8. Viktor
VIKTOR
I've been awake all night, watching the monitors, waiting for her to run.
After she locked her door, I stood in the hallway for an hour.
Just stood there, staring at the wood, fighting every instinct that told me to break it down and make her listen.
But she asked me not to touch her. She asked me to give her space.
And even though it's killing me, even though every fiber of my being screams to go to her, I respect what she asked for.
That's what love is, I'm learning. Respecting someone even when it hurts.
So I retreated to my study, to the monitors, and I watched. Watched her pack a bag. Watched her cry on the edge of the bed. Watched her sit in the dark for hours, clearly at war with herself.
I considered letting her go. If she's happier without me, doesn't she deserve that? If my love is just another cage, another man trying to control her, shouldn't I set her free?
But I'm not strong enough. Not after finally learning what it means to want something. Not after finally feeling alive.
When I hear the elevator chime, I'm already moving.
She's standing in the elevator with her bag clutched to her chest, her finger hovering over the lobby button. Her eyes are red from crying, her face is pale, and she's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
"Please." The word tears out of me, raw and desperate. "Please don't go."
She stares at me, and I can see the war in her eyes. The fear and the hope, battling for control.
"I was talking to Dmitri in language he'd understand," I say, stepping into the elevator, letting the doors close behind us. "Because if I told him the truth, that I'm so in love with you I can't function, he'd see it as weakness."
She doesn't respond. Her eyes search my face, looking for the lie.
"I called you an asset because calling you my heart in a room full of soldiers puts a target on your back." I take another step closer, and she doesn't retreat. "Every word I speak in that world is calculated to keep you safe."
"Then why didn't you tell me?"
The question is quiet, broken. It cracks me open.
"Because I'm not used to explaining myself." I run a hand through my hair, frustrated with my own failures. "I give orders. I don't justify them. I've never had someone who deserved the truth."
She's still holding the bag. I reach for it slowly, carefully, giving her every chance to pull away. She doesn't. I take it from her hands and set it aside.
"I've done this wrong. All of it." The confession pours out of me, unstoppable. "I watched you without your knowledge. I kept you without your consent. I fell in love with you without asking permission."
Her breath catches.
"But I'm asking now." I drop to my knees in front of her, the cold elevator floor biting into my skin. I don't care. "Stay. Not because I've taken your choices away. Because you choose me too."
"Viktor—"
"I'm not good at this. I've never done it before." I reach for her hands, and she lets me take them. Her fingers are cold and trembling. "But I'll learn. For you, I'll learn anything."
She gazes down at me, this powerful, terrifying man kneeling before her on the cold elevator floor, and something fundamental shifts in her expression—walls crumbling, defenses wavering.
"My whole life," she says slowly, her voice trembling with barely contained emotion, "I've been something people use and discard. My father sold me like property. My ex-boyfriends took what they wanted and left. Everyone I've ever trusted has treated me as disposable."
"I know." The words taste like ash in my mouth because I've added myself to that list.
"You were supposed to be different. I let myself believe you were different." Her fingers tighten almost painfully around mine.
"I am different." I squeeze her hands, anchoring us both. "I'm doing this badly—fumbling through it like a fool—but I'm trying. I swear to you, I'm trying."
She's quiet for a long, stretching moment. The elevator hums around us, machinery whirring softly, suspended between floors, suspended between possible futures, suspended between the world we've been living in and the one we might create.
"You love me," she says finally, her voice barely above a whisper. Not a question—a fragile discovery.
"More than I knew I was capable of. More than I thought existed in me."
"And if I stay, what happens?"
"Anything you want." The words come easily now. The truth is so much simpler than the lies I used to tell. "I'll marry you. Give you my name, my fortune, my life. Or I'll let you keep your distance, stay in your room, come to me only when you want. I'll take whatever you offer and be grateful."
She laughs, a watery sound. "That doesn't sound like the Viktor Sorokin I've heard about."
"He didn't exist until you created him." I lift her hands to my lips, pressing a kiss to each knuckle. "The man everyone fears is a machine. You're the first thing that made me human."
She steps closer, and I rise to meet her, our bodies separated by nothing more than the charged air between us.
"I'm scared," she whispers, her breath trembling.
"So am I."
"I don't know how to trust this—trust us."
"Then let me show you. Every day, every hour if necessary. For as long as it takes."
She reaches up and cups my face, her palms warm and soft against my jaw. Her thumbs trace the scars deliberately, the ones that tell stories of violence and survival, of the man I was before her.
"Okay."
The word is so small. So simple. So impossibly fragile. And it rewrites my entire universe in a single breath.
"Okay?"
"I'll stay." She rises on her toes and presses her forehead to mine, her eyes drifting closed. "I'll try. But you have to try too. You have to meet me halfway."
