Page 92 of Little Blue

Irelynn

When I came down the stairs, I think he forgot how to breathe.

Never in my life have I felt quite as powerful as I did in that moment, watching Ilya’s throat bob. His blue eyes had been wide when they’d initially landed on me, but as I descended the stairs, they’d hooded.

I know I should be excited that he is taking me out. I’ve been cooped up in this house, on this property, for nearly two months. I should be using this moment away from my cage to free myself from the snare of him. But I don’t want to.

There, I said it.

I don’t want to escape my captor anymore. His home, his arms—him—none of it feels like a prison anymore.

Yes, I’m still terrified of who Ilya is. I can’t say I fully comprehend who he is and what he does, but I do know that somewhere along the way, I fell for him. I fell for him in a way that I know I’ll never pick myself up again.

He might be a bad man, but he’s good to me.

He might be a terror, but I’ve never felt safer than I do in his arms.

I don’t know all that he is and all that he does. I haven’t been brave enough to venture there yet.

One step at a time, Irelynn. One step at a time.

Still, even though I don’t know the ins and outs of the bad things he does, I do know that I’m in love with him. I can’t entirely pinpoint the moment it happened. Honestly, I don’t think it’s any one moment, but a collection of hundreds of little moments. It’s all the seconds he’s held me in his arms as I slept. It’s the moments he’s wiped away my tears, and the baring words he’s whispered against my lips. It’s the thoughtful way he listens to what I say, and acts. It’s the attention he pays. It’s how he knows what I need before I know what I need.

It's all of him. The good, beautiful, wondrous—and the bad, frightening, chaos.

Knowing that I stole the breath from a man as powerful as him makes me feel powerful in return. The buzz of that power hasn’t washed away as we made the long drive from Ilya’s home in the countryside into the city.

There’s not a lot of conversation. I can’t say it’s the most comfortable thing to be sitting in the back seat of a large SUV with a date, while his driver and bodyguard—what is Misha to him?—sits in the front seats.

I don’t mind that there’s little conversation. I’m too busy with my face pressed into the window.

Russia is beautiful. The city is lit up with golden lights that illuminate pieces of architecture that make me feel almost as though I’ve stepped into a dreamland. Much of it is so different from America.

I marvel. “I’d love to see this in daylight.”

“You will,” Ilya promises. “Many, many times.”

I look to him. “I will?”

“Of course. As you come to accept this—me—as your home, you will have many freedoms.”

I’ve already accepted you as my home, I think.

Besides, Lucy would never forgive me if I moved him back into the single room with the soggy ceiling and tiny window.

I snort at the thought. Then I sigh. That soggy ceiling feels like another lifetime ago. Looking through the tiny window of that apartment, I never could have imagined this life.

“What are you thinking?”

There’s no way I’m telling him that I’ve accepted my life with him while two eavesdropping men sit in the front seat. Before morning, the entire house would be talking, and Polina would be aghast that I let her learn of my feelings from Misha. The blabber mouth.

Instead, I give him a half-truth. “I was thinking of my apartment in New York.”

Ilya visibly tenses. “Why?”

I shrug. “I doubt Lucy would be happy if I took him back there.”

A single brow rises. Misha covers a chuckle with a cough, proving he’s been listening.

---