Chapter 18
Anya
I wake to the sound of the door.
I lie motionless under the comforter, eyes open in the dark, my body already on high alert for any strange movement.
Five years living with my parents taught me to wake at any noise.
My mother always came into my room looking for anything of value.
Money, jewelry—once she even sold an old tutu of mine from the Bolshoi.
Footsteps. But these are different. Maksim usually moves through the house in one of two ways: stealthy and silent, or firm and controlled. Not like this. Tonight he sounds tired.
The bathroom light flicks on beneath the door.
I glance at the clock on the nightstand. Three fifteen in the morning.
I should roll over and go back to sleep, like a good contract wife would. I don't need to get involved in his business, don't need to know what happened or worry about it. I don't need to, but I want to.
I push off the comforter and get up. The floor is cold under my bare feet and the silk babydoll barely covers anything, but I don't grab the robe.
I'm tired of pretending I don't care about the way he looks at me, or his subtle compliments.
The way he talked about my hair, or complimented the simple green blouse I was wearing.
The way he called me Solnyshko.
I cross the room in the dark and stop at the bathroom door, left ajar. Maksim is standing in front of the sink.
I stifle a gasp.
He's always quite a sight shirtless. The tattoos run down his back and arms—the eagle spreading its wings between his shoulder blades, the large realistic bear inked on his right side. I hadn't been able to make it out before, but now I see it clearly and have to smile. It looks just like Ivan.
My husband knows I'm here—I don't know how I know that, but I do. It's as if we're constantly connected by all this tension between us. Even aware of my presence, he doesn't turn to face me, just stays bent over the basin, washing his hands.
I rise up on half-pointe to see over his broad shoulders—and then I do. The water running down the drain is dark pink. It lightens as I watch, but at first it's pink, and my brain takes a second to register why.
Blood.
He scrubs his knuckles hard. They're swollen, split open in two places, the skin scraped raw, and his wedding ring looks like it's digging deeper into his finger. It must hurt like hell, especially under the running water.
Finally, he acknowledges my presence and looks at me through the mirror. His gray eyes meet mine in the reflection, and his hand pauses for a second under the water before he continues.
“Go back to bed, Svetlana.”
“No.”
The faucet squeaks when he turns it off.
Maksim towers over me as he slowly straightens up and grabs the white hand towel hanging on the hook beside him.
He dries his hands without hurry, unbothered by the red stains he leaves on the fabric.
Our eyes never waver, as if locked in some silly bet to see who looks away first.
Everything about him screams danger tonight.
It's the first time I've glimpsed the Man in the Mask that everyone fears.
Even when he wore the mask around me, when we met and married, I never felt what I'm feeling now.
My mind screams at me to back away. I'm standing before a dangerous predator, but I don't listen to any of the warnings.
“Did you kill someone tonight?”
He turns to face me. From the front, he's massive, fills the entire bathroom, and carries that scent that's so distinctly him. Cigarettes, leather, vodka, and cologne.
“I did.”
He doesn't hesitate to say it, doesn't soften it.
Even with the frightening image of him standing before me with bruised and bloodied hands, I don't feel afraid. At least not that he'll do anything to me. What scares me most is the tangle of confused, screaming emotions churning inside me.
“Why?”
“Because he invaded my territory. He pissed me off. And he put at risk…”
He stops mid-sentence, letting it die without explanation. I don't say anything, because I know that whatever was put at risk was too important to him.
I step into the bathroom, even knowing he doesn't want me here.
The ceiling light is too bright, offering no shadows to hide in.
I notice his eyes traveling over me—from my face to the loose brown hair he said he liked, to the generous neckline of the loose babydoll, then down to my pale, bare thighs.
I don't hesitate to take his right hand and inspect the damage.
“Are you hurt?”
“It's not mine,” he answers, low and irritated.
“I didn't ask whose blood it is. I asked if you're hurt.”
Maksim looks away from me to stare at my hands holding his. I need both of mine just to move his enormous hand. We're so different—not just in the obvious ways, like his tattooed, scraped, calloused skin against my small, smooth palm. And yet, we're so much alike.
For a second, something crosses his face—too quick for me to name, but whatever it was clearly bothered him. Because right after, he pulls his hand from mine, breaking the contact.
