A jolt shot straight to my pelvis so fast and sharp it made me flinch—not outwardly, but inside, where everything curled tight like a fist.
His thumb.
His mouth.
That look.
It was too much.
Too intimate.
Too deliberate.
I tore my gaze away, staring hard at the table like it had the answers to every inappropriate thought suddenly hijacking my brain. I couldn’t look at him again. Not right now. Not while my body was still reeling from a touch that lasted half a second and rewired everything.
Even so… the world didn’t feel sharp or loud or tangled. Just warm. Just… right.
And maybe it was the sugar crash or the fact that my shoulders had finally unclenched for the first time in weeks, but as I stretched out on the couch, I barely noticed how close he was.
I leaned into him.
His shoulder was solid, warm, just there.
And before I could second-guess it, my eyes drifted shut.
And I stayed.
Chapter 6
Nikolai
I leaned back into the far corner of the couch, watching her.
She was curled up like a stray cat that had finally stopped running—limbs tucked in; the blanket half-slipped down her shoulder, cheek pressed to the cushion. Completely unguarded. Soft in a way I wasn’t used to seeing. Not in her. Not in anyone.
The house was still. Too still. I wasn’t used to silence without tension.
And yet… this wasn’t uncomfortable. It was something else. Something unfamiliar.
The lamp beside us cast a dull amber glow across her face, catching in her lashes, highlighting the faintest shadow beneath her cheekbone. She didn’t look like a woman wrapped up in rivalry and anger. She looked like peace.
My jaw tightened instinctively.
I shouldn’t be watching her like this. Not this way. But I couldn’t stop.
She let out a tiny sigh in her sleep—barely audible, but enough to make my chest pull tight. There was no armor here. No sarcasm. No fire in her eyes.
Just Mina.
And for reasons I didn’t care to untangle, I wanted to keep her like this. Not forever. Just for now. Just a little longer.
The scent of her still lingered in the air—warm cookie pie and something sharper beneath it. Something like her laugh. I could still hear it, the way she’d teased me hours ago.
“What are you, a serial killer?”
My lips curved before I could stop them. I hadn’t smiled like that in weeks.
But this wasn’t amusement anymore. This was weight in my chest. Something unfamiliar. Something dangerous.
