Chapter 7 Sage #2
The last accusation bursts out before I can stop it, petty and ridiculous compared to everything else, but somehow it feels important.
My mind flashes with images of the collision outside Bean & Bloom, coffee splattered across me and the pavement after Vega knocked into me with enthusiastic friendliness, his tail wagging like we were old friends reuniting after years apart.
Vega lifts his head at the mention of his transgression, ears twitching as if I've personally insulted his character.
His dark eyes flick from me to Luka, then back again, before he releases a long-suffering sigh that sounds almost human in its exasperation.
He drops his muzzle back to his paws with an air of wounded dignity. Even he thinks I'm being unreasonable.
Luka’s expression doesn’t change, but a flicker sparks behind his hazel eyes. He steps inside with movements so controlled they terrify me more than sudden violence ever could. Each stride closes the distance between us with inevitable certainty, like a tide rolling in against the shore.
The door clicks shut behind him, the sound resonating through my bones. Another barrier between me and escape, reminding me that I'm completely at his mercy.
My back hits the wall before I realize I've retreated. Heat courses through my veins as Luka continues his approach. Six steps. Five. Four. Each one brings him closer until I can see the faint stubble shadowing his jaw, and the way his pupils dilate as his eyes rake over me from head to toe.
My chest heaves with uneven breaths I can't control, and I force myself to hold his stare even though every instinct screams at me to look away and make myself small and unthreatening.
But I've never been good at making myself small.
My mother taught me better than that, raising me to stand tall even when everything inside wants to crumble.
“Enemies don't glare at me the way you do, printsessa.”
The words slide across my skin, making me shiver. His voice is low, mocking, and smooth as silk. The Russian endearment sounds condescending yet intimate. Princess. He calls me princess like it's an insult and an endearment all at once, as if he can't decide whether to punish me or protect me.
“What about my café?” The words tumble out, desperation bleeding through the anger. “What happens when I’m not there in the morning? Jenny can’t run it on her own. Do you know what one day of lost sales will do to me? It will be on your conscience when I lose everything!” I shout.
My hands fly up, shoving at his chest with all the strength I can summon.
The impact jars through my arms, shooting pain up to my shoulders, accomplishing nothing except proving how futile resistance truly is.
I may as well have pushed against the stone wall behind me for all the good it does.
He doesn't budge, doesn't even sway, just stands there absorbing my fury like it's nothing more than a passing breeze.
His hands flash upward before I can try again, catching my wrists in an iron grip that stops my second attempt before it begins.
He pins them against the wall above my head in one effortless motion, his hold unyielding but not cruel, the pressure just firm enough to make his point without causing pain.
My pulse thunders beneath his fingers, betraying every emotion I'm trying to hide. Fear and fury, and a pull I refuse to acknowledge even in the privacy of my own thoughts.
I should scream. I should claw and fight until someone hears and help arrives, breaking this terrible tension building between us like a thunderstorm waiting to unleash. My voice should be echoing through this cabin, bringing whoever else might be here running to investigate.
But the sound dies in my throat because his eyes have caught me, tethering me in place with the sheer intensity of his stare.
Gold and green swirl together, burning with emotions as his face hovers inches from mine.
I can see the darker ring around his irises, and the way his pupils flare as his gaze drops to my mouth.
“Let me go.” My voice cracks, breathless and weak, even as I dig my nails against his hand. The demand sounds more like a plea, stripped of the fire I intended, exposing a vulnerability I hate in my own voice.
He doesn't respond or acknowledge my words at all. Instead, his mouth crashes onto mine.
The kiss isn't gentle. It isn't careful or tentative or any of the things a first kiss should be.
It's searing and brutal, filled with anger, suspicion, and need tangled together so tightly I can't pull them apart.
His lips devour mine with demanding intensity, punishing me for every protest I've made, and silencing every accusation with the taste of him.
Fire surges through my veins, fierce and unrelenting, pooling low in my stomach and racing outward until every nerve ending burns with awareness.
My wrists strain against his hold, but the movement is no longer about escape.
It’s about wanting to pull him closer and give in to the wildness that’s been burning inside me since the first time he walked into my café.
His hand releases one of my wrists, sliding down to seize my hip with bruising force.
He hauls me flush against him, eliminating every inch of space between our bodies until I can feel the hard planes of his chest, the coiled strength in his arms, and the evidence of his desire pressing against my stomach.
My free hand tangles in his hair before conscious thought can stop it, my fingers threading through dark waves that feel like silk. I should be pushing him away. Instead, I'm pulling him closer, angling my head to deepen the kiss, meeting his aggression with my own desperate need.
