Gently, yes. But still. His teeth grazed my skin, and I felt it happen in real time: the birth of a hickey. My gasp wasn’t even cute—it was full-on breathless and scandalized and maybe a little delighted. “Nikolai!” I slapped a hand over the spot, mortified and absolutely buzzing. “Did you just?—”
He leaned back just enough to meet my eyes, and of course he looked smug. Of course he did. “You like it.”
“I didn’t say that,” I stammered, very much not looking him in the eye because I did like it and he knew. My voice was all high-pitched and guilty-sounding, like I’d been caught sneaking candy before dinner. Which, in a way, I had—only the candy was a six-foot-something Russian hockey menace with bedroom eyes.
“Admit it,” he teased, stepping closer, radiating the kind of chaotic confidence I both adored and hated. “You’re mine now.”
Cue full-body shiver. “Maybe,” I said, attempting something between sass and self-preservation. But we both knew I was already toast.
His eyes didn’t leave mine. The air thickened like it was holding its breath with us. My brain screamed danger while my heart whispered jump.
“What if people see?” I blurted out, glancing around the kitchen as if an audience might pop out of the pantry.
“Let them,” he said, his voice low and serious now. He leaned in, foreheads almost touching. “I’m not hiding what we are."
And whoosh. There went my insides again. Just… entirely gone. Spiraling.
I stared at him, standing at the edge of something terrifying and wonderful, a hickey blooming on my neck like proof that maybe—just maybe—I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
And for once?
That didn’t scare me.
He kissed me again—slow, deep, and way too good for my sanity. My whole body lit up like someone had plugged me straight into a lightning storm. It wasn’t just a kiss; it was a moment. Like, capital-M Moment. It felt like a thousand unspoken feelings got stuffed into the space between our lips. My head spun, and when I finally pulled back, breathless and buzzing, my heart was tap-dancing against my ribs.
“So,” I said, trying to sound chill when I absolutely wasn’t, “you’re my boyfriend.” The words fell out of my mouth like they had a life of their own. Boyfriend. As in mine. As in, this gorgeous, broody Russian hockey god was now mine? That didn’t feel real.
He sighed—not annoyed, but thoughtful—and gave me a look that said, You’re doing the most again, Mina. “This means a lot to you? Labeling it?”
I bit my lip, caught between a million conflicting emotions. “I just…” I fidgeted, trying to find words that weren’t a mess. “I just want to know how to be with you. Like… what are the rules of this thing?”
His brow furrowed like he was trying to translate me in real time. “You want rules,” he repeated slowly, like he was solving a puzzle. “But there are no rules. Other than you’re mine.”
That sentence. That sentence. His fingers brushed the side of my neck—light, reverent—and I swear my soul left my body for a second. There was something so… claimed about it, but not in a possessive, weird way. More like a protection circle drawn in blood and fire kind of way.
“And everyone will know it,” he added, voice velvet and steel.
My throat bobbed as I nodded. His words wrapped around me like a heated blanket. Did I want the world to know? To see me with him? Part of me screamed yes. The other part—the one that remembered what it felt like to be humiliated—curled into a cautious ball.
“What if they think it’s just… a rebound?” I asked before I could stop myself, that old fear bubbling up like a bad habit.
His jaw tightened just a little. “It’s not a rebound for me.”
That hit hard. My breath caught, and I blinked up at him, stunned by the conviction in his voice. No hesitation. No flinching. Just certainty. And God, I wanted to believe it. I wanted to crawl inside that certainty and make a home out of it.
“Then what is it?” I whispered.
He tilted my chin up so gently it almost made me cry. “It’s us.”
Simple. Honest. Devastating.
And somehow, I knew he meant it.
“I want to be yours,” I said, my voice small but solid. There was no going back now—not after this.
His eyes darkened, and his voice dropped, low and rough and ridiculously unfair. “Good.”
Then he kissed me again—like he was sealing something sacred. Like I had just stepped into a new version of myself.
