Page 16 of Savage Reins
"Same thing that happens to everything good." His mouth twists into something that might have been a smile once. "Men with guns took them away."
We move through the barn together, and I'm acutely aware of his presence beside me. He doesn't try to help, doesn't get in my way, just follows at a distance that feels both respectful and protective. When I check water buckets, he watches. When I refill hay nets, he stands guard. It should annoy me, this silent surveillance, but instead it feels strangely comforting.
"Thank you," I say as we reach the last stall. "For what you did to Ivan."
Renat's expression doesn't change. "You don't need to thank me for that."
"Yes, I do. You didn't have to defend me."
"You shouldn't have to hear that garbage on your own land."
The way he says it—your own land—makes my chest tight. As if he actually believes this place still belongs to me, even though we both know better.
"Is it?" I ask. "My land?"
He's quiet for a long moment, rain drumming against the roof above us. "It should be."
The simple words make me stop to think, not because they offer false hope but because they're honest. Because for just a moment, Renat Vetrov sounds less like an enforcer and more like a man who understands what it means to lose everything you've ever cared about.
Lightning flickers through the high windows, followed by thunder that makes the building shake. The young mare in the corner stall whinnies nervously, and I move to calm her, my boots slipping on the wet concrete just outside her door.
My arms windmill uselessly as I lose my balance, and I brace for the impact of the cold, unforgiving floor. Instead, strong hands catch my waist, pulling me back against a chest that feels carved from granite. Renat's fingers press into my ribs, steadying me, and I can feel the heat of his body through both our soaked shirts.
"Easy," he murmurs, his voice rough and low.
I should step away, should put distance between us before this moment becomes something I can't take back. But I don't move. I stay pressed against him, feeling the rise and fall of his breathing, the way his hands span my waist with casual possession.
"You're shaking," he says.
I am. But not from the cold or the near fall. From his proximity, from the way his thumbs trace small circles againstmy hipbones, from the knowledge that I'm standing in the arms of a man who could destroy me in more ways than one.
"The storm," I whisper.
"Liar."
He turns me around slowly, his hands never leaving my waist, until I'm facing him in the dim light of the barn. Rain streams down the windows, and lightning flickers across his face, illuminating the sharp angles of his cheekbones, the intensity in his dark green eyes.
"Mira." My name sounds different in his mouth. Rougher. More intimate.
"What are you doing?" I ask him, but I don't move away from him, don't try to escape the cage of his arms.
"I can't seem to keep you off my mind." His voice is gravelly and low, a hint of hunger in the tone.
"Renat," I say, slowly backing away, pressing my hands to his chest. But the heat through his wet shirt thrums against my palms and I remember that soft spot he has for me. I told myself I could use this weakness against him—the desire he has that every man has. "This is a mistake," I tell him, but it's playacting. Yes, it's a huge fucking mistake and ifBatyasaw me, he'd tear my head off, but if I can worm my way into this man's thoughts, it may just work to our advantage. He may be the one who turns on his own family to defend us.
"Probably." His hands slide up from my waist to frame my face, callused thumbs brushing my cheekbones. "But I've been making mistakes my whole life. One more won't kill me." The ferocity in Renat's eyes unhinges me. No one has ever looked at me that way.
When he kisses me, it's not gentle. There's nothing tentative or questioning about the way his mouth claims mine, nothing polite about the way he backs me against the stall door until I'm trapped between wood and muscle and heat. He kisses me theway men like him do everything—with complete commitment, as if this moment might be the last thing he ever gets to choose for himself.
For a heartbeat, I kiss him back. My body responds before my brain can catch up, leaning into his heat, my hands fisting in the front of his wet shirt. He tastes like rain and a hint of salt from his sweat, and I let those flavors linger on my tongue while I remember the look in his eyes as he punched Ivan for saying those crude things about me.
Then reality crashes back in with the force of another thunder crack. This is Renat Vetrov. The man sent to take everything from me. The enforcer who holds my family's fate in his scarred hands.
I wrench myself away from him, stumbling backward until my shoulders hit the stall door behind me. My lips feel swollen, tingling, and I can still taste him on my tongue. The heat in my cheeks spreads down my neck, and I'm grateful for the dim lighting that might hide the evidence of what his kiss did to me.
Renat watches me with a predator's eyes, his chest rising and falling heavily. Rain drips from his dark hair, and there's something wild in his expression that makes my pulse stutter with fear and something else I refuse to name.
"I can't," I whisper.
