Floor-to-ceiling windows frame Chicago's skyline, afternoon sun painting everything gold. The space is obscenely luxurious, marble and silk and a bed that looks like clouds. I stand in themiddle of it all, not knowing what to do with my hands, with my body, with this freedom he's given me.
Alexei leans against the door, watching me with those pale eyes that see everything. I can see the trail of dark hair disappearing beneath his boxers. My mouth goes dry.
Neither of us speaks. The weight of everything sits between us: Viktor's calculated evil, Mikhail's innocence, my father's death that was always going to happen regardless of my silence. Eleven years of wrong belief, shattered in minutes by documents he found in his father's study.
"You need clothes," I say finally, the mundane observation easier than addressing everything else.
His lips twitch. "I need a lot of things. Clothes are low on the list."
"What's at the top?"
He pushes off from the door, crosses to me, stops a foot away. Not touching. Waiting. Always waiting for me to choose now. But I can feel the heat radiating from his bare chest, smell his skin, amber and male.
"You. Safe. Here. That's the whole list."
The laugh that escapes me comes out broken, half-sob. My legs give out, too long running on nothing but adrenaline and guilt, and now that he's freed me, I can't even stand.
He catches me before I hit the marble, scooping me up like I weigh nothing, and suddenly he's pressed against me, all that bare skin making my body sing.
"I've got you," he murmurs against my hair as he carries me to the couch. "I've got you, kotyonok."
He holds me while I shake. Not crying, just trembling, my body finally letting go of the tension it's been carrying for years. His hands stroke my back, my hair, patient and gentle in a way that would have been impossible weeks ago. But I feel himhardening against my hip, his body's inevitable response to our proximity, and it makes me press closer instead of pulling away.
"What do you need?" he asks when the tremors finally slow, his voice rough.
"I don't know." My voice sounds strange, hollow. "I don't know anything anymore."
"Then we'll figure it out. Together."
“Together,” I agree.
"When I hunted you all those years, I told myself I was honoring Mikhail. Avenging my family. But the truth is…" He stops, jaw working like the words are being pulled from him by force. "The truth is I was running from my father. From becoming him. And I became him anyway."
"You stopped."
"Only because of you." He finally looks at me, and the rawness there makes my chest tight and my pussy wet. "Because you looked at me like I could be more than a monster."
"You are more."
"Am I?" His laugh is bitter. "I kept you in a basement. Made you bleed. Made you…"
"You also sobbed in my arms about your mother. Taught me about forgiveness. Burned your father's legacy to free me from guilt that wasn't mine." I curl closer into him, and his eyes darken.
"Literally. And he doesn't deserve a legacy. He deserves to be forgotten."
"Your family…"
"You're my family now." The words hang between us, heavy with meaning. "If you'll have me."
My breath catches. The offer there, the vulnerability of it from this man who used to take everything by force. My nipples are so hard they hurt, and I know he can see them through the thin cotton dress.
I move first. My hand rises to his face, tracing the exhaustion there, the bruise on his jaw from the warehouse fight still purple-dark.
"You killed for me."
"I'd do it again."
"You gave up everything."
