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The Katsaros Manor was a daunting thing, full of sharp angles and a style of architecture meant to look much older than it actually was. While she wouldn't have gone so far as to call her father's taste in homes tacky, it was certainly extravagant. It was all she'd known until she'd left home and moved into a rather modest apartment near campus during college - and she missed it, and her privacy, every day.

"Yeah, this is fine."

As the truck rolled to a stop in the circle drive, she looked out the window and leaned her head against it, feeling the cool glass against her alcohol-warm skin. Right then, it mostly just looked like prison.

She smiled as he spoke and leaned her head back up, turning it to look at him where he sat, comfortable and too handsome for his own good, behind the steering column. For a moment she was just quiet, lost in that way that people were on the tail end of a buzz, contemplating all the questions of the universe. When she'd first been told that her father had found her a suitor, that she wasn't to refuse her duty to the family, she had feared trading one prison for another. Looking at him now - at the joy in his face that she knew was born of a happy, loving home - she knew he was an escape. Part of her felt guilty, even if he did seem chipper about the whole deal, because there was no prison he had to break free of.

"Don't tempt me, because I might" the smile lingered even through all of her thoughts. Deft fingers pushed the button of her seatbelt and she felt the pressure release across her chest. The world was moving just a fraction slower than normal, tinged with alcohol still running through her veins. Little motions were distracting to her, like the way he smiled, or the glimmer of light that caught on his earring. She dug around in her purse and produced a pack of cigarettes, then raised her brows at him suggestively.

"Come smoke a cigarette with me before you go." She wasn't waiting for an answer as she pushed open the door of the truck and stepped down onto the pavement carefully. Buzzed or not, she had a cigarette carefully out of its packaging with a hand cupped around the butt to prevent the wind from blowing out her zippo.

Zoe held her fingers steady for him as he leaned in and lit his cigarette on her favorite lighter, then stuffed it down into the purse draped across her side once she saw the red glow puff to life at the end of the stick.

"Well," she began, but paused as she drew a long intake of smoky breath, blowing it out in a cool column through pursed lips, "they do want us to get along as much as possible, right?" There was a playful smile on her lips as she leaned back into the column behind her, raising a knee so that the flat of one boot balanced against the brick structure. Her fingers rolled the cigarette lightly between them, watching the purple stain of her lipstick on the butt for just a moment as she considered him.

"And -"

But that was as far as she got.

The light of the front porch flicked on in warning and Zoe only had enough time to drop her cigarette and smudge it out before the front door swung open. She straightened up and turned to meet eyes that matched her own both in color and intensity. All the playfulness in her nature had been squashed immediately.

"Zoe Syntyche Katsaros," the accent, even after all the years her mother had been in America, was thick and rich. Even her name sounded like a different word when it fell past her pouty lips. Where Theodore Katsaros had been tall and clean cut, with a head of strawberry blonde hair, Demetria was all curve and mystery. Her hair fell in dark, thick tumbles around her shoulders and the light of the room behind gave her an auburn halo. The bright, accusing eyes swept from her daughter to the man beside her, and her fingers tightened around the glass of wine pinched between her fingers.

"I thought I warned you the last time you brought one of your club toys to my doorstep," she straightened up to her full height, somewhat shorter than Zoe herself, but Zoe tensed all the same. "There is so much, so much," she repeated in her thick Greek accent, "riding on this deal and you have the gall to do this?" A hand waved dismissively at the pale haired, tattooed boy standing next to her.

But now Zoe was smiling, tightly. It was a look her mother hated, one that said I know something that you don't..

"Mother, this is Rurik," she interrupted the tirade, stopping the fury she knew was about to be unleashed, quite possibly in a string of Greek that Zoe admittedly only half understood. Her parents had never been very patient teachers. "Boris' nephew."

Like her daughter, there was no moment of shock on Demetria's face, simply a narrowing of the eyes and a considering look as she dissected every piece of Rurik - from the long hair, to the metal in his face, to the make-up he had applied almost as thickly as her daughter. She hated it on both of them. If she squeezed her glass any tighter, Zoe was sure that it might collapse under the pressure - she had seen it happen before.

She most certainly did not bother to introduce herself.

Despite the tirade rolling past her mother's lips, Zoe spared a moment to glance daggers at Ryan over the mock of her middle name. She didn't have the time or effort to spare in explaining the intricacies of her family traditions but she might, later. If she didn't just simply choose to torture him for the words instead.

Demi raised one thin, perfectly manicured eyebrow at Ryan's choice of words. There was a look on her face that suggested she was calculating risk and reward, trying to decide how much she could taunt the hoodlum next to her daughter without crossing a political line. Zoe had earned her calculated, cool facade honestly.

"I see," she finally settled on, taking a long, lingering sip of her wine. "Well isn't that just fortunate for you?" Her gaze slid from Ryan to Zoe, saying more than her words could.

Zoe shrugged her shoulders and feigned disinterest in what her mother was saying, even though the woman wasn't wrong. She was certainly pleased that she hadn't been given away to a wretched, boring fool even if her parents had been hoping for someone more likely to sober her up. She offered her mother another tight smile, then looked at Ryan.

