His eyes lifted back to mine. “You’re tender.”
“I know.”
“Gennady reached your brother less than ten minutes ago.”
“I know that too.”
“This does not have to happen now.”
“I’m not confused because a bad man made a phone call.” My fingers tightened around his. “I want you. Not because I’m grateful. Not because Petya is safe. Not because I don’t understand what you are.”
Vadim’s throat moved.
“Tell me what I am.”
I let my eyes move over him. The size of him. The expensive shirt with the sleeves rolled back. The blood under one cuticle. The stillness that felt less like emptiness now and more like a storm kept away from my skin by will alone.
“Dangerous,” I said. “Possessive. Arrogant enough to think your roof can change the weather.”
His mouth almost curved.
“And?”
“And the reason I’m not with Gennady.”
“That is not enough.”
“No,” I said. “It isn’t.”
He waited.
My throat tightened under the silence. He could have filled it with his own claim and didn’t. He wanted words, but he would not steal them out of my mouth.
I stepped closer until the open robe brushed his trousers. “You make me feel like my yes matters even when you could take everything else.”
His jaw tightened.
“That is why,” I said. “That is why I want you.”
Vadim’s hand came to my face.
Slowly.
I leaned into it before he touched me.
His palm settled against my cheek. Warm. Rough in places. Too gentle for the hand that had split Gennady’s mouth.
“My wife,” he said, low.
The words hit deep enough that my breath changed.
“You keep saying that.”
“I will keep saying it until the world learns.”
“What if I haven’t?”
“Then I say it to myself.”
