“I thought we were taking a showe—”
I tossed her unto the bed.
She bounced and looked up at me with wide eyes.
“That will be afterwards,” I said as I zeroed in on her. “Right now, I can only think of at least ten ways I need to have you.”
She squealed with excitement as I took her nipples in my mouth and the sound sent tingles down my body.
More than an hour of mind-blowing sex later we collapsed against each other, spent and twisted. I was close to passing out from exhaustion. I’d had her in more positions than I could recall. She had her legs on my shoulders. I could smell her pussy. I was so tired my eyes were half-shut and yet her scent lured me. I turned my head and sucked at her poor swollen clit.
She moaned and whispered, “No more, Yuri. No more.”
I didn’t listen to her pleas.
Chapter 29
April
The panic set in slowly.
Yuri was asleep and no longer available to me. The tremors of extreme sexual satiation had stopped crashing in endless waves all through my body. All I was left with was the panic of knowing there could be no turning back. From day one, I knew this unearthly attraction was dangerous. It set a fire inside of me, but I thought I could control it. But now it looked as it would grow and grow until it consumed me whole.
I wanted to run.
Attachment was what I feared most because people broke your heart. And people like Yuri, they were the worst. They had their own hell to deal with. Walls were what had kept me safe… walls were what kept me sane.
I was falling, fast and deeply for this unknowable beast of a man. It was a bad sign when I wanted to bare my entire self to him.
I needed to run.
But I didn’t want to leave. In his arms, at that moment, it all felt like home. At least what I imagined home would feel like, warm and safe and full of love. But there was neither warmth, safety or love here. Tears filled my eyes. I wanted to stay, but falling asleep with him would be breaking another rule.
He was dead to the world, but I moved as quietly as I could. Try as I might, I found him impossible to budge. His thick biceps pinned me solidly to the bed. I wrenched his arm from me and he came awake.
He didn’t awaken fully, but enough to ask me where I was headed.
“I need to use the bathroom,” I replied.
He yawned, mumbled something, and moved away in quiet agreement.
I was freed. I grabbed my clothes, pulled open his door and sped down the hallway. Hopefully, he would assume I left just before the sun arose. Either way, it wouldn’t bother him.
However, I had to protect me.
No one else would.
Chapter 30
April
“You ran away?” Charlotte asked.
I spun back around to face her. We were shopping at our local supermarket. “I didn’t run away,” I refuted. “I just went back to my room.”
“What about his hair, then?”
I smiled. “I think he must have called his own hairdresser the next morning because it looked pretty good when he met Yulia and I for breakfast.”
She stared at me for a few moments and then she peered down into our cart. “Okay,” she said and picked up the bag of dumplings to return back to the shelf.
“Hey!” I called.
“What? I have enough problems of my own. I don’t need to point yours out.”
“That’s not what I meant. What I mean is…” I took a deep breath at my inability to properly communicate. “Why are you putting the food back?”
“I don’t need dumplings.”
“What do you mean? You’re obsessed with them.”
“Well, I need a break from it.”
I looked into the cart and noticed then that other items had gone missing from it. “Where are my chicken wings?”
“We already have an entire pack of drumsticks.”
“I want chicken wings,” I said.
She straightened to give me a dry look as though she were putting up with a toddler. “It all tastes the same.”
I looked back into the cart. “Where are the baby sausages? And oh my God, the yoghurt flapjacks!”
“I don’t need all of those,” she said.
I searched through the cart then looked back up at her in bewilderment. “Charlotte!”
She sighed. “I’m broke okay? Until things get better, I have to scrimp and cut down on expenses.”
“You’re broke? What do you…” Things fell into place in flash. “Why?”
“I had an unexpected expense and I quit my job,” she said.
My eyes widened. “When? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You had your own stuff to handle. It was when Yulia came over.”
“What was it?”
“My boss was a bitch. Nothing I ever did was right. Why is Francine awake this early? Why is she awake this late? Don’t you think that portion is too much for her? Don’t you think these clothes are not flattering on her? You bought the damn freaking clothes, you freak,” she yelled. She took a calming breath. “In the end, I just wanted to poison her stupid ass.”