“I don’t…” I start, but the words get stuck somewhere between my chest and my mouth.
I swallow hard, forcing them out.
“I don’t want to think about him tonight.”
My voice is quieter now. Thinner. Timofey doesn’t interrupt. Doesn’t move. He just watches me. So I take a step closer. And that alone feels like crossing a line.
“Help me forget,” I say.
The words come out softer than I expect.
But they land heavy between us.
My fingers curl slightly at my sides.
“Just for tonight.”
There’s no strategy in this. No calculation. No careful planning. Just…desperation. A need to breathe without fear clawing at my lungs.
For a second, he hesitates. I see it. That flicker of restraint. Of control. Like he’s reminding himself what this is supposed to be. A contract. Nothing more.
Then something in his expression shifts. Decides. And just like that, the distance between us disappears. He closes it in two steps. Fast. Intentional. His hand comes up, firm against my jaw, tilting my face toward his.
And then his mouth is on mine.
He sweeps me into his arms, the strength in his limbs startling and absolute. One arm curves like iron around my waist, crushing me against the hard wall of his chest, while his other hand fists into my hair. He jerks my head back, angling my face up at a punishing degree, and devours my lips.
I moan into his mouth—a sound of pure, unadulterated release—and I feel the shift in him instantly. He turns feral. Thekiss loses its hesitation, turning into a battle of tongues and teeth that leaves me lightheaded. He isn't just kissing me; he’s trying to reach the parts of me I keep hidden behind my father’s name and my own cold smiles.
He carries me toward the bed, his strides heavy and certain, never once breaking the contact of our mouths. My hands find his shoulders, my nails digging into the solid muscle there as if I’m trying to anchor myself to something real in a world that’s suddenly spinning out of control.
When my back finally hits the mattress, the weight of him follows immediately. He looms over me, a dark shadow that smells of expensive tobacco and dangerous intentions. He looks at me—reallylooks at me—and for the first time, I don’t see the soldier. I see the man who’s about to take everything I’ve been trying to protect.
“You won’t remember anything but this,” he rasps against my skin, his voice a low, vibrating promise.
The silk of my top is gone in a blur of impatient movement, discarded like the last of my inhibitions. The cool air hits my skin for only a fraction of a second before his heat replaces it.
His teeth graze my nipple—a sharp, electric nip that sends a jolt straight to my spine. I scream, the sound raw and echoing in the room, but he swallows the tail end of it as his mouth moves back to mine.
While he claims my breath, his other hand is already moving. He hooks his fingers into the waistband of my bottoms and shucks them down my legs in one rough, efficient motion.
I’m exposed, trembling, and completely under his thumb.
Before I can even process the weight of his gaze on me, he sinks a finger inside me.
The intrusion is sudden and deep, a searing invasion of warmth that makes my hips buck off the mattress. I’m a messof contradictions, aching for more while my body reels from the sheer intensity of him.
He doesn’t wait for me to adjust. He begins to move that finger in a slow, torturous hook, finding the exact spot that makes my vision fragment into sparks.
“Timofey,” I gasp, my hands clawing at his shoulders, my nails leaving crescent marks in his skin.
He doesn’t slow down. He adds a second finger, stretching me, his thumb finding the bundle of nerves at my apex and applying a steady, rhythmic pressure that makes my breath hitch in a series of broken sobs. He’s a master of my anatomy, dismantling my defenses with surgical, lethal precision.
I asked him to help me forget, but as he looms over me, his eyes dark with a possessive hunger that looks nothing like a contract, I realize I’ve never been more aware of every inch of my own skin. I’m not just forgetting the world outside; I’m being rewritten by the man holding me captive in the dark.
He yanks his fingers out of me, the sudden absence leaving me feeling hollow and aching, but he doesn't let the distance last. He holds his hand to my lips, the scent of my own desire thick in the air. I don’t hesitate. I suck them into my mouth, my pupils dilating as I stare up at him through my lashes, the metallic tang of his ring and the salt of his skin mixing with my own heat.
A dark, predatory smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth. “You taste better than anything I’ve ever been promised, Valeria,” he growls, his voice dropping into a register that makes my stomach flip. “And I want to taste every bit of you.”
