Mila slips into the house. Dima watches her go, but he pulls his gaze away—somewhat reluctantly, if I had to put a word to it.

  “So…you and Taylor, huh?” Dima asks, eyeing me curiously.

  “Right now, there’s just me. And there’s Taylor.”

  “But after this little getaway of yours…?”

  “Celine’s still here.” I almost wince as I say it—I hear myself echoing Taylor and I don’t like it.

  “She won’t be for long,” Dima gently reminds me, but it doesn’t really soften the harshness of what he’s saying. He seems to realize that, too, because he adds, “I’m just saying: the body’s here, but the mind is…well, who knows where?” He sighs and flicks water off the tip of his nose. “Mila’s right, though. You deserve to be happy.”

  He stands and follows after Mila. I sit there for a while after he’s gone, watching the sapphire surface of the pool ripple in the moonlight.

  Happy. I’d like to be.

  But I’m not sure he’s right that I deserve it.

  65

  TAYLOR

  I’ve never been to a cabin in the mountains before. Now that I’m here, I’m just mad I’ve spent my whole life not knowing that it’s like this.

  There’s something about the way the amber sunlight and cerulean sky peeks through the trees, bordered by majestic slopes and snow-capped mountains, that makes me feel alive. The cold air burns away everything impure inside of me. I feel like my whole body has been scrubbed clean within and without.

  I’m only wearing a cable-knit sweater and jeans, but I welcome the cold. It crowds out all the other emotions I don’t need to be feeling right now.

  My breath plumes out in soft white fog as I approach the lookout point on the cliff beyond the cabin. “This is insane.”

  I risk a glance over my shoulder to Ilarion behind me. The sunlight glints off the high planes of his cheekbones. His black sweater fits snugly across his broad chest.

  He’s as immovable as the mountains beyond him.

  “Hungry?” he asks when he sees me looking.

  “A little.”

  He nods. “I’ll go inside and get dinner ready.”

  I linger to soak up the view for one more moment before I follow him inside the cabin. It takes all my willpower not to touch everything we pass. The crown molding is flawless, the timber looks like it’s still quivering with life, and the sandstone in the walls soaks up the sun that passes through the windows. It’s all perfect—because, of course, Ilarion Zakharov couldn’t possibly have anything less than that.

  “I’m assuming this isn’t an AirBnB,” I mutter.

  “No,” he replies with a chuckle. “This is a family home.”

  “So you don’t bring back girls here to wow them out of their clothes with the view?”

  “Dima has been known to sink to those depths from time to time,” he admits. “But I made sure the maids disinfected everything thoroughly. As for me? No. Never.”

  “Forgive me if I don’t believe you.”

  He keeps his back turned to me as he pulls frozen cuts of meat from the deep freeze chest and sets them out on the counter. When he turns around, though, his eyebrow is arched high and skeptical. “If you thought I used this place like a whorehouse, then why did you come?”

  “Because, as you might have already realized, I don’t always make the best decisions,” I drawl.

  He laughs again. It’s such a musical sound when he’s like this. I could sit here and watch forever, just staring, mouth agape, as he glides gracefully around the kitchen and laughs and smiles and wields a chef’s knife like it’s an extension of himself.

  “Go explore, Taylor,” he tells me, pointing down the hallway with the blade. “The master bedroom is down at the end there. You’ll love the view.”

  “Is that going to be your room or mine?” I ask. I’m shooting for a light, airy tone. Easy and breezy. Totally chill, a cool girl voice.

  But the moment he turns those stormy blue eyes on me, I know I’ve stepped in it.

  “Ours.”

  I swallow hard. “I’m not sure that’s the best idea, Ilarion.”

  His eyes narrow dangerously. He sets the knife down with a quiet shhiiiink. “You don’t think that’s the best idea,” he repeats. He emerges from behind the counter and stalks closer, backing me into the wall.

