HIS LAST WARNING.

ANASTASIA.

He pauses with his hand on his door’s handle. 

“What did you just call me?”

“Husband. You know what they call the man when they get married? Yeah, that–”

“Lose it.” 

“Lose what?”

“The word. Lose it.” 

“No.” I crossed my arms over my chest as I glared at him. 

“What I call you is my business, I can decide to call you whatever, you don't control me. Plus, we need to keep things original, you know, Cierra, she's cunning, and it's only a matter of time before she starts sniffing around us, and she's smart too. It's not a coincidence that Dad has been battling a lifetime of court cases with her.” 

“Anastasia,” he warns. 

“You need to start calling me Ana or something for this whole thing to work,” I said, getting tired of how my skin tingles anytime he calls me by my full name. He shouldn't have that much access to me. 

A cold smile takes over his mouth, and I know that whatever is about to come out of his mouth will not be to my liking. “What about kiddo?” 

“Im not a fucking kid.” 

“Language, Anastasia.” 

“Is that what you still see me as?” I asked, really annoyed now as I stormed to his side of his car. “Would a kid be married to you? Would a kid look like this?” I said, trailing my fingers over my full curves.

“This is a fake marriage,” he said with a muscle ticking in his jaw as he kept his eyes on me. 

“Fake is an illusion. But this is real, tangible, and touchable.” 

I don't miss how he gritted his teeth at the touchable word—something he had declared would not happen in the marriage. 

“Step back, Anastasia,” he said. He sounded like he was struggling to breathe, but his face remained stoic. 

My cheeks must have been so crimson because it was only then that I realized I was so close to him. So close that I taste him on my tongue, so close that his cologne wraps around me in warmth. So close that my big breasts brushed his chest, and I could feel my nipples hardening. 

Fuck. 

Usually, I would have given him back his space and returned to mine because that was the right thing to do, right? 

But at the same time, a lot of things were going on. A lot of the right things were going wrong, like dad being in the hospital without a confirmation of whether he would ever wake up. So I didn't follow Damien’s order. 

I stood there under his dark scrutiny without breaking eye contact. 

I stayed. 

I stared. 

And I reminded myself to breathe. 

“Anastasia, I need you to step back.” 

“And I'm obviously refusing to.” 

“Did you just say you refuse to?” 

“Yeah. Why? Are you scared of something?” 

He steps forward, and I startle. My back bumps into something cold and metal—the car. It's the car. I'm up against the car, and Damien is so close. I'm blessed with the sight of his sinfully proportioned lips. 

Lips that I wanted to taste again. 

He's not touching me, but I was full of those little tingles, those sharp needle-like stings, and I can't help it. 

“Do you really think that, Anastasia? That I'm scared?” his mouth was moving, but I wasn't registering what he was saying. All I could focus on was his lips, how soft and fresh they looked. 

“Come on now, Anastasia. You were all talk just a second ago. Don't space out on me, talk to me. Do you think I'm scared?” he asked again. 

“Well, aren't you?” I finally forced out. 

“Do I look scared to you?”

He definitely doesn't look scared. I've never seen him scared, anxious, or suffering from any of the things we humans are plagued with. But his face wasn't stuck in the rigid aloof expression either. 

There's a tightness in his body, a tic in his jaw, and a look in his eyes that I don't recognise. I've never seen it before. I've never seen that lowering of his lids or the dilating of his pupils. 

And it's a bit scary. His gaze continued from my eyes to my lips, and I didn't understand it. Then, he bit his lips while still looking at me, and the wells opened up. 

Fuck me. 

“Answer the question, Anastasia.” 

“No.” 

“No, what?”

“No, you don't look scared.” 

“Then, how do I look?” 

Scary. 

But I don't say that, I keep quiet. 

“I don't know,” I say instead. 

“You don't, huh?” 

I shake my head once. 

“I need your words, Anastasia.” 

“No, I don't.” 

“Let me enlighten you then, this is what I look like when I'm holding back. When I'm not acting on what I'm thinking and dragging you to a corner where no one will see you flinch or hear you release those small noises you will when I act upon the things I'm thinking. So, you should be the scared one, not me.” 

I don't think I'm breathing anymore. 

I swallow. 

I inhale deeply. 

But it still doesn't give me my sanity back—the sanity he confiscated with his words. 

“Why should I be scared?” I can't help it, okay? I want to know what he meant. I want him to say these things to me clearly. 

“Were you listening to a word I just said?” 

“Yeah, and that's why I asked. Why should I be scared?” 

His hand reaches for me, well, not for me, for my hair. For a strand, I can't tame into submission, no matter how hard I try. 

“You should be scared because——”

His thumb slides down from behind my hair to the hollow of my throat, to the insane pulse that's currently self-destructing me. 

“If you don't stop flaunting yourself around, if you keep provoking me and don't stay in your lane, I'll be inclined to take action. I'll have to act on my thoughts, and when I do, Anastasia, I'll swallow you whole. You'll look at yourself in the mirror and not recognise yourself because I'll consume you. This is my last warning to you and a courtesy I'm extending. Stop flaunting yourself around me, go back to college, make friends, and enjoy your vanilla boyfriends and your boring life.” 

Is it possible for a heart to leave the ribcage and still beat? I should listen, right? I should push him back and walk away, but I don't. 

Because what's the essence of everything if I don't find out for myself? 

Is it weird that I want him to swallow me whole? That I want him to consume me fully? Maybe that's why I continued pushing? 

“And if I don't? What if I don't want safe and boring?” 

I want you. I almost said that. Almost.

But I don't get to, because his following words knock the living daylights out of me. 

“That means, you're well and truly fucked, Anastasia. Whatever happens from here on out is on you.”