I feel a chill run down my spine. “What does that mean?”
He doesn’t answer right away. Just looks at me like he’s deciding whether I can handle the truth.
“You might want to put something on,” he says finally, the words calm but absolute. “This conversation will take longer than you think and I don’t like getting distracted.”
The sound of him speaking that close makes the hair at the nape of my neck stand up. His weight is everywhere—across my hips, along my ribs—a steady presence that keeps my body stubbornly still even as my brain screams for escape.
“Let me up,” I say, voice sharper than I feel.
He watches me slowly, his eyes moving over my face like someone reading a map. “You’ll run.”
The certainty in his voice does something to me. It’s stupid, irrational, a physical thing: my pulse thuds, a warmth blooms low and unwelcome, and for one maddening second, I imagine what it would feel like to be pressed tighter against him, to let go. I shut that thought down with a hard inhale so fast it hurts.
He exhales slowly, then shifts his weight, rising slightly but not enough to give me space. The motion drags the fabric of his shirt across the bare skin of my stomach. My pulse spikes again, for all the wrong reasons.
“Relax,” he murmurs. “I told you that you’re safe.”
I snort. Safe my ass. He pushes himself up and offers me a hand. I don’t take it. He notices, and his mouth curves, almost approving, before he straightens fully.
I scramble up on my own, heart still racing, pulling the blanket tighter around me. He’s watching me again, unhurried, the ghost of a smile still at the corner of his mouth.
“Who are you?” I ask, voice rough.
He studies me before answering. “My name is Artyom Morozov.”
This explains the accent. I take a step back, but the wall stops me. My chest rises and falls too fast, and his eyes follow the movement before drifting higher. For a second, neither of us breathes. Heat curls low in my body, unwanted, disobedient. Then his gaze lifts to mine again, like he knows exactly what that look did to me.
Something sharp cuts through the haze. Shame, defiance, survival—whatever it is, it burns hotter than the pull.
“Stop looking at me like that,” I snap.
“Like what?”
“Like—” I bite the word off, because I don’t even know what I mean.
He tilts his head slightly. “You’re shaking.”
“No shit.” I glare at him, humiliated, but he’s right. I’m still in myunclaspedbra like an idiot.
“Turn around,” I snap.
He doesn’t.
“Turn around!”
Finally, with a faint sigh, he does, though I can tell he’s still watching me in the reflection of the window. I yank the blouse off the chair and shove my arms through the sleeves, buttoning it as fast as my shaking fingers allow.
When I glance up, he’s already facing me again. “What do you want from me?”
He doesn’t answer my question right away. The quiet between us stretches until I feel it like pressure in my chest.
Finally, he says, “Do you know where your brother is?”
I blink, the question cutting through the tension like a blade. “No.”
“Think carefully before you answer.”
“I said no.” I cross my arms, trying to sound steady. “And even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”
