Chapter 20 - Marco #2
The realization terrified me. I didn’t have the right to be jealous. I was a captive, a plaything. I dropped my gaze, staring intently at the ground between our feet, trying to swallow down the lump forming in my throat.
“He must be special,” I whispered, the words tasting like ash.
“He is,” Alexei replied.
I lowered my head even more, wishing the balcony would give way beneath me. Why did his validation of someone else cut so deep? Why did I care? I was being an idiot. He was just toying with me, after all. He was probably bored and I was falling right into -
Suddenly, a broad hand caught me by the chin.
His grip was unyielding, forcing my head up so fast my neck clicked. I had no choice but to look at him. My vision was already blurring, my eyes stinging and hot, and I tried desperately to blink the dampness away before the tears could spill over. Alexei’s eyebrows furrowed as he searched my face.
“What is wrong?” he demanded.
I tried to shake my head, to twist out of his hold, but his fingers braced firmly against my jaw. “Nothing…” I choked out.
His grip tightened. “What is wrong?” he pushed, his voice dropping to a gravelly, demanding growl. He stepped closer, crowding my space, refusing to let me hide. “Tell me.”
“I’m just… I’m wondering,” I started, the words tumbling out in a breathless, frantic rush, my voice cracking under the pressure.
“What are you doing to me? Are you… are you going to kill me when you get bored? Is that what this is? Are you mentally trying to torment me, breaking me down piece by piece so you can just end me after you’ve had your fun? ”
I took a ragged, trembling breath.
“I don’t understand you. You stayed away for an entire year and now you’re all over me and I’m… I’m just so confused. And I’m a bit scared.”
I was blubbering now, completely out of breath.
“I mean, obviously I don’t want to die, but if you really want to do it, I know I won’t really stop you.
It isn’t like I even can! You’re stronger than me, you’re richer than me, you have everything and I have nothing.
But you’re messing with my head, and you’re making me feel things, and I don’t know what’s real anymore, and I don’t know what I am to you, and it’s just—”
I was spiraling, my words turning into a pathetic, frantic babble as I tried to articulate the sheer terror of being completely at his mercy.
But I didn’t get to finish.
His hand slid from my jaw to the back of my neck, his fingers tangling firmly into my hair to tilt my head back. He leaned down, and his lips crashed against mine to shut me up.
The words died instantly in my throat, replaced by a soft gasp that he immediately caught and drank in. His tongue tangled with mine as if he were trying to physically pour himself directly into my lungs.
Alexei pulled back slowly. My head was spinning. My lungs burned.
One of his hands came up to gently cup the side of my face.
“Get those thoughts out of your head,” he said quietly. “I would never kill you.”
I hadn’t realized how tightly I had been holding onto that fear until he said it out loud. My eyes stung again, but this time the tears felt different.
He leaned in and pressed a kiss to the top of my head. Something inside me just… melted. The tension in my shoulders eased. My fingers loosened their desperate grip on his shirt. I let myself lean into him completely, pressing my forehead against his chest and breathing in the scent of him.
He held me like that for a few seconds longer, then he bent slightly and slid one arm behind my knees. The other stayed around my back.
I let out a surprised little yelp as my feet left the ground.
“Alexei—!”
He just lifted me effortlessly and held me against his chest. My arms automatically looped around his neck for balance, the oversized shirt riding up my thighs.
“Relax,” he murmured again, the same word he had used earlier when he was cleaning me up, only this time it didn’t make me want to argue. This time it actually worked a little.
When we reached the bedroom, he simply lowered me onto the massive bed as he climbed in after me, and before I could even think about moving, he was pulling me back into his arms.
He settled on his back and drew me against his side, one arm wrapped securely around my waist while the other rested loosely across my shoulders.
I curled into him instinctively, one of my legs sliding between his as I rested my head on his chest.
Alexei’s fingers traced absent patterns along my back through the fabric of his shirt. The touch was soothing in a way I hadn’t expected from him.
I closed my eyes.
With him.
In his bed.
I dreamt of a garden I had never walked
and a boy whose name my heart somehow already knew.
He was too tall for his age, with eyes so green
they looked as though spring had drowned inside them.
He sat beneath a lemon tree, its fruit hanging like captive moons,
too bright for the darkness around us.
He didn’t smile, but something in his face suggested
the smile was trying to find its way out,
pressing against the surface like light through a crack.
I dreamt I told him about the stars,
about my grandmother and her blanket of dark,
about the light that goes on forever behind it,
about the little holes where it pokes through so the light can breathe.
When I reached for him, the dream split apart.
The garden withered. The tree collapsed into ash.
His face vanished before I could learn it.