“Maybe I don’t have anything I need to know,” I countered, just to be difficult.
“Then what are you staring at?” She winced, like she realized something, then her hand went up to hover over her face. “I forget the bruises are there.”
“They don’t hurt?” I sat up, the leather creaking beneath my ass as I raised my legs onto the seat when I angled around. Even with my legs flat out, we were far apart, and when I gave her all my attention, she seemed to flush, and I liked that. I enjoyed making her doll-face respond and react.
Shattering her mask.
“Some.”
I knew from past beatings that bruises became tender before they got better. So, her ‘some’ also told me she was a fucking trooper.
It was like a nest of toads had somehow managed to rear a majestic butterfly—how the fuck had she been spawned by Vasov?
I actually thought that was one of my major issues with her. I felt like she was too good to be true, and if something was too good, then it was usually a lie. I kept expecting her to trip up, and given time, maybe that would happen…but I wasn’t sure. I actually found myself hoping this was the real her, because this woman? I felt like I could be with her without wanting to top myself and her at the prospect of forty fucking years together.
Yeah, no divorce in my world.
Sucked to be me, right?
“How about your nose? That had to hurt.”
“I’m—”
Used to it.
Fuck. Her wariness cropped up, as did her shoulders—hunching around her ears like she was regretting speaking.
“You had surgery?”
Her eyes caught mine. “Where?”
“Don’t BS me now,” I chided, folding my hands over my belly. “Your face.”
“I don’t approve of plastic surgery,” she said primly.
“No, not to get massive tits, I mean to fix what he fucked up.”
Her cheeks blossomed with heat in earnest.
I’d thought as much.
“Just my nose.”
“Fucker,” I rumbled. “He touches you again, I’ll fucking gut him.”
“I wouldn’t be averse to that,” she replied, and her tone was so cheerful, I almost laughed.
That she defused my temper had me inwardly reeling, but instead, I muttered, “I was reading about this movie.”
She blinked. “Which movie?”
“Something about a chick whose diary, I don’t know, falls into someone else’s hands or something? The sequel just came out on Netflix, right?”
That had her eyes widening. “You’ve heard aboutTo All the Boys I’ve Loved Before?”
I clicked my fingers like I’d never heard of it before. “Yeah. That’s it.”
Her mouth rounded. “I wouldn’t take you for a fan of—”