Chapter 27

DIMITRI

The ride to my apartment is quick, but the distance and tension between us remain the same. Anya says nothing the whole way, nor as I bring her into my room and pull back the shelf.

After a deep breath, I give her the nod to enter the secret room. The moment she opens the door and steps inside, I know I have done something irreversible.

Her expression goes from serious to one of being thunderstruck as she takes in the room filled with artwork depicting her.

Paintings are everywhere, covering every inch with her likeness. The only other objects in the room are blank canvases, my brushes, an easel, and a chair beside a desk that holds every kind of paint one can imagine in a complete collection.

I feel ashamed and exposed—naked—as she walks through the space.

She looks the pieces over one by one, her eyes scanning and scrutinizing my craft. “This is…” She shakes her head and opens her mouth, probably to scold me, but I don’t let her finish her sentence.

“Go on,” I say, leaning against the door and crossing my arms. “Make fun of me.”

She throws me a frown. “No, I can’t make fun of this talent.” She touches the edges of a painting, her manicured finger trailing the lines of her own cheek in it. “How come I never knew you were an artist?”

“We never really talk, Anya,” I say in a matter-of-fact tone. “When we’re together, it ends with my cock in your pussy.”

Her cheeks turn red at my dirty words. “Idiot.”

She looks at the painting again, one where she is lost in her homework in the library while the other students blur in the background. The sunlight from the window casts her in a golden glow that I tried hard to capture.

“When did you do this? This was way before I started dating Blake—I remember this particular set of pencils.” Her fingers trace the object in her hand.

It was well over two years ago; she had just turned nineteen in the photo. I suck in a deep breath, memories of drawing her for the first time coming back to me. “That was the first piece,” I say. Shame warms my face as I avoid a direct answer.

Her fingers slide off the painting, knocking into a paint bottle on the desk. The lid is only partially on, so when it crashes to the floor, it spills red all over the hardwood. Anya is unbothered as it splashes her feet and legs.

She has her stare on me, her gaze speculating. “Why? Why me?” she asks.

“I stopped painting long ago, Anya,” I say with a sigh. “The last time I drew anything was when I was in a gang.”

Her innocent face lights up with mischief. “You were in a gang? Like, a motorcycle one?” She dives into the fact excitedly. “Or—OMG!—are you in the mafia?”

“No, absolutely not.” Standing straight and swiping my hands, I give her a grave look. “That life is way behind me now. The point is, I never felt the urge to lift a brush until I got hooked by you in class. I became enchanted and couldn’t stop wanting to capture you in the most mundane moments. It never even occurred to me that I was crossing boundaries.”

Every word that leaves me is weighted, which makes my chest grow lighter the more I share with her. “You are my muse, Anya. I’m as crazy for you as one could be.”

She isn’t looking at me anymore. She is touching another paint bottle, dipping her finger in a blue liquid and observing it closely. “You were hooked by me?” she asks after moments.

“You’re impossibly beautiful, baby girl. Don’t tell me you didn’t know.”

“Oh, I know.” She shrugs with a confident dip of her chin. “I’m the only pretty child in my entire family. Reason my parents didn’t want to send me to live here alone.”

A chuckle escapes me. “Your confidence never surprises me.”

“You love that about me.”

Our gazes catch—mine fixed on her and hers shining with mischief. The mood shifts as the weight of the word ~love~ hangs heavy between us. She knows the truth without me having to say it; she understands me.

At least, I believe she does.

“I do,” I say.

An awkward silence follows before Anya rubs her blue-painted fingernail on her joggers without a bother. She is so messy—so beautifully messy.

“So, I made you lift a brush again, but Blake said you made your ex leave you. What do I make of that?” She touches a finger to her bottom lip absently, which has me ogling her mouth before I remind myself that we aren’t here for that.

“I didn’t make her leave,” I say in a serious tone. The very thought of Jane makes me sick. Blake has always been wrong in his assumptions about me. “I gave her a choice to either choose our son or herself.”

Anya surprises me by sliding onto the desk, her back to the paintings, before raising an eyebrow as a sign for me to continue.

“Blake is the only one I cared about. I loved him even before he was born,” I say, finding myself slipping into a tone of casual conversation with my lovely student slash…hookup girlfriend?

“I wanted everything for him. Jane was part of that. I wanted us to be a family—a perfect family—which didn’t sit well with her because she wanted her freedom. She didn’t want the child and blamed me for forcing her to keep him. She hated him the moment he was born.”

The story is hard to recollect without recalling the feelings that came with those moments. Everything I have dreaded thinking about comes back to me.

Jane in labor, Blake’s birth, Jane whining about how we shouldn’t have kept him, and Jane not even caring to touch him—including breastfeeding, so I had to feed him every day.

Those are moments that leave scars so deep they don’t heal.

“We fought a lot because her main concern was that her figure was ruined because of him,” I say, and Anya hisses a sharp breath. “Then she left, but as Blake grew up, he would ask about seeing her. So, she let him spend a month or two with her every year, fueling him with hatred for me.”

“Dimitri…that’s horrible,” Anya whispers with a pained look on her face. “Why didn’t you defend yourself?”

I shrug. “Blake was happy, Anya. He loves the fact that even from afar his mother is there for him. How can I take that away from him? I’m not a monster.”

Anya scoffs. “But she made him despise you.”

The next laugh that leaves me is breathy, almost bitter. “Doesn’t matter. He’s half of my heart. Whatever he does, that part will always be his.”

“And the other half?” Her question freezes me. She is looking at me with so much hope, leaving her face to shine with pure fascination.

“What?” I ask, forcing myself to speak.

“Who does the other half belong to?” she says slowly, as if I didn’t understand her before.

I release my breath, all my suffering leaving me as I take in her face. “I think you know.”

She stares at me, my words falling heavily between us. “Crazy, stupid man,” she finally says before hopping off the desk, knocking two more paint bottles—yellow and orange—to the floor. Her hands are colored with them as she stalks toward me.

With three steps, she is in front of me, rising on her toes and bringing my head down to meet hers halfway. We collide with a heat that pulls us deep.

I groan, she moans, and our lips breathe life into each other as they crash together. I kiss her deeply, my lips giving her my unspoken apology. Our tongues and teeth meet and graze, drawing us into each other as I pull her closer.

Our bodies smash together, and it is everything that I have craved for. Her kiss sends me soaring while my feet remain on the floor.

She is a blend of strawberry kisses and vanilla scent—her own sweet smell that has my cock growing, wanting more of her and to be buried deep inside her. When we part for breath, her eyes are closed in bliss, and my breaths are hot against her lips.

“I’m sorry. I’ll never do that again,” I whisper, brushing my thumb over her cheekbone. “I’ll never ignore your calls again, never decide what you want unless you explicitly state that, never put you second. Please don’t break this. Don’t go.”

“Dimitri,” she says my name with a rough, breathless note before her dilated pupils meet mine. “Just shut up and fuck me. I forgave you already.”

~Cazzo.~

I would walk to hell for this woman…happily.