It happened. It hurt. Better things awaited me. One day. Hey, maybe I’d outlive Edward.
I took a deep breath, then returned inside, grabbing my phone out of my cash-filled purse. After unlocking the code, I checked my messages. Ivanna never texted—her long red nails made it impossible—but she had left a voice mail: “Call me! I’m dying!”
Anthony had left several: “Hi, Cat, it’s Uncle Anthony! Welcome to the agency, sweetie. Call me about tonight.” “Phone Uncle Anthony, girl.” “Still waiting on a call. . . .”
I’d have to deal with that later.
There was also a threatening message from Mrs. Abernathy. “Cat, you need to confirm for cleaning on the thirty-first. I’m having a party, and I’ll need you. None of this nonsense about quitting, or I will make that call.”
INS. Bésame el culo, puta. Kiss my ass, bitch.
When I passed the coffee table in the sitting area, I frowned at the sight of Sevastyan’s briefcase. Hadn’t he and I sat on that couch, looking at papers, sometime late last night? My eyes went wide. He’d shown me test results that said he was all clean. My own all-clean results had been right beside his. Fucking e-mailed to him.
Ivanna had insisted I go to the “agency physician” for my exam. I’d thought it was cheaper or something. But why should I expect privacy when I was a paid-for thing? I’d never felt more commoditized.
Sevastyan had said, “This is what I wanted to discuss with you. I want us to be able to do anything to each other, whenever we want, with no barriers between us. I’m dying to taste you. Will you let me?”
“I don’t know,” I’d said, drunk and annoyed. “I’ll need to think about this.” But my annoyance had disappeared when I’d realized I could give him head without a condom—and utilize all the tricks I’d picked up in high school or read about or learned from Ivanna.
BBBJNQNS? Gracias, yes.
Now my face flushed. I think I’d told him, “I really want to taste you too. If there was ever a cock that deserves to be tongue-worshipped . . .” Then he’d pulled me in for a kiss, and my thoughts had gone on hiatus.
I tried to recall more, but all I managed was the start of a headache. So I used a guest bathroom to wash off, brushing my teeth with a complimentary toothbrush. I was tempted to sneak away and not deal with the aftermath of last night. But when I crept back to his bedroom, I found Máxim had turned on his side, arm outstretched—as if reaching for me.
I crawled back under the covers with him. In sleep, he wrapped an arm under me, covering both of my breasts as he pulled me close. When he held me like this, my will dissolved, my worries, my blood-coated memories. . . .
Sometime later, I woke again to his husky words in my ear: “I now understand the appeal of waking to a lover.” With a long exhalation, he slid inside me.
CHAPTER 13
“I slept for five hours?” After sex, he’d risen, frowning at the clock. “This is a record. I feel like a new man.”
“You look ten years younger,” I told him as I stretched. “Now I’d put you at mid-twenties.”
“I just turned thirty-one.”
“Yes, but you looked thirty-five before.”
He raised a brow. “You won’t ask why I don’t sleep? I’ve had insomnia for decades.”
I sighed. “Why wouldn’t you? You’re in a high-pressure job—which might be dangerous—and you’re running a billion-dollar empire.”
He chucked me under the chin. “I don’t know if I’ll quite be a billionaire today, querida.” When he strode to his closet, the lines across his back saddened me anew. He returned wearing broken-in jeans, with an undershirt for me. “Here. Arms up.”
I hopped from the bed, raising them, and he pulled the shirt over me. It swallowed my body.
He grinned down at me. “Almost as fetching as you were in that dress.”
“The smirky attendant downstairs ought to have a field day with my appearance now. Fuck knots in my hair and a T-shirt hem under my coat.”
“You’re not leaving.”
“Pardon?”
“I’ve decided to book you until the twenty-eighth.”
Stay here with him for ten days? A vacation in paradise with a sex god?
No, no, no! I’d be breaking rules one, three, four, and even six to a degree. “Oh. That’s a lot to decide.” Besides the fact that I was leaving town on the twenty-second, I feared growing used to hooded blue eyes and mind-blowing sex.
While he was enjoying a regular piece of ass, my infatuation would be spiraling out of control. Afterward, the hobbyist would wash his hands of me, and I would be devastated. “Can’t we take it one night at a time?”
“Nyet. I want to know that your luscious little body is mine alone.” He dragged me over to sit across his lap, more aggressive than he’d been last night, even more proprietary. “I expect a heated negotiation—I welcome it—but this will happen, Katya.”
“I had some things planned over the next week.”
“Like what? Tell me, and I can be reasonable.”
Disappearing. I shrugged.
His eyes darkened. “You still won’t reveal a thing?” Yet then he seemed to make an effort to keep things light. “What are you—a wanted fugitive?”
“Ha. That sounds exciting.”
“Then what is it?”
“You realize Christmas is coming up?” Wouldn’t he have somebody else to celebrate with? His brothers?