Chapter 12 #2
Not the man who still lived in my dreams like a scar that refused to fade.
He shifted then, turning fully toward me. The mattress dipped under his weight, the space between us shrinking until his presence felt unavoidable. Slowly—deliberately—he lifted his hand, fingers hovering just above my cheek.
Close enough that I felt the heat of his skin.
Close enough that every nerve in my body screamed.
He didn’t touch me.
Not yet.
“You speak like you care whether I live or die,” he murmured.
There was faint amusement in the words, a lazy curl to them, but his eyes betrayed him. They were dark, intent, stripping me down to whatever truths I was still trying to hide.
I didn’t look away. “As long as you’re my husband—even on paper—I suppose it’s my responsibility to discourage reckless behavior.”
A corner of his mouth lifted. Not a smile. Something quieter. Almost... fond.
“Responsibility,” he repeated softly, tasting the word. “You always did hide your heart behind duty.”
He shifted closer. Deliberately. As if testing how far he could go before I broke.
His breath brushed my cheek, warm and familiar, and suddenly five years collapsed into nothing. Hospital lights. Blood on my hands. His mouth on mine the night before everything shattered.
His gaze dropped to my lips.
“Your lips,” he said, voice roughened by something dangerously close to reverence, “are exquisite and ruinous.”
The words struck harder than any touch could have.
The air between us crackled—alive with grief and longing and everything we had never said out loud. I didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.
My body remembered him far too well, betrayal humming through my veins like heat.
For one suspended heartbeat, the world narrowed to this: the warmth of his skin, the promise of devastation, the gravity that had always pulled us together—inevitable, merciless.
Dmitri Volkov was still the man who could undo me without ever laying a hand on my skin.
Butterflies detonated in my stomach—wild, frantic—but I forced them down, schooling my face into cool indifference. I would not give him the satisfaction of knowing how deeply his words had cut.
“Thank you,” I said, evenly. Calm. Unmoved.
I held his gaze without blinking.
Something darkened in his eyes at my restraint, as though my refusal to react pleased him more than gratitude ever could. That infuriating smirk curved his mouth as he leaned closer, his presence eclipsing the lamplight.
His breath brushed my cheek, warm, intimate.
“Luscious,” he murmured, voice low and ruined. “I want them wrapped around mine.”
The words slid over my skin like a blade.
I didn’t pull away.
God help me, I couldn’t.
Every instinct screamed at me to retreat, to armor myself in distance and silence, but courage deserted me.
His face hovered inches from mine, heat radiating from him, dragging me under with the same merciless gravity that had always existed between us.
My eyes fluttered shut, betraying me.
In Greece, in the quiet anonymity Ruslan had wrapped around me, I had dreamed of this. Of his mouth on mine—hard, relentless, unapologetic. Dreams that left me furious when I woke, sheets twisted tight around my legs, my body aching with a need I despised.
The other dreams were worse.
Dreams where he took me without mercy, where my body bowed beneath his will, where his name tore from my throat again and again as pleasure shattered me from the inside out. I would wake slick with sweat and shame, heart racing, hating myself for wanting a man who had once destroyed me.
Seconds stretched. Time warped.
I waited for him to kiss me.
For the claim. The possession. The thing I both feared and craved.
But nothing came.
Slowly, dread blooming hot and sharp in my chest, I opened my eyes.
He was still there—devastatingly close—watching me with an intensity that bordered on predatory. His gaze searched my face, my mouth, as if committing the moment to memory.
Then he pulled back.
No explanation. No words.
He turned his head away as though the last heartbeat had never existed.
The silence was brutal.
Heat rushed to my cheeks—humiliation first, then anger, then something sharp and fragile that felt dangerously close to rejection. Before pride could stop me, I yanked the duvet up and over my head, curling inward, hiding like a wounded thing.
The mattress shifted.
Fabric rustled.
I peeked out just in time to see him rise, broad back rigid with tension, every line of his body screaming restraint. He crossed the room in long strides, hand already reaching for the door.
“Where are you going?” The question escaped me before I could stop it.
He paused at the threshold and glanced back over his shoulder, one dark brow lifting.
“I would have thought,” he said mildly, “that you didn’t care.”
I pushed myself upright, the duvet slipping to my waist, pulse pounding. “You’re my husband,” I said, forcing steadiness into my voice. “For the next three months, at least. It’s only natural I act like a wife.”
