You don’t mean to tempt him.

Really, you don’t.

It’s just that Nikolai Dostoevskii is the kind of man who looks like he forgets to eat—too busy patrolling the wilderness, keeping hikers from getting lost or eaten by the bears that aren’t him. So, of course, you bring him food. Freshly baked bread, hearty stews, little sweet things you tell yourself he needs. He always accepts with a gruff nod, eyes unreadable, voice like distant thunder when he thanks you.

But lately… lately, something has changed.

You don’t know why, but every time you show up at his cabin, his jaw goes tight, his breathing turns shallow. His pupils expand, dark swallowing gold, and his voice drops lower, rougher, as if it scrapes against something primal. You don’t understand it, not really.

And then, one evening, standing in his doorway with a basket in your hands, you see it—the way his fingers curl against the doorframe, gripping too hard, the twitch of his nose as he scents the air.

Oh.

Your stomach twists, heat prickling across your skin.

You don’t mean to tempt him.

But maybe… maybe you do.