Taisiya
The fire is too warm after standing in the rain, and I hate that my body relaxes the second the heat hits my skin. I don’t want to relax. Relaxing feels like agreeing to something I haven’t actually agreed to.
I stand near the mantel, flexing my fingers, trying to force some feeling back into them.
Everything in this room is priceless. The rug alone probably has a name and a pedigree.
I don’t sit on the sofa. Some part of me is convinced I’ll leave a damp patch that will cost me another four thousand pounds I don’t have.
Voronov moves to a cabinet against the wall and pours two glasses of expensive vodka. He doesn’t ask if I want one. He just hands it to me, and I take it because my hands need something to do besides shake.
“Drink,” he says.
“I don’t like vodka,” I mutter.
“Drink it anyway.”
I take a mouthful because arguing feels like more effort than my body has left in it, and the burn down my throat is almost a relief, something sharp and real to focus on instead of the fact that I killed a man, decided to run, and got tangled up with the man who was supposed to give me an out, not fucking shelter me like a lost puppy.
“Better?” he asks.
“No.” I set the glass down on the mantel, careful, like it might detonate if I put it anywhere else. “Nothing about this is better. I still need a passport, and I still need to run.”
“You don’t need either. I’ll protect you,” he says, looking a bit confused as he does. Like the words tumbled out of his mouth involuntarily.
“You don’t even know me. I could kill you.”
He smirks. It’s sexy, arrogant, and makes me want to slap him and kiss him. “You could try.”
“Arsehole,” I say quietly, turning from him.
He laughs, dark and surprised. “Better than most things I’ve been called today.”
“Give it time.”
“I’m sure you’ll manage something creative.”
I turn back to the fire because looking at him is doing something unhelpful to my pulse, something that has no business happening today of all days. The lines have gone blurry since I stabbed Gregor.
“I need to think,” I say.
“About what?”
“About the fact that I’m standing in a stranger’s house, drinking vodka I didn’t want, while he tells me he’s going to protect me for reasons neither of us understand.”
“When you say it like that, it does sound remarkably dumb.”
“It is dumb.” I wrap my arms around myself, and the coat, still damp, clings to my skin like a second layer of regret.
He steps up behind me. “Take it off.”
“Excuse me?”
“The coat. It’s soaked. You’ll catch something, and then I’ll have a sick woman on my hands. Not a fan.”
“Fuck you. I don’t give a flying shit if you’re a fan or not.”
He doesn’t give me much choice as he peels it away from me.
I don’t stop him, though, because the alternative is standing here shivering while he looks at me with that infuriating patience, like he’s got all day to wait me out.
He throws the coat over a leather sofa that looks more comfortable than my bed.
Underneath, the black dress clings to me, and I catch him looking, just for a second, before his expression goes back to unreadable. I don’t know what to do with that look. I don’t know what to do with any of this.
“Clothes, madam,” Ivan says, reappearing with a stack of what looks suspiciously like Voronov’s—Vadim’s—clothes.
I stare at the pile in his arms. I spy a tee that will swamp me and a men’s cardigan folded so neatly it looks like it’s never been worn. Not surprising. Vadim Voronov does not appear to be the cardigan type.
“These are yours?” I ask Vadim.
“Seems so.”
Ivan sets them on the arm of the sofa, unbothered by the fact that I’m dripping on the rug.
“Thank you,” I say, because my mother raised me with manners even if the rest of my life has gone completely feral.
Ivan inclines his head and leaves without another word, footsteps silent on the marble.
I grab the clothes and look at Vadim. “Bathroom?”
“Upstairs, end of the hallway,” he says with a wicked smile.
“Something tells me that you are setting me up for something,” I grumble. “This mansion doesn’t have a downstairs loo?”
“It does,” he says. “But I’ve given you directions to one upstairs. Feel free to wander the ground floor looking for the one down here.”
I grimace. “You’re insufferable.”
“An insufferable arsehole.” He raises his glass and then presses it to those sexy, smirky lips and knocks it back in one.
I clutch the pile of clothes against my chest and head for the stairs, refusing to let him see me hesitate. They loom in front of me, wide enough to fit six of me walking side by side, and I take it slowly, aware of him watching from the sitting room even though I don’t look back to confirm it.
The hallway upstairs stretches into the distance. Closed doors line either side, each one probably hiding a room bigger than my flat. I find the one at the end exactly where he said it would be and slip inside the room.