His eyes flicked to my bare shoulders, the exposed line of my throat.
“Where,” I added softly, dangerously, “is my husband going in the middle of the night?”
His gaze flicked pointedly to the unmistakable bulge straining against the black fabric of his sweatpants. “As you can see,” he murmured, voice low and rough with dark amusement, “I’m hard. I need something to... cool me down.”
A hot spike of jealousy flared in my chest, sharp and unwelcome. My pulse thundered. “And what exactly would that be?”
His eyes drifted toward the door on the left—Seraphina’s room. The implication hung heavy, poisonous in the dim light.
“You said you don’t want sex in this marriage,” he added with a shrug, as if the idea were the most logical, innocent thing in the world. “I don’t see the harm in seeking it elsewhere. With someone who might actually welcome it.”
I froze. My stomach twisted, part anger, part disbelief, part that unwelcome heat I hated myself for. “With your mistress?” I snapped, voice sharp, words tasting like bitter acid. “The woman you can barely stand to look at? Please. I’m not naive, Dmitri, but even you wouldn’t sink that low.”
He tilted his head, smirk curling his lips like a knife drawn slowly across silk. “I guess we’ll find out.”
Before I could respond, before I could even process the audacity, he opened the door and stepped into the hallway, the soft click of it closing behind him echoing like a challenge.
My heart slammed against my ribs. Fury propelled me out of bed. I didn’t pause for shoes, didn’t bother with a robe. Sweater and jeans were enough armor as I stormed after him, my bare feet skimming over the cool marble, goosebumps prickling my skin.
To my relief—and my mounting curiosity—he didn’t turn left toward Seraphina’s room. Instead, his long strides carried him in the opposite direction, each footfall silent, purposeful.
I followed, careful yet clumsy, trying to match his pace without tripping. He would know I was there. A man like Dmitri, trained in shadows and survival, always knew when someone followed him. That knowledge made the heat in my chest flare even brighter.
He led me through narrow, dimly lit corridors I hadn’t noticed before, the walls lined with rich mahogany panels and faint traces of old oil paint.
A side door appeared, slightly ajar, leading out into a wing of the estate I hadn’t realized existed. The night air hit me cool and sharp as I stepped outside, carrying the scent of chlorine and wet stone.
Ahead, a private pool gleamed beneath the moon, glass walls revealing the gardens below and the faint shimmer of Lake Como far off. Moonlight danced on the water, casting silver ribbons that mirrored the tension coiling tight in my chest.
Without hesitation, he reached the pool’s edge and stripped off his sweatpants in one fluid motion. Naked. Unapologetic. Exquisite.
I ducked instinctively behind a potted fern, my heart hammering so hard I thought he might hear it.
But even there, hidden, I couldn’t tear my eyes away.
Moonlight traced the hard lines of his shoulders, the taper of his waist, the firm curve of his ass.
I hated that my body responded, hated the traitorous warmth coiling low in my belly, hated the pull of desire that had nothing to do with reason or morality.
Then he dove.
The water swallowed him with barely a splash. His body moved with effortless grace beneath the surface, cutting clean arcs, powerful and relentless. Every stroke reminded me how much he dominated space—and life.
Jealousy twisted sharper. What if Seraphina’s room overlooked this? What if she appeared now, drawn by the same restlessness that always seemed to follow him?
Seconds stretched. His head remained submerged. Long seconds, far too many.
Panic clawed at me.
He wouldn’t drown himself—not intentionally. But accidents happened. Or games. He loved both.
The rational part of my mind screamed at me to wait, to call out, to reason. But instinct, the raw, frantic pulse of fear, overrode everything else.
I stepped from my hiding spot, jeans cold against wet stone, sweatshirt clinging to my skin. “Dmitri!” I called, voice sharp, echoing across the glass walls.
Silence.
No ripple. No splash. Only the soft lap of water against the pool edge.
I swallowed hard, the fear gnawing, the jealousy and desire twisting inside me in a confusing, dangerous knot. And then, without another thought, without hesitation, I dove. Jeans, sweater, everything.
The water swallowed me with a cold shock, pulling me into its depths.
The shock of cold water slammed into me like a physical blow, ripping the air from my lungs. The pool was far deeper than I’d imagined—an endless, yawning blue that swallowed sound and light alike. My eyes burned as I forced them open underwater, searching wildly for any sign of him.
Nothing.
Just depth. Silence. The vast, indifferent weight of water.