“I used to think this was home. If I had one, then this had to be it.”
“Isn’t it?” she asked.
“Here … you … who knows?”
She did.
And so did he.
Viktoria just hugged him tighter.
Pav let her.
• • •
Naked under sheets that smelled like a floral detergent, Viktoria stared up at an unfamiliar ceiling. The room was warm, and her comfort was aided by the hot air blowing through the heater, and the hard body of the man tucked in beside hers. She knew he wasn’t sleeping, a lot like her. Their silence coated the room heavily, and yet, neither of them closed their eyes to sleep.
His fingers trailed over the bare skin of her arm. With each stroke, goosebumps snaked over her skin and shivers raced down her body.
She loved it, though.
That’s what scared her the most.
“Pav?”
“Hmm?”
His soft murmur made her smile.
Almost.
It was the racing of her heart and the tightness in her throat that kept the light happiness at bay. It was the way her anxiety thrummed deep and her fear danced over her nerves, that reminded her happiness was ever fleeting and easily taken.
She’d been happy once.
Someone ruined it.
She’d been good once.
Someone took it.
And somehow, she had found herself in this spot again. Happy, and good. She wasn’t the same woman as she’d once been sure, but she was still there again. In a place she’d never thought she would be and feeling an emotion that she promised wouldn’t ever make her weak, because that’s all it could do.
Love.
“What is it?” Pav asked.
The huskiness of his tone said he was edging closer to sleep than she was, but she knew he’d wake up the moment she asked him to. Anything she wanted, he was there trying to give it. Sometimes, he didn’t know how to do it.
But he tried.
That mattered.
He always tried.
“I’m terrified again,” she whispered.
His fingers stilled on her skin. “Why?”
A lump was back in her throat. An impossible knot keeping her words at bay and forcing her to stay silent. She refused to let it, and somehow, managed to swallow it back so she could get this out.
So he could know.
Once she said it, that was it.
It’d be out there, then.
“Because I love you,” she said, the words slipping out into darkness and warm air. “I love you, and I’m happy. I’m good, and you helped. I’m scared of being like this because I don’t think I know how to do this anymore, and someone already took it from me once.”
“But I never will.”
“I—”
Pav rolled over in the bed fast, covering her naked body with his as those hands of his, that had never hurt her once, found her face in the darkness. He tipped her head back, and despite the lack of light, she could still see the way his eyes locked on hers. She found that truth staring back at her like she always did when she looked into his gaze.
His soul lived there.
Waiting for her.
“I will never take it from you—not happiness or love,” he promised. “I only know how to give you those things. Don’t you know that?”
“Forgive me for learning.”
He let out a laugh, then, deep and rumbling. It echoed to the deepest parts of her soul and heart. Things she thought had been gone forever but came back alive by this man. She wasn’t sure if he knew that he had done those things for her, but here they were.
And she was so grateful.
But terrified, too.
So was her life.
Pav leaned down and dropped the softest kiss to her lips. He lingered there, his words brushing against her mouth like a caress. “I only knew how to live in darkness, but with you, nothing is dark for me. Everything is bright and clear and right. Sometimes, it’s still dark, but it’s temporary. You’re always waiting to pull me back out.”
It seemed she did things for him, too.
Things she didn’t know.
“I’m not sure what love is,” he murmured, his mouth trailing over her chin as he spoke. “But this has to be it, doesn’t it? It has to be it, because you’re the only one who makes me feel it. I only want to keep it, not ruin it.”
“Then, you should.”
“I will.”
His kisses burned hotter, then. His touches, frantic. It was made easier by the fact they were already naked and under the sheets warmed by them. His cock, already hard against her thigh, made her pussy ache and he wasn’t even inside of her yet. His arms hooked around her thighs and widened her legs. She rolled her hips upward as her hand wrapped around his length, and she slid the blunt head of his cock along the seam of her sex.
He knew when he was there … one hard flex of his hips, and he was buried deep. The sound that crawled out of Viktoria’s throat felt raw. It hurt like it, too. One of his hands came down to cover her mouth, but all she felt was him.
His words in her ear helped, too. “Let’s not wake up the whole loft.”
Fuck.
She wanted to laugh, but she couldn’t.
Not when he was filling her full and fucking her deep. Every brutal snap of his hips against hers sent her flying a little higher. The slap of skin, and his harsh breaths pulsing against her throat were the only sounds in the room.
And yet, despite how hard he fucked her, the rest of it was oh, so soft. His hand gliding over her curves, and his kisses dotting her skin.
That was the best part of him, she decided.
The part she loved the most.
Even in his roughness, he
