Page 7 of Love to Defy You
I already reviewed the beneficiary designation paperwork he emailed over this morning, so this is just a formality for him to witness and notarize my signature. Fyodor hands me hisfountain pen, and I sign each line he points to as he quickly flips through the pages. It’s obvious he wants me to leave.
When I finish, I set the pen down on the desk and glance up. “Are we done here?”
“Yes, we’re done.” Fyodor gives me a tight smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, and when he speaks, his disdain drips off every syllable. “Thank you for your business, Aleksandr.”
Chapter 3
Willow
The soft close of the window rouses me from sleep. When I open my eyes, the gauzy floor-length curtains billow once more before growing still, framing a dark silhouette haloed by the moonlight behind him.
“Alek? Is that you?” My voice is raspy with sleep.
“Yes. Go back to sleep,malishka.”
I lift my head off the pillows and brush my hair back, but my fingers catch on the tangles. “What time is it?”
“Late.” He strips off his clothes and lays them over the back of an armchair in front of the fireplace. As he turns his back to me for a moment, I catch sight of the scar on his ass—a scar inflicted by his father with a belt.
My heart clenches every time I see it.
Alek approaches the opposite side of the bed, and the mattress dips as he crawls in beside me. “How did your test go today?”
“Fine, I think. I got tripped up in the math section on a few questions, but we’ll see.”
His gaze falls to the small half-inch scar above my right breast, the one he gave me last year when he first began tutoring me. While unconventional, his teaching methods were effective, and I found a study system to attribute certain information to the scars he gave me.
“I couldn’t stand being apart from you.” He wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me flush against his chest, tucking my head beneath his chin. “Remind me to never go back to Moscow.”
His steady heartbeat thrums in my ears as I snuggle into his warm embrace. My silk negligee glides against his bare skin, which lingers with his comforting, familiar scent—pine bodywash mixed with cigarette smoke.
I touch his bicep and trace my finger over the raised scar from last year’s gunshot wound. “I’m glad you came back for me.”
“I always will.” He presses a kiss into my mussed brunette hair. A peaceful silence falls between us, and his breathing starts to even out.
Just when I think he’s fallen asleep, he speaks up, his soft voice caressing the quietude like velvet. “Are you happy?”
I smile and whisper against his chest, “Of course I am.”
He tucks a strand of loose hair behind my ear, brushing against the jagged cartilage from my own bullet wound. “You’re not having any... self-destructive urges?”
I lean away just enough to catch his gaze. “When we’re together, I don’t have those thoughts. As long as I have you, I’ll be happy.”
The crease between his eyebrows relaxes. “I swear to you,malishka, you’ll always have me. My heart is yours to do with as you please.“ He reaches for my hand and places it on his chest. “If you decide you want to trample on my heart and drive a knife through it, its final beat will be for you.”
Every so often, it hits me just how dependent I am on Alek for my happiness. It used to scare me how much power he had over me, but now I trust him so implicitly that I don’t mind that my mental health is contingent on him.
Maybe that’s why they call it falling in love. I didn’t just fall—I jumped headfirst into the dark depths of his possessive devotion, where he caught me in his arms and never let go.
I’ve placed my complete and unequivocal faith in him. The feelings we have for each other are so intense that they’re all-consuming, but that’s what I need to drive out the darkness inside me. To push out the urge to succumb to that darkness and end it all.
Alek replaced my darkness with his own, and he’s so deeply entrenched within me that I don’t know where I end and he begins. He owns me, mind, body, and soul.
He doesn’t just hold my heart in his hands. I’d willingly cut it from my chest and give it to him if he asked me to.
One Month Later
Brunch has become one of my favorite daily routines.
