Her gaze flicks to me, then back to the house. The winter light sharpens her features, makes her look carved from the cold itself, but there’s something softer beneath it. Something only I’ve seen.
I swallow, the words rough in my throat. “It’s yours, if you want it.”
For a long moment, she doesn’t answer. My pulse kicks harder than it should. I’ve killed men without flinching, walked into ambushes with steady hands, but standing here—waiting for her—I feel unsteady.
Then she steps forward, snow crunching under her boots, and says, clear and steady, “Only if it’s ours.”
The word slams through me harder than any bullet ever could.Ours. Not hers, not mine.Ours.
Something in my chest loosens, something I didn’t realize I’d been carrying. I move to her side, my gloved hand brushing against hers before I take it fully. The weight of her fingers lacing with mine is grounding, more than the earth beneath our feet.
I look at the house again. It’s small, rough, unguarded. By Bratva standards, it’s nothing. By mine, it’s everything.
For the first time in years, maybe in my whole life, I let myself imagine a future not written in blood. A place to breathe. To stop running. To let her walk through a door without checking every shadow.
A place where, maybe, we could be more than the war that built us.
I turn back to her, and she’s watching me with that look that strips everything bare—the one that makes me feel less like an heir to a kingdom of corpses and more like a man. Just a man.
“Ours,” I echo softly. I like the sound of that.
The house is cold when we step inside, dust on the windowsills, wood creaking beneath our boots. It hasn’t been lived in for years, maybe decades. Yet it doesn’t feel haunted. It feels empty in a way that’s almost clean—like a slate waiting to be written on.
Vivienne moves through the rooms slowly, fingertips brushing the walls, her breath fogging in the cold air. Her ring glints faintly when she touches the glass of a window, peering out at the endless trees. I watch her more than I watch the house. The way her hair falls forward when she leans, the way hershoulders shift beneath her coat, the softness she tries to hide but never fully can.
When she turns to me, her lips part as if to speak, but no words come. She only watches me, eyes steady, and that’s all it takes.
I cross the room in three steps and pull her against me.
Her back hits the wall, dust scattering around us, but she doesn’t flinch. She clutches my coat, pulling me down into her kiss. It’s hot, immediate, all teeth and tongue and hunger. The cold of the house vanishes beneath the fire she lights in me.
I press closer, my body caging hers, my hand sliding into her hair, tugging her head back so I can kiss her deeper. She moans into my mouth, the sound vibrating straight down my spine. My other hand drags over her hip, finding the edge of her shirt, slipping beneath the fabric to the heat of her skin.
“Alexei,” she gasps against my mouth, not a protest, but a plea.
“I’ve got you,” I growl, kissing her again, harder this time. My teeth catch her lower lip, biting just enough to make her gasp. Her nails rake over my chest, sharp even through the fabric of my shirt, and I groan into her mouth, the sting feeding the hunger clawing at me.
I push her coat off her shoulders, letting it fall to the floor. My hands roam over her body, sliding up beneath her shirt, over the curve of her waist, the swell of her breasts. She arches into my touch, her breath coming quicker, her kiss more desperate.
I tear the shirt over her head, tossing it aside. The sight of her in nothing but her bra and jeans, flushed from the cold and from me, makes my blood burn hotter.
“Beautiful,” I rasp, my thumb brushing over her nipple through the thin fabric, making her whimper.
Her eyes lock on mine, blazing. “I need you.”
I scoop her up, her legs wrapping around my waist, her arms around my shoulders. She kisses me like she’s starving, and I carry her down the hall, through the dust and silence, until I find a bedroom. The bed is bare, old, but solid. It’ll do.
I set her down and strip my shirt off in one motion. Her eyes rake over me, hungry, unapologetic. Her hands reach for me, dragging me back down onto the bed, her mouth crashing into mine again.
I unhook her bra, tossing it aside, and the sight of her bare breasts makes my cock throb painfully against my zipper. I take one nipple into my mouth, sucking hard, my tongue swirling until she cries out, her fingers tangling in my hair. I move to the other, giving it the same attention, my hand sliding down her stomach to the button of her jeans.
She bucks against me, desperate, when I slip my hand inside, finding her soaked already. I groan against her skin, the taste of her still on my tongue.
“Fuck, Viv,” I mutter, my fingers sliding over her clit, teasing, then slipping inside her heat. She arches off the bed, her moan breaking into my mouth as I kiss her again.
Her hand fumbles at my belt, desperate to free me. I help her, tearing it open, shoving my pants down just enough. My cock springs free, hard, leaking, aching for her.
I line myself up and pause, my forehead pressed to hers, my breath ragged. "I love you,” I murmur.
