Natalya is familiar with our world—she grew up in it. She won’t ask I questions. She won’t demand a life I can’t give. And more importantly…I don’t have to hide from her.
Not the darkness.
Not the quiet.
Not the depth of feeling I keep buried under everything else.
She accepts it—accepts me.
I tighten my arm around her sleeping form, pulling her closer, her softness fitting against every hard, broken corner inside me.
I press a slow, careful kiss to the top of her head.
“Lepestok,” I whisper into her hair, the word slipping from me with something like reverence.
She stirs but doesn’t wake, just burrows deeper into me. I let my eyes close, her warmth bleeding into the cold places I thought would never thaw again. And for the first time in years, I fall asleep feeling whole.
Content.
Wanted.
At peace.
Chapter Three
Natalya
Sometimes I wake up before him.
Just early enough to feel the weight of Viktor’s arm heavy around my waist, his breath warm against the back of my neck, the slow, steady rise and fall of his chest pressed to my spine. In those moments, when the world is still quiet, I lie there and wonder how all of this happened so quickly.
How he happened so quickly.
Three days ago, I barely knew the sound of his voice outside of short, clipped sentences exchanged during the monthly payment. Three days ago, I thought Viktor Balshov was nothing but a shadow with a pulse; cold, unreadable, carved from stone and silence. Someone to fear. Someone to avoid. Someone whose presence meant tension.
And now he sleeps in my bed like he belongs there.
Now his fingers learn my body every night, pleasuring me in ways I never thought possible, until I’m dissolving under his touch, until my body forgets every other version of intimacy except the one he is giving me.
He never rushes. Never takes more than I offer.
He just gives.
Pleasure.
Praise.
Warmth.
A steadiness I didn’t know I was starving for.
I keep thinking he’ll push for more—for sex—for something final and claiming and overwhelming, but he doesn’t. Viktor is deliberate. Controlled. Determined to go slow no matter how breathless I am under him, no matter how badly I want him to cross that last line.
Sometimes I think he’s being gentle for me.
Sometimes I think he’s restraining himself for reasons he hasn’t said out loud.
Either way…it’s making me fall faster.
