“Lots of things.”
Jakov regarded me as I poured horrendous coffee into a mug and set it on the table in front of him. Seriously. Him. Alexei. Cam. This shit was like tar. What was wrong with these people?
“He told you about what we have shared in the past, didn’t he?”
I doctored my own mug with a gallon of milk. “About you fucking? Yeah. Did you think he wouldn’t?”
“I did not think about it much at all. It was the last thing on my mind when I asked you for help.”
“What about now?”
A faint grin played on Jakov’s lips. Honestly, if Vik wasn’t around to block out the sun, this dude would’ve been hot. “Now, I think it would not matter either way. Viktor has never fucked me the way he fucks you.”
“Knew you were watching.”
“Only once.” Jakov returned to his screen. “For a moment, but it was enough to know he’d never need me that way again, and that is all right. More than all right. You bring Viktor to life, and for that, I will always be in your debt.”
Cute. But unnecessary.
I left Jakov to his James Bond shit and moved through the house, restless. We had a few hours till we rolled out, but time had slowed to a crawl. Every minute felt like an hour, the clocks weren’t fucking ticking, and the whole world felt too quiet.
Upstairs, a shower turned on.
Viktor.
I mean, it could’ve been anyone, but I knew it was him. Felt it even before my feet hit the stairs to the third floor. Before I passed the closed door to the room Cam, Saint, and Alexei had been holed up in for the last hour. Before I reached the landing where I hesitated. Viktor and Alexei—they’d been quiet since Cam and Jakov had come downstairs, adding weight to my theory that they were planning some shady shit. But I wasused to Vik’s voice, to his touch. To him waving oranges in my face and berating me for cutting my hair. I wasn’t used to him shutting me out. Or second guessing my instinct to force my way in.
The bathroom door was unlocked, the light off in the windowless room. Viktor was showering in the dark—something I hadn’t seen him do since the last time he’d rinsed a junk pipe.
This isn’t like that.I knew it. But the need to be close to him was stronger now than it had been back then—when I’d truly fucking believed I couldn’t feel more for him than I did. That how I felt was a wicked pain that would never heal.
Hand on heart, loving him still hurt, and it was gonna get worse before it got better. But the idea of not loving him... of hanging my head and going back downstairs without laying my hands on him.
Breathing him in.
Kissing him.
I wasn’t fucking doing it, and the resolution propelled me across the landing, kicking my boots off along the way. Cos I was getting in that shower with him. In the dark.
In the light. Wherever Vik was, I was there too.
I slipped through the door, shutting it behind me with a quiet click, braced for instant blackness. But I hadn’t accounted for the phone Vik had propped in the sink, quiet beats popping off. It lacked the resonance I’d been spoilt by in his island home, but his taste never faltered, and I remembered this track. It had played in the club we’d left behind, the first night he’d kissed me on the island.
Weeks ago, but it felt like a year.
Two.
Fucking ten.
Need him.
I waded through the steam, ditching my clothes, stepping into the tub that reminded me of Jean’s old house. It even creaked the same.
Viktor, though. He felt different, as if the fight we’d yet to face had already changed him. Brutal tension bound his muscles. Jaw set. Even the water cascading down him seemed to bounce right off, like it knew Mobster Vik was back in town.
He didn’t scare me.
I traced a finger down his chest, counting the scars that littered his torso. The ink that was as pretty as his eyes.
