Chapter 29
29
ANNA
“I don’t know,” I said, voice low and raw. “If there’s a connection to the government, or the CIA, or anything else … I swear, Atlas. I don’t know.”
He didn’t respond right away.
The shadows on the cottage walls flickered, rain lashing against the roof in relentless waves. Wind howled through the eaves, pressing at the structure like it could sense the fault lines inside us—how close we were to cracking open.
“I believe you,” Atlas said at last.
He was sitting on the edge of the bed, bare back curved, the muscles in his shoulders coiled like they hadn’t yet decided whether to rest or fight. I reached for the sheet and pulled it up around me, more for something to hold than modesty. There was no modesty left between us.
“I wouldn’t lie to you,” I whispered.
His head turned slightly, just enough for me to see the tension in his jaw. “I know you wouldn’t.”
I moved to him slowly, wrapping my arms around his torso from behind. My cheek pressed to the line of his spine, my fingers resting just over his heart.
“But something felt off this morning,” I admitted. “When I asked Papa why they left Russia. He said there were things they hadn’t told me. That some doors shouldn’t be opened.”
Atlas’s hand covered mine. Warm. Grounding.
“And now you’re wondering if those doors were keeping something out …” he murmured, “… or keeping something in.”
A chill slid through me that had nothing to do with the storm.
I nodded against his skin. “They’ve always been careful. Private. But today—Papa said they didn’t always know how to show it, but they were trying. That silence can hurt. And then he said something else … something that didn’t hit me until now.”
“What?”
I swallowed. “He said he’d been ready for a long time.”
Atlas turned toward me then, slowly, like he was trying not to startle me. His eyes found mine, and the storm outside wasn’t nearly as wild as what I saw in him—fury, grief, protection honed into steel.
“He’s not a fool,” Atlas said. “Neither is your mother. I brought them to Dominion because I don’t protect only the woman I love. I protect what she loves, too.”
My breath caught.
He’d said it so easily.
Like love was fact, not question.
But it wasn’t just the words. It was everything in his gaze. The way he watched me like I was something holy and human all at once.
“I think they’ve been in danger for a long time,” I said softly. “And maybe I just haven’t seen it.”
Atlas nodded. “Maybe they haven’t wanted you to.”
He reached for me then—slow, reverent—and drew me into his lap. I let the sheet slip, bare skin pressed to his as he wrapped his arms around me. One hand splayed low on my back. The other curled gently around the nape of my neck, holding me in place like I might vanish.
“I’m going to find out who’s coming,” he said, voice like low thunder. “I’m going to cut out the rot and make them bleed for even thinking they could touch you. Or your family.”
I stared at him, my fingers tangled in the hair at the base of his neck.
“And if it’s already too late?” I asked.
His grip tightened. “Then I make them regret ever waking up this morning.”
I kissed him then—not because I wanted to quiet him, but because I needed the taste of that promise on my tongue. He answered with hunger, with the slow press of his mouth over mine, with the steady thrum of his body winding back into mine like we were forged to fit.
It wasn’t rough this time.
It was reverent.
Slow.
He laid me down, covering me with his weight, with his heat, and worshiped every inch of me like the world had offered him one last sacred thing and he refused to waste it.
He didn’t rush.
He kissed my neck slowly, open-mouthed and hot, letting his teeth graze just enough to make me shiver. His fingers traced the inside of my thighs with maddening patience, touching everywhere except where I needed him most. He was deliberate like that—silent and relentless in his attention, building the pressure one breath at a time.
“I wish I knew more to tell you,” I whispered, arching into his touch. “About my parents.”
Atlas didn’t stop. His mouth moved to my collarbone, then lower, dragging fire across my skin, the coarse brush of his beard making me gasp as it scraped gently over the sensitive curve. “But you think something’s there.”
“My father was … different this morning. He looked like he was remembering something he didn’t want to. Or maybe preparing for something he couldn’t stop.”
His hand cupped my breast, thumb circling my nipple until I gasped. “People who leave under pressure don’t forget. They bury. They build over the cracks.”
I bit my lip, heat blooming between my legs. “What did he bury?”
“I don’t know. Yet.” His voice rasped at the base of my throat. “But I brought them to Dominion for a reason. Mostly because they’re your parents, Anna. But also because they’re people worth protecting.”
My chest ached. “You respect them.”
“Of course, I do.” He flicked his tongue over the peak of my breast, then sucked it into his mouth. I moaned, arching harder. “They left everything behind to raise a daughter who still believes in truth. In music. In love.”
I tangled my fingers in his hair, holding him close. “I didn’t even know if we had family back in Russia. Aunts, uncles, grandparents. Maybe they cut ties to protect us. Or maybe …”
“Maybe those people are still out there. Maybe they weren’t safe enough to bring with them. Or trusted enough to keep close.” He lifted his head, eyes burning into mine. “That’s what it’s like sometimes. When you run. You don’t just leave the danger. You leave the roots, too.”
I swallowed. “But my father’s not exactly hidden. He’s been at MIT for years. Teaching. Publishing. Giving talks. How does that work if someone’s hunting?”
Atlas slid a hand down between my thighs and parted me with a slow, reverent touch. I gasped, hips lifting into his palm.
“Because sometimes the best place to hide,” he murmured, “is in the open. A man with a name, a life, a family—that reads as stable. Predictable. Not a threat. As long as he stays quiet.”
I trembled under his fingers, heat building fast. “But he’s not safe, is he?”
“No,” Atlas said quietly. “Not anymore.”
The words hit hard. I blinked up at the ceiling, the stormlight flashing across it in pale ribbons. “If something happens to them …”
“It won’t.” His hand moved slower now, deeper, coaxing pleasure and pain in equal measure. “Because I’ll bury whatever comes for them. Just like I will for you.”
