26. Mira #2
Actually smile. Not the practiced expression for manipulation, but something genuine that makes my cheeks hurt because those muscles have atrophied.
"Your accent is horrible." But there's no sting in it.
"I know." He grins, proud anyway. "But you're smiling. Really smiling. And you just called me beloved in your mother's language."
The weight of that hits me. I am. For the third time since meeting him, I'm genuinely smiling, and the feeling behind it is so foreign I can't name it.
Is this happiness?
The thought terrifies me more than any weapon.
I drift toward the living area, fingers trailing along the cold granite, then the rough brick wall, then the smooth leather of his couch. Anchoring myself in textures while memories flood through.
Jax follows, settling beside me close enough that his warmth registers against my skin. My body shifts toward him like a plant seeking sun.
"I spent years believing I had grieved properly." My hands find each other in my lap, fingers weaving patterns that aren't quite combat positions, aren't quite ballet. "But grief requires access to love. And he stole that so completely I didn't even know it was missing."
He shifts beside me, and I catch the muscle tick in his jaw that appears when he's processing something that makes him want to hit things.
My body responds to his tension, shifting closer even as my mind catalogues his stress points—the tight line of his shoulders, the way his fingers have stopped their usual tapping.
Something about my pain makes him violent. Good.
"The cottage cheese pancakes brought back her voice. Her actual voice." My chest tightens with the impossible gift of it. "She used to hum when she cooked. Off-key. Papa would tease her, say she was scaring the neighbors' cat. She'd throw dish towels at him."
I can see it so clearly now—our Moscow kitchen with its imported marble counters, steam on the tall windows, mama's apron with the sunflowers that looked so out of place against all that luxury.
"I haven't heard her voice in thirteen years. I forgot she hummed."
His hand finds mine again, and I realize I'm gripping my own fingers hard enough to leave marks. He gently untangles them, spreading my palm flat against his thigh. The heat of him through his jeans makes me hyperaware of every point of contact.
"That's why you test people. Push them away before they can get close."
The observation cuts straight through every defense I never knew I'd built.
"If you can't remember what healthy love feels like, how do you recognize it when someone offers it?
" My fingers trace patterns on his thigh now—not tactical, just needing to touch.
"I was sixteen. Sixteen, and he made me forget my mother's humming.
My father's terrible jokes. The way they'd dance in the kitchen after dinner, even when there was no music. "
"You learn again." His thumb traces circles on my wrist, right over the bruises he left. The touch is gentle, reverent, like he's memorizing the damage he caused. "Starting now. Starting with breakfast."
The simplicity of it makes my chest tight. My mind drifts, caught between past and present, between the mother who loved without condition and this man who googles Russian just to make me smile.
"Hey." He squeezes my hand gently. "Where'd you go?"
"I was trying to identify this feeling." The honesty slips out, made possible by breakfast and safety and the way he looks at me like I'm not broken. "When you make me smile. I don't think I remember what happiness feels like anymore."
His face does something complicated—anger and sorrow and determination all at once. His fingers tap that anxious rhythm against his knee, but slower now. More controlled.
"Then we'll figure it out together. Every breakfast, every terrible pronunciation, every time I make you smile." His voice drops, carrying a promise that makes my stomach flutter. "I'll learn every Russian word that makes you happy. Butcher the pronunciation until you laugh. Whatever it takes."
I want to believe him.
The thought is more terrifying than losing my weapon self. Because believing him means trusting that some things can be rebuilt. That the girl who used to sneak down hallways just to hear her parents say goodnight isn't completely gone.
"The syrniki are getting cold," I say instead.
"Can't have that." He doesn't push, doesn't demand more vulnerability than I've already given. "Want me to make more? I bought enough cottage cheese to feed a small army."
"Why?"
"Because I wanted to make sure I got it right." He flushes again, that shy energy returning but tempered with something more confident. "You deserve perfect breakfast. Especially after..." He gestures vaguely at the marks visible on both of us. "After I kind of lost control last night."
"We both did."
"Yeah, but—" He runs his hand through his hair again, making it stick up worse. "I've never been like that before. That intense. That... desperate to prove you belonged to me."
Mine.
The word rises violent and certain. Not his claim on me—my claim on him.
"I've never begged before." The admission comes out barely above a whisper. "Never lost control like that. Never felt..."
"Safe?"
The word hangs between us like a revelation.
Safe. That's what last night was. Not just losing control but feeling safe enough to lose it.
"Mikhail trained that out of me when I was seventeen." I trace the bite mark on his neck, watching him shiver. "Said begging was weakness that would get me killed."
"He was wrong." The conviction in his voice makes me look up. His eyes burn with something fierce and protective. "Everything he taught you was wrong."
"Was he?" I look up at him, my hand still on his neck. "I'm completely exposed right now. No defenses, no walls. If you wanted to—"
"I want to make you breakfast." His hand covers mine, pressing it harder against his neck like he wants me to leave a mark. "Every morning. Want to learn more Russian words to mangle. Want to make you smile until you remember what happiness feels like."
The words hit harder than any physical blow. This man is offering something I don't have defenses against.
"Why?"
