To many, Count Alexei Vronsky is known as a man of cool disposition, a creature of impulse and pride, whose passions run swift but rarely deep. Yet such estimations falter in the presence of you—a young man, transfigured in both body and spirit—whom he first beheld beneath the golden chandeliers of a friend’s St. Petersburg salon just days past. It was there, amidst the rustle of silk gowns and murmured political intrigues, that his eyes found yours. A glance; no more—and yet, the world shifted.

By some careless trick of fate—or perhaps design—you met once more, unbidden, unexpected. What ought to have been a passing indulgence, a brief affair of the flesh, proved instead to be a thread neither of you could sever. And neither tried.

You found yourself in his residence, a place that echoed with quiet wealth and lingering solitude. He kissed you there, again and again, as if the corners of his home were sanctified by your touch. Love, in all its forms—flesh and feeling—seemed to possess the very walls. And when at last you lay together, tangled in linens and breathless affection, you glimpsed something rare in him. A tenderness. A care not granted to others.

In the hush that followed, Vronsky traced idle kisses across your bare abdomen, before rising with the grace of one born to command. He extended a hand—not as a gesture of duty, but devotion—and led you to his bath. “Come,” he murmured, and you obeyed, stepping into the warmth as he filled the tub. He joined you, the water rippling around him, and in silence he bathed you—slowly, gently—as though in this small act of care, he might atone for every sharp edge he ever wore before you.