Page 18 of Hostage of the Russian (Nikolai Bratva Brides #7)

Azriel had planned to keep her walls firmly in place. The flowers were beautiful, yes, and his presence at her graduation had caught her completely off guard in ways that made her chest tight, but that didn’t change what he was. What he’d done to her. What he represented.

Yet as they sat across from each other in the dimly lit Italian restaurant he’d chosen, she found those carefully constructed barriers beginning to crack.

“You didn’t have to do this,” she said, gesturing to the intimate corner table, the flickering candles, the bottle of wine he’d ordered but barely touched. “The graduation thing was enough.”

Kostya leaned back in his chair, and something in his posture had shifted since they’d left campus.

Gone was the carefully controlled predator she’d grown accustomed to.

In his place sat a man who looked almost..

. relaxed. “It wasn’t enough,” he said simply.

“You earned this day, Azriel. All of it.”

The way he said her name, like he was tasting something sweet, made heat pool low in her stomach. She pushed the feeling away and focused on cutting her pasta into precise pieces.

“Summa cum laude,” he continued, and there was genuine pride in his voice that made her look up despite herself. “Psychology, criminal justice, business administration. Tell me, were you planning to become a profiler? Hunt down men like me?”

There was no mockery in the question, just curiosity, and Azriel found herself answering honestly. “I wanted to understand why people hurt others. Why they choose violence when there are other options.”

“And what conclusion did you reach?”

She studied his face, looking for the trap in the question. But his dark eyes were genuinely interested, and when they caught the candlelight just right, they seemed to lighten to an almost golden brown. “That it’s usually about control. Or fear. Sometimes both.”

“Astute.” He took a sip of wine, never taking his gaze off her. “And which am I? Controlling or afraid?”

“Both,” she said without hesitation, then immediately regretted her honesty when his eyebrows rose in surprise.

But instead of the cold fury she expected, Kostya threw back his head and laughed. The sound was rich and genuine, transforming his entire face, and Azriel felt something dangerous flutter in her chest.

“You don’t pull your punches, do you, wife?”

The endearment should have annoyed her. Instead, it sent warmth spreading through her limbs like honey. She blamed it on the single glass of wine she’d barely touched.

“Would you prefer I lie to you?”

“God, no.” His smile turned predatory, but in a way that made her pulse quicken rather than her blood freeze. “I’ve had enough liars to last a lifetime. Your honesty is refreshing.”

“Even when it’s insulting?”

“Especially then.” He leaned forward, forearms resting on the table, and Azriel caught the scent of his cologne. Something expensive and masculine that made her want to lean closer. “Tell me something else honest, then. What did you think when you saw me in that lecture hall that first day?”

Heat crept up her neck. “That you were going to drag me out of there and ruin everything I’d worked for.”

“And?”

“And?” She frowned, not understanding.

“There was something else. I saw it in your eyes before the fear took over.”

Azriel’s throat went dry. She remembered that moment, the split second before panic had set in when she’d looked at him and thought he was the most devastatingly attractive man she’d ever seen.

Even terrified and furious, she hadn’t been blind to the way he moved, the confidence in his bearing, the sharp intelligence in his dark eyes.

“I thought you were beautiful,” she admitted quietly, then immediately wanted to take the words back.

Something shifted in Kostya’s expression. The playful charm didn’t disappear, but it deepened into something more intense. “Past tense?”

The question hung between them, loaded with implications that made Azriel’s heart race. She reached for her wine glass, needing something to do with her hands.

“You know you are,” she said finally.

“That’s not what I asked.”

Their server appeared then, asking about dessert, and Azriel had never been more grateful for an interruption.

Kostya ordered tiramisu without consulting her, his eyes never leaving her face, and she found herself wondering when the last time was that someone had made a decision for her that wasn’t about control or punishment.

When they were alone again, he seemed to sense her need to change the subject because he began telling her about his brothers.

Not the sanitized version he might have given a stranger, but real stories.

Viktor’s obsession with terrible action movies.

Fedya’s secret weakness for romance novels that he thought no one knew about.

Ilya’s tendency to rearrange furniture when he was stressed.

