He shook the bag the moment I opened the door, eyeing me cautiously.

“Did you bring sour cream?” I moved out of the way and locked the door behind him. He glanced back at me like he was offended. I was just going to pretend like the night before hadn’t happened. The one where he left me trembling and achy standing at the sink in my studio. The night I’d been seconds from turning in his arms and forgetting all the promises I’d made to myself since he walked back through my door.

“You think I don’t know how to serve you pelmeni by now? Of course there’s sour cream.”

He took the spread out on the front desk, and I pulled up a stool. My mouth watered as I popped one of the crispy, meat-filled dumplings into my mouth. They were the perfect distraction so I didn’t have to look at him. I moaned as the flavor exploded in my mouth. The temptation was strong to devour the entire platter. But I was nice and offered Ivan a few.

He chuckled and pushed the platter back toward me.

“Knock yourself out. I got these for you. I already ate.” He stared at me, but I didn’t care. I kept my head down. These dumplings were so good. After having the crispy-on-the-outside, tender-on-the-inside dumplings almost every day that week, I still wasn’t sick of them. I practically kicked my feet against the rung of the stool as I bounced and inhaled nearly all of them.

“Where did you find these? I searched all over the city, eating at some seriously terrible places trying to find pelmeni as good as these.” It was a question I asked him every time, even though I knew the answer.

“It’s my secret and I won’t give it up.”

“You seem to have a lot of those if I remember correctly.” The air in the room shifted from easy, carefree to tense as bits of our past resurfaced. I kicked myself for bringing it up. I never learned.

“There is nothing I can say to you to make up for what happened. Nothing. But everything that happened wasn’t because I didn’t care about you. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to be with you. It was a fucked-up situation that I wish had never happened.” He leaned forward, and I leaned back. Like a tango of avoidance.

“Which part do you wish never happened? Meeting me? Dating me? Leaving me? Getting me locked up?”

“Only the last two, Dahl.”

“Why did you leave me that night, Ivan?” I asked, throwing my fork down. If we were going to do this, then let’s do this. “You like to think of the good times we had together. The hot fucking. The sneaking around. Do you know what the first thing I think of is when I think of our time together?”

He sat there stone-faced.

“I think of the moment the cops showed up and you and Alexei raced out of there, leaving me behind. Leaving me there to get arrested.”

“Dahl,” he said, reaching for my hand. I jerked it away and took a step back.

“No,” I said, my throat tight. I cursed the angry tears that welled in my eyes. “You left me there. You left me there, and I got arrested. My dad wanted to teach me a lesson and let them throw the book at me. And then he died. I didn’t get to go to his funeral.” I blinked back the building tears. I was not going to cry about this. I needed to hold on to that anger because it was the only thing keeping me from falling into Ivan’s gravitational pull. The only thing keeping my feet firmly on the ground.

“You don’t think it ate at me to leave you there? That I didn’t want to race back there and protect you? I couldn’t be caught with you, Dahlia.” He ran his fingers through his hair, tugging on his thick, light strands. “I was on their radar. That was why I was in your town in the first place. We’d all been warned to keep our noses clean. If you were caught with me, that would have put you right in the middle of my mess. Being caught with someone known for organized crime and criminal activity. Do you think it would have gone better for you?”

“It seemed to go pretty shitty for me in the end.” Some of the fire faded away with his words. My dad had an inkling of what I was up to, but being caught with Ivan would have made things a lot worse. Abandonment wasn’t something I handled well. Being left behind, calling for him as the police closed in, was the stuff of my nightmares for a long time. That, followed by the visit from his uncle being a close second. A shudder raced through me as I stared at the center of his chest, not wanting to meet his eyes.

“I know.” My heart pounded as he stepped forward. “I had no idea your dad would do that. I figured you were a cop’s daughter—they’d let you go with a warning, and that would be the end of it. If I’d known it was going to turn out that way, I’d have found a way to get you out of there. I’d have done whatever I needed to, to protect you.” The fierceness in his eyes told me he was telling the truth. But what did it change?

“But you didn’t.” My voice cracked, and I hated myself for it. That even after all this time, he could bring out these emotions in me. Make me feel things I’d been so good at avoiding for the past ten years. I cleared my throat.

“Let’s get started.” He reached for me again, but I evaded his hands.

“We’re not done talking,” he said, stepping closer.

“Yes, we are. Just sit in the chair, and I’ll get to work, unless you want to leave.” I gestured to the door. He shook his head and lifted his shirt up, exposing all that skin and dumping the shirt on the counter. His wide frame and hard, muscled body on full display in front of me. I tried not to look, not to reach out and touch him without the gloves between us. That would send us down a path I wasn’t ready for.

My hands trembled as I set up my station and got everything together. Stalling, so I could compose myself and get through this session. I needed to finish it. I needed to help him wash away his past, and maybe it would help me wash away some of my own.

He sat still as a statue in the chair. I prepped him.

“How’s the pain from yesterday?”

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.” His voice came out gruff and stiff. I took a deep breath and dived back in. I worked on the other shoulder. The fiery wing melted away the dark ink below, the ashes it rose out of helping me cover some of the darkest ink on his body. As I worked and covered, slowly but surely, inked away portions of his past that he wanted to forget, I relaxed. This was my medium. This was one of the few places I felt truly comfortable. Like I could do anything with my tattoo gun and ink at the ready. Something that only lived in my client’s or my imagination could come out and be brought to life.

