This can’t be real. I can’t be assaulted in my own apartment. I should be safe here.
“Get off me,” I whisper, though the sound isn’t convincing.
He doesn’t move. His eyes stay locked on mine, steady, assessing, a gray that feels like touch. My chest rises against his with every breath, my skin tightening where our bodies almost meet.
“I told you,” he says, voice lower now, a rough scrape that slides down my spine. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
The line between threat and promise blurs, and I hate that I can feel it everywhere. My breath comes shallow, chest tight against his. “Then what the hell do you callthis?”
“Necessary.” His lips curl faintly. “You were going to do something stupid.”
“I should scream.”
“Go ahead.” His gaze drags down to my mouth, slow and deliberate. “No one will come.”
The heat is unbearable; his body solid above mine, the low rhythm of his breathing syncing with mine until I can’t tell which is which. He looks down at me for a long moment, his hand sliding from my wrist to the floor beside my head, knuckles grazing my hair.
“I’m here,” he says quietly, “because of your brother.”
The words break through the static in my brain. “What?”
“I need to talk to you about Lucas.”
For a heartbeat, the world stops moving. My mind stumbles between confusion and dread. “What do you mean? Do you—do you know him?”
“Better than you think.”
The room feels smaller. “Where is he?”
“Alive,” he says simply. “For now.”
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.
