Now, older, heavier, and broader in every direction that matters, he does not have to work for the effect. He simply stands too close, and suddenly I’m aware of everything.
The heat of him. The way one hand can trap my wrist without strain. The fact that I’m leaning back against marble, while helooms over me with all the terrible calm of a man who knows exactly how much stronger he is and has no need to perform it loudly.
“Nikolaj,” I say, and the name comes out lower than intended.
His eyes flash because no matter how many pieces are still falling back into place, that remains his weakest point, and I remain enough of a bastard to use it.
“Don’t start,” he says.
“Start what?”
“This.”
I tip my head slightly. “You’ll have to be more specific. There’s a lot of this.”
His grip tightens just enough to remind me who’s controlling the current arrangement. “You’re acting like a brat,” he says.
The word hits me so hard I nearly laugh. No one in this world would dare say that to me—no one except him, and even then, only in private. The fact that he says it now, after everything, with all that rough disbelief and old familiarity threaded through it, makes my stomach tighten.
I know better than to show that fully.
So, I pout instead.
It’s instinctive and ridiculous, and I hate myself for how naturally it happens. My lower lip pushes forward a fraction, my brows lift in false offense, and I know exactly what I look like because I have used this face on him before to terrible effect. He used to lose patience with it in under ten seconds. Sometimes less.
This time, he stares at me in silence for one long beat, and then something awful and pleased curls at the corner of his mouth.
“Oh, fuck off,” I mutter.
“There it is,” he says, voice gone rougher. “That fucking face.”
I try for dignity. “I have no idea what you mean.”
“Liar.”
His hand leaves my wrist just long enough for me to almost think I’ve won something. Then it comes back to catch me by the jaw instead, thumb pressing lightly at one corner of my mouth, not cruel but absolutely in control.
I freeze under the contact. The room seems to narrow down to his hand, my breath, and the low, dangerous heat in his eyes.
“You pout when you want your way,” he says quietly. “I remember how it used to make me want to bend you over the nearest surface and remind you what that mouth was for.”
The words slide through me like slow poison.
My own breath catches; there’s no point pretending otherwise. Nikolaj sees it and looks indecently satisfied with himself, which would be unbearable if it didn’t also make him look exactly like the worst parts of my favorite memories.
“You’re degrading me at six a.m.,” I say, and my voice is not nearly as steady as I’d like.
He makes a low sound that might almost be a laugh. “You’re the one who showed up in my kitchen acting like a spoiled prince.”
“I’m not a prince.”
“No, I suppose you’re worse.” The thumb at my mouth drags once, brief and possessive enough to make my knees feel dangerously theoretical. “Look at you—King of the Five Families and still making that face because I called you what you are.”
There is no safe response to that. Not with his hand still on my face, and my body remembering every dangerous thing it used to do under this exact tone of voice.
So, I do the only remotely intelligent thing left.
I step back.
