I wake slowly, as if I'm rising out of warm water that doesn't want to let me go, my body heavy, languid, with the strange sensation that reality is waiting for me somewhere above, ready to strike.
For a second—maybe two—I don't know where I am, and I don't try to find out. The ceiling above me tells me nothing, except that it's too high, too smooth, too perfect, crossed by a golden light slipping through heavy curtains. The air is unlike any room I've ever woken up in: warm, clean, scented with expensive sheets, weak coffee, and… him.
My heart suddenly jumps in my chest, as if only now realizing that my eyes are open.
I prop myself slightly on one elbow, and my body responds immediately with a strange, almost intimate sensitivity, as if every nerve has been touched, awakened, and then deliberately left unprotected. Beneath the sheet, my skin is bare. Bare!
Panic comes fast—sharp, without warning.
Where am I? What happened? How much of what I remember is real, and how much is just a beautiful lie my exhausted mind invented?
Images gather in torn, disordered fragments: the club lights, Yelena's laughter, Duca's arms, the car, the darkness, that intense sensation that split me open from the inside. I stop breathing abruptly when the truth snaps into a single point, clear and impossible to ignore.
The orgasm.
That is clearly a memory, not imagination. If I close my eyes tight enough, I can still feel it.
I liked it. A lot.
That thought scares me more than anything else.
I bring my hand to my mouth, as if I could stop the thoughts, and only then do I realize I'm not alone. Beside me, Duca is asleep.
His breathing is slow and steady, his chest rising beneath the sheet with a calm that doesn't suit him, and his face is surprisingly relaxed. His jaw is no longer tense, the sharp lines softened by sleep, and like this—vulnerable without knowing it—he looks younger, more accessible, more… human.
Beautiful. Dangerously beautiful.
I watch him for too long—his lashes, his brows no longer drawn together, the large hand stretched out between us, palm open, as if he had been holding me a second before falling asleep.
And maybe he did.
A wave of emotion rises in my throat, and I don't know what it is: shame, fear, or something far more dangerous. Attachment.
I remember his voice telling me I was safe, and I remember, with a clarity that unsettles me, that I believed him without asking a single question.
I move carefully, gently, trying not to wake him. The sheet slips, and the sensation of my bare skin makes me draw a broken breath, while my body still reacts—treacherously—as if it never received the message that morning has come and the rules should change.
But they don't. I feel good, and that is exactly the problem.
Because this kind of good isn't innocent, and it isn't safe, and it isn't something a girl like me should be feeling next to a man like him, in a luxury hotel in Moscow, after a night I can't fully remember.
I press my back against the headboard and pull in a deep breath, trying to gather my thoughts as they collide with each other—messy, chaotic.
What happens next? What am I to him? What does he expect from me? Why did he take me with him?
As if sensing my unease, Duca shifts, his brow creasing slightly, and then his eyes open.
Blue. Clear. Present.
He catches me in his gaze before I can hide, and for a second he says nothing—he just watches me, assessing, reading, the way only he knows how to do.
Then his expression changes—soft, surprisingly soft.
"Good morning, little love," he says, his voice low, still thick with sleep.
My heart misses a beat.
I swallow hard, my throat tightening, and the silence between us suddenly becomes too heavy for me to carry alone.
"Duca," I whisper, and my voice sounds uncertain, as if it's coming from a place not used to asking questions. "Why am I naked?"
My gaze drops instinctively beneath the sheet, then returns to him, loaded with a fear I don't want to name.
"Did we… have sex?"
For a fraction of a second, he remains perfectly still. Then he lets out a short, surprised laugh—so different from any laugh I've heard from him before that the tension in my chest cracks.
"No," he says simply. Clearly. Without a trace of hesitation. "No."
He rises slightly onto one elbow and looks at me with a calm, grounded seriousness.
"I would never have taken advantage of your state, Alla. Never."
The word lands heavy, final. I feel it settle somewhere deep inside me, right where panic had begun to take root.
I breathe in deeply, but the air still doesn't feel like enough.
"Then…?" I ask, and the confusion in my voice is real, almost childlike.
Duca exhales slowly and runs a hand over his face, as if rewinding the night in his mind.
"You got sick," he tells me. "Pretty badly. You threw up all the alcohol you'd had. And there was quite a bit of alcohol…"
I blush instantly, shame crawling up my throat, but he keeps going before I can say anything.
"You have nothing to feel bad about," he adds. "Your body just said stop."
He reaches out and strokes my cheek.
"I took you to the bathroom, helped you undress, then put you under the shower. You leaned against me the whole time."
The image slowly assembles in my head: the water, the warmth, his steady hands—unhurried, unembarrassed.
"That's all. Then we got into bed and slept."
