Page 151 of Cruel Demands

The smile fades. “My mother will cry.”

“Happy?” I ask sarcastically.

“Eventually.”

“And your father?”

“He’ll probably threaten to come here and kill you.”

“He may attempt it.”

“You sound excited.”

“I would like to meet him.”

“You bought his restaurant.”

“Yes.”

“That’s not going to help.”

“He does not have to know. I could return it.”

Taylor looks at me sharply. I force myself not to explain the legal complications. Not to tell her why returning it immediately would expose her family to the same creditors. Not to solve the next five problems before she has asked.

“Maybe on the condition that he promises not to kill me.”

She laughs, real, and my face bounces on her stomach. I move up beside her. Our faces are close now. The tension remains between us, but it is no longer only anger. It becomes something familiar. Heat threaded through fear.

I touch her cheek. She does not pull away. “May I kiss you?”

She nods, searching my eyes, and I kiss her gently. Her fingers curl against my chest. I deepen the kiss only when she pulls me closer.

We move carefully, as though rediscovering a language neither of us entirely trusts. My hands remain open against her body. Each time I touch her, I wait.

“You don’t have to be so careful,” she whispers.

“I do not know how to touch you without wanting to keep you.”

Taylor’s fingers still against my chest.

39

MIKHAIL

“You have me,” she says.

It is fair. I have placed guards outside her door, bought her father’s restaurant, monitored her movements, and decided where she will sleep. I have made a prison out of every promise of safety.

“I want you to stay,” I tell her.

“Those are different things.”

“I am beginning to understand that.”

She brushes her over the thin fabric of my undershirt. “Take this off.”

I sit up. Her eyes follow my hands as I pull the shirt over my head slowly, giving her every opportunity to decide this is too much, too soon, another mistake made while fear and relief are still clouding us both.