Page 59 of Belong to Me
He was in a black shirt, sleeves rolled to the forearm, and dark trousers, and his hair was slightly disordered, as if he'd run his hands through it, the same gesture she'd seen only once before, the morning after, when his hands had been on her and his world had cracked.
"Hi," she managed.
He didn't answer. His eyes found her, and the thing in them was different from every other time. Not the guarded assessment. Not the controlled heat. Not the desperate want that he buriedand she chased. This was something new. Something that had weight and urgency and read, if she squinted, almost like fear.
Alexei Almazov didn't do fear.
"You're scaring me," she said. Her voice was level but her heart wasn't. "The texts. The 'come home early.' The standing there without saying hello. What happened?"
He crossed the kitchen. Not the slow, lethal approach he'd used before, the one that made speed irrelevant. This was faster. Deliberate. He stopped in front of her and his hands came up and cupped her face, both palms, his thumbs on her cheekbones, and the touch was so tender it made her eyes sting.
"Alexei—"
"Four hours."
She blinked. "What?"
"You asked how long I sat in the chair. Four hours. I walked into your room at midnight, and I sat in the chair until nearly five, and I didn't sleep, and I didn't touch you, and I didn't leave."
"I know. You told me—"
"I'm telling you again." His voice was raw. His thumbs traced her cheekbones, slow, back and forth. "Because I need you to hear what it means."
Her breath was gone. Her mug was still in her hand, the coffee going cold, and she couldn't put it down because his hands were on her face and the world had narrowed to the pressure of his palms and the unsteadiness in his voice.
"It means I'm done, Mia."
Her heart stopped.
"It means I'm done with the doors and the distance and calling it a mistake. It means I sat in a chair for four hours because being in the same room as you while you sleep is better than being anywhere else in the world, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise anymore."
The mug slipped from her fingers. It hit the counter, not the floor, and the coffee sloshed across the marble and she didn't care, she didn't care about any of it, because his eyes were on hers and they were burning and his hands were on her face and they weren't shaking.
They weren't shaking.
"Tell me to stop," he said. The same words from the kitchen. The same offer he'd given her every time, the escape hatch he kept handing her because he was Alexei and he would rather destroy himself than take something she didn't freely give.
"If you tell me to stop one more time," she whispered, "I swear, Alexei—"
He kissed her.
Not like the first kiss, the collision against the kitchen island. Not like the second, the slow devastation of a man giving up. This was different. This was a man who had made a decision and was kissing her inside of it, his mouth sure and warm and unhurried, and his hands moved from her face into her hair and the sound she made against his mouth was embarrassing and she didn't care.
She grabbed his shirt. Both fists. Pulled him closer. Her back hit the counter and his body pressed against hers and the heat ofhim, the solid weight of him, turned her knees to water and her brain to static.
His hands slid down. Her waist. Her hips. The hem of the grey dress, and his fingers grazed her bare thigh, and the sound that came out of her was not a word.
He lifted her. One motion, his hands under her thighs, and she was on the counter, her legs around his waist, and his face was level with hers for the first time, and the eye contact at this distance, this close, was so intimate she couldn't breathe.
"Alexei—"
His mouth found her neck. The spot below her ear that he'd discovered in the kitchen, the one that still made her vision white out, and her head fell back and her hands flew to his shoulders and the sound she made was high and broken and completely involuntary.
"Again," she breathed.
His teeth grazed the same spot. Her hips bucked against him, and the contact, the friction of her body against his through the thin fabric of the dress, tore a groan from his chest that she felt in her spine.
His hands were on her thighs. Sliding higher. Under the dress, over her hips, and his fingers hooked the waistband of her underwear and her whole body went rigid with anticipation.
