“Come with me.” He offers me his hand, and I reluctantly step away from the flames. “There’s something else I want to show you.”
Excitement gurgles inside my chest when our hands touch.
Wandering along the wide hallways, crystal chandeliers sparkling overhead, I try to anticipate what room he will show me next.
But nothing could prepare me for what I find when he nudges open a heavy door and pulls me inside.
It’s a library. Not just any old library, it’sthelibrary fromBeauty and the Beast, complete with a domed glass roof covered in snow, bookcases so tall that I crane my neck to see the top of them, rolling staircases, and more squashy sofas piled high with thick, fluffy throws.
I stand in the center of the room and turn three-sixty, cheeks aching from smiling so widely. There are smaller cases strategically placed around the room. Special books perhaps?
“Name a classic book,” Andrej says.
I blink. “Pride and Prejudice.”
He goes to a shelf filled with leather-bound books, slides one out, and hands it to me.
“To Kill a Mockingbird,” I say next.
He adds another book to the one in my hands.
“The Time Machine.”
Yep, he finds that one too.
He takes the books and leaves them on a vast, leather-topped desk, then pulls me to another wall where my stomach goes all gooey at the pastel-colored spines facing me.
“There’s a romance section?”
His grin is filled with pride. “If you can’t find a book, let me know, and I’ll get it shipped in.”
“This is a dream come true,” I mutter without thinking.
My cheeks grow hot when he pulls me against him, his arms wrapped around my waist, his breath warm on my face. “I knew you would fall in love with it.”
I plant a brief kiss on his lips and bat his chest playfully with my fist.
“You’re still not forgiven.”
“I’m not done with you yet.”
Perhaps I shouldn’t be so excited to hear this given that I woke up in Russia instead of North Carolina, but my heart and my pussy are following their own rules right now, and I’m too achy to keep fighting them.
Along another hallway, we stop inside a room filled with heavy fur coats—Narnia, eat your heart out—and thick-soled, fur-lined boots. Andrej holds a coat open while I slide my arms into it, then pulls a burgundy fur hat onto my head, and helps me into a pair of boots that would look at home on the moon.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
Outside, the snow is still falling, thick fluffy flakes that settle on our coats and faces. I tilt my head towards the sky and catch one on my tongue.
“I’ve never seen the sky so white before.”
Andrej follows my gaze. “The snow is here to stay for a while.”
The land surrounding the mansion is a blanket of pristine virgin snow. It seems a shame to spoil it with footprints, but Andrej has no such qualms. He takes my hand and leads me through the garden, our boots sinking ankle-deep.
My cheeks sting with the cold. Flakes collect on my eyelashes. But the coat is warm and snuggly, and with my hand in Andrej’s, I realize that I feel warm and safe.