"Because you deserve it." His voice drops to that rough register that makes heat pool between my legs. "Because underneath all that training, there's a girl who danced in her mother's kitchen. And she deserves to feel safe enough to dance again."
I think about that girl. How she believed beauty could exist without violence.
"She died when she was sixteen."
"Did she?" He gestures at my feet, which have shifted back into first position. "Because I see her right here, remembering what love tastes like."
Love.
The word should terrify me. Should send me running. Instead, it settles into my chest like coming home. Like something violent and possessive and mine.
I kiss him. Not strategic, not calculated. Pure need to be closer to someone who sees me as more than weapon or asset. My body presses against his, cataloguing new bruises from last night, wanting to add more. My core clenches with memory and fresh want.
When we break apart, we're both breathing hard. I straddle his lap, body seeking contact that has nothing to do with strategy.
"Your mother," he says quietly, hands finding my hips over the same bruises he left. "She'd be proud of who you are."
"She'd be horrified."
"No." His conviction surprises me. "She'd be proud you survived. That you still remember her syrniki. That you can still say дорогой and mean it."
"Maybe." I roll my hips slightly, feeling him respond beneath me, my body already wet despite the soreness. "Or maybe she'd just be happy I found someone who makes me remember what love feels like."
The word love hangs between us, too big and too soon but somehow exactly right. My body hums with the need to mark him again, to leave evidence that he's mine in ways that won't fade as quickly as bruises.
Mine. Mine. Mine.
The possessive loop in my head should terrify me. Instead, it feels like truth.
"Дорогой," I say again, just to see him smile.
"Moya dorogaya," he mangles back, just to make me laugh.
And for the first time in thirteen years, I think maybe some broken things can be rebuilt. Not fixed, not erased, but rebuilt into something new. Something dangerous in completely different ways.
The morning stretches around us, quiet except for our breathing and the distant sounds of the city waking up.
My body still aches from last night—deep, specific reminders of losing control.
But sitting here with him, straddling his lap while he holds my bruised hips, speaking Russian words I thought I'd forgotten. ..
I want to keep him.
The thought hits violent and sudden. Not just want him—want to keep him. Lock him away where no one else can see him smile like this. Where no one else can watch him fumble through making breakfast while rambling nervously. Where he's just mine.
"I should go." The words tear out of me as I slide off his lap.
"What?" His whole demeanor shifts, panic flashing across his features. "Why?"
I pace to the window, fingers finding the glass. The cold grounds me but my reflection shows dilated pupils, flushed cheeks, the look of someone coming apart. "Because when you were making breakfast, I had seventeen different thoughts about killing any woman who might teach you that recipe."
"Mira—"
I spin to face him, and the words pour out like blood from a wound.
"Because I memorized every tell your body has when you sleep—the way you breathe, how you curl your fingers, that little furrow between your brows that only smooths when I touch you.
Because right now, the only thing stopping me from marking you so deeply you'll never wash me off is that you're looking at me with those fucking earnest eyes. "
He stands, moving toward me with that focused intensity that makes my body ache.
"I don't have walls anymore, Jax. Do you understand what that means?" My voice cracks as I back toward the door. "There's nothing between what I feel and what I'll do about it. Nothing to stop me from—"
"No."
The word comes out raw, commanding. Before I can reach the door, he's there—one hand slamming against the wood beside my head, his body caging me in. His shoulders square, jaw set, every line of him radiating controlled power.
Then he looks at me—really looks at me—and I watch it crumble.
"You don't get to—God, I don't know how to say this right—" His free hand runs through his hair, messing it worse, but he doesn't move away, doesn't give me space to run. "You think you're the only one who's fucked up here?"
His fingers start that telltale tapping against the door, rapid staccato that matches his heartbeat where his chest presses against mine.
"I've been obsessed with you since that first night. Can't think straight when you're in the room. Can't breathe right when you're not." His eyes are wild, desperate. "I memorized the way you check exits so I could position myself between you and doors without you noticing. Like right fucking now."
My breath catches. I had noticed him doing it but thought it was unconscious protectiveness. Not deliberate. Not planned. My nipples tighten against my shirt at the calculated possession of it.
"Three days." His voice drops, rough and wanting. "We have three days of pretending to prep for San Francisco when all I'll be thinking about is the way you look when you come apart."
His hand leaves the door to cup my face, thumb tracing my cheekbone with devastating gentleness despite the wildness in his eyes.
"Stay." The word breaks from him, all that controlled power crumbling into something raw and needy. "Please. Don't run just because you're feeling things. Don't leave because the walls are down. Stay and feel them with me."
My hands are already fisted in his shirt, pulling him closer even as my mind screams danger.
"I'm going to get us both killed." The words come out against his throat where I can feel his pulse racing.
My tongue flicks out to taste his skin without permission.
"I'm the girl who's memorizing your weaknesses while you hold me.
The one who's already calculated seventeen ways to keep you if you try to leave me. "
"Good." His voice drops to something dangerous, nothing like his usual golden retriever warmth. "You want to mark me? Do it. Want to kill for me? Get in line behind what I'd do to anyone who touches you."