  “No…we—”

  “I didn’t bring you all the way up here to go fucking bird-watching,” he growls. “We’re here so that we can be free of the shadows hanging over us. We’re here so that I can fuck you as many times as I want, and you can scream as loud as you’re able while I do it.” He runs a surprisingly gentle finger along the curve of my neck. “And you’re not leaving my bed after.”

  My cheeks flush, and I have a hard time meeting his intense gaze. Some of it is embarrassment, but most of it is arousal. And I’m worried that if I look back at him, he’s going to know that.

  Something tells me that he knows it regardless.

  I try to push him away, but he doesn’t so much as flinch. Honestly, the man could be one of the boulders outside for all the good my pushing does.

  “Move.”

  “Why?” A playful smirk tugs the corner of his mouth. “There’s nowhere to run.”

  “I’m assuming the doors in this place lock?”

  “I’ll just break them the fuck down if you even think of locking me out,” he growls, his good hand landing possessively on my hip. “I didn’t come up here for the damn conversation, tigrionok.”

  “Right,” I snap, angered by his sudden, and very presumptuous, attitude. “You just came up here to fuck me. To use me.”

  “Why did you come up here?”

  It’s my turn to narrow my eyes. He’s not off the mark, turning the interrogation on me. I did come up here with him. Willingly. Even after he told me what he wanted from me…

  Because I wanted it, too.

  I just don’t have to admit that. Not to him, anyway. Not to myself.

  And definitely not to my sister.

  “I came up here…” I shift my gaze to one of the windows, hoping to avoid looking at him while I come up with some sort of excuse. “…for the air. Fresh, crisp, cool mountain air.”

  He snorts. “Bullshit.”

  I flinch. “I need to think about this, Ilarion.” Now, I do dare to look at him, glaring, but a slight stammer edges out the anger in my words. “We can’t just…jump into bed with one another and assume there won’t be consequences!”

  Ilarion presses a warm hand to my stomach. The way he gently rubs, even as I feel the tension in his fingers, makes me want to moan. Moan in frustration…and pleasure.

  How does he do this to me so easily?

  “Consequences already happened, Taylor.”

  There he goes again, making valid points I can’t argue against. I want to slap him. I want to shove him away.

  I want to rip his pants off and ride him until I can’t think straight.

  Instead of any of those options, I slowly shake my head. “It doesn’t matter. It’s still wrong.”

  “I never pegged you for a coward.”

  I slap his hand away. “Fuck—”

  “You? I’m trying to, believe me.”

  I stop short, trying desperately not to smile. The storm in his eyes has faded. But more lightning is never far away.

  “Tell me something,” I say, spinning on my heels. “Would you be here with any random woman you happened to knock up?”

  I’m trying to hide my insecurities behind a wall of self-righteousness, but it’s a thin wall, and a precarious one. Any half-decent wind will take down.

  He eyes me carefully as a small, knowing smile plays across his lips. “Ah. Is that what you’re worried about?”

  “I just…” I sigh and throw my hands up in exasperation. “I’m not interested in being one of your conquests. Okay? I’m not interested in being the convenient choice, either.”

  “You want to know if you’re special?” He shakes his head in disgust. “Fucking hell, Taylor, how can you be so blind?”

  That makes me pause. “What?”

  He steps into my personal bubble again, his breath tickling my nose. “I was going to end my engagement to Celine in order to be with you.”

  The air is officially vacuumed from my lungs. I can’t breathe. Or hear.

  I definitely did not hear that.

  “Do you really think I could have married her?” He reaches for me, caressing the side of my face with more of that gentleness that seems so alien coming from him. “When all I want is you?”

  “Ilarion—”

  “Stop thinking,” he growls. “I did, and it makes a world of difference. You’re mine now, Taylor. Do you understand that?”

  I can’t get the words out, so instead, I nod. It doesn’t dispel the guilt sitting in the pit of my stomach, but I doubt that’s going away anytime soon.

  “I want to hear you say it,” he rasps, tilting my face up to his.

  I want to say it. God knows, too well, how much I want to say it. But the words stick to the roof of my mouth, blocked by my thickening tongue.

