Chapter 13
Giulia
SONG: STAY THE NIGHT BY FALLEN ATLAS
Two weeks of dinners and conversations and stolen kisses in the library had built something between us. Something fragile and terrifying and entirely unexpected. Tonight felt different from the moment Dimitri walked through the door.
He arrived at seven as promised. He always kept his promises now. That was new. That was something I'd learned to count on even when everything else felt uncertain.
"Helen outdid herself," I said when we sat down to dinner. Osso buco, wine-braised short ribs. The kind of meal that required hours of attention.
"She's trying to fatten me up."
"She's trying to make you stay longer."
His eyes met mine across the table. Gray and storm-filled and focused entirely on me. "Is that what you want? For me to stay longer?"
Yes. God yes. I wanted him to stay past dinner. Past midnight. Past sunrise. I wanted to wake up next to him and not find his side of the bed cold and empty. But admitting that felt like handing him ammunition.
"Would it matter if I did?"
"It might."
We ate slowly. The food was exceptional, but I barely tasted it.
All my attention had narrowed to Dimitri.
The way his hands moved, the small scar near his eyebrow, that I'd noticed weeks ago, and how his shoulders relaxed when we were alone together in ways they never did anywhere else.
He'd stopped being the terrifying Pakhan who'd interrogated me in this very house.
Now he was just Dimitri. Complicated and damaged and trying so hard to be someone worthy of trust.
I was falling for him. The realization had been creeping up on me for days but tonight it crystallized into certainty. This was dangerous. This was stupid. This was exactly what I'd promised myself wouldn't happen.
Too late.
After dinner we moved to the library as usual. The fire crackled as rain started outside. The kind of spring storm that made everything feel cozy and separate from the rest of the world.
Dimitri sat in his usual chair. I curled up in mine with a book I had no intention of reading.
"Tell me something true," I said.
He looked up. "What?"
"Something true about you. Something you've never told anyone else."
"Why?"
"Because we've been doing this for two weeks and I still feel like I'm only seeing the parts you're willing to show me." I set the book aside. "I want to know the rest."
He was quiet for a long moment. The fire popped and hissed, outside the rain intensified.
"I'm terrified I'll become my father," he said finally. "Every decision I make, every order I give, I'm constantly second-guessing whether it's the right choice or just what he would have done."
The honesty in his voice made my chest ache. "You're nothing like him."
"How would you know? You never met him."
"I know what he did. How he led. The fear he inspired." I moved to sit on the arm of his chair like I had that first night we'd kissed. "And I've seen how your men look at you. It's not fear. It's respect. There's a difference."
His hand found my waist. Settled there like it belonged. "Your turn. Tell me something true."
Fair was fair.
"I'm lonely." The admission came easier than expected. "Even with you coming here every night. Even with Margaret and Helen. I miss having friends. Miss my old life. Miss feeling like I belonged somewhere."
"You belong here."
"Do I? Because some days this still feels like a very nice prison." I touched his face, tracing that small scar with my fingertip. "And other days it feels like maybe I could build something real here. With you."
His eyes darkened. "Giulia."
"Yes?"
"I need you to be sure."
"Sure about what?"
"About this. About us." His hand tightened on my waist. "Because if we go further tonight. If I stay, it means something. It changes things."
My heart hammered against my ribs. "I know."
"Do you?"
"Yes." I slid from the arm of the chair into his lap properly and straddled him the way I'd been thinking about for days. "I'm sure. Are you?"
Instead of answering, he kissed me. Hard and desperate and nothing like the careful kisses we'd shared before.
This was need. Want. Weeks of tension finally breaking.
I kissed him back with everything I had.
Our tongues dueled for dominance. My hands found his hair while his found the hem of my sweater and slipped underneath to warm skin.
I gasped against his mouth and felt him smile.
"Bed," he said against my throat. "We should go to bed."
"Probably wise."
Neither of us moved. We kept kissing. Touching, learning each other through layers of clothing that suddenly felt like too much barrier.
