Undeniably hers.
My throat tightens, my feet eating up the space rapidly as I throw the door open. “What’s wrong?”
Stasi blinks at me, wrapping her arms around herself as she hesitates. “I… I couldn’t sleep. I just… Ican’t—,”
It’s then that I notice her fingers shaking. My eyes rise up to meet hers, the fist in my chest tightening at the wetness there. She dashes her hand across her eyes to wipe at them, but it keeps coming.
“Come here,” I say roughly.
She meets me with a muffled sob, and I kick the door shut, wrapping my arms around her as she cries. She feels like air in my arms as I lift her, her arms lifting to wrap around my neck as I carry us both over to my bed, sitting on the edge. “Stasi. Where are the twins?”
They would never have left her like this.
She hiccups into my shoulder. “I asked them to go. I said… Iwasfine. I really was, and then I was on my own and I just wanted to notbealone.”
She looks up at me. “And then I thought that you were alone too. And before, when we were in your office – I didn’t feel so alone then, Silas. And I thought that maybe—,”
Her voice catches as I try to follow her words. She takes a breath.
“I thought that maybe we could be alone together.” Her words are nearly inaudible as she drops her face down, hiding her eyes from me.
Alone, together.
She sucks in a breath, and I watch as her skin flushes a dull red. “I’m sorry. This was… it was stupid. Just forget it. I’m going to go now.”
She tries to slide down from my lap, but my hands tighten around her. “Stop.”
She pauses, but she still doesn’t look at me. “I’m fine. Really. I just – I had a moment, and I thought…”
“What?” My voice is hoarse, my fingers so fucking gentle as they press beneath her chin. I need to see her face. “What did you think?”
Stasi’s eyes rake across my face. As if she sees me. All of me.
She has always looked at me like that, I realize suddenly. As though she sees all of the deepest, darkest parts of me. But she doesn’t turn away.
“I wanted you,” she says finally. As though the words are simple, even as she tilts my world on its axis. “I neededyou. So, I’m here.”
Her admission fills the air between us, fills up my damn lungs until it feels like I can breathe properly for the first time in years. My eyes close for a single moment, just to let the words soak in. Because I need her, too.
I have always needed her.
And I inhale sharply, as soft lips press against mine.
Once.
Twice.
My mouth parts, and Anastasia twists on my lap, her hands sliding up to my face as she brushes my lower lip.
And then she pulls away. My eyes open.
“I’m sorry,” she rushes out, her face a deep, deep scarlet. “I just—,”
I cut the words off as my mouth covers hers. I mirror her movements, cupping her face, tilting it at just the right angle to taste her, my tongue slipping into her mouth. And it feels as if my entire life has been a build-up to this moment, to her in my arms, exactly where she fucking should be.
She moans beneath me, shifting, her legs wrapping around my waist as I slide my hand around the back of her neck, holding her to me.
I will never get enough. I knew it, knew it from the first touch of her lips on mine that I would be lost to her.