"Since we don't have to worry about waking you up now, I think we'll come inside for some coffee before Rurik leaves. Would you like that?" She raised a brow, echoing the at her mother had, daring him to say no. Her mother sighed irritably for effect and turned to head inside, silk robes whirling around her.

Zoe watched her mother disappear back into the house, assuming that she was heading to refill her wine, then blew out a long, deep breath. As each of her muscles unwound and she relaxed back into an echo of the pleased, happy girl she had been before her mother interrupted, it became clear that she wasn't quite as in control as she had appeared. She and her mother didn't always fight, but their conversations were often filled with thinly veiled, mocking banter. The front she put up during the whole of it was what the mask she normally wore - battle armor.

"Sorry," she apologized for the both of them, "I didn't mean for you to get caught in the crossfire. She's a bit more intense than my father." Though she had warned him, after all.

A single glance was spared for the cigarette she had tossed and ground out with the heel of her boot, mourning the loss of it before it was finished. There was nothing to do for it now. Instead she crossed over to the door her mother had left cracked and pushed it open, beckoning him to follow her with a small crook of her finger. She did really want some coffee - if only to stave off the edge of alcohol still dulling her thoughts.

"She'll go sit in her room and finish her wine now. I bet she's planning all the ways to berate my father when he comes back from Europe." The thought made her laugh, though she knew the truth in her words. Her mother was fond of pre-planned speeches in angry Greek. She'd heard them often enough. "I wouldn't worry too much. He'll buy her a new car and that will be the end of her complaints, at least openly."

The heel of her boots clacked loudly against the floor of the entryway, echoing off the high walls and empty space. She slipped dead ahead through an open doorway and rounded a corner until they were in the kitchen - a big, open room with a bar as a centerpiece. It was almost unnaturally clean, as if people didn't even live there, but she navigated the cabinets easily and had a healthy helping of coffee in the pot and brewing before too long. While they waited, she pulled herself up to sit on the bartop, considering him as her feet kicked gently back and forth, dangling a few feet above the ground.

"You don't seem terribly.. upset by her, though." Her head tilted as she considered him, studying his eyes and the expression of his face. "Which is impressive."

The thought of their parents all together in one room made her smile and as he walked over to lean into the countertop next to where she sat, she leaned into him just a little so that her shoulder brushed his.

"At least they'll distract each other. My dad's a pretty good diplomat." Truthfully, she didn't know how well they would get along at all. She had faith in Ryan's mother and her own father to smooth over any wrinkles in the fabric of their conversation, but they were definitely an odd mix of individuals. She thought it over, trying to picture it in her mind, but let her eyes wander as she did. The trailed the line of his neck up into his hair and she raised a hand, suddenly curious, to stroke through the white locks and differentiate for herself where the extensions began and his own hair ended.

She could feel the lingering effects of her intoxication, but she was beginning to come to terms with the fact that she might as well be as open as she could with him. They were the only two souls that understood their shared problem.

"Ah, she's just a bit prejudiced against men with tattoos and piercings, because it's not presentable to the society she claims to be a part of." Her gaze flickered away from his hair and down to his eyes, though her fingers continued their careful stroke through his hair, running along his scalp and gently touching the places where his extensions connected. "And I think she's extra harsh about it because I tend to like it - though it's really one of those chicken and egg kind of dilemmas, you know? Did she start hating it because I tended towards them, or did I tend to like it because she hated it?"

The words trailed off with a soft laugh and let her fingers fall from his hair, trailing along his neck, and finally resting gently against his shoulder as surely as his hand did on her knee. Her drunken philosophy seemed to amuse her.

"Did you?" A brow raised, but there was a smile on her lips, a knowing pleased gleam in her eyes. His fingers against her knee were soft, a simple touch, not like the way he had pushed her into the wall before the night started.

This will be the last time I make these kind of advances on you until I hear those words again.

His words rang through her mind, summoned by the simple touch. Not for the first time since they had left his family's club, the words he'd made her commit to memory echoed in her mind. It made her lips purse, as if she were trying very hard not to cave, not to give in to him too quickly, but her eyes carried a glimmer of the heat just at the memory of what he was really capable of.

"I did too," she said at last, low and soft, as she reached up to hold her hand over his. "I keep enjoying you more and more than I expected to.."

A pleased laugh bubbled out of Zoe's lips, soft but amused, at his words.

"I'm not sure that you're in trouble so much as I am, or perhaps my father at this point for arranging all of this without considering the family image." Her smile lingered, even as she put emphasis on the final words. "She only left us alone because I'm technically doing what I'm supposed to be doing right now." Her relationship with her mother was always strained and had been, for a long time. She loved her very deeply and knew that she was loved in turn, and yet, Demetria wanted the best for Zoe so badly that she was willing to force her into it.

"But yeah," she murmured, pulling the conversation away from the brink of delving into her family problems, "I guess you're my type. If that's what you want to call it."

