Sofia
Green eyes.
The air leaves my lungs in one violent punch.
Green eyes. Impossible green. The kind that never belonged to a real man in the first place.
Snake eyes.
I’ve seen them in nightmares. In memory. In the dark corners of myself I don’t visit unless I have to.
Those emerald eyes, always watching me from the darkness.
And now they’re here.
Curled around my husband’s throat.
My legs feel weak. I stumble backward. The wall is at my back.
“You.” The word scrapes out of me. “It was you.”
That horrible night. The cologne. Him.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t cover the tattoo or look away. He just stands there, shirtless, watching me put it together.
“Yes,” he says simply.
My emotions knot so fast I can’t separate them. Anger. Confusion. Relief.
But not fear.
I came into this room afraid of him.
I’m not now.
“All this time,” I whisper. “You were the one who came for me.”
For three years I've carried the unanswered question of who he was. Not a fantasy. A haunting. The kind that lives in the back of your throat and never quite leaves. And he's here. He's real.
“I did.”
“And then you disappeared. You didn’t stick around and allow me to thank you.”
“You don’t owe me thanks.”
“I owe you my life,” I snap, the anger suddenly winning out over everything else. “Those men were going to—” I can’t finish the sentence. I never can.
“I know what they were going to do.” His voice is low. Dangerous. “They didn’t. I stopped them.”
My head spins, every piece slamming into place too fast.
“How?” I ask. “How were you there? In that alley, at that exact moment?”
He’s quiet for a long moment. I watch him decide how much to tell me.
“You were at my club,” he says finally.
“Noir?” I blink. “That’s yours?”
“Yes.”
“But I never saw you there. I would have remembered you.”
“You weren’t supposed to see me. I was in the office, reviewing security footage. I saw you on the dance floor. Saw the man approach you. Saw him lead you toward the back exit.”
My stomach turns. “You were watching me.”
“I was watching everyone. That’s what I do. I own the club. I monitor threats. Especially when someone uses a fake ID and puts my liquor license in jeopardy.”
“I was a threat?”
“No.” He moves closer but stops a few feet away. Still giving me space. “You were a liability. A young woman, clearly inexperienced, drinking too much, letting strange men buy you drinks. I flagged you as a potential problem.”
“A problem,” I repeat, the word bitter on my tongue.
“Not like that.” He runs a hand through his hair. He looks flustered. I’ve never seen him look anything but cool and unbothered. “I thought you might get sick. Cause a scene. I had one of my security guys keeping an eye on you to make sure you got home safely.”
“But that’s not what happened.”
“No. When you left with that man, my guard followed. By the time he reported what was happening, I was already moving. I got there before—” He stops. “I got there in time.”
I remember his arms around me. His voice, low and soothing, telling me I was safe. The way he’d covered me with his jacket because my dress was torn.
“You carried me,” I say quietly.
“Yes.”
“You took me to the hospital.”
“Yes.”
“And then you left. I never saw your face. Or maybe I did. I don’t remember. Everything was blurry.”
“You were beaten and drunk.”
“Why did you disappear? Why didn’t you stay?” I stop myself before I say too much. Before I admit how many nights I lay awake thinking about him. Wondering who he was. Creating entire stories in my head about the mysterious man with the green-eyed snake.
“I think you know the answer to that.”
“You thought they would think it was you.”
He shrugs. “I didn’t want to cause you any trouble.”
“You saved me.”
I can’t explain what’s happening inside my chest. It feels like it’s blooming.
My actual hero. I had convinced myself he was a figment of my imagination.
But he’s real. He’s here.
“I don’t allow women to be raped, especially not at my club.”
“No.” I step away from the wall and toward him. “Don’t do that. Don’t minimize what you did. Those men were going to rape me. They were going to kill me. And you stopped them. You protected me when no one else did.”
I see something flash in his eyes. Pain? Regret?
That’s when something occurs to me. The police never found my attackers.
“What happened to them?” I ask. “The men who attacked me.”
“They’re dead.”
If he was someone else, I would have been surprised. But this is Sergei Sokolov. My husband.
“You killed them.”
“Yes.”
I should be horrified. Should be disgusted that I’m standing in a bedroom with a man who just admitted to murder.
But I’m not.
I’m relieved.
Those men deserved to die for what they tried to do to me. For what they probably did to other women before me.
“Good,” I say.
He looks surprised. “Good?”
“Yes. Good. They deserved it.”
I wait for guilt or horror to follow. It doesn't. Instead something I've been carrying for three years quietly puts itself down. Like a door I didn't know was open finally closing.
We stare at each other. The air between us feels charged. Electric.
“So you’ve been watching me since that night,” I say, working through the timeline. “Not just recently. For three years.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Curiosity.”
“Liar.”
He shrugs again. “I knew who you were.”
I laugh. “Oh, you thought you’d cash in that good deed with my father.”
“I thought he’d be appreciative.”
“Joke’s on you, I guess. He doesn’t care.”
Sergei actually flinches. His hands balling into fists. “Your father is a worthless, dishonorable man.”
“Fair.”
I take another step closer. He stays put.
I take another step. And another. Until there's almost nothing left between us.