My breath comes in ragged gasps against his mouth. His tongue strokes against mine, rough and insistent, demanding a response I can't withhold, no matter how hard I try to resist. The taste of him floods my senses, making my knees weaken and my resolve crumble.
I'm furious at him. Furious at myself. At the situation. And still, I can't stop kissing him back.
A broken sound escapes my throat, half protest and half plea, a noise I've never made before and don't recognize as my own.
It only seems to fuel him, making him kiss me harder, his body pressing into mine until I'm drowning in sensation.
His scent wraps around me, cedar, smoke, and expensive cologne threaded with the raw heat of his skin, burrowing into my consciousness and making me forget for one terrifying heartbeat where I am and why I should hate this.
The world tilts and narrows until nothing exists except the heat of his mouth and the iron strength of his body pinning me in place. My hand in his hair tugs slightly, having something to hold onto while everything else spins out of control.
I want to hate it. I want to hate him for taking this choice from me and making me feel things I have no right to feel. He’s holding me prisoner, suspects me of crimes I don’t understand, and has the power to destroy everything I’ve built. But instead, I burn.
His lips travel from my mouth, trailing rough kisses down my jaw to the hollow of my throat.
My head tips back against the wall, granting him access in a betrayal so complete I can't process it.
My body has chosen a side my mind refuses to accept, arching into his touch, seeking more even as logic screams at me to fight.
His teeth graze my pulse point, a warning and a promise all in one, and my knees nearly give way.
Only his body pressed against mine keeps me from sliding down the wall into a puddle of want and confusion.
His hand on my hip tightens, his fingers digging into flesh through the fabric of my clothes, holding me steady while simultaneously pulling me closer.
“Stop.” The word gasps out, weak and splintered, drowned in desire I can't silence. “I hate you.”
He makes a sound against my throat, dark and knowing, vibrating through my skin in a way that liquefies my bones. The rumble of it travels through my entire body, settling somewhere deep in my core. When he speaks, his voice is rough and threaded with an accent that thickens with emotion.
“Liar.”
The single word unravels me more than the kiss itself. It strips away the last pretense of resistance, exposing the truth I've been desperately trying to hide. I don't hate this. I don't hate him, not entirely, or the way I should. And he knows it.
I shove again, harder this time, my palm flat against his chest, pushing with every ounce of strength I possess.
I twist my captured wrist in his grip, trying to break free through sheer force of will.
But his hold only tightens, his fingers circling my delicate bones with unyielding strength, keeping me exactly where he wants me.
My entire body is alive with sensation, every inch of me screaming with contradiction.
I want him closer. I want him gone. I want him to kiss me again and never touch me.
I want him to explain everything and ask nothing.
I want things that make no sense and have no place in the disaster my life has become.
Then suddenly, he tears himself away. The loss slams into me harder than his kiss did, leaving me cold and gasping against the wall.
My lips feel swollen, tender from the fierceness of what just happened.
My wrists ache where he held them, though I know there won't be bruises.
He was too disciplined for that, even in the midst of passion that felt anything but restrained.
He steps back, putting distance between us that feels simultaneously too much and not enough.
His chest heaves with the same ragged breaths that tear through my lungs, proving he's not as unaffected as he wants to appear.
His lips look damp and reddened, evidence of our collision written across his face.
But it's his eyes that steal my breath all over again. They blaze with an intensity that terrifies me more than his suspicions or the door keeping me trapped. He looks wild, like the careful mask he wears has slipped just enough to reveal the man beneath. He seems as undone as I feel.
His hand drags through his dark hair, disrupting the perfect waves into disarray. The gesture makes him look less like the untouchable crime lord and more like a man seconds from losing control of himself entirely. His jaw clenches, the muscle jumping beneath the stubble shadowing his face.
He mutters something harsh in Russian, the syllables sharp as broken glass.
I don't understand the words, but I feel their meaning in the way his jaw clenches, the tension radiating from his shoulders, and his hands curled into fists at his sides like he's physically restraining himself from reaching for me again.
His gaze cuts back to me, dark and dangerous, before he spits the translation like a curse aimed at both of us.
“Opasna devushka. Dangerous girl.”
And then he’s gone.
The door shuts with the finality of a gunshot, the lock engaging with a decisive click that echoes through the bedroom.
I'm left trembling against the wall, my lips swollen and tender, my body still humming with fire I don't want to admit exists.
My freed hands fist at my sides, my nails digging crescent moons into my palms as I try to steady myself and make sense of what just happened.
I hate him. But I hate myself more. Because even now, alone with Vega in this locked room with his taste still on my lips and my body singing with want, every part of me aches for him to come back and set me aflame all over again.