Page 73 of Knocked-Up Bratva Prisoner

Later that night, after the fire shrinks and the air gets colder, we head inside with stomachs full of delicious food and smiles spread across our cheeks.

Lying in bed, I hold Clara close against me. She is fast asleep. I am just listening to her breathing, which is soft and slow.

I do trust her. I want to believe that she won’t try and escape again.

I want to believe that maybe—just maybe—I am not the only one who has developed feelings.

I close my eyes, taking a long, deep breath, then I slip away into dreamland holding the most beautiful girl in the entire world.

Chapter 19 - Clara

Alexei really did what he said he was going to do.

Honestly, at the time, when he told me he was going to stop locking me up in the house, I didn’t believe him. I thought he was just feeling good in the moment and the next day, he would probably change his mind again, but he didn’t.

I have the security codes for the main doors and the outside gate. I can come and go as I please.

I’ve been out walking every morning since. Sometimes he comes with me, sometimes he has work to see to.

And I love it.

I could see at first that he was nervous about letting me off on my own—I think he is still worried about me trying to escape.

He doesn’t realize that I actually never want to go home.

But how do I tell him that without sounding like a lunatic?

Thanks for kidnapping me, can I stay forever?

I push the back gate open and step out of it onto the path that leads towards the forest.

I don’t go far into the forest because I don’t quite feel safe yet on my own. He knows his way around much better than I do, and I don’t want to get lost or slip and fall and hurt myself. Which is apparently something that is more likely than not.

I laugh to myself when I remember how I wiped out at the start of our last long hike.

It’s a little overcast today, and there is a cold breeze creeping through the trees, but it always just as beautiful asbefore. It doesn’t matter what the weather is, it just feels like the different moods of nature—all with their own beauty.

I zip my jacket collar all the way up my neck to keep the chill away and shove my hands into my pockets. A risky move—if I do fall, I won’t be quick enough to pull them out, and I’ll probably face plant into a bush or something.

I bet Alex would have a field day ripping into me about that.

I laugh again and shake my head.

I really don’t want to go home—back to my uncle, I mean. It’s odd, but I hardly even think of it as home anymore. I’ve seen what a home can really feel like, and the more time I spend here, the more I realize that living with my uncleneverfelt like home.

Is it something I can sit down and talk to Alexei about? How I feel?

Would I dare to tell him I have feelings for him and I kind of want to date him properly?

I think if I told him that, it would freak him out and he’d push me away.

I bite my lower lip as I make my way around the edge of the tree line, just on the inside where I can enjoy the forest but still see how to get out of it, a nice clear path back towards the house so I don’t get disoriented.

If I lived here, I would be out here every day, and I’d learn my way around pretty quickly.

I walk until I am warm enough to unzip my jacket again, then I walk a little more.

I love it out here—the smell of the pine needles and the sound they make when I step on the old ones that coatthe ground, the rich earthy colors and the bright greens of everything around me with sudden splashes of yellow or orange or pink where a random flower peeks out from between the leaves of other plants. Birds flap away when they hear my footsteps, and little furry creatures scuttle along the ground.

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