She nodded. Only then did he take her hand in his. This was it. He had surrendered to her in more ways than she would ever surrender to him, and she would never know. He pulled her slowly toward him, and when she was flush against his body, he pressed a kiss to her forehead.
“Are we starting n—now?” She didn’t sound afraid, but he heard the apprehension in her voice.
“We start tonight, and the first step is easy. You will sleep in my bed.”
“Just sleep? But we’ve already done that. It was . . .”
“Easy?” he finished for her. “You may think so, but in many ways sleep is more intimate than sex. It is the time when you are most vulnerable to another person.”
Her brows drew together as she started to understand what he was telling her.
“You won’t . . . do something to me while I’m asleep, will you?”
The hesitancy of her quiet voice pierced through to his heart. “No,” he said in a breathless reply. “I would never.”
She seemed satisfied with that response, her chin raised slightly and her shoulders unhunched.
“But,” he continued before she could interject with more reasons why they should jump to intimacy, “your lesson will be to trust me. To sleep beside me and know that trust could be broken, but trusting me anyway.”
Her face flushed a deep scarlet. He let her think that over before continuing.
“We’ve slept together before and I did not harm you, which I hope will make this easier.” Easier for her, of course. Sleeping so close to her would be a challenge for him. He wanted to touch her, to pleasure her, to make her forget all the pain, but that would come later, and only if she continued to progress and trust him. She had been right—the timeline of her healing was up to her, and there was no right or wrong speed at which she should heal. He just hoped this bargain they had made wasn’t a mistake.
“It’s too early for bed, and we haven’t had dinner,” she pointed out.
“You’re right. I should cook something.” He put some distance between them again. Touching her tended to cloud his mind, and he needed to think clearly, at least for the next few hours.
“Actually, I was thinking maybe we could go out? As much as I like the quiet here, it would be nice to be around people for a bit.”
He agreed. He was usually a solitary person himself, but being out on the town, so to speak, would be a nice distraction for him so he wouldn’t overthink tonight’s new sleeping arrangements.
“Go change. I will see you downstairs in half an hour.”
She touched her lips with her fingertips, her gaze sweeping over his body in a way that she had to know was playing with fire, then she stepped into her bedroom and closed the door.
Dimitri went to his own room and stopped at the sink in his bathroom. He turned on the water, cupped one hand under the cold spray, and splashed it on his face.
What was he thinking? Agreeing to this was dangerous for them both. Now that he’d had a taste of her, he wasn’t sure he could keep his promise to go slow. He stared at his face in the mirror, but he wasn’t really looking at himself. He had known the moment he’d gone after her in the Moscow airport that this was a possibility, but it had seemed infinitesimal at the time. Now it was a certainty.
He was in danger of breaking his vows, of putting a single person above the cause of the White Army. For once, he was glad his father wasn’t alive. His parents had put duty and honor above all else, even their love for each other. He had been raised to be the same, but somewhere along the way he had found a new purpose, one that he straddled along with the path he had been born into. It had been easy when those roads had traveled parallel to each other, but if they were to diverge? He’d choose Elena and he feared it might cost him dearly.
Meeting Wes Thorne, a man he’d met while getting into the Parisian art markets, and Royce Devereaux, the charismatic college professor, had changed him. They had shown him a side of life that a part of him had always longed for. A life with love and independence. He fought for the freedom of his people, but he rarely ever felt free himself. He wanted to be the master of his own fate, not a pawn in a larger battle. But that could never be. It would mean abandoning Leo, Maxim, and Nicholas, and he couldn’t abandon the brothers of his heart.
Dimitri changed into a pair of jeans and a white button-up shirt that he left untucked and the sleeves rolled up. Then he headed downstairs and retrieved his wallet and keys. He paused, listening to the sound of water running above him. Assured he had a moment to himself, he opened the hall closet and retrieved a slim black case. Royce had told him where to find this before Dimitri had left Moscow. Inside was a simple sidearm. Nothing fancy, but it would do for now. He hadn’t brought anything through customs, so this would be, for the moment, his only weapon.
It was a CZ 75 B, a handgun made in the Czech Republic. The model was well tuned and had slide rails on the inside of the frame, which made it incredibly accurate when firing shots in rapid succession. It was a favorite firearm for many European military and police forces. Dimitri loaded it and then tested the weight in each hand. He tucked the gun into his jeans and pulled his shirt down over it, then closed the case and put it back into the coat closet. He’d need to get a concealed-carry holster soon since Royce didn’t have one at the
