Page 113 of Santa Daddy
I found her in a small clearing, maybe fifty yards from the cabin. She stood with her back to me, arms wrapped around herself, shoulders shaking.
Rage. Tears. Probably both.
“Go away, Konstantin,” she said as I approached.
Not an option.
“No,” I said. Three long strides and I was in front of her, my hands on her shoulders, spinning her gently but firmly to face me. “Don’t walk away from me again.”
Don’t make me live in a world where you’re gone. I’ve done that already. Once was enough.
Her eyes burned. Fury, hurt, and something that looked a lot like love all swirled there.
“What are you going to do?” she demanded, stepping into my space. I could feel the heat coming off her, even out here in the cold.
“I’m going to do whatever it takes to keep you safe,” I growled. My fingers tightened on her shoulders. “Even if you hate me while I do it. If you run again, I’ll tear this forest and this country and every city apart until I find you.”
The threat hung between us like live wire.
Because it wasn’t a threat.
It was the truth.
Her breath stuttered. Some of the fight drained from her expression, leaving something rawer.
“You’re insane,” she whispered.
“About you?” I asked. “Completely.”
She moved first.
Her hands fisted in my shirt. Yanked me down. Her mouth crashed against mine.
Not careful. Not calculated. Not for show.
Raw. Urgent. A collision of every bad decision we’d ever made.
I kissed her back, one hand tangling in her hair, the other anchoring her to me. She tasted like fear and fury and something uniquely her that I’d already accepted I was addicted to.
We stumbled backward until my back hit a tree. Bark scraped my shoulders. She pressed against me, curves soft and solid against muscle and scars.
“Here?” I asked, breath hot against her lips. “Out here?”
“Here,” she said, fierce. “Right now. Before the world finds us again.”
The world wasn’t safe. This wasn’t safe.
But it was honest.
I dragged her shirt up and over her head, baring her skin to the cold. Goosebumps chased my hands. Bruises stood out stark on pale flesh. Every mark mine or my world’s. None I was proud of. All I wanted to kiss away.
She stripped my shirt with hands that were careful around my injured shoulder and rough everywhere else. Her palms flattened over my chest, over the scars and ink and stories no one else got to read like this.
She wasn’t afraid of the damage.
The rest of our clothes disappeared in a flurry of breathless urgency, landing on snow and dead leaves. When I lifted her, her legs anchoring around my waist, pain shot through my shoulder, white-hot.
Worth it.
