Chapter 23
NATALIA
Imust have slept in Leks’s bed all night. I didn’t mean to, but I don’t mind it.
His arms are wrapped around me, heavy and solid. I didn’t think I could be this comfortable touching another person, but it’s already morning.
I snuggle against Leks, inhaling the clean cedar smell of his skin, and let my eyelids drift shut again.
I don’t want this moment to end, because then I have to confront the day and decide what to do about my father. Right now I’m in a place of shelter, far away from the storm cloud of emotions that wrecked me yesterday.
I watch Leks’s sleeping face through my eyelashes, feeling the rise and fall of his chest muscles and the flex of abs against me. He’s so sculpted, his frame every bit as beautiful as the tattoos which line his skin.
Most of the ink dates from his years in the Ivanov Center. Ten years is almost half my life, an unfathomably long time. I might not have been free, while I lived at home, but I wasn’t being tortured.
I trace the long line of the scar that marks his face, running all the way down to his neck, and I wonder once again how he got it.
Leks has so many stories that I worry I’ll never know all of them. He only just told me the truth about my brothers. It feels like a lot to ask him for everything I want, all at once.
I only realize he’s awake when his hand tangles in my hair, pulling my gaze up to his face. I press my lips to his jaw.
“You look sad, zolotse.”
I shake my head. “Just waking up,” I smile, suppressing the twist of pain in my chest.
I will not think about my father.
Not yet.
Not while I’m waking up with a man holding me for the first time in my life, feeling his heart beat against me, and wanting to savor the moment.
His arms tighten around me and he buries his face in my hair. “I like waking up with you here. In my dream you left me.”
“What? Why?”
He pauses for a beat and one of his hands glides over the small of my back, as though he’s making sure I’m really here. I shiver at the warm, rough feel of his touch.
“You didn’t believe me. I was scared about that before I told you everything last night,” Leks admits, his voice thick. “I didn’t want things to change between us.”
I brush my lips over his jaw. “I’m glad you told me. Even if it wasn’t good news. My family never trusts me to handle things like that.”
“I’ve never been so scared about a conversation before.”
I laugh at that idea.
“Welcome to my world. I’m scared about conversations all the time.”
“With me?” His midnight blue gaze falls on my face.
“Especially with you.”
“Am I that intimidating?”
I pretend to consider it, bringing a finger to my lips. “That was before I knew you liked to cuddle.”
Leks squeezes me tighter against his chest in response to the teasing. “I don’t ‘like to cuddle’. I said I like to wake up holding you, specifically.”
I scoff. As if Leks hasn’t done this with women before.
“I’m serious,” he insists. “Natalia, I promise you that the last time I woke up with a woman in my arms was never.”
His face betrays no hint of a joke, so I let myself believe this. Even though it makes my heart pound with so much false hope that I might burst.
“I can’t remember the last time I got this much sleep.”
“Does that mean you’re not scared of me?”
“No,” I answer quickly. “I mean, yes. I’m not scared of you.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Not anymore,” I correct myself.
Even before I knew the true story about my brothers, I’d stopped fully believing that Leks had anything to do with it. Maybe that was wishful thinking, that I didn’t want to believe that he could make me feel like this while also being the man who destroyed my family.
“At first?”
“Well, you’re basically the first man I’ve ever been alone in a room with, you love to punch people with your fists and sustain head injuries as a hobby. And you’re like, six feet tall.”
“Six six.”
“So yes, I was scared of you at first.”
I push his chest but he catches my hand and laces his fingers with mine.
“You scared me too, zolotse. I never thought we could have something real, but I wanted it so much. I wanted the impossible so fucking much that it hurt.”
“It was never impossible,” I remind him. Hell, if Leks had touched me on our wedding night, maybe I would have melted for him the way I’m melting now.
“It still scares me,” he admits. “I don’t know what I’d do without you. I haven’t been afraid of much in my life. But the thoughts I have about you terrify me.”
I know what he means. I nod my head, resting my hands on his chest and reminding myself that Leks is right here, that he’s okay.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
He nods, lacing his fingers with mine.
“God, I want you.”
I hear a note that I’ve never heard in the deep rumble of his voice.
A plea. Of desperation. Or vulnerability.
Leks has hidden so much from me but I know that, if nothing else, he’s not lying when he says he wants me.
Desire thrums to life under my skin as he traces his fingers over my spine.
“At first I thought it was just about having you to spite them. But now I know it’s something more.“
There goes my heart again, getting carried away because of his words.
I’d let myself believe that Leks wanted me…but it’s been a long time since I’ve hoped that he might want something more than just sex.
There’s a long beat where Leks just looks at me, his face serious.
“I’ve never felt anything like this before, Natalia.”
Is Leks saying what I think he’s saying?
I’ve never felt anything like this, but I assumed that it was normal, that people went around feeling this kind of thing every day and I’d just never had the chance to experience it.
“Me neither,” I mouth my reply against his jaw, scared to look up and see the emotion on his face. It feels like we’re standing at the edge of the dock, about to jump into unfathomably deep waters.
“I don’t know what to do about it.” His hands tighten around me.
“Me neither,” I whisper.
I meet his eyes and then I can’t look away, trembling as Leks’s lips curve into a tender smile. He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear.
“Or maybe I do know what to do about it, but I’m just scared of what will happen.”