“Huh.” He rubbed his jaw and sat at the kitchen island, amusement playing in his eyes.
I turned the burner on to finish cooking the pasta and started chopping the tomatoes for the sauce.
“My wife likes you,” he said, voice low.
“Not surprising,” I said. “I’m a very likeable person.”
“She might have been brought up in this life, but she didn’t grow up like you and I, Gianna. She’s not . . .”
Damaged? Desensitized? Unsympathetic? Was there a word for all of them?
“Cold?”
He nodded, like he couldn’t find the right word either. “I’m asking you to remember that when you spend time with her.”
“You’re asking me? Why, Ace, did you hit your head on the overhang on the way in?”
“Sometimes feels like it,” I thought I heard him say, as he glanced at Elena with a volatile and vulnerable look in his eyes. I suddenly feared for anyone who dared to touch a hair on her head.
And then that feeling came back—that confusing feeling that had eluded me for eight years. Longing. Longing to be the subject of a look that intense. A look full of something so raw and vehement it could make anyone a believer.
That night, after the three of us had watched Channel 7 in Spanish and ate dinner in silence, I lay in bed unable to sleep. I was . . . perturbed. I was alive. My skin lit up like the noises and lights at a carnival.
The cards I’d been dealt would never line up just right for love, but if there was anything close to what it would feel like to be the subject of that look, I knew where to find it.
A ray of light from the crack in the bathroom door fanned across the room, spotlig
hting the cufflink I’d set on my vanity.
He only had sex with the same woman three times.
I still had one more time, didn’t I?
I got to my feet, grabbed the cufflink, and headed to the front door. I was only wearing an oversized t-shirt and a pair of thigh-high socks, but my destination was just on the other side of the hall.
Instead of knocking, I tried the handle. It was unlocked. I heard his voice, deep and rich and Russian, before I pushed it all the way open.
He leaned against the kitchen counter, his phone to his ear. His gaze lifted to me and narrowed, before dropping, touching the curves of my body and settling on my bare thighs. I inhaled a cold breath while my skin burned hot. I’d never known another man who could throw me off-balance with a single look. I’d resented it for so long—because it was him who made me feel this way—but now, due to a temporary bout of insanity, I was sure, I only wanted more of it.
He responded to something on the phone in his heathen language, his eyes following me as I walked toward him and set his cufflink on the kitchen island. And then I stepped closer. Close enough I had to look up to meet his gaze.
“I changed my mind,” I whispered.
He raised a brow.
Stretching up on my toes, I skimmed my lips across his ear, and breathed, “I volunteer.”
I watched his face as he searched for the meaning behind those two words, from a conversation we’d had eight years ago. The moment I saw dark understanding flicker across his expression, I dropped to my knees at his feet. Heat flared in his gaze.
I rubbed my cheek against his length that already seemed to be hard and thick. He ran a hand across his mouth, rumbling out some rough Russian words. The bastard wasn’t even giving me his full attention, but, apparently, my body didn’t need it, because anticipation still danced down my spine at the idea of what I would do.
I could feel his gaze on me as I worked on his belt buckle. The gentle clang of it falling open sent a shiver through me. As soon as I had his pants undone, I wrapped my hand around his shaft and licked him from base to tip. He pulled in a strained breath, but he didn’t let it out. He didn’t make a sound as he watched me with eyes that had grown dark and hazy.
I laved him with my tongue, making breathy noises of approval like it was the only passion I had in life. And it was starting to feel like it. Heat bloomed in my stomach, moving lower, in a wave that made me squeeze my thighs together to ease the ache. His hand tightened on his phone, the tension in him building to a crescendo I was dying to see fall.
“Da,” he said to whoever he was speaking to, sounding annoyed. “Ya slyshal vas.”
I ran my tongue across his crown and then finally slid him deep into my mouth, bringing my half-lidded, lust-filled gaze up to his.