Page 48 of The Russian's Kidnapped Bride

Despite myself, my cheeks and the top of my ears burn. “It’s different.”

“Is it?”

He’s too smug. And annoyingly, he isn’t wrong.

I hate him even more for it.

After a moment of silence, I murmur, “I’m just trying to get through this.”

He doesn’t miss a beat. “And I’m trying to protect what’s mine.”

I can’t help but frown at him. “Stop saying that.”

Humming again, Mikhail doesn’t need to look in my direction to make his words hit just as hard. “It’s true.”

Well aware that I won’t win this verbal spar, I look away and try to focus on the passing city. I focus on how it felt to have a semblance of freedom for the day.

But now, being with Mikhail in his car on the way to the penthouse, I just feel caged.

It might be a beautiful, luxurious cage, but it still serves the same purpose.

We sit through the rest of the drive in silence, and the tension is thick enough to feel like immeasurable pressure.

I want to scream at him, to cry and hit him. I want to forget about all of it.

But like a traitor lurking in the background, I want to be in his arms again. I want to be surrounded by him, even if I should push for the opposite.

Somehow, Mikhail has managed to scramble my thoughts in such a short time, and I don’t know what to do about it.

I only know that I’m his now, and I can either accept it or resist him forever.

Chapter 16 - Mikhail

Dinner is annoyingly quiet, even if I should’ve anticipated that.

Lily sits across from me at one end of the table, pushing pasta around her plate like she’d rather be doing anything other than having dinner with me.

Which is probably the truth.

I don’t know why I expected things to be different tonight, as if letting her go back to her classes, no questions asked, would somehow repair everything.

It was wishful thinking, to begin with, but for some reason, she seems to have that effect on me.

Cutting through my steak, I watch her through the flickering candlelight, well aware that she hasn’t looked me in the eye since we sat down.

If anything, she’s persistent and determined.

With that ice lingering between us, it’s almost like the sex in my office never happened. Or the second round when we got home.

Lily’s shutting down on me again, like she came home wearing stronger armor than she left with.

She’s acting like nothing happened between us, as if she’s still under the belief that all of this is forced. Like I’m making all of this up and forcing her to accept it.

But I didn’t have to force anything—not when she gave in willingly. She begged for me. She needed me, regardless of what she tries to claim.

I don’t want it to bother me, but it does.

I’ve kept women at a distance before. I preferred it that way, but with Lily, I can’t. I want more of her.