Mikhail

37 (R)

Heels dangling in a light hold, I tiptoed over pieces of broken glass and bullets covering the main floor of Mikhail's home.

The bodies had been gathered and exposed of, but otherwise everything remained as it had been that day.

Expertly balancing on my toes even with the slight amount of alcohol clouding my better judgement, I made my way over to his kitchen.

"Where's Bean?" I wondered, glancing over my shoulder to see him viewing the state of the usually minimalistic area with distaste.

"With Olga," he muttered, furious at whomever he had ordered to clean the mess made when we'd been attacked here what felt like eons ago.

Musing to myself, each step light and airy as I floated on the high he had given me, I stopped in front of his fridge.

"We'll order in," Mikhail called, watching me now, "there can't be anything worth putting between your pretty lips."

My bright laugh bounced off the cold and empty walls, and the deliciously attractive grin tugging up his lips fought away the breeze of cold air pushing in through the broken windows.

"No beef stroganoff?" I placed my heels on the kitchen island, which still displayed a handful of his guns, and listened to the glass crunch under the soles of his dress shoes and weight.

Lit only by the slivers of moonlight straying inside from between the thick trees, he neared me. All the more dark and dangerous in the low lighting, I shamelessly drank the stunning sight of him in.

I stepped aside and let him open the fridge, its light casting beautiful shadows to highlight the bulging muscles displayed underneath the white of his shirt.

"Spoiled," he scowled, taking one look at the several plastic containers packed to the brim with his favourite food.

I frowned, but agreed it would be best to order something. My stomach grumbled as the door of the fridge slowly closed, and his head snapped to me, brows pulled down.

His dark gaze trailed down to my bare feet, held on my tiptoes between the pieces of broken glass. Before he could object to me skipping around, barely avoiding injuring myself, I slipped past his once more nearing frame.

"Be careful," he warned, unappreciative but accepting of my high energy.

I was high on Mikhail the ferocious, without worry. He had taken away each concern and fear, kept me warm and secure, and it all had paid off.

To get to me, you had to get through him. That, as I had come to learn, was a feat so impossible not even I had managed to do it.

Our world moved fast, and I had learnt early on never to think too far ahead, because anything could happen. The dreams of one day walking down the aisle with my arms around my mother's and father's had been crushed with her untimely death, and I had dared not hold any hopes for what was to come. I didn't plan, because the ones I had once made had ended in heartbreak.

It was easier to go by my instincts, not get my hopes up and instead quite literally live in the moment.

With Mikhail by my side, I dared hope.

I relied on the words he spoke and the plans he made. I relied on us one day ruling together, instead of against one another. As he corny as it sounded, he had brought back the thing I had lost with my mother: dreams. With my life, I relied on him.

In my mind, safely clouded with love for the crazy man, his word was law. If he said we'd one day rule the world side by side, so it would be. The frightening amount of children he wanted would need to be discussed, but otherwise each of his plans and promises would happen. Nothing could stop him.