“No.”
I step in front of him, deliberately brushing my arm against his chiseled abs. I sit on the toilet lid and wait with my legs crossed. I’m not leaving until I get some answers.
Maksim scowls, his brows drawing together, and huffs louder than necessary, irritated by my invasion of his space.
Good. Irritation is better than no reaction at all.
“Whose blood is it?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No. You don’t.” He drags a hand over his face, exhausted. “Go to sleep.”
“Who did you kill, Maksim? What did he do that was so bad?” I press.
“Svetlana.” His patience cracks, his voice dropping lower and rougher. “Go. To. Bed.”
I stand up and plant myself in front of him. It loses some of its impact when I have to crane my neck so far back to meet his eyes, but I do it anyway.
“I’m your wife—I have the right to know!”
I put everything I have into those words, and just when I think my raised voice has had an effect, everything falls apart.
Maksim simply bends down, hooks his arms under my knees, and throws me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
“Put me down!” I demand.
But he doesn’t listen. I kick and flail, twisting my whole body in hopes of breaking free, not caring how hard the fall might be from up here.
This son of a bitch is so damn tall.
He strides out of the bathroom, crosses through the closet, and reaches the foot of the bed.
Maksim tosses me onto the huge, soft mattress without ceremony.
He doesn’t set me down gently, the way you’d expect from an attentive husband.
My brute of a husband is just fed up with a wife asking questions she shouldn’t be asking at three in the morning.
Outraged and breathless from struggling with him, I prop myself up on my elbows, ready to keep fighting. But Maksim doesn’t back away. He moves closer, leans over me, and hovers just inches from my face. Our breaths mingle, and his gray eyes—usually so cold—now burn into me.
“You’re my wife, and you’re going back to sleep,” he growls.
“You don’t get to decide that for me.” I lift my chin.
“You decide a lot of things in this relationship. Where I live, what car I drive, whether I have a bodyguard following me around. But you don’t get to decide when I sleep.
And you definitely don’t get to decide whether I care about what happens to my husband. ”
Maksim pulls away and turns his back, heading for the bathroom.
So I do the only thing I can think of to make him deal with me: I put myself in his path.
I block the door with my tiny retired-ballerina body.
Five-eight, with arms and legs so thin they could serve as toothpicks for Ivan, but I hold my ground.
Firm. Between him and the door. His chest is barely a handspan from me—all muscle, smelling incredible, tattoos on full display.
Have no mercy on anyone.
The phrase inked in Cyrillic across his right pec stares back at me like a reminder. I won’t have mercy on anyone either, least of all my stubborn husband.
“Get out of my way,” he orders.
“No.”
The word barely leaves my mouth before he moves. Maksim pins me against the door, his huge hands splayed on either side of my head, and suddenly everything else disappears. All that’s left is him and me and this infernal standoff over who gives in first.
I lift my chin higher to defy him, but halfway there, defiance turns to invitation, and then it happens.
He kisses me.
There’s nothing gentle about it—just anger, exhaustion, and so much pent-up desire.
Our lips attack each other hungrily. His hand slides up to my nape, grabs a fistful of hair, and tilts my head so he fits better against me.
He tastes like adrenaline and all those nights of tension simmering between us.
I’ve never been kissed like this. Like I’m being claimed. Like he needs the air from my lungs to survive.
It’s insane and delicious.
But as always, Maksim chooses for me. He pulls back, taking a step away, and I’m irritated by the interruption—even if I appreciate the moment to catch my breath.
I know what’s going through his head. He wants to give me space to push him away, to say no, to bolt like a scared little rabbit. This contradiction—the caveman who throws me on the bed and orders me to sleep versus the gentle husband who waits for verbal consent—only makes me more irritated.
And wet.
Very wet.
I close the stupid distance he put between us.
I run my hands up his bare, hot chest until I reach his nape.
I grab it the way he grabbed mine, and since there’s no hair to grip, I dig my nails into his skin and pull his mouth back to mine.
Maksim underestimates me if he thinks I’d back away like some scared girl after a kiss like that.
I may not be the most experienced woman in this department, but I know what I want.
What I need.
My body screams for him.