My breath hitched. “You’d protect all of us.”
He leaned down, his lips a whisper against mine. “One day, I’ll be protecting more.”
I blinked. “More?”
His smile was faint but sure. “Our future. Our family. Little wild things with your laugh and my temper. Kids who’ll never have to run.”
I didn’t know whether to cry or kiss him. So I did both.
When he finally slid inside me, it wasn’t a conquest.
It was a promise.
It was a vow.
His forehead pressed to mine, his eyes locked on mine, and every thrust was deliberate—measured and deep, dragging us both toward something that felt older than love and bigger than fear. I wrapped my legs around him, hips lifting to meet every slow grind of his body into mine, and when we came—together, trembling, silent—it wasn’t a climax.
It was communion.
Afterward, when the storm screamed louder outside and the lights flickered above us, he pulled me close and held me like nothing could touch me here.
“You were born for music,” he murmured against my hair. “But I was born for war. So let me handle this one, Anna.”
I closed my eyes.
Not because I wanted to retreat, but because I needed to feel it fully—his arms around me, his heartbeat steady against my back, the echo of his body still moving inside mine like it hadn’t quite let me go. Maybe it never would. Maybe that was the point.
“I don’t know how we got here so fast,” I whispered, the words small and raw in the hush between us. “How we became this.”
Atlas didn’t answer right away. His hand drifted over my ribs, fingers splaying wide like he wanted to memorize the rhythm of my breath.
“We didn’t fall,” he said quietly. “We collided.”
I let out a soft sound—half laugh, half sigh—as I turned in his arms. His eyes were already on me, steady and unblinking.
“You make it sound inevitable,” I said.
“It was,” he murmured. “From the first moment I heard you play.”
I blinked, surprised. “Really?”
He nodded, tracing a line from my collarbone to my navel, the touch feather-light and reverent. “I walked into that dinner party thinking I was there to investigate a threat. Instead, I found the only thing in my life that didn’t feel like one.”
My throat tightened.
“You played like someone with nothing left to lose, and I—” His jaw clenched. “I wanted to know you. Really know you.”
I laid my hand against his chest, right over the scar above his heart. “You were so still that night. Like you didn’t need anyone to see you.”
“I didn’t,” he said. “Until you looked at me. And then I did.”
I leaned in, kissed the scar, then another, then another. A slow path across his chest like I could kiss away the stories he hadn’t yet told me. The violence. The parts of him that wouldn’t fit into daylight.
“And now?” I asked softly. “What do you see when you look at me?”
He cupped my face, thumbs brushing just beneath my eyes. “The end of the war.”
My chest cracked wide.
We kissed again—slow, deep, tangled in sheets and secrets and everything still left to say. His body pressed to mine, skin to skin, and I could feel him harden again between us. Not demanding. Not urgent. Just present. Wanting.
I shifted beneath him, parting my thighs, wrapping my arms around his neck as he settled back over me.
My lips brushed his jaw, my breath warm against his ear. “I’d be wet and ready for you anytime. I’m a woman who knows what she wants. And I want you.”
He stilled, just for a moment, like the words landed somewhere deep.
I smiled, tracing my fingers down the tense line of his back. “Doesn’t matter if the world’s falling apart outside or if it’s a quiet morning and you’ve just walked in from a run. You want me, Atlas? I’m yours. Always.”
His forehead dropped to mine, a breath catching in his throat.
“I love being your soft spot,” I whispered. “Your exhale. Your home. I want to be the place you fall when the weight gets too heavy.”
A sound rumbled from his chest, low and rough, like he was trying to say something but couldn’t find the language for it.
“You give everything,” I said. “To everyone. But with me? You don’t have to carry it all.”
His mouth crushed mine then, and the way he kissed me—desperate and reverent and all-consuming—told me he heard every word. Every promise. Every vow I didn’t need to say out loud.
Because they were already written in the way my body opened for his.
In the way my heart broke and rebuilt itself just to make room for him.
In the way I’d wait for him. Every time. Forever.
“You sure you’re not too tired from all that righteous fury?” I teased, breath catching as his cock slid against my slick heat.
His mouth curved into a sinful smile. “I can multitask.”
He pushed in deeper, slowly, deliberately, drawing a sharp gasp from my throat as my nails dug into his back.
“But I have to ask,” he murmured near my ear, voice low and dark, his hips barely moving now, just the thick weight of him stretching me open, holding me on the edge. “That toy I left you …”
I froze slightly, breath stuttering.
“The one in the case,” he went on, lips brushing my jaw. “Did it make you come like this?”
A flush crawled down my neck. “It’s not the same.”
“No,” he said, dragging his hips back, then driving forward again, deeper this time. “It’s not.”
His teeth grazed my throat. “But did you think of me when you used it?”
“Yes,” I breathed, arching into him. “You know I did.”
He groaned against my skin, his pace quickening now, the tension in his body winding tighter. “Did you say my name?”
I moaned as he slammed deeper, my head tipping back against the pillow. “Yes.”
Atlas growled, a dark, possessive sound that vibrated down my spine.
“I gave you that so you would feel good,” he said, voice thick with heat. “But don’t confuse it with me. That toy doesn’t look at you like I do. Doesn’t know your sounds. Doesn’t come undone the second you say my name.”
His hand found mine above my head, fingers threading through, pinning me down with a kind of brutal tenderness.
“You're mine, Anna,” he rasped.
And then he sank into me again—slow, endless, like he had all the time in the world to remind me exactly what we were building here. Not just love. Not just lust.
Something unshakable.
Something that would hold through any storm.