I WAS SOAKING WET AND shivering when we got back to his apartment. He tugged me inside to the bathroom, where he undressed me down to the heels on my feet. The air sat heavy with some unnamed emotion between us, and somehow, both of us knew, saying a word would only congest it further.
Love might have been an annoying, elusive word I’d never understand, but I knew right then and there, I loved the feel of his hands on me, the complete attention he gave me as he washed my body and hair, as if I was the only woman he’d ever seen. As if I was perfect.
He slipped one of his undershirts over my head and then took me to bed, wrapping his arm around my waist. My limbs and eyes felt heavy with sleep, but the night had provoked a desperate need to feel him inside me. I shifted back against his erection, knowing he’d been hard before we even got in the shower.
He let out a tense breath, then grabbed my hip and stopped me.
“Go to sleep, malyshka.”
I wanted to know why he obviously wanted me and still denied me, but soon grew too tired to press it. I twisted around and fell asleep with my face in his chest and his hand in my hair.
The next few nights went similarly.
He asked me to stay and make him dinner before he left in the morning. I must have been an internal misogynist because I did. It didn’t take long to realize that, even as meticulously clean and organized as it was, I loved being in his space and having something to look forward to, like cooking for him.
What I didn’t love?
The fact he wouldn’t sleep with me.
Before the kissing and heavy petting could get too far, he’d pull away, and then I’d hear, “Go to sleep, malyshka. I’m tired.”
The man wasn’t tired. He slept an average of three hours a night. I’d usually wake up in the middle of the night to find him sitting at the kitchen island on his laptop or going through paperwork. He was so sexy at three in the morning I couldn’t resist sitting on his lap and kissing his mouth and neck until he grumbled in frustration and told me to go put my ass back in his bed.
The third night, I even crossed my arms and refused to come to bed with him. He chuckled, picked me up off the couch, and carried me to the bedroom.
I sighed in frustration, moaning, “I feel used,” while rolling over onto my side.
Amusement coated his tone. “How so?”
“You eat my dinner and then don’t fuck me afterward. It’s rude, Christian.”
He laughed. That warm, deep laugh that was too sexy to be angry with.
He usually went to the gym and showered before I even awoke. But a couple times, I woke up to use the bathroom and found him shaving at the sink.
“I have to pee,” I told him.
“Then pee.” He made no move to leave.
I hesitated.
I wasn’t modest about my bodily functions, but as I sat on the toilet and peed in front of Christian Allister, it felt so taboo it made me squirm. And it might have turned me on a little. His humored gaze slid to me as I finished my business, a stupid flush rising to my cheeks when I realized he could probably read my twisted thoughts on my face.
When I was done, I sat on the sink in front of him, placing my legs on either side of his. I leaned back on my hands, just looking at him and the steady strokes of the razor.
A corner of his lips lifted.
That was when I realized I loved to watch him shave.
He was shirtless, only wearing a pair of white briefs. My gaze settled on his tattoos, and I ran a finger across the rose on his chest.
“Tell me what this one means.”
His movements stilled for a second before resuming. I wished I could be in his head at that moment. To understand why he was so conflicted about sharing things with me.
“It means I turned eighteen in prison.”
I held in my surprise that he’d answered me without a fight and focused on tracing the rose with a finger. “When did you get out?”
“Nineteen.”
I was only nine when he’d first gone to prison, and fourteen when he’d been released. I’d never had a picturesque childhood, but I was beginning to believe this man’s was deeper and darker than I had ever imagined.
My fingers trailed lower to his ribs, to a tattoo I hadn’t noticed before. It was a constellation; I recognized the open-squared shape. I’d found it with a telescope before, all because of a single night on a terrace. Andromeda. It looked darker, fresher than the rest of his tattoos.
“When did you get this one?”
Instead of answering me, he kissed me, lightly nipping my bottom lip. Breathless heat burned beneath my skin, because that was the only answer I needed.
“How do you know so much about the stars?” I asked.
“I read. A lot. There wasn’t much else to do in prison.”
“You remember everything you read, don’t you?”
“Mostly.”
No wonder he’d mastered English so impeccably—heck, he knew it better than me. It was surreal to think this man had gained a lot of his knowledge from books while locked up in some Russian prison. A part of me was curious about what he’d done to get imprisoned, but I’d never ask him. I’d learned a long time ago to stay out of a man’s business. If you didn’t know anything, you wouldn’t be lying if interrogated. Also, there were just some things about the men in this life a woman didn’t want to know.
“So, when did you come to the United States?”
“The day after I was released.”
I kissed his chest, looked up at him, and said light-heartedly, “I’m sure immigration loved getting your application.”
Amusement played in his eyes. “My record was clean, malyshka. I have a knack for technology. I could find out where the President is eating breakfast right now, take a picture, and anonymously post it on social media, all from my kitchen.”
My eyes widened. “Are you telling me, as long as I’m somewhere near a camera, you could find me and watch me on your computer?”
“Yes.”
“You haven’t done it, have you?”
“That would be morally questionable.”
“Yes, it would,” I said pointedly.
A genius and a criminal rolled into one. It made a terrifying combination.
