Chapter Thirty-Six
Ilona
I can’t sleep.
I’ve been lying here for hours, staring at the ceiling of this impossibly luxurious guest suite while my mind churns through Osip’s proposition like a washing machine stuck on the spin cycle.
One million Euros.
A baby.
The chance to have everything I thought endometriosis had stolen from me.
What kind of universe does he live in?
In the normal world— the world I used to inhabit before financial desperation led me to Osip’s home— people don’t make offers like this. They don’t sit behind mahogany desks with the calm authority of kings and propose business arrangements that involve growing their children inside your body.
But Osip Sidorov doesn’t live in the normal world. That much became crystal clear the moment I stumbled into his secret room. The weapons, the cash, the toys that spoke of appetites I’m only beginning to understand— all of it painted a picture of a man who operates by rules I’ve never encountered.
Should I be scared?
Every rational brain cell I have left screams yes . This is dangerous territory, uncharted waters that could swallow me whole without leaving a trace.
But somehow, I’m not afraid.
Not of him, anyway.
Maybe that makes me insane. Maybe the endorphins from last night’s earth-shattering sex have scrambled my brain beyond repair.
But when I think about Osip Sidorov— really think about him— all I feel is this strange certainty that I can trust him.
That beneath all that controlled violence and wealth and secrecy, there’s something solid. Something that would never hurt me.
God, Ilona.
Listen to yourself.
The thought of having sex with him regularly— even if it’s just a “baby-making operation,” as my brain keeps cynically labeling it— has my girl parts doing a happy dance.
I press my palms against my eyes, but it doesn’t stop the vivid replays. His lips, his hands, his palm on the bare flesh of my ass. His magnificent cock— because, let’s face it, it is magnificent.
And now he wants me to carry his child.
The idea should terrify me. Should send me bolting back all the way to Boston with my tail between my legs. Instead, it makes something deep in my chest flutter with possibilities I don’t dare name.
Stop thinking about it!
You have three days to decide.
Use them wisely.
But my treacherous mind won’t cooperate. It keeps circling back to the heat in his eyes when he made the offer, the careful way he watched my reactions like they mattered more than he was letting on.
Professional, he’d said.
Just business.
Bullshit.
Nothing about the way our bodies responded to each other could ever be classified as professional.
The man makes me wet just by being in the same room as me.
How the hell would we manage months of pregnancy-related doctor’s appointments and discussions about hormone cycles without combusting from sexual tension?
I kick off the Egyptian cotton sheets and pad barefoot to the windows. Budapest glitters below like scattered diamonds, all those lives going about their normal business while I lie here contemplating surrogacy arrangements with Russian criminals.
Alleged Russian criminals, I correct myself, though the weapons cache pretty much settled that question.
The house around me feels alive with secrets, humming with energy I can’t identify.
Maybe it’s just the knowledge that Osip is sleeping somewhere in this house, all that unchecked sex appeal finally at rest. The thought of him unconscious and vulnerable does something twisted to my insides— makes me want to see him with his guard down, discover what he looks like when he’s not performing the role of a restrained businessman.
Fresh air.
That’s what I need.
Something to clear my head and wash away the scent of expensive cologne and dangerous possibilities that seems to cling to everything in this place.
I slip into leggings and an oversized sweater, moving quietly through hallways lined with artwork that probably belongs in museums. Every surface gleams with the kind of wealth that insulates people from consequences, the kind of money that makes problems disappear.
As I pass Osip’s bedroom door, sounds from within make me freeze.
“Galina… save her… our child! No!”
The words tear through the silence, raw with pain that makes my chest tighten in sympathy. I pause with my hand on the banister, torn between the urge to help and the knowledge that I’m already in dangerous territory with this man.
Another anguished shout decides for me.
Nobody should suffer alone in their sleep.
The door stands slightly ajar— whether from carelessness or some subconscious need for connection, I can’t tell. Through the gap, I can see him thrashing against silky sheets, his powerful body contorting with the force of whatever demons are chasing him through his dreams.
“Galina,” he cries again, and things start to make sense with devastating clarity.
Galina.
The pregnant woman in the photograph.
Understanding crashes over me like an icy wave. This isn’t just about wanting a child— it’s about replacing one. Someone named Galina was pregnant with his baby, and something happened to them both. Something that still haunts his sleep months or maybe years later.
I don’t remember making the decision to enter his room. One moment I’m hovering in the hallway, the next I’m standing beside his bed. The moonlight streaming through the windows illuminates the sharp planes of his face, highlighting the tension that persists even in sleep.
“Sshh,” I whisper, my hand settling on his shoulder before I can second-guess the impulse. “It’s okay. You’re just having a nightmare.”
His skin burns beneath my palm, fever-hot and slick with sweat. The contact seems to reach him through whatever hell he’s experiencing— his body relaxes slightly, the violent thrashing subsiding into restless shifting.
For a moment, his eyes flutter open. Silver-gray in the darkness, unfocused but achingly vulnerable. He looks directly at me without really seeing me, caught somewhere between dreaming and waking. Then his lids drift closed again, and I realize he’s not truly conscious.
But his body knows I’m here.
