Page 98 of One For my Enemy

She exhaled, releasing him to turn away.

“Dima,” she said, not looking at him. “I never stopped loving you.”

He slid towards her, setting one hand gently on her waist. When she didn’t push him away, he pulled her closer, aligning her hips with his.

“And?” he asked, and she shifted, her gaze rising to meet his.

“And I never will,” she said.

It was no whispered confession. It was no gentle murmur in the dark. It was the truth, plain and bare, and she wasn’t vulnerable for having said it. Instead, she wore her love like a shield, like armor, and he ached for her; for what she was to him; for what they might have been.

She chose the dress. She chose this place. She chose to come here to him, knowing he would touch her, that they would spend part of this night together, and she wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t afraid, of him or of love or of anything, and for that he kissed her, bent his head and pressed his mouth to hers; to prove that he was strong for her, because he could be weak. Because she wanted him to love her, and because he would, without fear, for as long as he lived. For as long as his heart beat beside hers.

This time, he wasn’t lying half-dead in his bed. He pulled her against him and rolled over her, his hands wrapped around her slender wrists as her dark curls spread over his bedsheets.

“Is it true Stas is dead?” he asked her.

Marya nodded, not taking her eyes from his.

He considered how to ask. “Do you still—”

“I loved him,” Marya confirmed, toneless, and Dimitri flinched. “I won’t pretend I didn’t. But I loved him because that love made me stronger, not weaker.”

“And this love?” Dimitri asked her, expectant; breathless. “Our love?”

She looked at him; traced his cheek with her gaze.

“I would burn down the world for this love, Dima,” she said, “so maybe I’ll help you. Maybe I won’t. Don’t tell me what you’re planning,” she warned, “and let me have my secrets, too. Give me nothing. Deny me everything.”

“Everything?” he echoed, one hand releasing her to slide under her dress, and she gave him a little brush of a smile.

“This is nothing,” she told him, though she drew one leg up, tightening it around him. “Isn’t it?”

He slid a hand through her hair, wrapping a fistful of the strands around his knuckles until she hissed a little through her teeth.

“Masha,” he warned. “We were never nothing.”

“Maybe we weren’t,” she said, arching her hips up against his, “but still, this is the least of what we were, wasn’t it?”

True.

He tugged at her hair again, revealing her throat, and brushed his lips over her neck. She made a breathy little sound, like a sigh, and then shoved him hard onto his back, forcing his shoulders into the mattress as she leaned over him on the bed.

“I don’t like being this close to you,” she said, drawing one fingernail down his throat until it landed just above the vial around his neck. “I can feel it beating. Like a phantom limb.”

“Do you want it back?” Dimitri asked, exhaling as Marya slid both hands under his shirt.

“No,” she said, and dropped lower, tracing her berry-red lips over his jaw, his neck, his chest. “You promised you wouldn’t let anything happen to it, Dima. You’re its keeper now.”

He closed his eyes, shivering, as she brushed the clasp of his trousers.

“What else can you still feel, Masha?” he asked, and when he opened his eyes again, she was smiling down at him, mean and victorious and cruelly beautiful, and she was everything, everything he had ever loved. She was the sun, the moon, and the stars.

She was fantasy incarnate, and she had chosen him.

“Let’s find out, Dima, shall we?” Marya beckoned, and then she slid her hands under the fabric as her heart pulsed wildly against his chest, reducing him to a shiver.

IV. 15

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