His grin was even wider as the door clicked open. He waved at her before disappearing behind it, leaving before she could start something else. He couldn’t let her out yet, but he knew he couldn’t keep locking her away either. Not if he didn’t want to break her spirit completely.
He drove to town and bought paint, canvases, sketchpads, and brushes. It wasn’t much, but her words from last night were his driving force.
My life would be a lot less miserable if I had a paintbrush, some paint, and a canvas.
There was a storage room tucked away in the corner of the safe house. He would clear it out, scrub the walls, and open the windows to let in enough sunlight for her. She could use it as a mini gallery for the time being, at least until she was craving something else.
True to her nature, she was giving him the cold shoulder by the time he returned. But he let her be, focusing on his task ahead instead.
“I want to show you something,” he said to her when he was finished. She was wearing one of the dresses he’d bought—a blue sundress that barely touched the middle of her thighs—sitting on a stool in the kitchen, one of her knees curled to her chin as she stared out the back of the house through the window.
She didn’t look at him, didn’t respond. So, Fedya walked over, slid his arms under her waist before she could protest, and tossed her over his shoulder like she weighed nothing.
“What the—Fedya!” she shouted, pounding her fists into his back as he led her towards the storage room. “Have you lost your mind? Put me down this instant.”
He gently put her down only when he reached the door. She was glaring at him, pushing at his chest, before narrowing her eyes at the door.
“There’s another room.”
“Well, you never let me give you a tour, and you never cared enough to do that yourself, so here we are,” Fedya said.
She looked at him. “Then why do you keep sleeping on the couch if there’s another room here?”
“It’s a storage room,” he explained as he opened the door. All the questions died in her throat as he took her inside. “It’s yours now, anyway.”
Her breath caught audibly in her throat as she walked inside further, her steps slow and hesitant like she was walking into a sacred place. The sunlight bounced off her hair, and her eyes lit up in a way he hadn’t seen before—truly and completely unguarded.
Fedya stood by the door as he watched her survey the space, touching the edge of a canvas, then the soft bristles of a brush.
She was holding a can of paint to her face when she said, “Did you do this for me?”
“Well, I certainly didn’t do it for me,zhena,since the only thing I can see myself using a paintbrush for is to take out a person’s eye—”
The rest of his words faded into nothing when she abruptly turned around and wrapped her arms around him. Fedya was stunned, feeling emotions rolling off her as she squeezed him tight, burying her face in his chest. His arms hung limply at his side, still unsure of what to do when her arms went around his neck, her body pressed to his. Soft curves, warm skin. He felt every inch of her.
“I’ve never had anyone do something like this for me before,” she said, her voice weak and muffled against his chest. His shirt suddenly felt damp, and he pulled her back to see her dabbing tears away from her eyes with her palms. She was smiling though—he’d never seen her smile so big, and he could practically feel every hard edge in his body softening.
“Why are you crying?”
She laughed then—at him or his question, he wasn’t sure, but he loved her laugh. It was bright, melodic, surprised, and radiant. Then, she tilted her head and kissed him, soft and grateful, unhurried, thoughtless, and natural.
Fedya barely understood what was happening; he barely kissed her back before she abruptly pulled away, eyes wide like she wasn’t sure what had come over her in that second. And then he waited, waited for her to say she was sorry, to say she wasn’t thinking and that it was a mistake.
But nothing came.
And that did it for him. The rest of his restraint snapped like a thread, and he was throwing all caution out the windows as he leaned in with one hard tug of her body against his. His mouth found hers—claimed it, devoured it, fucked it with every languid, wet stroke of his tongue against hers. He kissed her the way he’d been aching to, hard and filthy, wet and deep.
His hands gripped her tight, one around the back of her neck, the other clutching her hips against his. She was moaning something incomprehensible as her fingers clutched at his shirt, bunching the fabric into her fists. She opened up for him, tongues tangling, lips parted and slick with need, breaths exchanged in heated gasps.
Fedya’s hands slid beneath her nightgown, palms flat at the back of her thighs as he hoisted her up, wrapping her legs around his waist.
“You’ve been mine from the moment I saw you, Maeve,” he murmured against her neck, his teeth nipping at her skin. “You have no idea what I’d do if someone tried to take you from me.”
His hands were on her ass, greedily squeezing handfuls of both mounds as he led her out of the storage room turned studio and towards their room.
His mouth was still on hers as he laid her on the bed, forcing her thighs apart until they trembled.
“You’re mine,” he growled, separating his lips from hers, their kiss so wet it left a thin string of saliva connecting their mouths together.