Responds to my presence in ways that make my breath catch.
He tosses again, kicking off the sheet with an impatient movement that leaves him completely exposed.
Holy shit!
The moonlight turns his skin to marble and shadow, highlighting every sculpted muscle and intricate tattoo. He’s beautiful naked— all that power on full display, dangerous even in vulnerability. My gaze travels over his impossibly broad chest, down the defined ridges of his abs, to—
Oh my God.
He’s rock hard.
His cock stands proud and thick against his stomach, flushed dark with arousal that has nothing to do with his nightmare and everything to do with whatever’s happening in the deeper levels of his unconscious mind.
I should leave. Should flee this room before he wakes up and finds me standing here like some creepy voyeur getting off on his pain. But then his hand shoots out, fingers wrapping around my wrist with surprising accuracy for someone who’s asleep.
His grip is firm but not painful, warm and possessive in a way that makes my pulse skip. I try to pull away gently, but his hold only tightens. Like some part of him recognizes my presence and refuses to let me go.
Shit.
What the hell are you doing, girl?
But even as my rational mind screams warnings, my body betrays me. I move closer instead of farther away, drawn by some magnetic force I can’t name or resist. My free hand settles on his shoulder again, stroking the heated skin with careful touches meant to soothe.
It’s arousing and comforting at the same time— this intimate glimpse behind his armor, this moment where he needs something I can give. He’s always so controlled, so carefully composed. Seeing him soft like this, even in sleep, makes something fierce and protective unfurl in my chest.
My gaze keeps drifting to his erection. I can’t help it. He’s beautiful everywhere, but there’s something mesmerizing about the evidence of his desire. Thick and perfectly formed, the head flushed dark with blood. A bead of moisture glistens at the tip, catching the moonlight like a jewel.
“This is no time to think about sex,” I tell myself firmly. “The man is having trauma nightmares, for God’s sake!”
But my body doesn’t care about appropriate timing.
My pussy clenches as I continue stroking his shoulder, his muscular arm, anything I can reach without disturbing his grip on my wrist. The combination of his vulnerability and his raw masculinity is intoxicating in ways I don’t want to examine too closely.
His erection grows even harder under my attention, if that’s possible. The sight makes my mouth water with want, makes me remember exactly how he felt stretching me open, fucking me with a thoroughness that left me shaking.
“Ilona.”
My name falls from his lips, soft but unmistakably clear. The sound shoots straight to the center of me, making my inner walls tighten around nothing. Even in sleep, even while battling demons from his past, some part of him is thinking about me.
Holy shit.
Holy freaking shit!
This whole scene is insanely hot. Wrong on about fifteen different levels, but hot nonetheless. My pussy is dripping just from touching his skin, from hearing him say my name in that voice rough with sleep and dreams.
He doesn’t wake up, though part of me wants him to.
Wants those silvery eyes to focus on me with full awareness, wants to see what would happen if he found me here like this.
But I also don’t want him to wake up. It would complicate everything, force conversations I’m not ready to have about boundaries we’ve already obliterated.
So I stay. Stroke his skin until the tension finally bleeds out of his huge frame, until his breathing evens out into the deeper rhythms of peaceful sleep. His grip on my wrist relaxes gradually, though he doesn’t release me entirely.
The erection takes longer to fade. I watch, mesmerized, as his cock gradually softens against his stomach. Even semi-hard, he’s impressive. The kind of man who would fill you completely, stretch you to your limits, make you forget your own name.
Focus, Ilona.
When I’m certain he’s settled into deeper sleep, I carefully work my wrist free of his loosened grip. He makes a small sound of protest but doesn’t wake, just shifts onto his side with one hand reaching toward the space where I was standing.
Looking for me, even unconscious.
My chest fills with emotions I can’t name.
I force myself to back away from the bed, from the temptation to crawl in beside him and offer comfort I have no right to give. At the doorway, I pause for one last look at the man who’s turned my world upside down in less than twenty-four hours.
Moonlight and shadow paint him in shades of silver and darkness, highlighting the softness he’d never let me see while awake.
This is what loss looks like, I realize.
This is what it means to carry ghosts.
Once outside his room, I lean against the hallway wall and try to remember how to breathe. My heart pounds against my ribs like it’s trying to escape, and the dampness between my thighs reminds me exactly how affected I am by what just happened.
I wanted to jump his bones so badly it physically hurt. Wanted to climb into that bed and wake him up with my mouth on his cock, wanted to feel him come alive beneath my hands and forget whatever nightmares were chasing him.
The intensity of my need should scare me. Instead, it clarifies something I’ve been trying to ignore since he made his impossible offer.
I don’t want his money. Don’t want a business arrangement or a professional relationship or whatever clinical terms he used to describe growing his child.
I want him.
All of him.
The dangerous parts and the gentle parts and everything in between.
And all of that is just plain nuts.
“Fresh air,” I remind myself. “That’s why you got up in the first place.”
But as I make my way downstairs and toward the garden doors, I can’t shake the image of Osip naked in moonlight, saying my name like I might be the answer to prayers he’s afraid to voice.
Three days to decide.
Suddenly, that feels like both forever and nowhere near enough time.