Page 67 of Sweet Obsession

It was like the walls themselves held their breath, waiting to see who would crack first.

I wandered down the hallways, my bare feet skimming over heated stone floors, trailing my fingers along the cold marble walls, feeling the way this place swallowed people whole.

I didn’t know what possessed me to go into the kitchen.

Maybe it was the homesickness.

Maybe it was the need to feel useful, alive.

I found a half-stocked pantry, some flour, eggs, a few bruised vegetables from whatever winter garden managed to survive the permafrost.

I rolled up my sleeves and got to work.

The dough clung stubbornly to my fingers. The stove was ancient and made ominous groaning sounds when I lit it.

But it gave me something to focus on.

I didn’t hear him come in. I just felt it, the sudden pressure in the room, like the air had thickened.

I turned and froze. Misha leaned against the far counter, arms crossed, watching me.

Still in black slacks and a dark sweater. Still looking like something carved out of Siberian stone.

Not speaking. Just watching.

Heat flushed up my neck, stupidly embarrassed to be caught elbow-deep in dough by a man who probably hadn’t cooked a meal for himself in years.

“What,” I muttered, “never seen a woman make pierogi before?”

He didn’t answer.

Just pushed off the counter, came closer.

I stiffened automatically, but he didn’t touch me.

Instead, he reached for a second rolling pin tucked into a drawer, one I hadn’t even noticed, dusted it off, and began to help.

No words. Just movements.

Efficient. Silent. Brooding.

For some reason, the sight of Misha fucking Petrov rolling dough like some grim mafia Gordon Ramsay almost broke something in my chest.

I turned away quickly, blinking fast.

He said nothing.

Just kept working beside me, shoulder brushing mine every so often, his heat leeching into my skin.

I noticed the way his hands faltered over the dough, just for a second. The flicker in his eyes.

Like the texture, the weight of it, pulled something buried up from the dark. Something he didn’t want to feel.

I hated that every movement of his,every inch of him, was so maddeningly magnetic.

Maybe it meant nothing. Maybe it was just strategy. Or maybe, maybe there was a crack in the ice after all.

Later that evening, after the pierogi disaster, after we burned half and still ate them in stiff, loaded silence, I found myself in the sitting room, threading tiny beads into a necklace.