“Does anyone else know what happened? Do you want me to contact people on my father’s team? They might talk to me.”
Or they might tell my father where I am so he sends a lot of guns to get me. I leave that part out.
“No, if there was information to be had, I would already have it. I’ve been hunting for answers most of my life. I’ve accepted that I’m just never going to know the truth.”
I stroke his hair, careful not to mess it up. “Were you two close?”
“Yes, she was a wonderful woman, and I loved her.” A soft smile curls his lips. “She used to wear this bright red scarf. Wool. And it was so old and ragged that bits of it were clumped together and knotted. She loved that thing so much. I remember thinking, when I was a boy, I hoped that one day I would find something I love as much as my mother loved that scarf.”
I smile at his memory. A sweet one to share with me. My chest feels tight with the knowledge of it. “That is lovely. She sounds like an amazing person. I wish I could have met her.”
He nods once. It’s a curt acknowledgment of my sympathy but gives nothing else. “If I have to speak to my father, I’m happy to ask him for you. See if he will tell me what happened. I doubt he would, though. After my own mother’s death, he was never the same man. He turned cruel and hateful overnight.”
He hugs me tight to him, and I bury my face in the center of his shirt. The scent of him eases me as it always does. I close my eyes and picture a knotted-up worn wool scarf in my head, but the fantasy shifts to a memory as the image of a scarf like that is framed in a pool of blood.
I shake it off, like I shake off most of the bad memories that threaten me these days, and focus on the door behind me. It takes seconds to count the squares in the wood. Then I count them again to steady myself one more time and wonder why I can’t shake the image all the way.
16
ADRIAN
Two days later, sitting in the same seat at the dining room table, I can’t believe I told her about my mother. She’s never been someone I talk about with anyone, not even Kai. Yet my angel crawled in my lap and asked me a question, and I poured out all my carefully guarded details.
I focus on Valentina. She joined me for breakfast today. Her hair is held out of her face by some pins, and a soft pink dress hugs her biteable curves. That cotton would feel nice around my shoulders as I put my mouth on her.
The urge to pick her up, put her on the table, and drop to my knees is also overwhelming. Would she let me do it or try to push me away? Would she be free with her reactions like she is in bed or try to curb them in case anyone outside the room was listening? She sits a foot away reading a newspaper, and I can only think about how wet she gets when I tongue her and each little sound she makes as she comes.
I shift in the chair and rearrange my hard-on, which had been pressing into the edge of the table. She doesn’t even look up from her reading. It’s adorable how focused she can get. The rest of the world doesn’t exist for her right now. It’s a skill I envy because the outside world is all too real for me every second of every day. The only time it gets quiet is when I’m touching her.
The door bursts open, and Alexei stalks into the room. He’s all tall, lean muscles, dark hair, and leather. This gets her attention, and I have to remember she’s mine, and Alexei wouldn’t dare touch her. His gaze rests on me, waiting.
“What is it?” I’m irritated, and my tone shows it, but he seems unfazed.
“There’s news. You should come to the command room.” Message delivered, he lopes back out of the room. If the man wasn’t the best sniper I’d ever seen, I’d be concerned about his skills at first glance.
I look up at Valentina, and she’s watching me, not even trying to hide her curiosity. When I smile, she absent-mindedly smiles back. “Stay here or go to our room. I’ll find you when I’m finished.”
She blinks a couple of times, nods, then turns back to her reading. An English muffin in one hand, the page of the newspaper in the other.
If he hadn’t barged in, I would have put her on the table and tested out the fantasies in my head. Alexei always did have terrible timing and zero tact.