  “No,” I croak. “I can’t… Not while she’s alive.”

  “She’s not waking up, Taylor. We both know that.” He’s quick to catch the next falling tear with his thumb. “And you’re going to have to make a decision about that soon.”

  “A-about what…?”

  “I spoke to Dr. Baranov before we left. He recommends that we take her off life support in a few days if there’s still no improvement. But the decision is ultimately yours.”

  “And if I choose not to?

  Ilarion lowers his hand to my shoulder and gives me a comforting squeeze. “Then we keep her as she is, and try to make her body as comfortable as possible for as long as you need to say goodbye.”

  I flinch as a bolt of lightning zigzags through the sky. Raindrops pepper the roof in a sudden torrent. They sound like the tears in my heart every time I think about Celine.

  I take a deep breath and meet his beautiful, somber eyes. My body’s tingling for him, despite everything. It feels like a shame to spoil this feeling with regret and guilt.

  “Don’t you feel bad?” I ask.

  “Yes,” he admits with a slow nod. “But I’ve lived with worse things.”

  The rain is coming down in heavy sheets now, but I can still see the mountains through the kitchen windows. It feels a little on the nose, considering what my life is like at the moment. Sporadic crying with glimpses of happiness, and a large, immovable, impassible mountain of a man looming over me.

  “It’s easier for you,” I say. “She was your fiancée for a few days. She’s been my sister my whole life. My best friend. She was—oh, God, I’m already talking about her in the past tense.”

  “I have a solution for that,” Ilarion says gently. “Let’s stop talking about her at all.”

  My eyes go wide. “We can’t just forget—”

  “Yes, we can,” he insists. “Up here, in these mountains, in this cabin, we don’t need to talk about anything or anyone that isn’t present. It’s you and me and that’s it. Leave the rest of the world down below us.”

  “But—”

  “Not ‘buts,” he says firmly. “It’s you and me, Taylor. No rules. No relationships. No doubts or guilt. No judgment and no consequences. Just…freedom.”

  I take a deep breath. “You and me.”

  “That’s right, baby,” he murmurs, his lips tickling my ear. “Tell me that doesn’t sound good.”

  Fuck, I’d follow this man into the mouth of hell if he whispered in my ear long enough. I look over his shoulder at the rain pelting down on the pine trees, and I want to melt into his arms and never, ever leave.

  “It sounds perfect.” I close my eyes for a moment and finish the thought in my head. Forgive me for feeling this way.

  “You have goosebumps,” he suddenly remarks, pulling back. “I’ll get more firewood.”

  He moves toward the fireplace. I stare out at the rain. My head doesn’t catch up with my feet until I’m standing out on the porch, the rainfall misting on my skin.

  “Taylor, what are you doing?” Ilarion calls out after me.

  I turn to face him. “No rules, right?” A silly grin spreads across my lips. “Just…freedom.”

  Then I walk backwards, right into the rain, spreading my arms out and turning my face up to the sky. I hear Ilarion swear, and then the sound of his footsteps as he runs onto the porch.

  “What the fuck are you doing?”

  I laugh maniacally. “I’m being free!” I say, throwing my hands up in the air as I start dancing. “Come on! Dance with me.”

  “You’ll catch pneumonia. Come back inside.”

  “I don’t care.” I pirouette on the spot as my face is drenched with icy raindrops. Clouds shift in the sky above, and I can smell river and earth and bark and hear animals scurrying for shelter. Everything feels fresh and new and alive.

  Everything feels like freedom.

  And then I spin right into him. He’s joined me in the rainstorm, and he wraps his arms around me as I burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter.

  “You’re insane,” he laughs, half-shocked and half-amused.

  I nod, leaning up on my toes. “I know.”

  He holds me closer, his nose brushing against mine. Ilarion is soaking wet, too. Raindrops catch in each thread of his hair and cling to him the way I would if I were a raindrop that was blessed enough to fall on him.

  Maybe that’s exactly what happened, that first dark and stormy night. I was a raindrop falling, falling, falling…until I all but landed on Ilarion’s car.

