Chapter 95: 95●“Challenge me with action.”

HARPER PETROVSKY

I remember the silence, the closeness, my own urge to test him, and the way he held everything in place without needing to touch me for more than a second. And the worst part is that he doesn’t say it like someone showing off. He says it like someone who saw it, registered it, and saved it for the right moment, and that right moment is now, when I’m here, sitting on the vanity because it was the only way not to stay pressed against him, and even so, I’m still pressed against his presence.

“You’re trying to embarrass me,” I say, trying to recover some advantage, but my voice comes out lower than I wanted, as if my body preferred a whisper in this kind of situation.

“No,” he answers curtly. “I’m reminding you that you’re not as indifferent as you want to seem.” He takes the slightest step, and the way he places himself between my legs, without forcing, without pushing, but taking up the space as if it were his, changes my breathing again. I hate that it changes. I hate it even more that he notices. “You ask me who’s pushing who, but you already know. You just want me to say it out loud.”

I swallow hard. “And what if I do?”

“Then own it.” His voice turns firmer, not louder. “Stop using the word ‘pushing’ like it’s a game. You’re pulling me out of my place.” He tilts his head, and his gaze holds mine, as if not letting me escape, not to the right and not into myself. “And you’re doing that on a day when I need you whole. Not half-confused or trying to push me away on a whim.”

I feel the anger rise again, but it comes mixed with something else that irritates me even more, because it isn’t just anger. It’s a kind of urge to push back and, at the same time, stay exactly where I am, listening.

“You talk like I’m your responsibility,” I shoot back, the edge of sarcasm trying to save me.

“Today you are,” he answers without hesitation, and the reply is so direct it steals my breath for a second. “Today, you’re going to be put in front of men who will look for a crack in you to drive the knife into. I won’t allow it.” He pauses, and I see the muscle in his jaw shift, as if that part is too personal to come out easily. “And I won’t allow you to put yourself in front of them the way you put yourself in front of me here.”

“Are you jealous?” I shoot back without thinking, and the moment the word leaves my mouth, I want to pull it back, because it’s ridiculous and dangerous at the same time.

Alexander’s expression doesn’t change, but I see his gaze darken by a shade, making his eyes look even bluer.

“Jealous?” He repeats the word with a short, low laugh. “You want provocation now because it’s easier than accepting what I’m telling you.” He leans in and lifts a hand to my chin, firm without brutality, just enough to keep me looking at him. “And remember...”

His thumb slides along the line of my jaw, slow, and stops at the vein in my neck for a second. My body responds immediately, betraying the calm I’m trying to maintain.

“I want you whole,” he says softly. “Head held high. Not bowing to them. Showing that you’re a Petrovsky capable of being even better than your father.” His eyes drop for an instant and rise again. “With that audacity of yours... they’re the ones who should bow before you.”

The words should give me breath. They do. But they also hold me there.

Because he doesn’t stop where it would be more comfortable.

He comes closer and stops there, at the edge of my space, at the edge of my air. So close to my lips that I can feel his warm breath against mine. My heart races even faster, with too much expectation for something I shouldn’t even be expecting.

“In front of me,” he continues, and his voice drops even lower, “you don’t use that audacity to bring me down. You use it to provoke.” His hand leaves my chin and moves down to my waist over the fabric, firm, keeping my body where it is. “And I’m letting you, to see how much you can take, because when I...”

He stops in the middle of the sentence. By choice, obviously — everything about Alexander is a complete enigma.

He holds me with his gaze for one more second, as if he wants me to stay exactly like this, with that gap left open in my mind, that unfinished “when I,” that incomplete warning that leaves my imagination to do the rest. My body reacts in the most irritating way possible, because I feel the tension rise and hate giving him that kind of silent answer.

“When you what?” I whisper, stubbornly asking for trouble.

Alexander tilts his head, so close that his breath touches my skin. He doesn’t smile, but there is something in his calm that is worse than any smile. The hand at my waist doesn’t tighten, doesn’t pull, doesn’t invade. It just holds, just keeps my body exactly where he wants it.

“When I decide to stop being patient, I’ll make sure everyone in this house, or wherever we are, hears you.”

The words land low, almost breathless, and even so, they fill the entire space between us. It’s not the promise itself that gets to me — it’s the way he says it, as if he already knows exactly how I would react, as if he had already seen it happen in my throat before I ever admitted it was there. I feel my face grow hot, feel my breathing falter for a second, and I hate how much that kind of provocation disarms me, because Alexander doesn’t make any effort to seem dangerous. He just is. And he isn’t speaking loudly, isn’t really touching me, isn’t doing anything I can point to and call too much. He’s only holding me by the waist and leaving me with the certainty that he could take control of the rhythm of this situation whenever he wanted — and that he wants me to know it.

“Hear me... how?” I shoot back, and the question comes out sharper than I intended, because I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of seeing me shrink. I’m not going to give away the tremor, or the embarrassment, or the curiosity that makes me want to bite my tongue so I won’t ask. But I ask anyway. It’s always like this. I ask, and then I pretend I don’t care.

He tilts his head just slightly, enough for his eyes to lock onto mine, as if I were pinned to a fixed point. The hand at my waist shifts with the smallest movement, sliding to my back, drawing me slowly closer to him, making me lean in to keep looking at him.

“With your moan,” he says simply, and the way he says “your” is what goes through me, not the word itself. “With you losing this habit of hiding behind provocation.” He presses lightly against my lower back, not enough to hurt, only enough to keep me there, steady, and I hate how easily my body understands the message.

“You want to cross a line you won’t be able to hold once it breaks, Harper.” His calm is irritating because he says it like a sincere warning, almost instructional, and at the same time, I know there is pleasure there too, a controlled, silent pleasure in seeing how far I’ll go before I realize I’m playing on his ground.

“And what if I can handle it?” I whisper, because I don’t know how to stop, because I hate losing, and because I hate even more the fact that part of me wants him to prove me wrong.

His eyes darken by a shade, and his thumb slides up, brushing lightly along the side of my neck, exactly where my pulse betrays what I’m trying to hide. He feels it. I know he feels it. His mouth comes close enough to mine that, for half a second, I forget there’s a Summit outside demanding my presence, that there’s an entire house ready to explode the moment I walk through that door, that Dmitri and Viktor are downstairs and will read anything between us as involvement.

“Then don’t challenge me with foolish questions,” he says, so low it feels meant for me alone. “Challenge me with action.”