"Neither do I."
She laughed softly, the sound vibrating against my skin. "The great Vasily Chernov, speechless. I should mark the calendar."
"Mock me all you want." I pressed a kiss to her hair. "I'll find ways to retaliate."
"Promises, promises."
We lay in comfortable silence as our breathing slowed. I traced idle patterns on her back, marveling at the softness of her skin, the way she fit against me like she'd been designed for this exact purpose.
"Vasily?"
"Mm?"
"What happens now?"
I considered the question. What did happen now? She was my wife in truth as well as law. My captive who'd become something else entirely. My enemy who'd kissed me first.
"Now," I said slowly, "we figure out what this becomes."
"And what do you want it to become?"
Everything, I thought. I want it to become everything.
But I couldn't say that. Not yet. Not when she was still sorting through her own feelings, still trying to reconcile the man who'd taken her with the man who'd just made love to her.
"I want it to become whatever you'll give me," I said instead. "I told you I'd wait. I meant it."
She was quiet for a long moment. Then she pressed a kiss to my chest, right over my heart.
"I'm not running anymore," she said softly. "I don't know what that means yet. But I'm not running."
"That's enough. For now, that's enough."
She fell asleep in my arms, her breath evening out into the slow rhythm of deep slumber.
I stayed awake, watching moonlight play across her features. She looked younger in sleep, the wariness smoothed away, the walls she'd built temporarily lowered. I could see the woman she might have been if life had been kinder—bright, open, unburdened by the weight of never being enough.
Something had shifted tonight. Something fundamental, tectonic. I'd had her body, yes—had claimed her in the most primal way a man could claim a woman. But it was more than that. She'd given me something I hadn't expected, something I wasn't sure I deserved.
Trust. Or the beginning of it.
I didn't have a name for what I felt. Didn't want to examine it too closely, afraid it would dissolve under scrutiny. But I knew it was more than obsession now, more than possession, more than the dark hunger that had driven me to take her in the first place.
She was changing me. Had already changed me, in ways I was only beginning to understand.
And for the first time in my life, I was afraid. Not of enemies or violence or death—those fears I'd conquered long ago. I was afraid of losing her. Of watching her walk away. Ofwaking up one day to find that the light she'd brought into my darkness had been extinguished.
I tightened my arms around her, as if I could hold her close enough to keep her safe from everything—including myself.
Whatever happened next, whatever Pankratov was planning, whatever challenges waited in New York—I would face them. But not alone. Not anymore.
She murmured something in her sleep, her hand curling against my chest.
I pressed a kiss to her forehead and closed my eyes.
For the first time in longer than I could remember, I wasn't dreading the dawn.
Chapter 13 - Gaby