"I will. I swear it on everything I am."
I kiss her, soft and reverent, pouring every promise I've ever wanted to make into the touch. She melts into me, her arms wrapping around my neck, her body fitting against mine like she was made for this precise purpose.
When we break apart, we're both breathing hard, hearts racing in synchrony.
"Take me to bed," she whispers against my lips. "Your bed. I want to be in your space, where you let no one else go."
I don't need to be asked twice.
My bedroom is the one place in the penthouse no one enters but me.
I carry her through the door, kicking it shut behind us, and set her down in the middle of the room. She turns in a slow circle, taking in the details: the dark wood furniture, the bookshelves stuffed with worn volumes, the photograph of my mother on the nightstand.
"It's warmer than I expected," she says, her fingers trailing along the spines of well-loved books. "More lived-in. Personal."
"No one comes in here." I come up behind her, wrapping my arms around her waist and drawing her back against me. "No one but you. Ever."
She leans back against my chest, her head fitting perfectly beneath my chin, and for a long moment, we just breathe together in the quiet sanctuary of my private space.
"I'm sorry," I murmur against her hair, breathing in the scent of her. "For scaring you. For making you doubt what this is between us."
She turns in my arms, her palms flattening against my chest as she faces me. "Show me. Don't tell me anymore. Just show me."
I understand what she's asking. Words have failed us too many times already. Actions are what remain.
I kiss her slowly, deeply, taking my time to memorize the shape of her mouth against mine. This isn't the desperate, consuming hunger of our first night together. This is something more deliberate. A promise made flesh. A prayer whispered through touch.
I undress her piece by piece, kissing each inch of skin as it's revealed to me. Her shoulder, the elegant line of her collarbone, the soft curve of her breast. She sighs and arches into my mouth, her fingers threading through my hair, nails scraping gently against my scalp.
"I'm sorry," I whisper against the trembling skin of her stomach. "For making you feel like a transaction. Like something to be acquired."
I kiss lower, following the path of her hip bone, and she gasps.
"I'm sorry," against the curve of her hip. "For not telling you the truth when it mattered most."
Lower still, and her knees buckle beneath her. I catch her before she falls, lifting her onto the bed, laying her out like a sacred offering on my sheets.
"I'm sorry," against the sensitive skin of her inner thigh, my breath ghosting over her heated flesh. "For every single moment you doubted that you matter. That you're everything."
"Viktor—"
"Let me." I look up at her, holding her gaze as my hands spread her thighs wider. "Let me worship you the way you deserve."
She nods, her breath already coming in shallow pants, and I lower my mouth to her center with reverent intent.
She cries out at the first stroke of my tongue, her hips lifting off the bed. I hold her down with one hand on her stomach and lose myself in the taste of her. She's sweet and warm and perfect, and I could do this forever.
I learn her all over again. The places that make her gasp. The rhythm that makes her moan. The pressure that makes her scream. By the time she shatters against my mouth, she's sobbing my name like a prayer.
I kiss my way back up her body, and she pulls me into a desperate kiss, tasting herself on my lips.
"I need you," she breathes. "Inside me. Now."
I shed my clothes and settle between her thighs. When I sink into her, we both freeze, overwhelmed by the sensation. She's so warm, so tight, and she's looking at me with an openness that breaks my heart.
"I love you," I tell her. The first time I've said the words out loud. "I love you, Celeste."
Her eyes fill with tears. "I love you too."
I move then, slow and deep, drawing out every sensation. This isn't about release. It's about connection. About proving with my body what I couldn't prove with my words.
She wraps her legs around my waist, pulling me deeper, and we find a rhythm that feels like home. Her nails rake down my back. My mouth finds her throat. We move together like we've been doing this for years, like we were made for each other.
When she comes, it's with my name on her lips and tears streaming down her cheeks, her body trembling beneath mine. I follow moments later, spilling into her with a groan that echoes off the walls, my vision going white as pleasure crashes through me.
We lie tangled together afterward, our bodies slick with sweat, catching our breath in the dim light. Her head rests on my chest, right over my thundering heart, her fingers tracing lazy, intricate patterns on my skin that send shivers through me.
"I meant what I said," I tell her, my voice rough. "I'll marry you. If you want."
She laughs softly, the sound vibrating against my ribs. "Is that a proposal?"
"It's a promise. Whenever you're ready."
She's quiet for a long moment, her fingers stilling on my chest. Then: "Ask me properly. Someday. When the time is right."
"Someday," I agree, pressing a kiss to her hair.
We fall asleep wrapped around each other, our limbs intertwined, and for the first time since I can remember, I sleep through the night without nightmares clawing at my consciousness.
Because she's here, warm and solid against me. Because she stayed, even after everything.
Because she's mine, and I'm hers, and nothing else in this world matters.