She tilted her head to the side as he leaned in to whisper in her ear, though she raised an eyebrow at him at the words. The fingers that had been running through his hair stroked gently down over his temple and the cuff of his ear, until she could trace the line of piercings on the outer edge.

"That's pretty bold of you, Rurik."

The coffee pot on the counter gave three short beeps and she slid slowly off of the bartop, stretching one leg out to carefully meet the floor with her heels before she placed both of them down. The kitchen might've been huge, but she pulled open a cabinet and pushed herself up onto tip-toe so she could grab a couple of mugs from a high shelf. When she set them down, she turned back to him.

"But I guess it beats hanging out in the kitchen. Do you want sugar or cream?" Zoe was already pouring one of the mugs full of coffee - black and strong, she preferred hers untainted.

There was a feeling that Zoe knew well - the prickling at the back of the neck, the shiver down her spine - right before someone touched her. It was like a warning from her personal bubble, that it had been breached, all systems set to alarm. When she heard him move away from the counter, she wasn't surprised that the feeling immediately crawled along her skin, but she tensed all the same.

Then the warmth of his chest was pressed into her back, and she could feel his heartbeat against the back of her ribcage. His ability to display physical affection so easily was more daunting than anything else he'd said to her in the little time they'd spent together. For Zoe, a girl who had never let anyone close to her heart, it was harder to relax when the intent behind a touch wasn't purely sinful.

Slowly, forcefully, her muscles unwound and she let herself rest back against him, putting a little of her weight against his form. She couldn't shy away from him if they were going to build anything worthwhile. With his hands resting gently over hers, she raised the coffee pot and filled the second mug entirely, then put it back on the burner. Each hand rested around the base of a mug, letting the warmth soak into her fingertips and ground her as she tried to clear her still-hazy thoughts.

"I appreciate that you're so worried for my comfort, but really.. I'm not so fragile. I can handle my parents and their expectations and if I didn't enjoy your company so much, I wouldn't make such an effort, no matter what they want of me." Her fingers drummed gently into the sides of the mugs, tapping a soft beat with the tips of her nails, and her head leaned a little so that she could rest her temple against his own briefly. "You should know that I've been breathing a sigh of relief every time I remember you're not what they expected - not because I want to spite them, but because that means this isn't.. forced on my part."

With both mugs in hand, she turned slowly in his arms, so that she could look up into his eyes instead.

"I ask about your taste and the people you like because I like to know what makes you tick. It seems like an important thing to know about a man I should expect to be with for a very long time." She smiled and held up a mug of steaming coffee to him, so that he would take it from her, acting as if she had not so casually eluded to what was constantly looming over their heads. "It's no different than you wanting to know my secrets is it, hm? Though I'll just be very honest now and tell you that I've never kept anyone around longer than a week or two. Everything I've ever had was very casual."

As her sentence ended, she raised a thin, questioning brow at him. There was a smirk on her lips as she brought her mug up to her mouth, blowing across the surface to cool it down, so that the dark liquid rippled.

"My heart has never been won. So maybe it's you that should be treated carefully, hm?" The words were spoken lowly, into her mug. Even when there was truth to it, she seemed amused, teasing. "My room is in the west wing, by the way." A hint that they should get moving, perhaps.

A pleased smile spread over her lips at his words - Just lust. She didn't comment on them, but instead distracted herself with taking a careful, small sip of her hot coffee. There were things that the two of them had in common, for all that they came from such different families. She wasn't sure what fate was in store for the pair of them, but she was willing to pull at the strings until she did.

"As much as I would like to force you past your breaking point, Mister Volkov, I wouldn't want such strong words to go to waste. It was a promise, after all."

There was a gleam in her eyes as she dropped a hand and slipped her fingers between his free one. They tightened once they were laced together and she turned, pulling him gently behind her as she left the kitchen behind and re-entered the foyer. The house was large, and somewhat gaudy in her opinion, but it was home - and she knew how to navigate it like the back of her hand. In no time she had led them up the stairs on the left and pulled them down to the end of a hallway.

The door was already cracked and Zoe knew that the housekeeper had left a fire going by the way the dim room was cast with pulsing orange and red.

She leaned into the door and pushed it open, revealing a room done mostly in browns. Even with the lights off, it was well lit by the fire. It seemed similar to the rest of the house - decorative, almost as if someone were using it for show, as opposed to living there. It had been different once, before she'd left for school. It had been filled with the memorabilia of a teenage girl and the pieces of her heart, but her mother loved to redecorate. As it was, there were bits and pieces of her leaking back in slowly - like the wall behind her bed. There were dozens of papers and pictures pinned haphazardly across the entirety, like a large collage of words and images. A lot of them were song lyrics or guitar chords, while pictures of two orange-haired girls were shown again and again.

She turned to look up at him as they entered, setting the mug of coffee down on a side table next to the lounge near her fireplace.

"It's not such a fantastic sight as your club, I'm afraid, but this is the closet thing I have to my own home right now." Almost as an afterthought, she pushed the door shut behind them.