Chapter 26
MOLLY
Somehow, we make it back to the penthouse.
I remember nothing about the ride. It’s all a blur except for Samuil holding me tight.
He still has his arms around me when we arrive, and I feel him maneuver me out of the car.
It’s all I can do to stay conscious. I want to throw up, or faint, or curl into a ball in my bed and stay there for days.
When he carries me into the penthouse, my body starts shaking so badly he has to hold me in a vise grip.
“It’s okay,” he whispers in my ear. “You’re safe now. You’re home.”
His words sound like they’re coming through a glass wall. Even though he’s right next to me, he sounds a million miles away. The words bounce around my head, but they don’t really mean anything. Safe. Home. They’re just sounds.
He sets me down gently on the couch. It’s such a contrast to how he looked in that warehouse. His face was murderous. He was murderous. He shot Alex at point-blank range, and if I look at his face, I may just see blood spatter there.
It was horrific. Almost as horrific as being chained up to that wall, trying to breathe through my fear on that dirty mattress. Knowing what Alex wanted to do to me. Knowing his thoughts were filled with disgusting ways to torture me.
My breath stutters and catches, the edges of a sob rising in my throat. I hold it back. I don’t want to break down now. I’m afraid if I start, I’ll never stop. And it’s probably true. I feel like an endless cavern of pain.
Samuil crouches in front of me, his hands hovering without touching.
They tremble faintly. I’ve never seen him look like this, not even during our fight, not even when we were screaming truths at each other that neither of us wanted to hear.
His face is bare in a way that startles me, stripped of every ounce of composure he usually wears like armor.
“Molly,” he says quietly, his voice rough with emotion he’s trying to swallow. “Please just say something to let me know you’re okay.”
His words undo me. I’m not okay. I’m terrified and broken, and I’ll probably relive these last few hours of my life for years to come.
“I’m not,” I say, surprised at how steady my voice sounds. “I’m not okay, Samuil.”
My voice breaks on his name, and the tears start fresh. He tries to touch me, to hold me, but I can’t let him. I saw what those hands can do.
“You have blood on your hands,” I tell him through sobs.
He looks pained by my words. He opens his mouth to say something, then stops and just nods.
“I’m sorry, Molly,” he finally manages. “I’m so sorry you were hurt because of me. That I—”
“No,” I cut him off, shaking my head. “Your hands.”
I point at them because it’s all I can manage. He looks down and sees the blood spatter on his hands. He stares at them as if he never knew they existed before this moment.
“Right,” he says, almost to himself. “I’m going to take care of this. Will you be okay for a few minutes?”
I nod. I think I need to be by myself for a while anyway.
I wish I were back at my apartment, back in my safe space.
Even though this place has become like a second home, it just reminds me of everything Samuil is, and of our conversation just last night, when he told me he couldn’t give up his Bratva for us.
Once he’s gone, I get up stiffly and walk slowly to my own bathroom. I want to scrub my skin until there’s no trace of this awful night. I look down at my own hands and see the bruises starting to form on my wrists from where the cuffs were tightened around them. I don’t dare touch them.
I turn on the shower and slowly undress, not daring to look at myself in the mirror. I’ll have to burn these clothes. At the very least, I’ll throw them away. I never want a reminder of this for as long as I live.
I focus on my breathing, finally managing to stop crying and draw a good, deep breath. I will get through this. I have to get through this. My baby needs me to be strong right now.
I step into the hot spray of the shower, wincing as the water stings my raw skin. I power through it, washing my hair and scrubbing my skin until the water turns cold. When I can’t stand the temperature any longer, I force myself out and wrap myself in a big, fluffy towel.
Samuil is sitting on my bed when I emerge from the bathroom. He looks freshly showered too, his head hanging. When he hears me, he looks up with so much tenderness and sadness in his eyes that it nearly steals my breath.
“I’m worried about you.”
I nod and go to sit next to him on the mattress, clutching the towel to my chest. He reaches out and touches my cheek with the backs of his fingers.
It’s such a soft gesture that it feels foreign after everything I’ve been through.
I lean into it without meaning to. My body reacts before my mind can object.
His thumb brushes along my jaw as if he’s memorizing the shape of me, reminding himself I’m real. His throat works when he swallows.
“I thought I’d lost you,” he breathes.
Something inside me breaks at his words, but I don’t know how to reconcile anything that’s happened. He came to rescue me. He put a bullet through a man’s face for me. He risked everything to save me.
He chose his brotherhood over our family. He got Anya’s mom killed. He shot a man in the face. What I saw tonight only confirms what I already knew. He’s capable of unspeakable violence, of killing without hesitation. I saw the look in his eyes when he pulled the trigger. I heard the sound.
He’s also the man who called our child “Beloved.” None of it makes sense when I put it together like that.
My breath quivers.
His hand slides to the back of my neck, grounding me. “Say something,” he murmurs.
