“Excuse me?”
“Anya is a controlling bitch. I just wanted to hear you say it.”
“Get. Off. Of. Me.”
“Stop struggling. You’re only going to hurt yourself.”
“And that’s your job, isn’t it?” I bite back at him.
“I never intended to hurt you,” he says quietly. “You were simply collateral damage.”
It’s a fact for Leo. He doesn’t have regret. He isn’t apologizing. He’s telling me the way it is. He wouldn’t change anything that’s happened in the last year and a half.
“Well, then, that makes it all better,” I hiss sarcastically.
He sinks into me, pressing his hard chest against mine. I can feel every single one of his muscles taut and flexed.
He stares down at me, and I find myself holding my breath. His eyelashes are long, framing bright eyes. It feels like he’s trying to break into my soul and steal the few secrets I have left.
“What’s he like?” Leo murmurs. “Our son.”
Our son. That word is far more comforting than it should be. I’ve felt so alone for so long that the thought of someone wanting the same things I want is… well, it’s something. I bite my tongue and turn my head to the side so that I’m not looking into his hypnotic eyes anymore.
“He’s safe.”
“You’re insane if you truly believe that.”
“Anya will protect him. She owes me.”
“You need to stop thinking like Willow,” he hisses into my ear. “You need to start thinking as if you were Bratva. You need to think like Viktoria.”
“I am Bratva,” I remind him.
“No, you’re not. You’re trying to be, but you’re not. Because if you were, you’d know you can’t trust Anya for shit.”
I push at his chest, but it’s like trying to break through solid steel. “Tell me what you did to my parents,” I snap.
“If you’re not going to answer my questions, why should I answer yours?”
“Because you owe me, too.”
He smirks. “You really don’t get it, do you?”
He releases me all at once. Instead of moving, I lay there, cold from the lack of him. He’s on his side of the bed, leaning against a pillow with his hands behind his head and his eyes staring beyond the ceiling above.
When I think I can make it, I spring out of bed and run straight for the door. It doesn’t even strike me that it might be locked. Not until I twist the handle and find myself well and truly trapped.
“Are you serious?” I growl, twisting around to face him.
“What did you expect? You would have had freedom of the cabin if you’d just stayed put.”
“Open the door.”
“I could,” he says. “But Brit’s downstairs.”
“I can handle that bitch.”
He raises his eyebrows. “That’s your pride talking. You’re no match for her.”
I can’t deny it—that stings. No matter how true it is. All at once, I remember the scent I picked up on earlier: cherries and ivy.
He was with her before he came up here. It’s her scent that’s all over him.
“Who is she to you?”
I know I’ve asked the question before. But I need an answer before I go insane. An answer that’ll help me stop obsessing over their strange and mysterious relationship.
“She’s family,” he says.
We stare at each other, and I feel the chasm between us grow wider. I try and bury my love for him somewhere in that chasm, but it refuses to submerge.
“You’re really not letting me out of here, are you?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Fine,” I say. “Then the least you can do is give me the damn bed.”
He smiles. “Why? Having trouble keeping your hands off me?”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
“I’m not. You’re just easy to read.”
He sits up a little and my eyes fall instantly to the mountain range of his abs. He chuckles a little, letting me know that he knows exactly what’s caught my attention.
I move to the bed, grab the corner of the sheet, and rip it off him.
Leo doesn't move. Doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t seem bothered in the least that I stole his blanket, despite the fact that he’s lying there naked.
And hard. Completely fucking hard.
“Jesus,” I gasp.
“Something wrong?”
“You’re sick,” I say, pointing at him. “Fighting with me really does turn you on.”