I hold a hand out to her, but she waves me off with that same careless flick of the wrist she’s been using all night.
“I want to stay here a little longer,” she says.
“It’s cold,” I protest, even though I know better.
“I know,” she grumbles, already tugging the heated blanket from the ground around her shoulders like a cocoon.
I let her be, because I know she needs this—this quiet, this sky. She’s been like this ever since Sho, and even though I don’t know the whole story, I know enough to know there’s no clean break between people like them. Somewhere on the other side of the world, I can picture him the same way: silent, staring up at the same moon, thinking of her.
They were perfect together. And devastating. They loved like wildfires, maybe even more recklessly than Aleksandr and I—if that’s possible. Two assassins with empires that bleed, and a love so heavy it cracked under its own weight.
I stand there for a moment, looking down at her, feeling the pull to stay, but my thoughts drift toward Aleksandr. Toward the factthat, despite him making me cum on the parlor table, we never talked about where I’d sleep. If I’d sleep beside him.
The idea ties me in knots. Sharing a bed feels more intimate than the madness of the hours before—more exposing than vows, or kisses, or anything else.
I turn back toward the hall, gathering up the skirts of my wedding dress wet from the frozen ground outside, my fingers fumbling with the laces of my corset as I walk. Every tug loosens the tightness around my ribs, but the silk still clings to me, sticky with hours of heat and champagne and adrenaline. I am half afraid I’ll have to sleep in it, like some tragic, overdressed ghost of my own wedding.
By the time I reach the door to what I think is my room, I’m breathless from the effort, my fingertips sore from clawing at the boning. I twist the handle, ready to collapse face-first onto the bed, corset and all?—
“Ahh!” I make a strangled noise in my throat that is somewhere between a scream and a gasp, and immediately slap both hands over my eyes, spinning on my heel like I can erase the sight of him burned into my retinas.
Aleksandr stands in the middle of my bedroom like a Greek statue come to life, a white towel slung low on his hips, water still dripping from his hair, streaming in slow rivulets down his chest. Broad shoulders, taut stomach, muscle and scars and skin that looks like it was carved out of the night itself. The air smells faintly of cedar and soap, steam curling off his skin like he dragged the shower’s heat with him into the room.
“Oh my god—I’m sorry!” I blurt out, too loud, my voice cracking as heat rushes up my neck. “I didn’t—sorry!”
Behind me, there’s the soft, amused exhale of a man who knows exactly what he looks like.
“You’re sorry,” Aleksandr says, his voice low and teasing, “for seeing your husband naked in his own bedroom?”
I keep my palms over my eyes for one more second, then risk turning just enough to plant my hand against the doorframe, bracing myself. “If my memory serves me right, I claimed this bedroom as mine last night.”
“Yeah, but this is my bedroom, Moya,” he murmurs, and the way he says it feels like silk dragged down my spine. “You’re just so attracted to me you can’t help yourself. You follow me everywhere.”
My cheeks are burning so hot I’m surprised the room isn’t glowing. I keep my back turned to him, staring very intently at the doorframe like it holds all the answers to the universe. “I didn’t know,” I mumble. “And I am not following you.”
“Okay,” he says lightly, with a thread of laughter under it that makes my stomach flip over itself, “if you say so.”
The sound of him shifting—bare feet on the floorboards, water dripping from his hair—fills the quiet. Then, closer now: “Turn around, Lily.”
“No,” I say quickly. “Privacy, Aleksandr.”
“There is no privacy between us,” he counters, the words firm and matter-of-fact, the way only he can make them.
I let out a long, shaky breath, my forehead pressing briefly to the doorframe before I finally turn. Slowly. My voice tries to sound braver than I feel. “As your wife,” I say, “I will… learn.”
His mouth curves into a slow, knowing smile, and I can’t look at him too long. Instead, I busy myself with my earrings, tugging them free one at a time, setting them on the dresser. Then the necklace, my fingers clumsy, desperate to do anything but notice the way his grey eyes follow me.
When I get to the corset, I realize just how trapped I am. The laces are knotted behind me, and no matter how I reach, twist, or yank, they won’t budge. My arms ache, my fingers catch on the fabric, and all I manage to do is make my hair even messier.
Frustrated, I mutter under my breath, “I am going to have to sleep in this thing.”
A quiet laugh rumbles behind me, low and infuriatingly pleased.
“Come here,Moya,” Aleksandr commands.
I turn my head slightly, catching the glint of water dripping from his hair, the towel hanging precariously low on his hips. My breath hitches. “I can?—”
“Don’t argue with me.” His voice is softer now but no less firm. “Come.”
