He futzed around in the kitchen for a few minutes while he was on the phone. It sounded like he was either on hold or listening to a recorded message, one of the two, since he didn’t say anything during the entire phone call. I took the time to text Gray and let him know that even though the power was out, we were perfectly fine. Then, after Dima had hung up, he marched straight past me and up the stairs. Not much time passed before he returned and picked me up, carrying me away from the blissful heat and depositing me in the bathroom, where he’d already situated my chair and purse. I pouted up at him, wrapping my arms around myself and shivering.
“Water heater is gas, so there’s hot water. Yell when you’re done.”
“What did the electric company say?” I asked before he could close the door behind him.
“Working on it. Might be a day or two. Crews coming in from Texas and Louisiana.”
“Should make for an interesting Christmas.” Not that we needed a power outage for it to be interesting. I definitely hadn’t ever experienced a holiday similar to what this one was bound to be.
He made an indistinguishable sound and left me to go through my ablutions. When I called for him, it took a few moments for him to come up the stairs to get me. I realized the reason for his leisurely reappearance once we returned to the living room. He’d moved the bedding away from the fire, removed the grate, and was setting things up so he could cook over the flames.
“Aren’t you a regular jack-of-all-trades?” I murmured as he placed me on the couch, where I could bundle up under multiple blankets.
“Still have to eat,” he said and got back to work.
He’d already placed a metal stand of some sort over the flames, and he had cast iron pans on top of it heating up. Now he went into the kitchen to get sausage, eggs, and all sorts of other things before coming back to cook them over the fire. Within about twenty minutes, he’d made a full, far more industrious meal than I typically ever bothered with for breakfast. I tended to grab a bagel with cream cheese or peanut butter on my way out the door. If I felt particularly adventurous, I’d take the time to toast the bagel first. Anything more than that was more work than it was worth and always felt like overkill to me.
Not to Dima, though.
He brought out plates and utensils, and he served up the food, all without saying a word to me. Once he’d fixed his own plate, he took a seat beside me. Not because he wanted to be close, if his scowl was any indication. I expected it was mainly because of the blankets.
“So is this what it’s going to be like for the next however long until the ice melts?” I asked. “A bunch of grumbling and growling at each other but no talking?”
“You’re talking plenty.”
“I notice you don’t ever bother to ask me about myself. It’s always me asking you to tell me things, and you shooting me down.”
“You want to talk, then talk.” He stabbed a sausage and shoved it into his mouth, effectively cutting off his own ability to speak, even if he intended to, which we both knew he didn’t.
Sulking, I swirled my fork through the scrambled eggs and veggies on my plate before settling on what I wanted to tell him. Maybe I should be vulnerable with him if I wanted him to open up to me. Couldn’t hurt, at least.
“When I crashed into the boards that day,” I finally said, “I remember thinking it was odd that it didn’t hurt. Because it should have. It should’ve knocked the wind out of me and left me bruised and aching, but there was nothing. One of the girls tried to help me up so I could skate to the bench, but it was only then that I realized I couldn’t move my legs. The thought never occurred to me to worry about them, since the impact was to my back.”
Moments after I’d started talking, Dima had set his fork down on his plate and started staring at me. Through me, maybe. Staring so hard it was as if he wanted to brand me with his eyes. Maybe he thought he could intimidate me into shutting up.
That wasn’t going to happen.
“Even though it’s been years, I still get these weird sensations in my limbs. Sometimes it’ll be shooting pain that goes away as suddenly as it comes on. Other times, it’s a weird tingling. The guys who’ve had amputations tell me they get phantom sensation in their missing limbs, too. Maybe their foot will itch, but it isn’t there for them to scratch. Sometimes they could swear they get a stabbing pain in their missing legs that lasts for an hour or more. Does Sergei get those phantom pains, too?”
Dima still hadn’t stopped glaring. “Told you. Don’t want to talk about that.”
“Sergei’s not a that,” I ground out.
“Fucking English. Don’t want to talk about Sergei. Okay? Shut up.”
“I’m not going to shut up. And why won’t you talk about him? Are you scared that if you do, you’ll actually let yourself feel something? You think you can erase what happened by pretending that you’re a freaking brick wall? It happened, Dima. You had a wreck. He lost his leg. Nothing’s going to undo the past, especially not ignoring it.”
He got up and took his plate to the kitchen, tossing it into the sink with all the food still on it. It made such a racket I was shocked the plate hadn’t broken.
“Now you’re running away again. You can’t face it.”
“Been facing it for seven years,” he roared.
