Chapter 12 Surrender In The Dark #2
His hand left my throat and slid down between us. Fingers dragging along my stomach, then lower, finding wet heat like he’d put it there on purpose.
He didn’t waste time.
Two fingers pushed into me, stretching, filling. His thumb found my clit, circling in that cruel, perfect rhythm he was already too good at.
“Give me your anger,” he murmured. “Give me all of it. Your hatred. Your fear. Leave only the need.”
I didn’t want to.
Because somewhere along the line, I’d stopped hating him. Or I hated him and wanted him in equal measure, and the wanting was winning.
“I’m ready to fuck you now, kotyonok,” he growled, voice thick. “I’ll fuck you so well you’ll forget your own name.”
Promises. Promises.
He pulled his fingers free, unzipped his pants, and freed his cock. My body remembered the size, the stretch, and clenched in reflex anticipation.
Then he was there.
Pressing into me in one long, slow thrust.
The burn was familiar now. The sweet, horrible fullness. My walls fought, then yielded, and he didn’t stop until he was as deep as he could go.
For a second, neither of us moved.
“Look at me,” he said.
I did.
His eyes were wild. Possessive. Worshipful in the most fucked-up way.
Then he started to move.
Hard, sure strokes at first, driving me into the mattress, making the headboard bump softly against the wall in a rhythm the Christmas music on the speakers tried and failed to match.
He found my mouth again, kissing me like he was trying to eat the sound out of my lungs. His hand went back to my throat, not to cut off air, just to remind my body who it was opening for.
“Come for me,” he ordered, fingers abandoning my wrists to work my clit again. “Now.”
Too much. Too fast.
Every muscle tightened, strung so tight they had nowhere left to go. The pressure built and built until it snapped.
I came with a raw, broken sound, body clenching around him, the world bleaching out at the edges. He didn’t let up. Kept fucking me through it, using my convulsing body like the perfect sheath it had become for him.
Somewhere in there, he lost it too.
His thrusts turned ragged. He cursed against my neck, bit my shoulder, and then I felt his release—hot and deep and final.
He stayed inside me until the last tremor passed, until our breaths synced, until the music in the background slid quietly from one carol to another.
We lay there tangled in each other and sheets and mistakes. My chest heaved. His hand slackened around my throat and slid down to rest over my racing heart.
For the first time since I’d stumbled into that tree lot, I didn’t think about escape.
“Regrets?” he asked eventually, voice rough.
“A million,” I said. “Ask me tomorrow.”
He huffed a sound that might’ve been a laugh and rolled to his side, propping his head on his hand to study me.
The look in his eyes made my skin feel too small. Softer. But still edged with that unshakable possession.
“That I can’t hate you anymore,” I admitted, the truth slipping out before I could catch it. “And that terrifies me.”
Surprise flickered across his face, then something like recognition. His hand came up, cupping my cheek again, thumb rubbing the edge of my mouth.
“You should be terrified,” he said quietly. “This thing between us? It’s going to get us both killed.”
Probably.
But lying there, wrapped in his warmth and the faint glow of Christmas lights reflecting off the glass, I couldn’t make myself care.
“Then we’d better make it worth it,” I whispered.
He stared at me like he was trying to memorize every part, like he was afraid of forgetting and more afraid of remembering.
For a second, I saw fear.
Not mine. His.
Not of enemies or bullets or losing power.
Fear of this. Of me. Of whatever we were building in this glass cage while the rest of the world slept under fairy lights.
“What happens now?” I asked. The question had been eating at me since the first time he’d put his hands on me.
“Now?” His thumb traced my bottom lip again, slower. “Now we survive whatever comes next.”
Like it was simple. Like we were on the same side.
The thought sent a thrill through me I didn’t have the courage to unpack.
Outside, the city hummed—horns, distant sirens, people stumbling out of bars, living lives that didn’t involve Bratva politics or blood on snow. Somewhere, someone was wrapping last-minute Christmas presents. Somewhere, a kid was leaving out cookies for a man who didn’t exist.
Forty floors up, I was falling asleep in the arms of a very different kind of myth.
I couldn’t hate him anymore.
That terrified me.
So did the fact that I loved how his arm tightened around me as sleep pulled at my edges, like he wasn’t letting go even in dreams.
If loving Konstantin Zverev got me killed, so be it.
I was his now.
He was mine.
And whatever came next—wedding bells, war bells, or death knells—we’d face it together.
For the first time since the tree lot, I fell asleep without plotting an exit.
Tomorrow everything would change.
Tonight, under a Christmas city and a monster’s blanket, was just us.
And somehow, that was enough.