“Fucking dick,” I curse him in English and then in Russian for good measure as I glance around what is clearly his bedroom.
The bed dominates the space, black sheets, black frame, big enough to lose a small country in.
Dark wood furniture. No photographs anywhere, no clutter, nothing that tells me anything about the man beyond what I’ve already seen: money, violence, and an ego the size of this ridiculous house.
The curtains are drawn, and the bedside lamp is on low.
I lock the door, though I doubt a lock would stop him if he wanted to get in, and strip off the dress, letting it fall in a heap on his very expensive-looking carpet, before I scoop it up and throw it over the chair.
I pull the T-shirt over my head first. It gives a new meaning to the word oversized.
It smells fresh, like it was hung out to dry on a summer morning.
I shove my arms into the cardigan and nearly groan with delight.
It’s soft and warm, and like nothing I have ever worn before.
I pull the pins from my hair, and the remaining wet strands fall around my shoulders.
I use my fingers to comb them through and then curl them back up into a bun, shoving the pins back in and then smoothing it out.
The handle turns, and I skitter backwards, but then remember that I locked the door.
A knock. Then, “Taisiya. Open the door.”
“I’m changing.”
“You’ve changed.”
I stare at the door. “Have you installed cameras in here?”
“No.”
“Then how the fuck do you know?”
“You’ve had enough time to unzip a dress and put a tee on.”
“Fair point,” I mutter, and pull off my boots, mostly so I can throw one at him if he breaks in.
“Open the door.”
I consider refusing, but then I remember he owns the house, has weapons, and probably knows twelve ways to break the lock without damaging the frame.
I unlock it and open the door a few inches, boot still in hand. “What?”
His eyes travel over the tee, the cardigan, and my bare legs. The assessment takes too long.
“Finished?” I ask.
“Not even close.”
Heat floods my face. “You’re disgusting.”
He pushes the door wider and walks past me into the bedroom. I step away from him, outraged by the invasion despite the obvious fact that it’s his room.
“What happened?” I ask. “Did you miss your own furniture?”
“I also happen to be damp from the rain,” he states and starts removing his clothes, gaze on mine.
He pulls his shirt out of his pants and unbuttons it until it hangs open, showing off a chest that is covered in ink and rock hard. He takes it off, bunches it up, and drops it into a basket near the bathroom door.
I forget the boot in my hand.
His tattoos cover his chest and run across his stomach, disappearing beneath the waistband of his trousers. Black ink, dense in places, detailed enough that I want to step closer to inspect it.
I don’t.
He unfastens his belt.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” I turn around fast. “Do you have no concept of privacy?”
“You’re in my bedroom.”
“The bathroom is through your bedroom, you manipulative prick.”
His belt lands somewhere behind me.
“I hate you.”
“You barely know me.”
“I’ve seen enough.”
“Have you?”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “If you take your pants off, I’m throwing this boot.”
“You won’t.”
“You have a lot of confidence in someone who’s known me for less than an hour.”
“I know you stabbed Gregor Melnikov in the neck.”
My fingers tighten around the boot. “He deserved it.”
“I agree.”
The calm response steals some of my anger. He says it without hesitation. No judgement. No lecture about my choices. No demand that I cry over the man who attacked me.
Fabric moves behind me. I focus on the closed curtains.
“Are you naked?”
“Why do you ask?”
Good point. Why am I asking?
“Taisiya? Do you want to see me naked?”
“No,” I croak.
“Try to sound more convincing next time.”
I whirl around, ready to throw the boot and then stop dead. He is completely naked. He smirks and turns to walk to the bathroom, his cock in a semi state, leaving no questions about how big it would be fully erect.
The shower blasts on, but I’m frozen in place. He let me see him naked, he didn’t close the door, and he absolutely knew what he was doing.
I stride over to the bedroom and yank it open, only to find myself face to… chest with Bogdan. I look up at him.
He glares down at me.
“Of course,” I say and close the door. I would rather climb out of the window with my arse on show than attempt to get around that mountain of a man. “Window,” I mutter and cross over to it, flinging the curtains back. It’s triple-glazed and locked with no key.
The shower shuts off suddenly, and the silence creeps over my skin. This house is too quiet, too dark.
Vadim walks out of the bathroom, wet, with a towel slung around his hips, low enough to give me a good view of his carved ‘v’.
He glances at me and then at the window, and his eyes narrow.
My blood runs a little bit cooler.