“No, you’ve been running from it for seven years. Are you going to run off to Hunter and Tallie’s house again today? Is that what you’re planning? Or maybe you’re going to try to shut me up by fucking me again, because that’s sure a hell of a lot better than actually dealing with the garbage in your head.”
“What do you want? You want me to say I almost killed Sergei?” He came back into the living room like a panther on the prowl, eyes blazing, beard and hair flying wildly behind him because of the ferocity of his movement. He didn’t stop until he was hovering over me, his arms braced on either side of me, with all sorts of fury billowing out of him in waves. “I nearly killed Sergei. My best friend. My only family. He lost his leg because of me. Is that what you want?”
I refused to look away. I would not cower in fear, no matter how much he might want to intimidate me. Because I recognized the fear driving him, filling him with anger, echoing in his body like years of loneliness. I’d lived with that fear, too, right after my accident.
They say fear brings out a fight-or-flight tendency in everyone. With Dima, maybe he tended to fly because he was scared of what would happen if he were to fight. Right now, I could see the internal battle being waged inside him. Part of him wanted to fight back against me or whatever he could get his hands on, in order to alleviate all the crap racing through his mind. Another part of him wanted to run as fast as he could.
No matter how fast you run or how far you go, though, the past will always catch up to you. Always.
I took hold of his beard with an unforgiving grip so he couldn’t run off without causing himself a ton of pain or carrying me along for the ride. Dragged him down until we were nose to nose, chin to chin, eyeball to eyeball. “You almost killed yourself, too,” I ground out. “Did you ever think of that? Or are you so caught up in what happened to Sergei that you can’t bother thinking about yourself, for once?”
“Would’ve been better if I’d died.”
“Oh yeah? Yeah, I’m sure Sergei would agree, too, right? There he is, missing a freaking leg and his best friend is dead and can’t help him learn to function without one of his limbs. Yeah, I’m sure that would’ve been much better.”
Dima jerked his head back, but I yanked harder on his beard, holding him in place. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed his fist clenching.
“You going to hit me?” I knew I might be flirting with disaster in egging him on, but something told me he’d never intentionally hurt me. Not with the way he was still hung up over what had happened to Sergei. Hitting me would just be one more thing on his never-ending list of reasons to beat himself up. Maybe we got a little rough when we had sex, but that was completely different.
“Grebanyy suka,” he growled when I yanked, bumping our foreheads together.
“Wanna tell me what that means, or is that top secret, too, like everything else in your life?”
“Means you’re fucking bitch.”
“Well, aren’t you just full of sunshine and rainbows?”
“I’m nicer when I’m not around prying women who rip out my beard.”
“You let that baby jerk on your beard, and you’re a sweetheart with her.”
“She’s baby. Want me to rock you to sleep and tell you stories in Russian?”
Yes, I thought, but I didn’t want to say it out loud. Now wasn’t the time. “What do you tell her, anyway?” I demanded. “You seem to have no problem talking nonstop to that baby, but you refuse to tell me anything.”
“I can tell you something.”
“Yeah? Try me.”
“Tell you to shut up. Tell you I’d rather be alone than have to listen to you all day.”
“All day, all night, and probably all day tomorrow, too, if it doesn’t warm up outside very soon. Should make for a nice, comfortable retreat for the two of us. Stuck together, not talking other than to fight.”
“Don’t want to fight.”
“No?” I said sarcastically. “You sure do have a funny way of avoiding fighting. Actually, you’d rather run away again, wouldn’t you? Find somewhere to hide, like a little boy.”
He ripped back from me, but I wrenched his beard and hauled him on top of me, kissing him with all the fire and anger and frustration that had been building up between us.
Dima gave me back as good as he got, as with everything else between us, biting my lower lip until I let out a squeak of protest and opened to let him in. His tongue jabbed between my lips, and he fisted both hands in my hair, twisting my head back and to the side so he could kiss me deeper and harder.
He straddled my hips, his dick pressing against my ribs as he broke off the kiss. “Still no fucking, only talking?” he demanded, panting.
I tried to shake my head, but I couldn’t with the way he was holding me captive. My breaths were shallow. Ragged. Frayed, like the rest of me. “I want you.” Damn it. I wanted him more than I could ever explain, and so much more than he would ever give me.
That was all he needed to hear, apparently. Within seconds, blankets and clothes were flying, and we were hot, sweaty, naked.
His mouth was everywhere. Licking. Tasting. Biting. Oh, God, the way he bit drove me out of my mind. A hard bite followed by tiny nibbles and another intense bite. Every touch of his teeth left me wetter. Hotter. Squirming for him.