I take a breath, trying to steady my racing heart.
There’s something else I need to tell him. Something I’ve never told anyone because there’s never been anyone to tell.
“I need you to know something,” I say. My voice sounds small. Vulnerable. I hate it, but I force myself to continue. “I’ve never been with anyone. Not before. Not after. I haven’t let anyone touch me since that night. But before, I was, I’ve never…”
I’m embarrassed. I know I don’t have a reason to be, but I’m a twenty-one-year-old virgin.
He nods slowly. “I know.”
Of course he knows. If he’s been watching me for three years, he already knows everything about my life. Every choice.
“I’m ready now.”
The words surprise us both. I can’t believe I just said that, but it’s true. All of that relying on instinct and gut reaction tells me this is right.
He’s the one.
He searches my face. “You don’t have to do this, Sofia. Not tonight.”
“I’m not doing it because I have to.”
I step closer. Close enough to feel his heat.
“I’m doing it because you’re the only man I don’t want to run from.”
The admission hangs between us. It’s true. He’s protected me for years without asking for anything in return. He’s never hurt me. Never taken advantage. Never pushed.
A man like Sergei Sokolov should terrify me. Instead, he’s the only one who’s ever made me feel safe.
“You need to be very sure before you say something like that to me.”
His voice drops. “If we do this, we do it your way. You stop me, I stop. You have all the power here, Sofia. Understand?”
The gentleness in his words breaks something inside me. Some wall I’ve been holding up since that night in the alley.
“Yes.”
"I'm sorry," he says. "That this is your wedding night. That you're scared."
"Don't be," I say. "I'm exactly where I want to be."
I want to touch him. The thought comes out of nowhere. I've never wanted to touch a man.
So I do. My fingers brush over the snake on his throat, the thing that started all of this, before drifting down to the tattoos over his heart. He goes very still.
He catches my hand, pressing a kiss to my palm. The gesture is so tender it makes my chest ache.
"Tell me what you need," he says against my hand.
"I need you to keep talking. I need to hear your voice."
"Okay." He brushes his thumb across my knuckles. "I've got you."
He said that. In the alley. Those exact words. I didn't imagine them.
He reaches up slowly, giving me time to pull away. He cups my face in one hand, his other still holding mine.
Panic tears through me.
“Sofia.”
The panic thins.
I’m safe.
He leans down, his mouth hovering just above mine. “Tell me if this is too much.”
“It’s not,” I whisper.
“You have all the control here,” he says softly.
I nod.
Then his mouth finds mine.
The first touch is so careful I barely feel it. The next one is firmer. His lips press more fully to mine, and my breath catches.
It’s nothing like the kiss at our wedding. That one was for everyone else. This one is just for me.
I don’t mean to lean into him, but I do. My fingers tighten against him.
A rough sound catches in his throat. His hand slides from my face to my shoulder, then slowly down my arm, every movement deliberate. Slow enough to stop him. Slow enough to remind me I can.
I don’t.
His mouth moves over mine again, still careful, but no longer distant. Heat unfurls low in my stomach. My body leans in before my mind catches up.
He starts to pull back just slightly, like he’s checking, and the tiny loss of warmth feels wrong enough that I follow him.
His hand tightens against my arm. “That’s it,” he murmurs against my mouth.
The next kiss lands even deeper. Not rough. Not demanding. Just sure enough to make my knees feel unsteady. I let myself sink into it. Let myself feel instead of think.
His hand slips to my waist, drawing me closer, and when his mouth moves against mine again, my lips part for him without even realizing I’ve done it.
“You’re trembling,” he says against my lips.
“I’m okay.”
“We can stop.”
“I don’t want to stop. Not yet.”
He pulls back enough to look at me. Those blue eyes search mine, looking for any sign of hesitation. “You’re sure?”
“No,” I admit. “But I’m still here.”
Something shifts in his face.
“Okay,” he says quietly. “Do you want me to take off your dress?”
I nod.
He reaches behind me for the zipper of my dress. The sound of it sliding down seems impossibly loud in the quiet room. My heart is beating too fast. I feel dizzy, but not afraid.
Not yet.
He pushes the fabric off my shoulders. It pools at my feet, leaving me in just my bra and panties. Black. Simple. Nothing special.
The cool air in the room brushes over my exposed skin. No one has seen me like this.
I look to him for reassurance.
He goes still.
“Jesus,” he says softly, like the word got dragged out of him.
His hands skim up my sides. I flinch involuntarily, and he freezes.
“Too much?”
I shake my head. “No. Keep going.”
He does. His touch is feather-light as his fingers dance over my skin. Up my ribs. Across my collarbone. Down my arms.
“You’re so soft,” he murmurs. “I’ve wanted to touch you for so long.”
Heat floods through me, slow and heavy.
“How long?” I ask.
“Too long.” He leans down, pressing a kiss to my shoulder. “Longer than I should admit.”
His honesty undoes me. I reach up and thread my fingers through his hair, pulling him back to my mouth. This kiss is different. Hungrier. I’m the one pushing now, the one demanding more.
He groans against my lips. “Sofia.”
“Shh, just kiss me.”