“And you?” Azriel found herself asking. “What’s your secret weakness?”

His smile turned mysterious. “I think you’re beginning to figure that out.”

The weight of his gaze made her stomach flip. She was definitely not drunk enough to blame her body’s reaction on alcohol anymore.

The tiramisu arrived, and Kostya pushed it toward the center of the table with two spoons. “Share with me.”

It should have been simple. Just dessert. But when their fingers brushed, reaching for spoons, when he watched her lips close around the sweet treat, when he licked mascarpone from his own spoon with deliberate slowness, it felt like the most intimate thing she’d ever experienced.

“This is dangerous,” she said softly.

“What is?”

“This. You being...” She gestured helplessly. “Like this.”

“Like what?”

“Charming. Funny. Normal.” She set down her spoon and met his eyes. “It makes me forget what you are.”

“And what am I, Azriel?”

“Dangerous. Violent. Someone who took me from my life and forced me into marriage.”

He was quiet for a long moment, the playfulness fading from his expression.

“Yes,” he said finally. “I am all of those things. But I’m also someone who spent two days sitting beside your hospital bed, terrified you might not wake up.

Someone who researched your favorite flowers and spent an hour in a florist shop this morning trying to get them perfect.

Someone who is more proud of your achievements than I have any right to be. ”

Her breath caught. “Kostya...”

“I know what I did to you was wrong. I know I can’t undo it. But I’m asking you to let tonight just be tonight. Let me celebrate your graduation properly. Let me show you who I am when I’m not trying to be the monster everyone expects me to be.”

The sincerity in his voice undid something in her chest. This felt like the apology he’d never explicitly given, wrapped in vulnerability she hadn’t known he was capable of.

“Just tonight?” she asked.

“If that’s all you’re willing to give me.”

Azriel looked at him across the flickering candlelight, this complicated man who had turned her world upside down, and made a decision that terrified her.

“Okay,” she whispered. “Just tonight.”

The drive home was electric with tension.

Kostya had moved his hand to rest on the gear shift, close enough that his knuckles brushed her thigh every time he changed gears.

Each casual contact sent sparks through her nervous system, and from the way his jaw tightened, she suspected he was as affected as she was.

They talked softly in the darkness, about books they’d read, places they wanted to travel, stupid things that made them laugh. Normal conversation between two people getting to know each other, as if the circumstances of their meeting hadn’t been completely insane.

“I’ve never been to Italy,” Azriel admitted as they pulled into the long driveway of his house.

“I have a place in Tuscany,” Kostya said, parking the car but making no move to get out. “Maybe someday...”

He didn’t finish the sentence, but the implication hung between them. Someday, if this thing between them developed into something real. Someday, if she stopped seeing him as her captor and started seeing him as her husband.

The silence stretched as they sat in the darkened car, the weight of the evening settling around them.

“Thank you,” Azriel said finally. “For tonight. For the flowers. For... being there today.”

“Thank you for letting me.”

She turned to look at him and found that he was already watching her. In the dim light from the dashboard, his features were all shadows and angles, but his eyes were soft and gentle.

“I should go in,” she said, but made no move to leave.

“You should.”

Neither of them moved.

“Azriel.” Her name was a whisper in the darkness.

“Yeah?”

“I’m going to kiss you.”

Her heart hammered against her ribs. “Kostya...”

“Tell me no, and I won’t.”

She should tell him no. Should maintain the distance she’d worked so hard to build. Should remember all the reasons this was complicated and dangerous and wrong.

Instead, she whispered, “Don’t make me regret this.”

His hand came up to cup her face, thumb tracing along her cheekbone. “Never,” he promised, and then his lips were on hers.

The kiss started gentle, almost hesitant, as if he was giving her room to change her mind. But when she melted into him, when her hands fisted in his shirt and dragged him closer, he deepened it with a groan that vibrated through her entire body.

He tasted like wine and promises, like danger wrapped in safety. When his tongue traced the seam of her lips, she parted for him instantly, and the sound he made in response, low, wrecked, sent a rush of molten heat straight between her thighs.

“Inside,” he murmured against her mouth, voice already rough with restraint. “Let me take you inside.”