“Comforting,” Ezra said, touching my arm.
It was a casual gesture, except Cristian went completely still. His eyes locked on Ezra’s hand like a laser sight. Nothing else moved, not even his breath.
I pretended not to notice, laughing a little too loudly as I moved to the fridge. “Okay! Food. You both must be starving. I’ll make something?—”
Cristian’s hand brushed mine. “Let them handle food,” he said softly. “I need a word with you.”
There wasn’t force in his touch, only insistence, and something in his tone made me follow before I could decide if I wanted to.
“Cristian—”
He didn’t answer until we reached my bedroom. He closed the door behind us with careful precision, then turned to face me.
“I don’t like that he touched you,” he said. His voice wasn’t sharp this time; it was quiet, almost uncertain.
“What?”
His eyes stayed on mine. “We don’t know him. We don’t know what he’s capable of. You’ve already been hurt once because of me. I won’t risk it again.”
His voice was full of something that sounded more like guilt than jealousy, and it caught me off guard.
I tried to laugh, but it came out thin. “He’s not dangerous, Cristian. He tried to save Lena. He’s probably still traumatized from it.”
Cristian’s jaw flexed. “Naïveté is not a virtue, Nadia.”
“Excuse me?”
“You cannot decide someone is trustworthy simply because they have kind eyes and poor posture.”
I folded my arms. “That’s not what I—okay, maybe a little. But he seems decent.”
He exhaled through his nose, slow and measured. “Evil rarely announces itself at the door. It waits until you’ve offered tea.”
I stared at him. “That’s weirdly poetic and very paranoid.”
“I have lived long enough to earn both.”
He scanned me for signs that I might shatter. The tension in his shoulders softened slightly, but the worry remained.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
That threw me. I’d never had a man ask me that without an ulterior motive. It sounded like he actually cared.
“I’m fine,” I said, though my voice betrayed the tremor under it. “Thank you. For saving Lena. For keeping me safe.”
He stepped closer. The bond between us—whatever this thing was—unraveled and rewove all at once. My heart was too loud.
“Cristian…”
He reached up, brushing a strand of hair from my lip. His fingers stopped halfway. His jaw flexed, restraint written into every line of his body.
“If I start,” he said quietly, “I’m not sure I will be able to stop.”
It wasn’t a threat. It was a confession.
“Good to know,” I said, surprised that my voice was steady despite the pandemonium in my chest.
His gaze held mine. “Contact?”