I want to feel anything but the terror brewing inside me. I’m shaking and cold and overwhelmed, and I need to reclaim something inside myself. So I lean forward and kiss him. It’s hot and desperate and full of all the words I can’t begin to say.
He inhales sharply against my mouth, surprised, but when my fingers slip into his hair and anchor him to me, he gives in without hesitation.
He kisses me back like he’s been holding his breath for hours.
His palm slides to my waist and pulls me closer.
The world tilts, not from fear this time, but from something fierce and aching and painfully human unfurling inside my chest.
I climb into his lap, straddling him, my thighs trembling as I settle over him. My towel comes undone, leaving me naked against him. His breath stutters against my lips.
“Molly,” he whispers, “you just went through hell. You should rest. You should let me take care of you.”
“I am taking care of myself,” I say, my voice shaking. “Please. Let me.”
My words cause something to shift in him. His hands stay exactly where they are, one at my hip, the other at the back of my thigh, but he waits for me to make the first move. He lets me choose.
For the first time in hours, I feel my lungs open.
I kiss him again, slower and deeper, giving him every word I can’t say and every feeling I can’t express.
His lips part under mine, and I slide my tongue along his, swallowing the rough sound he makes.
My hands move to his shoulders, then down his chest, feeling the tension in him, the way it vibrates under my palms. He’s holding himself back. He’s afraid to hurt me.
That’s not what I want at all. I don’t want or need him to be so gentle. I need him inside me, under me and then above me, all around me, touching every part of me. This is what we’re good at. This is the language we both speak fluently.
I tug at his shirt until he lifts his arms and lets me pull it off.
His skin is warm under my hands. His breath catches when my fingers trail down the line of muscle beneath his ribs.
I feel the hitch in his lungs, the way he shivers when I press my mouth to his throat and taste the salt of his skin.
“Tell me to stop,” he says quietly, his voice frayed at the edges. “If you’re just doing this because you’re afraid, then tell me to stop.”
“I’m not,” I whisper against his pulse. “I’m doing this because I want to. Because I need to.”
He exhales slowly, shakily, and I feel the moment he gives in.
His hands slide up my back, firm and strong, pulling me closer until our bodies meet in a desperate press of heat and need.
I grind down against him, and his breath breaks out of him in a harsh, guttural sound that sends a tremor through me.
I kiss the corner of his mouth, then his jaw, then lower, my lips tracing the path of his breath. When I reach the place beneath his ear, he inhales sharply and grips my hips.
“Let me look at you,” he whispers, pulling away only slightly.
I let the towel fall to the floor. His eyes sweep over me with such raw emotion that it feels like another form of touch. I take his hands and place them on my hips, guiding him the way I want. His fingers dig into my skin, hungry but restrained.
I kiss him again and grab his hand, placing it where I need it. His breath leaves him in labored spurts.
“You want control,” he says quietly, understanding dawning in his voice.
“Yes.”
He nods once, slowly, and leans back against the mattress, offering himself to me in a way that feels more intimate than any touch we’ve shared. He doesn’t guide me. He lets me move, lets me set the pace, lets me take what I need.
I lift his chin so he’s looking directly at me when I sink down onto him.
He inhales sharply, his hands gripping the duvet so tightly his knuckles turn white.
I move slowly at first, testing my balance, testing the way my body feels around him.
The stretch is grounding. The heat is grounding.
The weight of him inside me is grounding.
He groans low in his throat, the sound rough and choked.
“Molly,” he breathes, “you’re shaking.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I answer honestly.
“Tell me what you need.”
“You,” I whisper, sinking down fully and biting my lip at the sensation. “Just you. Right now.”
His hands lift and rest on my thighs, barely touching, letting me decide if I want more pressure or less. I move slowly at first, finding a rhythm that steadies the trembling in my limbs. Every time I lift my hips and sink back down, the fear inside me loosens its grip a little more.
He watches me with reverence so intense it borders on pain.
“You’re incredible,” he murmurs, his voice hoarse.
I press my fingers to his lips to keep him silent. I don’t want his words right now. I just want his body. I roll my hips and his breath breaks in a sharp, quiet gasp. He grips my thighs harder, anchoring me to him.
My pleasure builds slowly, a soft, pulsing warmth that grows with every thrust. His eyes never leave mine. The connection feels so fierce, so overwhelming, that I almost want to look away. Almost.
Instead, I remind myself that this isn’t love. This is just sex. All this will ever be is sex. When I start to tremble again, this time for a completely different reason, he grips my hips to steady me.
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs, his voice low and reverent. “You can let go.”
So I do. The climax hits me like a wave, sudden and overwhelming.
My breath catches and a soft cry escapes before I can swallow it.
My hands fly to his shoulders, holding on as the pleasure crashes through me, shaking the fear loose from my bones.
He groans when he feels me tighten around him, his own release following a moment later, deep and shuddering.
I collapse against his chest, breathing hard. His arms wrap around me carefully, cautiously, like he’s afraid I’ll break. Maybe I will. Just for now, though, I let him hold me and pretend that everything is normal.