“Just to set this up.”
I stepped around him, drawn by a golden aura, and gasped, delighted. Mikhail had somehow brought in a lush but worn oriental carpet, unrolled it in the middle of one of the rooms, and lit every candle on a chandelier that had probably been grounded long ago. There were a number of cushy pillows positioned around the edge of the carpet, and a bottle of red wine rested right in the middle.
“This is gorgeous,” I said. It really made me forget that we were inside an old, rotting house.
“Anything for you.”
“You know, if you weren’t renting that crappy apartment with my brother, we could have a space like this,” I said.
“And you think Mamachka would feel good about the two of us squatting in an abandoned house?” Mikhail asked. “Or maybe renting a crappy apartment of our own?”
“Well, this is ours for tonight,” I said, sitting on one of the cushions he had strewn over the carpet. I took care not to knock over a candle. I was less afraid of burning the place down around us than of my family finding out what I was doing in here to begin with. “Let’s just enjoy it.”
“Glad to hear something I’ve been saying is penetrating that brain of yours,” he teased me, knocking on the top of my head. “Seize the moment. Stop worrying about the future. Be present.”
“You should make an inspirational page-a-day calendar with all that wisdom,” I fired back. “Now pour me a glass of wine.”
“Oh, glasses,” he said with a wince. “Sorry. I remembered the corkscrew, though.”
It was cozy on the carpet, the red wine and candles warming us enough to shrug off our outerwear. My cheeks felt hot to the touch, and when I caught Mikhail looking at me with a softness that he probably wasn’t even aware of, I turned away quickly, suddenly shy.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, taking a pull from the wine bottle before offering it to me. “It’s the wine, isn’t it? A little too sweet. I’m not going to Canada until next weekend, though, and it was all we had left in the apartment. Your lousy country and its lousy rules.”
“The wine is fine.” I darted a glance at him. He was watching me with half-lidded eyes, laid back and propped up on an elbow like a lion toying with dinner. I felt out of my depth. “Everything is fine — great. It’s perfect.”
“I’ve been waiting a long time for this, malysh,” Mikhail said, his voice just on the edge of a purr. I shuddered at the implication, about him thinking about me like this. It was one thing to be attracted to someone. It was another to understand that the attraction was way more than simply returned.
Mikhail wanted me.
The realization made me want to preen — me, who preferred saggy clothes and was a tomboy by virtue of the two guys I hung out with all the time. I was desirable.
I lunged forward before I knew what I was doing. The way he smiled against my lips, kissing me back hungrily, told me that he had been waiting for me to do it. It was touching and hot at the same time, and I tasted the warmth of the wine on his tongue, lapping into my mouth.
We’d kissed plenty of times before — it was one thing that we could do easily without being discovered — but this was different. This was a kiss with a promise of more.
My heart was racing with both nerves and anticipation. Mikhail was so close — his hand cupping me through my bra — that he noticed.
“What are you scared of?” he murmured. “It’s just me.”
I hesitated. “It’s my first time.”
“That makes both of us.”
“Really?”
His other hand found the clasp of my bra and unhooked it. When I shivered at the cool air, he drew me close, rubbing my back with one hand and slowly weighing each of my breasts in the palm of his hand.
“Who else would I be with?” he asked. “It’s always been you.”
I wanted him so bad. I couldn’t tell if it was his words, the culmination of years of hoping and waiting, or his thumb against my nipple, stroking almost lazily. But my body knew exactly what it wanted.
Mikhail.
I reached out, tentative, and felt how hard he was through his jeans. He put his hand over mine, encouraging my explorations. “This is all for you, malysh.” I squeezed experimentally, and he grunted before removing my hand.
“Sorry,” I said quickly.
“You didn’t do anything wrong. It was too much, too soon.” He gave me a crooked grin. “I don’t want the night finishing before we even get started.”