Chapter 135: Your wound opened

Sienna pulled the blanket away and eased his shirt up carefully, and her expression fell the moment she saw the state of the bandage, dark and soaked through at the edges, the wound clearly having opened somewhat with all his restless shifting.

"Oh no. Your wound opened." She was already swinging her legs off the bed, moving quickly toward the small medical kit she’d insisted on keeping in the room earlier.

"Let me change your patch."

Viktor lay back against the pillows, watching her move efficiently around the room gathering supplies, and allowed himself one long, steadying breath, willing his body back under control before she returned to the bed. It mostly worked. Mostly.

And thankfully, focused entirely on the wound in front of her, Sienna didn’t seem to notice anything else at all.

Good, he told himself firmly, even as her fingers brushed lightly against his skin a moment later, careful and warm, and every ounce of that hard-won control threatened to unravel all over again. That’s good.

Viktor finally slept.

Sienna felt the exact moment it happened the restless shifting beside her stilling at last, his breathing deepening into something slow and even, the tension bleeding out of his shoulders one careful inch at a time. She should have followed him under just as easily.

Her body ached with exhaustion, days of adrenaline finally catching up all at once. But her mind had other plans, apparently, because the second she was certain he was truly asleep, her own eyes refused to stay closed.

So she watched him instead.

He’d turned onto his uninjured side sometime after she’d redressed the wound, facing her now, one arm tucked loosely beneath the pillow, dark hair falling messily across his forehead in a way that made him look younger somehow, softer, none of the careful control he wore like armor during his waking hours.

The lamp was off, but the pale grey light creeping in around the curtains was enough to see him by the slope of his nose, the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw, the slow, steady rise and fall of his chest.

Sienna’s heart did something complicated and unfamiliar, watching him like this.

She wasn’t supposed to feel this way. Not about him. Not about the man who’d forced a ring onto her finger, who’d built an empire out of fear and blood and violence she still hadn’t fully learned to reconcile with the version of him lying so peacefully beside her now.

And yet here she was, propped up on one elbow in the dim light, unable to look away, something warm and dangerous unfurling low in her chest with every second she let herself keep looking.

Her hand moved before she’d fully decided to let it.

She traced her fingers lightly along the line of his jaw, feather-light, barely a touch at all, watching the faint catch of stubble beneath her fingertips.

She let her fingers drift slowly along the bridge of his nose next, tracing its familiar slope, before finally, achingly slowly, letting them settle just above the soft curve of his mouth.

She bit down on her own lip, heat climbing steadily up her neck despite the empty, sleeping room around her, despite the fact that no one, least of all him, was awake to witness any of it.

She wanted to run her fingers through his hair. The thought arrived low and insistent, and she actually reached for it this time, fingers hovering just above the dark, tousled strands before some last thread of restraint pulled her hand back at the final second.

This is ridiculous, she told herself. He’s asleep. You’re being ridiculous.

She tried again anyway, reaching a second time, and this time she let herself actually do it fingers sliding slowly, carefully into his hair, soft and thick beneath her touch, gentler than she’d expected.

Her breath caught slightly at the simple, intimate pleasure of it, at how natural it felt despite every reason it shouldn’t here she was heart racing, skin too warm, lying awake at dawn quietly memorizing the face of the man she was supposed to still resent, wondering with a heat that embarrassed her exactly how it might feel if he woke right now and caught her looking at him like this.

She didn’t stop.

Her fingers stayed gently tangled in his hair, tracing slow, absent patterns through the dark strands, and for the first time since the wedding, since the forced vows and the cold ceremony and every reason she’d built to keep her guard raised against him.

Sienna let herself simply want quietly, privately, in the safety of a room where only she would ever know just how deeply she’d already fallen.

Viktor’s eyes opened slowly, and Sienna’s heart lurched so hard she nearly gasped out loud.

Her hand withdrew from his hair in an instant, the soft, unguarded smile sliding off her face just as fast, replaced by something closer to panic the exact look of someone caught in the middle of a crime they hadn’t meant to commit.

"Good morning," Viktor said.

He could have teased her. She braced for it, certain some smug remark was coming, something designed to make the heat already climbing up her neck burn even hotter.

But he only watched her, that soft, sleepy smile lingering at the corner of his mouth, and said nothing else at all.

"Morning," Sienna managed, clearing her throat. "How are you?" The question came out clumsier than she intended.

"Better than I look, actually." His gaze stayed steady on her face, and Sienna found somewhere else to look the window, the ceiling, anywhere that wasn’t the particular warmth in his eyes.

"You can look at me, you know," Viktor said, his voice low, amused. "I’m your husband."

"Sorry?" Sienna’s brow furrowed, confused.

"I mean, stare at me," he clarified, the smile deepening slightly.

"I wasn’t staring." The denial came too quickly, too defensively, and she knew it the second the words left her mouth.

"Okay." Viktor didn’t argue. He simply shifted closer instead, slow and deliberate despite the stiffness she knew had to be aching through his shoulder, until his head rested nearer to hers on the pillow than it had any right to, and then he simply stayed there.