“Do you understand,” he whispers, voice raw and gutted, “what you have done to me? How much I fucking need you?”
I nod slowly, guilt slicing through me like a steel blade.
Because I do understand.
And I am terrified that my lies will be the very thing that destroys him, this man I love more than any childhood fantasy I built in my mind.
I’m screwed. Literally and figuratively.
Chapter 42
Gustav
Peighton presses her thigh against mine as the car hums along the frozen highway, and I am struck by how quickly my body reacts.
A slow ache rises, vivid and distracting. I should not be this hungry for her, especially after the pool, after the feel of her wrapped tight around me, after the way she whispered my name the moment I slid into her. Yet even now, even with the memory still fresh and pulsing in my blood, desire claws through me as if I have been starved for years.
I reach over and touch her. Just a brush of my fingertips along her leg. Warm, soft, perfect.
She looks at me with that little smile she thinks I do not notice. It hits like fire under the ribs. I want her again. I wanther always. This is the addiction I feared — the thing the voices warned me about — yet I cannot bring myself to stop.
I pretend we are heading to St. Andrews because that is what she expects. Truthfully, I am already steering us toward home. Toward the castle. She does not belong away from me, tucked behind walls with other men teaching her things, breathing her air, watching the way she moves. I cannot stand it any longer. I need her where I can see her. I need to feel her near me, smell her hair, know she is safe under my roof, not some monastery’s.
The castle is where I keep everything that matters.
And she matters.
More than I ever intended.
I drag my knuckles across her thigh again, needing the contact to settle me. She responds with a soft inhale that curls heat down my spine. My jaw tightens. I want to lay her across my lap right here in the backseat and sink into her until nothing in the world exists except her voice saying my name. Instead, I hold myself together with fraying threads.
The car jolts suddenly.
A violent thud. The whole frame dips right.
Petyr curses under his breath in Russian. The driver pulls us to the side of the road, snow spraying up in white plumes.
We stop directly beside a sign with a cracked radiation symbol.
The Chernobyl exclusion zone. Close to Pripyat.
Fuck.
Petyr and the driver climb out to check the tire. Peighton leans forward between the seats, frowning at the glowing yellow sign. “Why is that here?”
“Because this is bad area,” I mutter, scanning the tree line. “Stay in the car.”
She nods, but I know better than to assume obedience the first time.
The driver returns with a tight expression. “Boss. There is no spare in the trunk.”
My entire body goes cold, colder than the wind that slices across the clearing.
“No spare,” I repeat, each word clipped. “In a Bratva-owned vehicle. On a journey that crosses the exclusion corridor.”
Petyr’s jaw locks. He understands the implication immediately. Sabotage. Intentional. Someone wanted us stranded.
I step out, pacing slowly around the car. The wind whistles between the pines like a warning. The air tastes different here — metallic, sharp, wrong. A raven croaks somewhere above us. Another sound follows, a faint snap of wood deep in the trees.
