Chapter 20 Kazimir #2
She searches my face, and I wonder what she sees. If she can see how terrified I am. How the thought of Ilya finding her makes me want to take her and run with her, as fast and far as I can.
"Okay," she whispers.
Artem is at the door when I leave. I don’t have time to tell him anything, but I don’t need to. He’ll watch the place for as long as necessary, so long as there’s no other family emergencies.
I fucking hope to God there isn’t. Not today.
—
By the time I leave the docks, there’s blood on my clothes and clinging to my fingernails, and I badly want to be back home and get a shower. As I approach the apartment, however, something else piques my senses, quickening my pace.
I smell smoke.
I’m nearly to my door when I hear the shrieking of an alarm, and I break into a run.
I nearly shove the apartment door open with my shoulder as I burst in, only to see Svetlana frantically running a pan under water and Artem trying to get the smoke alarm to stop going off.
The shrieking is ear-splitting, and the kitchen and living room are filled with smoke.
Svetlana looks frustrated beyond belief, and when she looks sideways and sees me, her cheeks flush red with embarrassment. She drops the pan into the sink, and when Artem catches sight of me, he stops what he’s doing and backs off.
“See you around, boss,” he says, half-joking, as he walks past me and leaves me to both Svetlana and the mess she’s made of… something.
I go to the living room and get the window open to let some of the smoke out. "What are you doing?" I ask as I wave it out, and she winces.
"I was trying to make lunch. I thought… I don't know what I thought. I'm not good at this. I don’t actually… know how to cook."
"You could have started a fire.” The smoke alarm finally stops shrieking, and I can hear my ears ringing. Svetlana’s face colors deeper.
"I know. I'm sorry. I just—" She sets the dish towel down, and her hands are shaking slightly. "I was hungry, and I thought I could do it myself, but I can't even make a fucking burger without—"
"Hey." I cross back to the kitchen, and I can see that she's blinking rapidly, like she's fighting tears. "It's okay."
"It's not okay. I'm useless. I can't do anything right."
"That's not true."
"Isn't it?" She lets out a tiny sob. "I can't cook. I can't work. I can't even leave this apartment without—"
"Stop." I move closer, and she goes quiet. "You're not useless. You're just in a bad place in your life. It won’t last forever.”
She looks up at me, and her eyes are bright with unshed tears.
"I used to be able to take care of myself. Somewhat, anyway. I booked jobs. I had my own place. I mean, yeah… I didn’t really know how to cook and someone came to do the deep cleaning, but I was at least partially on my own.
I wasn’t so… dependent on someone else.”
“You’ll be able to take care of yourself again.” I try to soothe her, but it’s clear that she might be beyond that, at this moment.
"When?" Her voice sounds raw. "When will I be able to do that? When will I be able to just... exist without needing someone to—"
"Soon." I don't know if it's true. I can’t let her go, and I don’t know how this becomes something that works the way I want it to. But she needs to hear something reassuring, so I say it. "Soon, Svetlana."
She takes a shaky breath, then nods. "Okay."
"Come on." I guide her away from the stove. "Sit down. I'll make you something."
"You don't have to—"
"It’s fine. I want to."
She sits at the counter, watching as I pull out ingredients. I make her a grilled cheese sandwich, simple and quick, and pour her a glass of water. She smiles faintly when I set it down in front of her.
"Thank you," she says quietly.
"You're welcome."
She takes a bite, and I can see the tension starting to leave her shoulders. The fear from earlier, from Ilya's visit, is slowly fading.
"Aren’t you hungry?" she asks, glancing up at me.
The question catches me off guard. It's such a normal thing to ask. Such a domestic thing.
"I could eat," I admit.
She pushes the plate toward me. "Here. Share with me."
Is this still a ruse? She looks genuine, for once, and I can’t deny her anyway.
Especially not when she looks so sweet and needy, her face tired and tear-streaked still, a woman who needs me.
I take half the sandwich, and we eat in silence.
The kitchen is still smoky, the ruined pan still sitting in the sink, but none of it matters.
For just a moment, this feels real.
Svetlana sets her half down after a few bites and looks at me. “If Ilya had found me—if he'd walked into that bedroom—what would you have done?"
I can feel the tension in the air thicken. I don’t know what the answer to this question means to her, but I know she’s searching for something from me. "I wouldn't have let him touch you," I tell her, and it’s the truth.