I decided not to question him further on that topic. “Didn’t you miss your family when you moved to another country?”
And just like that, I hit a brick wall.
His stomach tensed subtly beneath my hands, and his tone went cold. “I have to finish getting ready for work, malyshka.”
That was a dismissal if I’d ever heard one. Though, pleased with how far I’d gotten, I hopped down and went back to bed.
That night, I was so far past sexually frustrated, I decided to be a bit craftier. I wore the sexiest underwear I owned, a pair of knitted thigh-high socks, and nothing else. I was in the middle of making dinner when he came home. He stilled, his eyes going dark as they traveled over me.
He sat at the island, pulled off his tie, and narrowed his gaze.
I’d screwed up his routine.
The heat of his eyes followed me everywhere in the kitchen. I made sure to bend over slower and more often than necessary. If there was one battle I was going to win between us, it was this one.
We ate in companionable silence, but I couldn’t even taste the food because just the way he looked at me sent every nerve ending tingling beneath my skin. He helped me rinse off the dishes and clean up the kitchen. Then, he held my face and kissed me softly on the lips.
“Thank you for dinner, malyshka.”
That was when I knew I loved his soft side.
I sat on his lap, his hand playing with my hair, while we watched some political debate on CNN. I couldn’t even pretend to pay attention to a second of it with his hard-on pressed against my ass. A part of me knew what he was doing by denying me. I didn’t like it. Because it made my chest feel tight and heavy. And that unsettled me.
Somewhere between the beginning and the end, my legs had straddled his, my hands were in his hair, and my lips were parting his as I flicked my tongue into his mouth.
He groaned.
The kiss deepened, and I grinded against his erection. I was so turned-on my vision grew hazy, my blood burned, and I was sure I was getting his pants wet by rubbing against him.
“God, I want you,” I breathed into his mouth.
He made a tortured noise in his throat and pulled back. A thumb ran across my cheek, his eyes conflicted. “Say it again.”
I rocked my hips against him, desperation coating my words. “I want you so badly.”
“Why?” he asked, his voice hoarse.
“Because . . .” I sighed, searching for the reason and then just letting my first thought escape. “Because it’s always been you.”
I might not have ever realized it before, but as the words left my mouth, I knew I meant every one of them.
Satisfaction, dark and lazy, flared in his eyes. His lips pressed against my ear, his voice sending a shiver down my spine.
“You win, malyshka.”
I didn’t even get to experience the pleasure of my rare victory over him, because with a rip of my panties, he pushed inside me so deeply it tore a gasp from my throat. I dug my nails into his shoulders.
“Fuck, I missed this,” he breathed.
By now, I’d gotten used to the way he fucked—so hard and unforgiving. Slightly selfish yet somehow still attentive. As he carried me to the bedroom, holding me tightly, still deep inside me, he stopped to kiss me for a full minute on the way, and I knew I loved it. The sex was fast and rough, but afterward, he made up for it with his head between my legs until I was begging him to stop.
The next evening, while waiting to cross the street, I got a text from an unknown number.
My dinner is late.
Schoolgirl giddiness filled me at the fact he was texting me, even though I’d let him hold me down and screw the lights out of me last night.
Me: I’m sorry, who is this?
Christian: Funny.
Me: Todd?
Christian: I’m going to spank your ass.
Me: Promise?
Soon after that exchange, I found him sitting on the couch with some papers on the coffee table before him. I ran my hands down his chest, flashing him my new sparkly crimson nails.
“What do you think?”
“I love them, malyshka.” He grabbed my hand and kissed it.
That was when I decided I loved having this man’s approval, no matter how confusing his position in my life may be.
The next day, he came home, paused, then picked up the “Russian for Dummies” book sitting on the coffee table. He raised a brow at me.
I returned the look from my spot on the couch. “How else am I going to eavesdrop on all your phone calls, malysh?”
It was the male form of the endearment he called me. A half-smile pulled on his lips as he dropped the book back on the table.
I stood and wrapped my arms around his waist, pressing my face against his chest. “I’ve been waiting for you to get home all day.”
He made a noise of contentment. “What are you doing to me?” His voice was serious and slightly accented. I loved that timbre so much I rose to my toes and tried to taste it on his lips.
As the next week passed, each day, I fell in love with something else. With his smell—the way it made my eyes half-lidded and my toes curl in satisfaction. With his hands—the way they made everything else go away. With his voice—the way it could be so rough and sweet at the same time.
I had practically moved in. My stuff was everywhere. Three bottles of lotion sat on the coffee table, and he hadn’t complained once about how they weren’t lined up neat in a row.
He didn’t like it, though, when I moved his stuff around. I’d hear a grumpy, “Gianna,” and something like, “There’s a reason I put my stuff where it is.” I was sure it was somewhere between crazy and nutso.
He watched The Princess Bride with me.
He didn’t like it.
He played chess with me.
I was a sore loser.
We even played our own version of twenty questions. As long as I stayed away from his childhood and his mother, I was in the clear. Though, I’d soon find out the no-go zone was broader than that.
“Would you visit my grave if I died?”
His eyes grew dark. “I’d die before you were ever in a grave, malyshka.”
I loved his possessive side.
And I loved his dark side, too.
