“Can I, Father?” Anya asks, her voice shaking only slightly. “Please?”
My heart instantly bursts, beating wildly in victory.
Anton Morozov hesitates, looking between me and his only daughter. I can’t tell if he’s debating jumping over the table to throttle me or considering shaking my hand for getting Anya to branch out.
Probably the throttle me option.
Ultimately though, he dips his head in approval. The responding smile that spreads across Anya’s face makes him freeze, like he’s been stunned. It makes me wonder when the last time he’s seen her look so happy.
I can feel my own smile meet hers as I stand completely still, watching as she tentatively rounds the table. Her long and modest lavender dress doesn’t hide her slim figure, but it doesn’t accentuate it either. The fabric looks soft and flows as she walks toward me. The sleeves are nearly sheer but still hiding her arms from view.
She’s shorter than I expected considering Dmitri’s height, though Ivan is on the shorter side so it makes sense. Her head is level with my chest, but she stays back far enough that she doesn’t need to crane her neck to meet my eyes. Since her dress meets the ground, I can’t tell if she has heels on.
Holding up my cuffed hands, I smile happily. “You want my hands behind my back or do you want to step under them? I won’t touch you either way.”
“Would it be too much work to put them behind your back?” she asks, her pale cheeks tinting pink.
I chuckle lightly. “Nah, I got this.”
Bending down slowly so I don’t startle her, I step through my connected hands one foot at a time. When I stand back up straight, my interlocked fingers are firmly behind my back.
“We’ll go dance near Dmitri and Jade, okay?”
Anya looks optimistically at her father. Again, he pauses before nodding.
I don’t know if she’s noticed that her uncles took up my offer to point a gun at me while we dance, but judging by the way Lev and Mikhail both have an arm under their table, I know they have.
I can’t complain, I’m sure I would do the same thing in their shoes.
“If anyone gets too close to us, I’ll sic Nico on them,” I tell her, walking leisurely by her side. “He looks bored, anyway. I know he’d love an excuse to shed some blood.” I dip my head toward Nico’s direction to show her that he’s on standby.
Anya giggles and then gasps like the sound has scared her. She clasps a hand over her mouth with widened eyes and freezes. A long couple of seconds pass before she shakes off her shock and she looks back at me.
“You didn’t have to do this,” she mutters shyly.
A scoff leaves me before I can smother it. “No onehasto ask the prettiest girl at the party to dance, but I could hardly miss the chance.”
Her face flames, cheeks going from pink to red. Her round eyes blink at me in shock. “You can’t mean that. Why would you say that?” She swallows, shaking her head. “You don’t have to be so nice to me, you know?”
“Oh, I never lie about pretty girls, Anya.” I chuckle, lips quirking up on the sides. My feet come to a stop, putting usin the middle of the dance floor. “Well, I do give Emilio shit about his wife, Melani, complimenting her a lot. She’s beautiful of course, but married women aren’treallymy thing. Don’t tell anyone I said that, I have a reputation to protect.”
“A reputation as what?” she questions and tilts her head, seemingly amused to share a secret with me.
As if to boast, I lean just a little closer and talk just a little lower. “I’m a bit of a tease. Someone has to keep my tight-ass brothers on their toes.”
A bit of her honey blonde hair falls in front of her face as she looks down, hiding a little smile. The slow song begins to play, and anticipation bubbles up in my gut.
“You can hold my shoulders, if you like,” I offer, trying to sound as nonchalant as humanly possible. “Or we can kind of just hover around each other. I’m game either way.”
After a moment, Anya looks up and reaches out tentatively, extending her hands to set them lightly on my shoulders. She doesn’t let them fall with their full weight, not letting them relax so that she can retract them as quickly as possible if need be.
Still, the feeling of her tentative trust makes me feel fucking invincible.
“Now, I’m no trained dancer, so don’t expect anything fancy,” I preface, looking down at her and catching a glimpse of her feet as she steps closer. “But I promise I won’t step on your feet,” I joke, nodding down to her short, silver heels.
Something like humor flashes in her light-blue eyes. They aren’t striking and sharp like the Moretti color my family tends to possess. They’re pale and soft, like the sky when it’s been dusted with thin clouds.
“Maybe I’ll step on yours.” Her voice is so subtle, I almost don’t catch her comment.
