Page 84 of The Fire Beneath the Frost

Petyr glanced sideways but didn’t answer right away.

I swallowed hard, and my voice cracked as I pushed the rest out.“I don’t know if I can keep doing this.”

That hung in the air like smoke.I expected him to keep walking, maybe pretend he hadn’t heard.But he slowed a little, enough to let my words land.

“I want more than this,” I said, and my voice got sharper, faster, like I’d finally kicked open a door that’d been rotting in its frame.“More than stolen hours and locked doors and pretending.I’m tired of pretending, Petyr.All the lies, fake dating Mira, of pretending I don’t want to touch you every damn second of the day.It’s—it’s exhausting.And you should know, nothing happened with me and Larisa last night.She was drunk and tried to seduce me.After taking her clothes off, I put one of my shirts on her and she passed out.That’s it.”

He still didn’t speak, so I kept going.“The way I feel about you—it’s not something I can hide.Not forever.It’s too big.It scares the hell out of me.”

The wind picked up again, pushing the scent of wood smoke and moss across the road.Somewhere deeper in the trees, a dog barked once and went quiet.

Petyr didn’t say a word.Just slipped his arm across my shoulders.

I stiffened like he’d poured ice down my spine.My entire body locked up, heartbeat loud and hard in my ears.I looked around like a soldier expecting a sniper.

“Calm down,” he breathed, his hand curling around the back of my neck.“It’s just me.Other guys do this all the time.Nobody’s out here.They’ve all gone back to town already.Work starts early tomorrow for everyone.”

I forced a breath through my nose and nodded.Let my shoulders drop.His thumb brushed my skin, and I leaned into it, just barely.

We kept walking.Our boots scuffed through fallen leaves and loose gravel.The dachas thinned out the farther we got.Most of them were shuttered and empty now.Behind one faded fence, a rusted bike leaned against a wall like it’d been forgotten years ago.I wanted to believe we could be forgotten too, just long enough to breathe.

Petyr exhaled slowly, like the weight of everything I’d said had finally settled on him.

“Dima, I’m sorry,” he said.“I tried to give us what we needed, but I didn’t know they’d show up.I thought—just this once—we’d get the weekend.No interruptions.Just you and me.”

I looked at him then.Really looked.His face was drawn, his mouth pinched the way it always got when he was holding something back.

He stopped walking.

I stopped too, half a step behind.

“I love you, Dimitri,” he murmured.“More than anything.More than anyone.But we have to face the truth.This thing we have, it exists in the cracks.In the dark.That’s the reality.”

His eyes flicked toward the road ahead.“If we don’t want to end up in a Siberian gulag, then yes, it has to stay this way.Fleeting.Hidden.We can’t change that, no matter how much we want to.If you can’t live with it, if this is too much, then maybe…” He swallowed.“Maybe we should end it.”

For a long second, the only sound was the rustle of leaves above us.

I looked around.Nothing but trees, silence, the last sliver of sun dragging behind the hills.No one was in sight.Not a soul.

So I kissed him.

There, in the middle of the dirt lane, under that pale, bruised sky, I kissed him like I meant it.Like I’d never get to do it again.

When I pulled away, he looked stunned.And then soft.And then something deeper, something that hurt to look at.

“I’ll make this work,” I said, my voice rough.“Somehow.I promise.”

ChapterTwenty-Five

Petyr

The stairwell of my apartment building reeked.Someone on the floor below was frying onions too hot and too fast—every breath hit the back of my throat and I bit back a cough.My legs ached.The bus ride back to Leningrad had been long, and the walk home longer.I’d offered Dimitri space, and he’d taken it without a word.He’d disappeared down Nevsky Prospekt with his collar turned up and his eyes on the ground.I’d watched him go until I couldn’t anymore.Now I was here, dragging myself up four flights like gravity had decided it was sick of my shit.

I didn’t even hear my own footsteps.Just the muffled life inside the building.An argument blooming behind a door on the third floor, laughter echoing faintly from someone’s radio, the clatter of pans.Life marching on, uncaring.Normal.Hideous in its normalcy.

I should be mad at Dimitri.Really, I should.

He’d scared me.The way he’d grabbed me.The way his voice had cracked and how his hands had shaken, like the violence was fighting to get out and he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to hold it back or unleash it.He hadn’t hurt me.Not really.But he could have.And he knew it.

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