The silence that follows is different. Lighter. Easier to breathe in. I feel something inside me loosen, slowly, like a knot that's no longer being pulled tight.
"I'm sorry," I murmur.
"Don't apologize," he says immediately. "You did nothing wrong. If anyone's to blame, it's me. I shouldn't have taken you with me and thrown you into the lion's den the way I did. You don't belong to my world—and I'm realizing I like that about you. I want you just for myself."
I bite my lip and look at him, trying to reconcile reality with the sensation that's still alive in my body.
"But the orgasm?" I ask, almost embarrassed. "That was real."
He smiles faintly now—a sharp, controlled smile.
"Yes," he says calmly. "It was."
I stay quiet. I feel relieved. And, in a way that surprises and irritates me at the same time, disappointed that nothing more happened between us.
Only then do I realize that my body hasn't calmed down at all. Beneath the false serenity of morning, something is still pulsing—steady, lucid—a hunger that has nothing to do with confusion or last night.
I want him.
Not like then, when I let myself be carried by waves that didn't belong to me and ended up wherever they decided to take me. I want him now, with my eyes open, my mind clear, with that clean desire that doesn't hide and doesn't rush. I want him knowing exactly what I feel and what I'm asking for.
It scares me a little how certain I am of this.
It isn't just hunger for skin or touch. It's something deeper, more uncomfortable: the need to be seen and chosen intentionally, to know that if it happens, it happens because I wanted it—not because I slipped into it.
If I've learned anything in the last few days, it's that life is truly unpredictable. And for that reason, I owe it to myself that at least the first time with a man be my choice. And he is—he is my choice. Even if it sounds strange, or naïve, or truly insane, in his arms I felt safe for the first time in my life.
"You're looking at me in a way that makes it hard for me to remain a gentleman," he says, the corner of his mouth lifting into a smile that hits me straight in the chest.
He raises his arm and drapes it over his eyes, as if he needs to hide from me to keep his control. He smiles so beautifully, so openly, that for a moment I forget to breathe.
"I know," I answer. "That's exactly what I want."
He lowers his arm slowly and looks at me again. This time there's no playfulness left in his gaze. There's focus. Weight. Responsibility.
"Alla, last night you were drugged," he says calmly. "That wasn't you. And honestly, I don't know if it's fully out of your system yet."
He takes a step closer, then stops, as if drawing an invisible line he refuses to cross.
"I want the moment I enter you to be because you understand what's happening and you choose it. Because you want it—not because some chemicals messed with your system and tangled your desire up with confusion."
His voice is low, firm, without a trace of doubt.
"You deserve for your first time to be like this."
I push the sheet aside and climb over him without thinking any further, letting my thighs close around his waist. The closeness steals the breath from both of us. I look down at him and I'm struck by the brutal clarity of the thought: his body isn't made just to be desired—it's made to be dangerous. It's all darkness, power, and will.
His skin is darker, rougher under my palms, warm, while mine is sensitive and soft. I catch his scent clearly—clean skin, smoke, something metallic and solid—a smell that promises nothing gentle, but offers safety. It makes my mouth water.
I want to taste him, to mark him, to remember him with every nerve in my body.
Maybe because of the life I've lived. Because of the things that shaped me too early. Because of a future that promises nothing soft.
And that's exactly why, here, now, I choose him to be my first man—not because he offers me light, but because he protects me in the dark.
His breathing deepens and I feel him come down over me, slowly, deliberately, as if he wants to give me time to feel every centimeter of his weight. He's heavy on top of me, and the sensation makes me shiver—not from fear, but from something far more primal, more alive. His body covers mine completely, and mine feels small and exposed beneath him, aware for the first time of the difference between us.
His gaze never leaves me. It's attentive, possessive, loaded with a desire that doesn't hide. No one has ever looked at me like this. Not as something to take, but as something that must be kept whole. My chest aches from how much need there is in it.
"Are you really a virgin?" he asks quietly.
"Yes," I admit, the word leaving me trembling.
He smiles slightly, differently than before. Softer.
"You're perfect, little love."
His words slip under my skin deeper than any touch. He holds me tight for a moment, then his mouth lowers slowly, exploratory—along the curve of my neck, the line of my collarbone, over my chest rising in broken breaths. Each touch leaves behind a warmth that gathers and makes me arch without meaning to.
My breathing breaks into short sounds, shamefully honest.
"I want you so much it physically hurts," he tells me, and I feel his short laugh against the skin of my chest. "Alla, I'm asking you—please think carefully. Are you sure this is what you want? Really sure?"
How can I explain to him that this is the first thing in my life I'm completely certain about?
"Yes, I am," I say. "Duca, do you want to be my first?"
Now he laughs from deep in his chest, openly.
"Little love, you're mistaken," he says. "I won't be your first. I'll be your first and your last. The only one."