  I grin at him. “Wanna go insane with me?”

  Something flickers in his eyes. Something deep and primal and intense. “Again and again and again,” he rumbles.

  Then he crushes his lips to mine.

  66

  ILARION

  We’re a fucking cliché.

  I couldn’t care less.

  Sex in the rain. Two lovers, so overcome with their feelings for one another that they rip their clothes off and fuck under the open skies.

  I thought it was all a bunch of bullshit. I know damn well life is not what the movies make it out to be. They glorify death, too, but I’ve seen men die, and it’s not pretty or heroic. It’s gruesome and visceral and it sticks with you for life.

  I’ve wanted a woman, and it didn’t end with us running through fields of daisies while the orchestra swelled in the background. It’s painful and thorny and it fucks you up forever.

  So as the skies break open and happiness has never seemed so close and so far away at the same time, I decide: fuck it. Fuck what the movies say should happen next.

  This is our story. Hers and mine.

  We’ll write it however we see fit.

  When our lips part, Taylor’s face is soaked with raindrops and joy. “The first time you and I met, it was raining,” she says with a wistful smile. After all her protests, I’m surprised at her sentimentality. Her smile widens. “Maybe rain is lucky for us.”

  Something roars to life inside my chest. The fact that she considers herself lucky to have met me… I never realized how much that would mean to me until the words slip through her lips.

  “Ilarion,” she says before I can kiss her again, “I have a rule of my own while we’re at the cabin.”

  That gives me pause, but her eyes are so bright and hopeful. If she’s going to embrace this cabin trip, then I’m sure as hell not going to give her a reason to backpedal.

  “Tell me.”

  “While we’re here, we have to be honest with each other,” she says. “Always.”

  Well, fuck me.

  I can’t promise her that. There’s so much I haven’t told her. Things that would make her run from me screaming. Things that would make her rue the day she met me at all.

  Things that would prove that none of this was an accident.

  “Okay?” she asks when I don’t say anything.

  I put my fingers to her swollen lips. She smiles, and I trace the curve of her mouth. “Okay.” I agree to it before I say something stupid.

  Like the truth.

  She grabs me and pulls me in for another kiss. Goddamn, she tastes so fucking good.

  I barely notice her hands sliding up beneath my sweater, but the cold of her fingers yanks my attention away from her sweet mouth. There’s something almost feral in the way she looks at me, and I’d be surprised if I wasn’t so fucking turned on.

  I want her to look at me like that more often.

  Every day for the rest of my life, preferably.

  “I shouldn’t be encouraging this,” I growl, even as my lust yells at me to shut the hell up.

  “You’re not scared of a little thunder and lightning, are you?” She’s working my sweater off me, and I now have a deep hatred for wet wool. It’s heavy and impossible to rip apart no matter how fast I want to throw it aside.

  “I’m scared that you’re going to be electrocuted, or that you’ll catch a cold or worse,” I explain through gritted teeth. I want her to think I’m irritated and not at all feeling the pain from my wounded arm shooting through my fingertips. The moment she notices I’m in pain, she’ll stop. I don’t want her to stop.

  Fuck, I don’t want her to ever stop.

  She just ignores me and works my pants open, tugging them down with a naughty smirk I’m ravenous for more of. She brushes her fingertips across my hardness.

  “I’ll be fine,” she says confidently. “You’ll protect me.”

  Her conviction makes me feel invincible. Like I’m the one controlling the storm that’s now raging around us.

  Taylor steps back and peels off her own sweater, quickly stepping out of her jeans with a sexy wiggle of her hips that takes my cock from hard to throbbing. I watch the rain caress every soft curve of her body and it’s now my life’s mission to lick each droplet up.

  I want to take my time with her, enjoy every single moment like it’s my last…

  But I need her now.

  I drag her to me, my hands grabbing her hips for leverage. She gasps when the cool metal of the parked Hummer hits her naked skin. I don’t even remember pushing her against it—all I know is I need to be inside her.