Page 44 of Only for Tonight

The silence stretches. Classical music plays softly from the living room. The chicken is getting cold.

“Hey.” His voice is gentle. “Look at me.”

I do. His blue eyes are dark in the low light, and his jaw has unclenched, and he’s looking at me like I’m the only thing in this room that matters.

“I told them I know what I’m doing,” he says. “And I meant it.”

“But do you?”

“No.” A half-smile. “Not even a little. But I know I don’t want you to leave. And I know the way I feel isn’t going away. So I figure we just… keep going. One day at a time.”

I blink against the sting behind my eyes. “One day at a time.”

“Yeah. Can you do that?”

I nod. I don’t trust my voice.

He reaches across the table and takes my hand. His thumb traces a circle against my palm, slow and steady. We sit like that for a minute, not eating, not talking, just his hand around mine and the music playing and the city lights through the windows.

Eventually, I pull my hand back and pick up my fork because if I don’t create some distance right now, I’m going to cry into my baked potato, and there’s no dignified way to do that.

We finish dinner. Wash the dishes together—him washing, me drying, our elbows bumping. It’s quiet and easy, and the tension from the conversation has softened into something warmer, and every time his arm brushes mine I feel it all the way through.

Ella’s still asleep when we settle on the couch. He’s refilled my wine—I notice he’s not drinking. Practice tomorrow, probably. I curl into the corner of the couch, legs tucked under me, and he sits close. Not touching, but close enough that I can feel his warmth.

“How was work?” he asks, and his voice has that careful edge—the one that means he’s trying not to say what he really wants to say, which is I hate that you work there.

“Fine.” I sip my wine. “Nobody bothered me.” Not more than usual, anyway.

“Good.”

The quiet settles, and I’m thinking about last night—about his hands and his mouth and the sounds he made—and my cheeks go warm.

“What?” he asks, one eyebrow lifting.

“Nothing.”

“You’re turning pink.”

“I’m not.”

He’s grinning. “You are. What are you thinking about?”

I take a long sip of wine. “Last night.”

The grin fades into something darker, hotter. He takes the wine glass from my hand and sets it on the coffee table.

“Come here,” he murmurs.

And I go. Because when Alexei says come here in that voice—low, rough, like a request that’s barely holding itself back from being a command—there is no version of me that doesn’t go.

I shift toward him and he tilts my jaw up, his thumb against my chin, and kisses me. Slow at first. Tasting. His mouth is warm and patient and thorough, and my brain shuts off in stages, like lights going down a hallway one by one.

“Missed you,” he murmurs against my lips.

He shouldn’t say things like that to me. We’ve known each other a matter of days. His teammates think I’m a liability. My life is an active disaster zone.

But he says it, and I believe it, and that’s either the bravest or stupidest thing I’ve done this week.