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But then I see the blackout blinds on the windows, and I remember quickly enough.
“Not yet,” Leonid says, shaking his head as he carries a pair of heavy looking suitcases down to the front door.
“But you are getting ready to leave.”
“If I have to.”
“Are my men making trouble again?”
“Something like that.”
My heart sinks and a cold lonely wind wraps around me. All of this senseless violence, it’s supposed to be for me. Men are shedding hot blood to free me from a cage I’m almost becoming comfortable in. They’re killing innocent people to tear me from a captor who I almost don’t want to leave.
No. There’s no almost about it.
I don’t want him to leave.
Because with Leonid Barinov, you never know when he’ll be back… or even if he’ll ever be back.
And I’ve grown accustomed to his touch, to his hulking warmth and his possessive fire. He warms me in a way that no one and nothing ever has before. Despite all of the troubles in our world, when he’s in bed next to me, I sleep well.
It’s only when I nap alone in the afternoon that I have nightmares of explosions, that I have terrible visions of Castor, locked away in some dark, dank dungeon, probably worried sick about me.
Fuck. I’m the only one who should be worried sick, and whenever I realize that I’m not, I’m overcome by a wave of guilt.
But then Leonid finds me, and he pulls me in tight for a kiss and makes me feel protected and cared about… even if he would never say it out loud.
His body speaks for him, and my body speaks back.
It feels like we’re slowly being connected at the hip. But now I can see him getting ready to rip himself away again.
… At least this time I won’t be locked up in that room. I’ll be able to wander this place; search through the antiques in the basement, lounge on the roof.
That’s something, even if the outside world is still hidden from me.
Leonid seems to sense my sadness.
His body responds.
“Come with me, I want to show you something,” he says. After setting his suitcases down, he takes my hand and leads me down a familiar hallway to a familiar door.
“The basement?”
“That’s right, it’s where I keep what’s important to me.”
“Like books…”
“Only some books,” he corrects, as I follow him into the musky underground museum.
“Did you read them as a child?” I ask.
“No… I had them read to me… by my mother.”
My heart clenches at that word. Mother. Sometimes, it’s hard to believe that Leonid came from a woman. Despite his princely beauty, he’s so gruff and manly. I can hardly even imagine him as a little boy, tucked into bed, listening to his mother as she reads to him.
“That sounds nice.” It’s all I can think to whisper.
Is he opening up to me again?
