21. Mikhail #3
“I need you here, alive, because you’re everything to me. You’ve always been everything to me.”
“Danya,” I rasp, barely getting the word out.
“No, listen to me.” His forehead presses against mine. “We’re going to figure this out. Together. Like we always do. But you have to stay here with me. You have to promise me you’ll stay.”
“I promise,” I whisper, the words barely making it past my destroyed throat.
He lets out a broken sob and wraps around me like he’s trying to fuse us together.
“You’re all I have too,” I manage to say, my hands fisting in his hoodie.
“Roman doesn’t get to do this to you anymore. He doesn’t get to break you,” he chokes out between sobs.
“I wouldn’t be here either if you left me,” I say, staring up at the ceiling while my hands come up to his back and hold him against me. “If you died, I’d follow you.”
He pulls his head back, his hazel eyes lock onto me.
“I fucking love you,” he says, his voice breaking.
“Don’t you ever leave me. My heart belongs to you, do you understand that?
I’m in love with you, Mikhail. You’ve had your hands wrapped around my heart since I was fifteen years old.
Every single day since then it has been you.
It’s always been you. When you walk into a room, everything else disappears.
When you’re not there, I’m just waiting for you to come back.
You’re the first thing I think about when I wake up and the last thing before I fall asleep.
You own every part of me, and I don’t want it back. ”
I blink in confusion, trying to process what he just said.
“Since you were fifteen?” I ask.
“I’ve been in love with you since you kissed me on that roof,” he says, licking his lips. “I just couldn’t tell you because I was so scared of ruining everything between us. Of losing you completely if you didn’t feel the same way. I’m so fucking gone for you.”
He’s been in love with me for eight years.
Everything clicks into place. All the times he got upset when I went out partying. When I brought someone home and he’d disappear into his room and wouldn’t come out.
When he started pulling away, trying to create distance. When he looked pained every time I touched him.
That must have hurt him so much. To be tortured by being in love with me while I was completely oblivious, bringing other people into our home, talking about hookups, being physically close to him without understanding what it meant to him. I feel like the biggest asshole on the planet.
“I’m so sorry, I—”
“Stop,” he says, shaking his head. “You didn’t know about it, so don’t apologize.”
Swallowing hard, I stare up at him, my throat still burning.
“I’m in love with you too,” I say, the words spilling.
“I’m such an idiot for not seeing it sooner, for being too scared to admit what I’ve known since we were kids.
But it’s always been you, Danya. You’re the center of everything for me.
The reason I keep trying even when I wanted to give up.
You’re the only person who’s ever made me feel like I wasn’t completely broken. ”
He presses his mouth to mine, kissing me hard and desperate. I kiss him back, pouring everything I can’t say into it, and he makes this sound against my lips that breaks me all over again.
When he pulls back, his face is still wet with tears. “Promise me you won’t do that again. Promise me.”
“I promise, Danya. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” he says, his hands still on my face. “We need a plan. A real one. We need to get out from under him somehow. After the club event, we find a way to break free. I want to fucking murder him for what he did to you.”
“I don’t know how we’re supposed to do that. He has control over everything. Our money, our lives, all of it.”
“Me neither, but we can figure something out together. We have that meeting in a couple of days with the rest of the idiots. We could ask them for help. Alexei, Yulian, maybe even Lev. They hate him too, even if they won’t say it out loud.”
“Okay,” I manage to get out.
“My heart is still going a million miles per hour.” He shifts slightly to look at me, his hand coming down to rest over my chest where my heart is still racing too.
“I’m sorry,” I say again, because I don’t know what else to say.
“Don’t apologize. Just don’t leave me.” He pushes his lips to mine. “I love you so fucking much.”
“I love you too, Danya.”
He presses his lips to mine again, soft and desperate, then moves to kiss my forehead, my cheeks, my jaw, leaving wet marks everywhere his mouth touches. My eyes close from exhaustion, from the weight of everything crashing down on me at once.
He wraps himself around me completely, his weight settling over me like a blanket.
“Mikhail, you promise, right? You won’t do that again?”
“Yeah,” I rasp out.
“I need to hear you say it again.”
“I promise.”
He nods and squeezes me so tight I can barely breathe, but I don’t want him to stop. We stay like this for what feels like hours. The sun starts going down, golden rays filling the ceiling and casting long shadows across the room.