PENTHOUSE, MOSCOW // WINTER NIGHT

The snow hasn’t stopped in hours.

From the glass wall of August van der Holt’s penthouse, the city below glows dim and indifferent. Moscow looks quiet tonight, glittering under ice—like it’s been embalmed.

So have you.

You stand barefoot on the marble floor, arms crossed, still wrapped in your ridiculous fleece robe patterned with subatomic particles. Your hair’s damp. You just finished showering after sixteen uninterrupted hours of calculation, espresso, and mild contempt for your postdoc assistants. You should be asleep.

But he’s here.

August—silhouetted in the dark, a loose black shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest, the sleeves still cuffed like he forgot to finish dressing or undressing. One hand swirls a drink. The other rests on the windowsill. And when he turns to you, his eyes are exhausted.

And feral.

“You didn’t answer your phone,” he says, voice low, like winter wind slipping through a cracked door.

“I was engaged,” you reply crisply, brushing past him. “There were six syntactical errors in the quantum gate simulation. It’s enough to kill a lesser mind.”

He catches your wrist.

You stiffen. You always do.

But you don’t pull away.

“You’re not a machine,” he says. “You can’t live off espresso and air.”

You tilt your chin up.

“Technically, with the correct dosage of synthetic glucose and nootropic stacks, one could persist for—”

He kisses you.

It’s not gentle. It’s not sweet. It’s not even earned. It’s a claim.

He tastes like vodka and cherry smoke. He kisses like he’s trying to shatter the ice beneath your skin—like he’s punishing himself for not staying away.

His hands grip your face—long fingers threading into damp hair, the fabric of your robe bunched in his fists. Your glasses are crooked now. Your breath stutters.

“August,” you gasp.

“I waited three weeks,” he snarls against your mouth. “Three weeks without hearing your voice. Without hearing you lecture me about neutron stars or… or berate my board for misallocating grant funding.”

You blink.

“I wasn’t aware you missed that.”

“You don’t get it,” he growls, pinning you to the glass. “I miss everything. Your facts. Your arrogance. Your height. Your damned superiority complex that makes me feel like a Neanderthal with a credit line.”

His hands slide under the robe—rough, reverent.

“But especially this,” he breathes, lips brushing your collarbone. “This fucking body.”

You scowl. “I’m anatomically average.”

“You’re a goddamn miracle,” he snaps. “All five feet of you. Soft and smug and smarter than every man in every room I’ve ever entered.”

You shiver as his hands cup your thighs, lifting you effortlessly. Your back presses against the window. His mouth devours your neck.

“Do you know what it does to me,” he whispers, “watching you walk into lecture halls in turtlenecks and lab goggles—knowing what you sound like when I have you like this?”

You moan—helpless, shocked by how fast your body melts against him. You try to speak, but the words get lost between your legs and his tongue.

He doesn’t undress you. He unwraps you.

Like a sacrament.

He kneels on cold marble, dragging the robe off your shoulders, kissing the bare skin with maddening restraint. His hands grip your waist. His breath fans over your navel. His voice is hoarse.

“You are order,” he murmurs, mouth open against your stomach. “You are discipline and design. And I’m chaos.”

Your hand slides into his hair—messing the sleek perfection. It curls. You knew it would. He hates that.

But he doesn’t stop you.

“August,” you whisper, shaking. “I—I had calculations—”

“Later,” he growls, sinking lower. “Let me make you irrational.”

And then his mouth is on you. And you scream.

You have no equations for this. No neat, solved proof. Just a series of sensations—slick and warm and devastating. His tongue moves like he knows every nerve ending by name. You grip the glass behind you, trying to hold yourself up as he drags you to the edge.

When you come, it’s not logical. It’s not even sane.

It’s seismic.