Page 40 of The Enemy's Defector
I narrowed my eyes, charged up and ready to pick a fight. “Oh, so that’s why you’re keeping me around, huh? An eye for an eye. I saved your life and now you’re obligated to keep me close so you can save mine?” I blew a raspberry and rolled my eyes. “No thanks. Chivalryisdead if you’re going to have that attitude.”
“I’m not saying—” He growled, shaking his head. “Dammit, Katerina. You know that’s not what I meant.”
But I don’t know what you mean anymore, not about where I should be or belong!
“I’m not going to let you leave me. I’m not going to let you be so damn stubborn as to think you can make it out there on your own when there’s a fucking hit placed on you.”
“Oh.” I wrenched out of his grip to cross my arms. “Youwon’t let me? Who do you think you are, telling me what to do? I’m not yours to order around.”
Taking hold of me again, he snaked his arm around me until he could haul me up against his chest. The press of his hard chest against my breasts felt illegal and so perfect.
“How the fuck can you think you’re not mine?” He asked it in a low, intense tone, but it was a soft and almost sweet message.With our brows pressed together, he gazed at me until I felt like he was seeing my soul.
Easy. I can think that I’m not yours and never will be except in bed because you’re so hung up on the fact that I’m a Kozlov and you’re an Ivanov.
But I couldn’t say that.
I didn’t reply at all.
“I can’t lose you again,” he uttered, letting me hear every ounce of desperation in his tone.
Oh, Nik.I swallowed hard at the emotion I didn’t miss with those words. “You never… you never lost me in the first place.”
I didn’t understand how he’d think that. I’d always been there in the background. I’d never sided with Anton. When my father ruled, the Ivanovs were my friends. I hadn’t ever left or gone anywhere, dammit. I had just been stuck under my uncle’s rule until I got the courage to break away once and for all.
“Yes, I did. I had you, Katerina. You can’t deny it. After that one night…” he argued without heat. He sounded sad more than anything else. “You left. You couldn’t wait to get away from me afterward.”
“Because I needed time to think. To process that we’d done the unthinkable. And then you were taken.” A weak laugh left my lips, a sound of disbelief. “Nik, my God. I came to find you. I searched for you to get you free. No one else.Iwas the one who stayed on the case to look for you even if you hadn’t wanted to be found so you could stay hidden to get intel.” I shook my head, parting from him that much. “I don’t understand how you could think…” I huffed out another deep breath. “Nik, I’ve never left you.”
And I truly never want to.
Hanging his head, he exhaled slowly. “Then don’t say things like this now. That we’ll separate and…”
“But won’t we? In the end?” I reared back until he’d be forced to face me directly.
He furrowed his brow, watching me intensely. Apprehensively, as if words failed him at this moment. I’d put him on the spot. This was it. He either had to reply with an affirmative, that there really was no hope for two enemies to stay together, or that there was a chance he would insist on keeping me with him.
No answer came.
Instead, he tensed, narrowing his eyes. He seemed to strain to listen, tilting his head to the side while stiffening as he kept his arm around my back.
Dammit.
I heard it too.
A car door closing. It was a barely-there sound, like someone had deliberately tried to shut the metal panel stealthily.
Go figure. His instincts were right. He had a feeling that we should stay on the go and keep moving, and lo and behold, someone was creeping too close to this safehouse.
He locked his serious gaze on me, and I gave him the briefest nod.
I still wanted him to answer me. He had to reply to how I’d put him on the spot, almost coercing him to admit he wouldn’t pursue a way to keep us as anus.
Now, though, we had to move. Without another word, we grabbed our things and retreated through the safe house.
On the run again.
And for me, and the mess that I’d made of my life, I had no direction to rely on with him.
