I Waited A Lifetime To Hold You Again
“You’re shaking.”
His voice dropped over me like warm smoke, right when my fingers brushed the marble island for the third time in ten minutes. I didn’t look up straight away—counted the flecks of gold in the stone, felt the chill bite through my thin gloves, breathed in the smell of cedar and expensive rain that clung to every inch of him.
“I’m cold,” I said. “This stone sucks the heat right out of the room.”
Aleksander Volkov moved out of my peripheral vision and stepped right into my space. Close enough that the heat rolling off his chest hit me like a wall. Close enough I could see the faint scar slicing through his left eyebrow, the dark stubble along his jaw, the way his eyes didn’t look at my work sheet or my clothes—they locked straight on my mouth.
“Take my jacket.”
“I don’t need—”
“Take it.” He slipped the tailored wool off before I could argue, draped it over my shoulders. It smelled like him, heavy and rich, and it settled over me like a secret. His fingers grazed my collarbone for half a second—light, deliberate, like he was testing if I’d pull away. I didn’t. My breath caught so sharp it stung.
“Everyone else I’ve had in here tried to tell me what I wanted,” he said, voice low, rough around the edges. “They all want to impress me. You look like you’re about to tell me my whole penthouse is garbage.”
I looked up then. “It’s empty. All glass and money and nothing that feels like a person ever actually lived here. You could buy anything you want, but you can’t buy warmth.”
He went still. The corner of his mouth tugged up, slow and hungry. “And you think you can give it to me?”
“I think I can build it. Whether you let me or not is up to you.”
He took a step closer, pressing into my space until our chests almost brushed. I could feel the heat coming off him, see the pulse jump in his throat, smell the faint spice of his cologne mixed with something wild, like smoke and rain. His hand came up, thumb brushing the corner of my mouth so soft it made my skin burn.
“Then build it,” he said, and his voice was wrecked, like he was holding onto control by a thread. “Build it all. For me.”
He’d told me three weeks back he’d lost his wife three years ago. Car crash. Sudden. That he’d buried himself in contracts and steel until he saw my portfolio, and something in him had snapped open. I’d believed him—not the money, not the name, but the way his hands shook when he talked about loss. The way he looked at me like I was something he’d been starving for.
By the end of that week, the lines blurred so bad I couldn’t tell where his work ended and my heart began. It started with a drink after hours, then dinner that ran until three, then him pushing me back against this very counter, kissing me like he was drinking me dry, like I was the only thing that could put the fire out in him. His hands were everywhere—my waist, my neck, tangled in my hair—hot, rough, desperate, like he was afraid I’d vanish if he let go. I tasted cedar and whiskey and something so dangerous it made my knees weak.
He told me I was his. He told me no one else had ever touched him like this. He told me he’d waited his whole life for something real.
What he didn’t say was that every time his phone buzzed, he flinched like he’d been hit. That the silver ring he twisted on his index finger wasn’t a mourning band. That the man who’d raised him had threatened to erase me from the face of the earth if he breathed a word about the life he was trapped in.
Three days later, I walked into the gala he’d insisted I come to as his guest. The music swelled, lights glinted off crystal, and the announcer’s voice boomed loud enough to rattle my bones:
“Presenting Mr. and Mrs. Aleksander Volkov!”
I froze. There he was, standing at the top of the stairs, with a woman on his arm—blonde, polished, diamonds dripping down her throat, her hand resting right over that same silver ring. He turned, saw me, and his face went white as sheet. His mouth opened like he was going to say something, but no sound came out.
I didn’t wait. I didn’t listen. I set my portfolio by the door, turned on my heel, and walked out into the cold night. The smell of cedar still clung to my clothes, and I could still feel the ghost of his hands on my skin, burning hot against the lie.
I didn’t know then that I was already carrying the piece of him they’d never let him keep.
End of Chapter 1
Word count: 1,419