Finally, Dimitri stood with me still wrapped around him and carried me like I weighed nothing upstairs to the primary bedroom I'd been sleeping in alone for weeks. He set me down beside the bed, gentle, careful, like I might break.
"I'm not made of glass," I said.
"I know. But I also know I only get one chance to do this right."
"You did it right the first time."
"The first time was obligation. This is choice." He cupped my face in his hands. "That's different."
He was right. Everything about tonight was different. No tradition forcing us together. No alliance hanging in the balance. Just two people who'd somehow found something real in the wreckage of an arranged marriage.
I pulled my sweater over my head, standing there in jeans and a simple white bra while Dimitri looked at me like I was art instead of just a woman.
"You're staring."
"I'm appreciating."
"There's a difference?"
"Absolutely."
He reached for his own shirt.
I stopped him. "Let me."
I unbuttoned it slowly, revealing the scars I'd seen before. Bullet wounds. Knife marks. Evidence of a life lived dangerously. I pressed my lips to one near his shoulder and felt him shudder.
"Giulia."
"Shh. My turn to appreciate."
I kissed each scar I could find. Learned the geography of violence written on his skin. He stood completely still, letting me explore. His breathing grew rougher with each touch.
When I finally pushed the shirt off his shoulders, he pulled me close and kissed me hard enough to make my knees weak. His hands found the button of my jeans, and I helped him. Fumbling, then laughing slightly when the zipper stuck.
"This is less smooth than movies make it look," I said.
"Movies lie about everything."
We stumbled to the bed in a tangle of limbs and half-removed clothing.
He laid me down gently and took his time removing the rest, kissing every inch of skin he revealed.
He made me forget words and thoughts and everything except the feeling of his hands and mouth on me.
Soon he lowered himself until his wide shoulders pushed my legs apart.
He wasn’t? Was he?
Before I could voice my question, his mouth was on me.
He sucked my clit into his mouth and the sounds that left me barely seemed human.
Soon he was flicking his tongue over me, matching the rhythm of his fingers pumping in and out of me.
When he curled them, making a come hither gesture, I exploded around him.
"Still sure?" he asked, crawling up my body, his face glistening with my arousal.
"Stop asking and show me."
So he did.
This was nothing like our wedding night.
That had been careful, tentative, learning each other through nervousness and obligation.
Tonight was fire. He entered me in one hard thrust. There was still a pinch of pain, but the discomfort was nothing compared to the first time.
He kissed me savagely, thrusting hard and fast, our bodies shaking the bed.
Eventually I had to push my hands against the headboard to keep us from running into it.
He touched me like he'd been thinking about it for weeks.
Like he'd memorized every sound I made and wanted to discover new ones.
His hands knew exactly where to go. His mouth followed paths that made me arch off the bed.
I explored him the same way. Learned what made him gasp, what made his control slip, finding the places on his body that turned him human instead of dangerous.
When he moved inside me, it felt like coming home. Like finding something I hadn't known I'd been searching for. We moved together slowly at first, then faster, chasing something just out of reach.
I said his name. He said mine. The words tangled together like prayers or curses or both.
When I came apart it was with his eyes locked on mine, watching, witnessing, sharing the moment instead of just taking it. He followed seconds later, burying his face in my neck, and holding on like I was the only solid thing in a spinning world.
Afterward, we lay tangled together, breathing hard. My head rested on his chest, listening to his heartbeat slow while his hand stroked my hair in absent patterns.
"You're staying," I said. Not a question. A statement.
"If you want me to."
"I want you to."
He pulled the blankets over us and settled me more comfortably against his side, then kissed my forehead in a gesture so tender it made my eyes sting.
"Sleep," he murmured. "I'll be here when you wake up."
"Promise?"
"Scout's honor."
I smiled against his chest. "Still not reassuring."
"Trust me anyway."
I did. That was the terrifying part. I trusted him. Believed him. Had somehow fallen completely and stupidly in love with the man who was supposed to be a political arrangement and nothing more. But as I drifted off wrapped in his warmth, I couldn't bring myself to regret it.
Some risks were worth taking.
Even the ones that might destroy you.