“I’ll extend the wing down lower once I’ve worked more on your back.”

“You have my complete trust. I know whatever you do will be a masterpiece.”

I ducked my head and pressed on, trying not to let his words fill me with as much happiness as they did. Trust was never something that had come easily to him. Living in his world, I had to imagine it was more of a liability than anything. His own flesh and blood was a monster as far as I could tell. What was it like growing up with an uncle like that?

My hand cramped up, and I massaged it between my fingers. I leaned over his shoulder at the same time he turned his head. His lips met mine, and a groan broke free. I knew I should pull away. Move, Dahlia. But I couldn’t. He tasted just like I remembered. Like sweet coffee. Just like he had in the dreams that haunted me on and off for the past decade. I knew they were dreams now. For a while I’d thought they were nightmares, but from the throbbing in my core from this simple touch, I knew they were definitely dreams.

Ivan’s lips were on mine, demanding more. Other kisses usually started out as teasing, flirtations that heated up as both people got into it. Ivan’s kisses were nothing short of a hostile takeover and in the very best of ways. There was no question. There wasn’t a check-in to make sure this was what I wanted. He knew it was, and he demanded my pleasure.

Every inch of him was gruff and raw. His tongue pushed its way into my mouth, and his conquest was only beginning. I forgot everything. I forgot about my rules. I forgot about the shop. I forgot how angry I was with him and how much he’d hurt me. His lips and tongue painted me a new existence.

His hands dug into my hair with his fingers raking across my scalp. Bliss. A shiver traveled down my spine, and I squeezed my thighs together, trying to relieve some of the pressure building there.

I moaned into his mouth, and he took that opening to deepen the kiss. His tongue danced in my mouth, and made a promise of the way his body still remembered mine. How all those times we’d had together hadn’t been forgotten in our years apart.

I ran my hand across his chest, every muscle there tight and smooth. The first time my hands were on him. Truly on him, beyond my work. Completely unprofessional, but I didn’t give a shit. The power of him nearly knocked me off my feet. It wasn’t until my ass plopped down on the counter that I realized he’d picked me up. Wrapping my legs around his waist, his demands grew more intense as his fingers sunk into my flesh.

The thought of denying him never even crossed my mind. I wanted this. I needed this. To lose myself for a bit. To feel more than responsibility, worry and sadness. I covered it well for everyone in my life. Rachel, the guys in the shop—I’d kept this side of myself from them. Ivan ripped me wide open and exposed all that and made me remember my past and helped me forget all at the same time. Forget everything other than us right then and there.

It had been so long since someone made me feel like that. Took my breath away from a kiss and their hands on my skin. It was him. He was the last one to bridge my body and soul. To make them both cry out for more. No matter how much I fought it, I knew what we had wasn’t some first-love facade. It was us. It was him. It had always been him. I ground against him. The outline of his cock in his jeans was just enough to tantalize and tease me. His hand dipped under the hem of my shirt.

He murmured against my lips in Russian as he ran his hands up my spine. His fingers splayed across my back under my shirt, before running along my side and squeezing my breasts, teasing the edges of the cups of my bra. I arched my back, pressing even more of myself into him.

The thrumming beat of my heart was in time with the throbbing in my pussy. That deep fire I’d pretended wasn’t burning and tried to ignore, raged and threatened to consume me. I wanted his touch everywhere. His fingers traced a path across my stomach to my back. Another set of shivers ran through me, and he growled, breaking our kiss and moving along my jawline. My nails raked along his hips, and he hissed as I tilted my head to give him access. He kissed his way down my neck, and I yelped when he nipped me there before laving the spot with his tongue.

He pressed me against him, grinding me on his lap, and my moans fell from my lips. I didn’t even try to hold them back. The friction between us got close to a crescendo I hadn’t had with anyone else in a long time. We hadn’t even taken our clothes off. I reached up and threaded my fingers through his hair, running my nails along his scalp, giving as good as I got. He sucked in a sharp breath and nipped my bottom lip. He palmed my ass, squeezing it so hard that I let out a hiss. Tugging his head back, I stared at him, his gray eyes staring right back. One of his hands came off my ass and was back in my hair, coaxing me right back into his gravitational pull. Something I didn’t know if I was ready to escape.

I slung my arm over his shoulders, and he hissed. I jerked back, remembering just where we were. And what I was doing and who I was doing it with. It felt so good that I’d lost myself. I wanted to lose myself. I hated holding back, but I was there dry humping him after I’d told him this was strictly off limits. A wave of embarrassment rolled through me as I snatched my hands away. Ivan kept going, his hands back on my ass and his teeth back at my neck, making his mark in more ways than one.

“Ivan,” I said, pushing on his chest. He glanced up at me before dipping back down. I moaned as he ran his lips over my jaw. So easy to let this happen. To give myself over to him, but I couldn’t. He clouded my judgment in the worst ways. I shook my head. “Ivan. Stop. We’ve got to stop.”

His head snapped up, the dark gray almost completely gone as his pupils dilated.

His nostrils flared. He stared at me for an agonizingly long time. I almost wished he’d keep going. But he just gave me a sharp nod and took a step back. Not completely disentangling himself from me, but I could at least think clearly when his hands were on my jean-clad thighs and not on my skin. When his lips were at least a foot away from my face and not blazing a trail across my skin.

I’d just reset the clock on the Ivan invasion of my mind, and I didn’t know if I’d be able to start it over again.