Chapter 7 #4
She read with total absorption, the way she did everything when she thought I wasn't watching.
One foot tucked under her thigh. Lower lip caught between her teeth during tense passages.
Occasionally her shoulder would brush mine when she shifted position, and each contact felt like touching a live wire.
She'd pulled her hair back in a messy bun that left her neck exposed, and I spent an embarrassing amount of time studying the spot where shoulder met throat, wondering what sounds she'd make if I—
Stop. I forced my attention back to the screen, where the same paragraph about load-bearing walls had been sitting for twenty minutes.
She didn't want me. Had made that clear through her silence last night.
Was only sitting here because the alternative was hiding in the guest room, and even Anya's anxiety had limits on self-isolation.
She turned a page. The movement brought her incrementally closer, her knee now almost touching my thigh.
The contact that wasn't quite contact made my concentration fragment further.
I typed random numbers into a spreadsheet just to look busy.
Deleted them. Typed more. The worst charade of productivity in history.
Time stretched like pulled taffy. Nine o'clock became nine-thirty became ten, and still we sat there, pretending to focus on anything except each other's proximity.
The radiator clicked on, filling the space with warm air and white noise.
Somewhere in the building, a door slammed.
Life happening around us while we existed in this careful bubble where nothing could be acknowledged without breaking something fragile.
Then she closed her book.
The soft thump of pages meeting felt like a gunshot. She set Anna Karenina on the coffee table with deliberate precision, squared the edges with the table's corner, then turned to face me.
"Ivan?"
I closed my laptop. Whatever she wanted to say deserved full attention, not the pretense that quarterly reports mattered more than the way she was looking at me—direct, determined, terrified.
"Yes?"
She pulled her knee up onto the sofa, angling her body toward mine. The movement eliminated eight inches of distance. Ten inches between us now. Close enough that I could see her pulse jumping in her throat.
"Earlier. You said nothing is bad. But—" She bit her lip hard enough that I worried she'd draw blood. "—you also said you were attracted to me. And I didn't respond. And I think you think I'm not—"
She stopped. Started again. Each word seemed to cost her something.
"I am." The words came out rushed, like she had to say them fast or not at all. "Attracted. To you."
The world stopped spinning. My lungs forgot their primary function. Every probability calculation I'd run on this scenario—and I'd run thousands—crumbled into statistical impossibility.
"You—what?"
"I'm attracted to you." She said it again, slower this time but still barely above a whisper. Her hands twisted in her lap, fingernails digging crescents into her palms. "I don't know what to do about it. I don't know if it's real or just—Stockholm syndrome or gratitude or—"
"Anya." I said her name to stop the spiral, to anchor her before she convinced herself that whatever she was feeling wasn't valid. "If you're feeling anything, it's real. Your feelings are valid even if they're complicated."
She looked at me with those dark eyes that I couldn’t get out of my brain, and I could see her pulse hammering in her throat. Fast. Too fast. Hummingbird heartbeat that said she was about to either flee or—
"Can I—" she started. Stopped. Tried again. "Can we—"
But she didn't finish. Instead, she leaned forward, closing the ten inches to nothing, and her lips found mine.
The kiss was tentative, uncertain, the press of mouth against mouth by someone who didn't have much experience with kissing. Her lips were soft, tasting faintly of the Thai tea she'd had with dinner, and she made a small sound—half surprise, half relief—that shot directly to my core.
For three seconds, I let myself have this. Her mouth moving carefully against mine. Her hand finding my chest, fingers splaying over my heart which was definitely not beating at medically recommended rates. The warm weight of her leaning into me like she'd been wanting this as much as I had.
Three seconds of impossible made real.
Then fear cut through desire like ice water, and I pulled back.
"Wait." My hands found her shoulders, gentle but firm, creating distance between us even though every cell in my body screamed to pull her closer. "Anya, wait."
Her eyes flew open—when had they closed?—wide and immediately fearful. "What? Did I—did I do something wrong?"
"No. God, no." My thumb moved without permission, brushing across her cheek where pink had bloomed under brown skin. "But I need to know you actually want this. That you're not just—performing for me. Trying to fulfill the treaty. Afraid I'll hurt you if you don't—"
"I kissed you," she pointed out, and there was something almost like indignation in her voice. "You didn't demand it. Didn't even suggest it. I chose to."
"You did," I agreed, though my hands stayed on her shoulders, maintaining distance. "But I'm the one with power here. The one your father traded you to. The one who could take advantage—"
"You won't." Her voice gained strength, certainty that surprised both of us. "You've proven that. Multiple times. With the key. The dress. Not touching me even though the treaty says you can. You keep choosing my consent over your rights."
The words should have reassured me. Should have given permission to pull her back into my arms and kiss her until neither of us could breathe.
But the responsible part of my brain—the part that recognized trauma responses, that understood how victims sometimes confused safety with attraction—wouldn't let me.
"We should wait," I said quietly, hating every word. "Make sure this is real. Make sure you're not just—"
"Afraid?" she finished when I couldn't. Her voice had gone soft again, vulnerable. "I am afraid. But not of you. I'm afraid of wanting something I'm not allowed to have. Of feeling something real for the first time in my life and having it taken away."
The honesty of it broke something in my chest. This woman who'd been locked away, used, traded like currency, was telling me she wanted me.
Not because she had to. Not because it was required.
But because somewhere in the last few days, between the key and the jellyfish and grilled cheese at Junior's, she'd decided I was worth wanting.
"Anya—"
"Goodnight, Ivan." She stood abruptly, my hands falling from her shoulders. "Thank you for today. It was—"
She didn't finish. Just walked toward the guest room with her spine straight and her hands shaking slightly. The door closed with a soft click that might as well have been a slam.
I sat alone on the sofa, her warmth still lingering in the cushions, the taste of Thai tea and possibility on my lips. Anna Karenina stared at me accusingly from the coffee table, reminding me that not all love stories ended well. That sometimes the train came regardless of what you wanted.
My laptop had gone to sleep, screen dark and reflecting my face back at me. I looked like a man who'd just won the lottery and set the ticket on fire. Like someone who'd been offered everything and said "let's wait to make sure."
Maybe I'd done the right thing. Protected her from making a decision she'd regret. Maintained the ethical boundaries that separated me from her father and every other man who'd seen her as property.
Or maybe I'd just proven that even when she chose me, I'd find a way to choose fear instead.
For three seconds, Anya Morozova—Anya Volkova—had wanted me.
And I'd sent her away.