He didn’t look surprised at all. “Yes. It is.”
“Are we commemorating the first night we kissed?” Before I’d had any idea what this man would mean to me.
“I want to.” He drew me against him. “You can’t imagine how badly I’d wanted to claim that kiss.”
“You claimed far more than that on the plane.”
His lids grew heavy as he obviously thought back to what we’d done. “I was a very lucky man that night.”
“And now?”
“I’ll consider myself lucky, my elusive girl, once you consider yourself taken. Every man has a weakness; you are mine. I’ve accepted that. Now you must accept me.”
No, every person had a weakness. Aleksandr Sevastyan was my own.
“I need you all in, Natalie.”
He had opened up to me tonight, and we could build from that. I smiled up at him. “I haven’t ruled anything out, Siberian.”
“I suppose that’s good enough—for now.” He rubbed the pad of his thumb over my cheek. “Do you want to see your painting again? We can go back.”
Back? When the minute hand ground on once more, I didn’t feel sadness. This time I felt a tiny bloom of optimism.
Maybe we were at last moving forward.
Chapter 39
“The plighted life’s not treating you well?” Jess queried a couple of days later. “I thought you guys were lovey-dovey all the time after the museum.”
“If possible, he’s even more distant.” This morning he was once again MIA. And, shocker, he’d left no note, belatedly texting me: in meeting
Gee, thanks. I’d thought talking about Paxán would be our common ground. Yet that story about my father had been the last I could coax from Sevastyan.
“He sounds like a downer to me,” Jess observed.
“We’re supposed to go to Russia in two days. He promises everything will be different there.”
“And?”
“I’m leery. Jess, I’m not sure if I want to return with him.” In some dark moments, I didn’t know if I could—not without sacrificing some part of myself. “How can the sex be so good when other parts of our lives are so lacking? I know without a doubt that no other guy will fit me so well in bed. I found him on my first foray.”
“You sound like you’re in love with him, Nat.”
“I am,” I admitted. “But it’s complicated. This love might have a razor’s edge to it. And it’s exhausting. I don’t remember the last time I was so tired.”
Perhaps I needed to get out from under his influence and process everything that had happened. His personality was larger than life, the things he’d shown me as well; it could be that I’d overloaded.
Sometimes I thought a break from his intensity might be welcome. Other times I shrank to think of parting from him.
“You’ve got to bring this to a head,” Jess said. “If you want answers out of him, then demand them. Speak to him in the language he understands: Unicorn. Or Glock, or whatever. Dig until you get the splinter out of the lion’s paw.”
“And if I can’t dig it out?”
“Then let him get f**king gangrene—alone. Put a cap on this, girl. Give it one more shot, but then you’re done.”
Maybe she was right. He expected me to do all the adjusting—while he stubbornly remained the same. Maybe I should stop compromising and making excuses for him.
“You know you’re probably going to have to cut this one loose, Nat. I think you’re hoping that I’ll tell you to stick it out through thick and thin, through all his wank moppet damage. Wrong. Sometimes self-preservation means preservation of self.”
“That’s deep, Jess.” And it was exactly where I was failing: keeping the Natalie in Natalie. “Where’d you hear that?”
“Read it in a twatting romance novel.”
I gasped. “You can read ?”
“There’s my Nat! I missed you. Lose the downer unicorn and come home.”
I recalled his reaction the last time I’d suggested a break; he’d trashed the dresser. “Taking time off will be difficult with a guy like him.”
“Then remember my advice. ABC, baby.” Always be crazier.
After we hung up, I dressed, readying for battle. What I wouldn’t give for a pair of jeans and clodhopper boots—or any garment at all from the bottom of my Nebraskan laundry basket.
I settled on a satin-weave blouse in cobalt blue and a black pencil skirt. I knotted my hair atop my head as I slipped into a pair of pointy-toe heels.
It wasn’t until later that afternoon that he returned, making his way up to our room. Weariness emanated from him.
Not just weariness—distance. It was worse than it’d ever been. And I could swear I even saw resentment in his expression.
Resentment toward . . . me? What the hell did I do? “We need to talk.”
He shucked off his gun holster, rolling his head on his shoulders. “I don’t want to do this right now.”
“You’re not going to put me off any longer. I’m done whiling away here when you go out for your mysterious meetings—that you keep secret from me. I’m done being shut out of your life.”
His eyes were full of warning. “You need to learn patience.”
Patience? He was putting this back on me again? “When do you intend to let me in? When do I rate high enough to get to know your business? To actually discuss things with you? After we sleep together? Already did that! Once we’re living together? We are.” I tapped my chin. “Hmm? Maybe after you whip and screw me in front of an audience? How much more personal can things be than that? Yet you won’t share what’s going on in your life? In your thoughts?”
“Maybe it will never happen,” he said, filling me with alarm. “Did you ever think about that, Natalie? How about never?”
“If I’m not your partner in this, then I’m no better than a doll, a toy you bring out and store away whenever it suits you.” Like I’d done with my arsenal. “How do you think that makes me feel?” To him, I was merely a belonging—which he’d told me.
Should’ve listened to him, honey.
He scrubbed his palm over his mouth. “Maybe you expect things from me that I do not know how to give.”
“You know how. You just refuse!”
“So I’m to shoulder all the blame? Why should I tell you anything when I can sense you’re pulling away from me?”