshold anyway, one hand braced on the frame, eyes on my face like he’s trying to memorize whatever version of me exists in this moment before the world starts asking for harder shapes again.
“I’ll call,” he says.
“You’d better,” I reply.
“I’ll come back.”
My throat tightens anyway, even knowing now he means it. “I know.”
He hesitates for one last second, then turns and walks away down the corridor with that same perfect Vieri control sliding back over him piece by piece.
Suit. Spine. King. But I know what’s under it now because he handed it back to me all over again this morning, and that changes the sight completely.
I wait until he disappears around the corner before I shut the door.
Then I lean against it and close my eyes because my heart is beating far too hard for a man who has already said I love you and meant it. The room is quieter without him. Colder, but still full of the shape of him anyway.
After a long moment, I let out a breath and rest my forehead briefly against the wood.
All right, now we survive the wait.
Then, because I’m still me, I start thinking about the island.