"Even if it meant—"
“No matter what it meant.” I shift closer to her, and I can see her pulse jumping in her throat. "I won’t let anything happen to you, Svetlana. Not from Ilya. Not from anyone."
She laughs, and the sound is bitter. Disbelieving. "You expect me to believe that? That you'd sacrifice your position, your safety, your entire life for me?"
"Yes."
"Why?" Her eyes narrow. "Why would you do that? You didn’t do it before." She clicks her tongue. "You're lying.”
I shake my head. "I'm not. And you don’t know me at all if you think that’s the case."
"You are." She gets up, pacing toward the counter, and like I’ve been pulled along by a string, I get up too, drawn to her as always. "You're just like everyone else. You want something from me, and you'll say whatever you need to say to get it."
I step closer to her, and she turns to face me. "That's not true—"
"Prove it." Her voice is hard. Demanding. "Prove that you're different. Prove that I can trust you."
"How?" I'm so close to her now I can feel the heat of her body, smell the faint scent of shampoo in her hair. "Tell me how, and I'll do it."
"I don't know." She's breathing hard, her chest rising and falling. "But you'll have to work harder than this. You'll have to do more than just say the words."
I want to kiss her so badly it's a physical pain. I want to show her exactly how I feel in a way that doesn't require words at all.
But I know that won’t help. It’ll just prove, to her, that what she’s saying is true. That I want something, and I’m willing to do whatever I need to in order to take it.
"Okay," I murmur, trying not to think of how close my mouth is to hers. "I will."
She holds my gaze for another moment, then steps back. The loss of her proximity feels like an ache in my chest.
"I'm going to lie down," she says. "I'm tired."
I watch her walk away, and every instinct I have is screaming at me to follow her. To push this. To make her understand.
But I don't. I let her go… to her bedroom, at least. It’s as far as I can let her go, to give her space.
I stand in the kitchen, surrounded by the evidence of her failed attempt at independence, and I wonder how the fuck I'm going to prove to her that I'm not lying.
I’m in the middle of cleaning up the kitchen when I hear a faint sound.
It almost sounds like a moan, and I stop, quickly drying off my hands.
The soft whimper comes again, and I walk toward Svetlana’s door without thinking, imagining that she’s crying, that she’s having a nightmare while she’s napping, that she’s…
I pause at her door, and when the sound comes again, every part of my body responds.
She’s not crying or scared. She’s…
She’s pleasuring herself.
Fuck.
I should leave. Go for a walk around the outside of the building. Go to my room and put on headphones. Anything except…
She moans again, soft and needy, and my cock stiffens instantly to the point of pain.
She's trying to be quiet. I can tell. But she can't quite manage it. I hear her gasp, the way her breath catches. My hand goes to my belt before I can stop myself, loosening my zipper, because the sound of her pleasure is the most erotic thing I've ever heard.
The last thing in the world I should be doing is standing here on the other side of her door, my naked cock in my hand, but I…
I can’t stop. I suck in a breath as I wrap my hand around my straining flesh, as I feel the slick pre-cum already coating my tip, running my hand up and down my length as I lose myself between the memory of that night in the cabin and the reality of what I’m listening to right now.
I stroke myself slowly, matching the rhythm of her moans. Imagining what she looks like right now. If she's on her back or her stomach, still clothed or naked, her hand trapped between her legs as she works her clit. If her eyes are closed. If she's thinking about me.
God, I hope she's thinking about me.
Her whimpers come faster, and I hear the bed creak.
I can imagine her hips moving, thrusting against her hand, and I picture her on her stomach, ass up, arching as she imagines me thrusting into her the way I did that night.
I can tell she’s close. I stroke myself harder, faster, and I'm right there with her, right on the edge, so close to coming that it’s all I can do to hold myself back.
And then I hear her come.
She lets out a broken gasp, a tiny cry, the sound suddenly muffled as if she put her hand over her mouth. I hurriedly cup my palm over my tip as my cock starts to spurt, like that one sound was a trigger, setting me off as I grit my teeth against any sound of my own.
I come hard, spurting into my palm as I imagine her writhing and arching on her bed, her pussy fluttering under her fingers, my teeth nearly cracking with the effort of remaining absolutely silent. My every muscle is tensed, my hand working myself through it until I'm spent and shaking.
For a moment, there's just silence, both of us trying to catch our breath on opposite sides of a door. Then I hear the bed creak. Hear her moving.