Page 37 of Dark Soul

“To a friend,” he explained. “So they know where you are.”

Her face lit up with understanding. “Dark, I don’t think you’re a serial killer.”

“A woman can never be too careful.” He paused. “I want you to be careful.”

She shrugged her slim shoulders and got out of the car, stretching her legs. “I trust you, Dark,” she said softly. “I don’t need to text anyone. I know I’m safe with you.”

Such simple words, but they had the power to drive him to his knees.

How he wished he were deserving of that trust.

He vowed, then and there, to keep her safe.

No matter what.

“Are we going inside?” she asked. “It’s freezing out here.”

* * *

Alexia

Though the house Dark and his friends were staying in was beautiful, it was hard not to compare it with Kvyat’s house.

Alexia wondered if that might be the case forever, that everything would remind her of these months, her spirit jaded by the excess she’d witnessed in Kvyat’s home.

As time went on, she was finding it more and more difficult to live there. Because, though Arseny Kvyat had never laid a hand on his son, she could see how, in every interaction between them, the man worked to erode Nikolai’s character. He wanted to take that sweet, sensitive little boy and turn him into a carbon copy of himself—someone who saw the world in black and white. And Alexia wondered how much longer the boy would be able to resist the pull.

Alexia shook her head. She wasn’t going to think of Kvyat’s cruelty today. She’d left the house to spend some time alone. Bumping into Dark had been … serendipitous. She’d been planning to call him later, anyway.

She took off her coat and dropped it on the back of a chair in the large, open plan living area. Walking to the window, she looked out at the view of the town of Gstaad—not as striking as the view Kvyat’s place had of the mountains, but beautiful nevertheless.

“Can I get you something to drink, Alexia?” Dark asked from what she realized was the kitchen, surfaces and cabinets designed in a striking combination of stone and steel.

“I’m good, thank you.” She paused for a moment. “You’re really staying here with four other men? You’re all very neat.”

Every surface was clean, except for a side table with an in-progress chess game.

“What, you expected to walk into a frat house, or something?”

Alexia laughed. “I guess that is the last time I saw a group of men living together.”

“I’m thirty-five years old, Alexia.”

“Five years older than me.”

Something simmered in his blue eyes. He strode towards her, stopping less than two body lengths away from her.

“Does that make me a cradle-snatcher?” he asked.

“Does what—“

She didn’t have a chance to finish the sentence before Dark’s head bent down and those firm lips pressed on hers. Her pulse quickened, her initial surprise replaced with a burst of pleasure. So many times in the last weeks, she’d gone to sleep thinking about him, wondering what his mouth would feel like on hers.

Now she knew.

Now she knew, and she wanted more.

And though there was nothing tentative about the kiss, nothing tentative in the way his firm, soft lips coaxed hers open, she recognized, in the way he held himself so still, that the kiss was also a question, that he wanted to make sure she realized she could step back. That he could end this.