Page 59 of Shadows of the Past
Oh, he's going to need one when I get my hands on him.
But I don't wait—my hand wraps around the gun, and I aim with a confidence I've been developing more and more frequently when holding a weapon. The bullet strikes his head, and I watch him fall. Maksim still stands frozen with his back to me, and now he's really pissing me off.
"What the hell is wrong with you? HE ALMOST KILLED YOU!"
I scream and rush toward him. Only then does he turn and look at me as if I'm the one letting myself be killed by an idiot who didn't even notice someone else physically standing fifteen feet away from him.
I push him with all the strength and fury I have in me. Doesn't he realize he was about to die? Doesn't he understand that if I'd been a minute later, he wouldn't be breathing?
"You're not allowed to die, you hear me? You're not allowed to leave me alone. You don't get to be so selfish, to choose the easy way out when I would choose this hell every time for you. You're not allowed to put yourself in irrational danger when I'm waiting for you after every mission, do I make myself clear?" I inhale, feeling for the first time in the last ten minutes that I'm breathing. That oxygen is reaching my lungs.
I look at him, and his gaze is so warm, full of adoration, gratitude, and confusion.
"You came back..." It's more of a murmur, but I hear it, and tears well up in my eyes because I left him in the first place.
These feelings are mine, but the fear I felt when I saw that guy with his gun pointed at Maksim made me realize that I'd rather live a life like this, loving him, though he may never feel the same, than try to love someone else. Because I know there's no other kind of love I'd want.
I want the soldier who would dismember anyone for touching me, who sacrifices himself daily for so many souls, who has a heart with so many scars but still forces it to beat. Every minute. Every day.
"I shouldn't have left in the first place," I tell him, and I know he notices the trembling in my voice.
"You came back," he repeats a little louder than before, and I wonder if he hit his head earlier and that's why he seems stuck on this phrase.
Before I can ask if he's okay, he continues.
"I gave you a chance to leave, and you didn't take it."
There's something so humble in him when he says this, but also possessive at the same time.
I try to find the words to explain that I couldn't reconcile with the decision to leave him behind. That it didn't feel right. And the moment I stop listening to my heart when it feels something is the moment I've officially lost myself.
"Maksim." I try to gather myself to offer an explanation.
In the next second, he lunges toward me, his hands cupping my face, and his mouth hovers just an inch from mine.
"A better man would take you back to Akim so you could leave this mess. A better man would remind you of all the reasons you have to make a life elsewhere. A better man would pull you from the darkness of this house into the light. A better man would continue to fight without you. But I told you, I'm not the hero in your story, Julia."
I'm speechless. And if I could find the words, I don't think I could materialize them. Because it's not an "I love you," but it's his way of telling me everything he feels.
"That's good, then, because I don't want a better man, and I've told you this before. I'm not looking for a hero, Maksim. I'm looking for you, only you, yesterday, today, and tomorrow. And if I need to stay by your side my whole life just to prove to you that you deserve this," I take his hand and place it over my heart, "I'll do it. Because it's yours. From day one. And if you think your heart is defective, then mine must be too, because just the thought of being away from you made it stop pumping blood through my body."
He breathes in every word, and the urge to kiss him is so strong that I dig my nails into my hand to stop myself. I'm not ashamed of what I've said even though I see him frozen.
He scans every inch of my face, every freckle, every pore, and something softens in me when I see how attentively he looks at every detail.
"I'm the same as I was ten minutes ago, Max," I whisper and close my eyes.
"Are you?" he says softly, and as we stand like this, physically an inch apart, his scent of rosemary and cedar fills the air, and my mind slows at his proximity.
I frown as his words sink in, and I can tell he sees the confusion on my face.
"Ten minutes ago, you weren't mine, Julia."
And before I can say anything, his hand flexes at the base of my neck, and his mouth, which I've dreamed of so many times, closes the distance between us and touches my lips.
I want to keep my eyes closed, but I force them open. I need to see him in this moment. I need to know if it's too much for him.
I part my lips slightly and instinctively pull him closer though I know there's nowhere else for him to go. We're physically pressed together. His lips are firm, and I see that, like me, he's watching and waiting for something.
