I find myself shaking beneath him, wildly full of him as he lies above me with one arm braced beside me, his other hand squeezing my ass as he thrusts quicker and quicker.
"There," I manage, my face pressed against the pillows. "Right there, don't—"
I clench around him as the pressure builds and breaks again.
His groans turn louder, longer, then his thrusts become erratic as his cock throbs hard inside me, emptying himself deeply, just like he said.
He lies above me until he softens and slips from me, then rolls to the side and pulls me against his chest.
"You good?" he asks.
"God, yes."
The room is very still in the golden light of the lamp. His arm settles over me. Heavy. Warm. His hand cupping my mound like he owns it now. I can feel his heart hammering against my back. My own is doing the same.
I'm warm. I'm safe. I'm in a bed that isn't mine with a man I've known for a day and a half, and my mind is quiet. My body is at peace.
"Go back to sleep," he murmurs. His voice is thick. Half gone already.
I close my eyes and sleep.
Iosif
Sundays are usually my day off. But with everything that’s happened since Mia found herself at my club, it makes sense that work has to happen today.
First, a text from Zakhar to say that the woman who overdosed on Friday night has been found and the jewelry he planted on her has traced back to Vinzlee. Vinzlee’s son has accepted the course of events and is looking for no other connections to his father’s death.
There have been a few messages to Mia’s phone from Sasha, and Mia has responded with her condolences.
Ultimately, it’s now safe for Mia to return to her apartment. Only I don’t know how I really feel about that.
That's not true. I know exactly how I feel about it. I feel like the idea of her packing the few items she has into a bag and walking out of my front door and going back to an apartment in the city where she earns minimum wage and sleeps alone is physically repellent to me. I feel like the idea of this house without her in it, without her voice, without her smell, without her feet tucked under her in my chair, is a version of my life I no longer want to return to.
I know how I feel. I just don't have a protocol for it.
She's in the kitchen. I can hear Pavlina talking to her, the low murmur of it. Pavlina likes her. That's not insignificant. Pavlinahas run this household for eleven years and has outlasted three of my relationships by simply being impossible to replace. She doesn't warm to people easily. She warmed to Mia in under twenty-four hours, and I watched it happen with the specific discomfort of a man who is watching his entire domestic infrastructure reorganize itself around a woman he hasn't asked to stay.
The threat to her gone. Every operational reason for keeping Mia here has been resolved.
The non-operational reasons are a different matter.
I put the phone down and go to find her.
She's sitting at the kitchen island. Coffee in both hands. Hair pulled back. Wearing the grey jumper again, the one that's too large, the one that makes her look like she's been swallowed by something soft. She looks up when I come in, and there it is again, that direct, blue gaze, unguarded, and the faint color that rises in her cheeks when she sees me, which tells me she's thinking about last night and this morning and the library and the table and all of it.
Good. I'm thinking about it too.
"Morning," she says.
"Morning."
Pavlina sets a cup of coffee in front of me and disappears.
I sit across from Mia. I look at her. She looks at me.
"Zakhar confirmed it this morning," I say. "Vinzlee's death has been attributed to a burglary gone wrong. His son isn't looking for anyone else. You're safe."
She absorbs this. I watch the information land. Watch the tension she's been carrying, quietly, underneath everything, even underneath last night, ease by a fraction.
