Just that same terrible steadiness as he reaches for the torn film hanging from my hip.
I flinch anyway. His mouth hardens. But his hands stay precise.
Controlled.
Almost reverent in a way I hate immediately, because reverence is too close to tenderness, and tenderness would be easier to survive than this.
This is worse.
This is a man handling my skin like he thinks he gave me something sacred.
Chapter 38
Maksim
She’s wearing those fucking clothes again.
I look over from the driver’s seat and feel something ugly drag its nails down the inside of my chest.
The sweater is stretched out and thin, one cuff frayed, a hole near the side like it got caught on something and never got replaced. The jeans look worse—faded, worn at the knees, one rip blown wider from age instead of style. And the boots are those same beat-up things she came to me in, the ones I should’ve thrown in the trash months ago.
Not mine.
That’s what I see.
Not fabric. Not shoes. Not some woman getting dressed.
A message.
She went straight to the room the second we got back to the townhouse. Didn’t look at me. Didn’t say a word. Just disappeared down the hall with that stiff-backed silence she’s been wearing since Russia, and when I followed, she was already changing.
Out of my shirt.
Out of the things I bought her.
Out of me.
Like she thought she could put on those ragged little scraps and become someone I hadn’t already gotten my hands on.
Then she tried to leave.
I stopped that too.
Now she’s in my car, body turned toward the window, arms folded hard across her chest, jaw locked, acting like if she sits still enough she can somehow detach herself from everything I put on her.
The tattoo.
The townhouse.
Me.
It pisses me off more than it should.
No.
That’s a lie. It pisses me offexactlyas much as it should.
I drum my thumb once against the steering wheel and look back at the road. Traffic crawls around us, city lights smearing against the windshield in long wet streaks. My jaw is so tight it aches.
