Page 17 of Empire
He drags a hand through his hair and lets out a low curse before looking back at me. “I played my fucking part tonight. Ruslan Dragovich, reckless heir, charming bastard, son who doesn’t give a shit about rules, who’ll put a pretty woman on his arm and make it look natural. That’s what I gave them. That’s not the same thing, and you know it.” His jaw tightens hard enough to sharpen his whole face. “I get that you’re angry—”
“I’m not angry. I’m fucking exhausted. I’m tired of pretending this is one thing when we both know it’s something else. I’m tired of acting like I don’t feel you every time you walk in. I’m tired of waiting for my father to finally notice the way I look at you and decide I’ve become a stain on the family name.” I stop to catch my breath and finally give him my truth. “I’m tired of lying to myself that this is only physical when it’s so fucking hard to walk away from you.”
Whatever mask Ruslan was clinging to slips all at once. “It’s not only physical,” he says, and every word sounds torn straight out of him. “It has never been only physical to me.”
The words hit so hard I actually feel my body sway. He sees it, of course, he does. He misses fucking nothing where I’m concerned.
“Salvatore,” he says, then whispers, “lyubimiy, look at me.”
I close my eyes for one second. “Don’t,” I whisper.
Ruslan reaches for me slowly, and that somehow wrecks me more than if he’d just grabbed. He gives me time to stop him or pull away. Time to save us both from what happens if he touches me while I’m standing here this raw and this furious and this hopelessly in love with him.
I don’t stop him.
His hand slides around the back of my neck, warm and steady and awful in how right it feels, and my whole body betrays me by leaning into the contact before I can stop it.
“Look at me,” he says, and his voice breaks on the edges now, frayed and rough and too fucking honest. “Please.”
I do, because I’m weak for him in every way that matters. Because he asks and I break. Because that’s the truth of this, ugly as it is.
There’s no performance left in him now. No swagger. No careless Dragovich arrogance. He looks younger without it and more dangerous for it, because sincerity on a man like Ruslan is rarer than violence and twice as destructive.
“I’m sorry.”
The apology catches me off guard enough that I actually blink rapidly.
Ruslan doesn’t apologize. He’ll fight, taunt, sneer, provoke, drag people into corners with that filthy mouth of his, and make them either hate him or want him or both, but he doesn’t apologize. Men like him don’t get raised to. An apology looks too much like surrender, and sons like Ruslan are taught early that surrender is just another way to die.
So hearing him say it now, quietly, with his hand still on my neck and that look in his eyes, feels more intimate than half the times he’s had me naked.
“That’s not the point,” I say, though my voice has lost most of its edge. “The point is that this keeps spilling outside the room.”
His eyes stay on mine. “Because it’s already outside the room.”
There it is. Not lust or convenience in the arrangement we both pretend we’re controlling.
The truth.
“Don’t say things like that,” I murmur.
“Why?” His voice turns rough. “Because then you can’t keep pretending it’s only fucking?”
I look away for a second because he’s too close to the bone, because he knows exactly where to press, and I am so tired of being known that well by the one man I should never have let this near.
“I had the woman on my arm because I had to keep up appearances,” he says when I look back at him. “And the entire fucking time, all I could think about was you staring at me from across the room like you wanted to set the whole table on fire.”
My mouth almost curves before I can stop it. “I did.”
“I know.” The faintest ghost of a smile touches his, gone as quickly as it comes. “I’m sorry anyway.”
That apology should not feel like this. It should not feel like relief scraping against a bruise. It should not feel like pain being seen and eased at the same time.
“She was a shield, that’s all. I needed one tonight because my father is already watching me too closely, and yours looked ready to skin you alive.”
That makes something in me go cold for an entirely different reason. “What?”
“He was watching you, Salvatore,” Ruslan’s mouth tightens. “Not casually.Watching.Like he’s already started asking himself the right questions.”