“I need you,” I said, gasping for air. He was still busy trying to get me ready for him, but I didn’t need any more preparation. Didn’t want to wait any longer. I slid my hands down the broad expanse of his back until I reached his butt. Dug my fingers in and dragged him toward me.
He settled between my legs, his hands still working their magic all over my body in a way that might leave a few marks, but I didn’t care.
He buried his head in the crook of my neck and buried his dick in my sex, sliding all the way to the hilt in a single thrust. He didn’t give me any time to adjust to his presence, either, taking up a primal pace almost immediately. An involuntary cry ripped from my throat, but I felt too good to care about anything but more.
One of his hands fisted in my hair, he tore my head back and feasted on the column of my neck, and I shattered around him.
There wasn’t anything sweet or tender about the way we came together. It was all ravenous intensity and wild lust, a carnal dance that hovered somewhere between pleasure and pain. I vaguely recalled spanking his ass, driving him on and bringing him to bite me harder. He shouted things in my ear, Russian phrases that made no sense to me but sounded dirty and angry and incredibly kinky, all at once.
I loved every second of it, especially the moment when he held himself completely still and cried out with his orgasm before collapsing on top of me. I tried to catch my breath, but it wasn’t easy to do with a two-hundred-ish-pound man crushing me. Not that I minded. The longer he stayed, the longer I could pretend this moment meant more than it did.
But then he got up, and the cold air slapped me and my sweat-covered body back to reality. As did the trickle between my legs.
Judging by the look of horror in his eyes, we both realized it at the same time.
We hadn’t used a condom.
I’D DONE A lot of stupid things in my life, but this topped the list. By a mile. I shouldn’t have allowed myself to lose control with London like that, and I definitely shouldn’t have fucked her again. But the worst part of all was that I’d forgotten my number one rule of sex: never fuck without a goddamned condom.
I’d forgotten my second rule of sex, too: keep it casual. No matter how much I tried to keep it that way, never letting anyone get too close, somehow London had gotten to me in a way no other woman ever had. I wouldn’t have lost control, otherwise, and there wasn’t any fucking point trying to convince myself there was another explanation.
I could get mad at her, but that wouldn’t solve anything. Placing the blame on her wouldn’t be fair and it wouldn’t fix anything.
All I could do now was face the consequences and hope there weren’t any big consequences.
That and keep my fucking hands to myself and my cock in my pants until such time as this snow finally melted and London could go back to her family. The sooner she was out of my house, the better for both of us. Otherwise, if we managed to avoid killing each other, we might end up with something even worse to deal with than the constant bickering we had now.
But for now, she was still in my house, covered in my sweat and the scent of sex. I said a silent prayer for patience, not to mention a heat wave, before I carried London upstairs and set her in the bathroom so she could do whatever was necessary to clean up. Her chair and purse were still in there, and I found another pair of my boxers and a clean T-shirt she could put on.
I went into my own bathroom to shower and try to wash away the memory of all the things I’d fucked up.
Then I set about finding a way to be on my best behavior until the weather cleared up and she could leave.
We both seemed content to pretend that what had just happened between us had been simply a figment of our imaginations. That it hadn’t really happened. That we hadn’t been so stupid as to forget something as important as protection.
I knew I should say something. Anything. Tell her I got tested regularly and was clean. Ask her if she was on any form of birth control. Something. But I didn’t, and neither did she. Here we were, two adults, acting like toddlers who would rather avoid a difficult subject than face it head on.
I didn’t know what to make of that sort of behavior with her, because with everything else, she was constantly in my face. Pushing. Demanding answers. Trying to get me to break, and coming damn close to it.
She still hadn’t given up on convincing me to tell her about my past, either. The rest of the day, every time she asked me a question and tried to get me to talk about Sergei or the wreck or even my childhood, I did exactly what she expected of me. I got up and left the room, going upstairs or downstairs, whatever was necessary to get away from her. Running away, she called it. I called it preserving my sanity.
When that didn’t work, she tried using the same tactic I’d used before. If I wouldn’t talk, she tried to lure me into fucking her again. She kept giving me coy glances and licking her lips and making sexy eyes at me.
Not going to happen. The last thing I needed now was to add fuel to whatever fire we’d already created. In response, I did the same thing I would if she tried to insist I talk—I left.
I was getting really tired of trying to avoid her in my own damn house, too, but what else was I supposed to do? Tallie was right. I couldn’t storm out into the weather and leave London all alone. Not when she used a wheelchair to get around, and my house had so many stairs. I wasn’t that cold and hea
rtless, even if I came close.
So, I waited. And avoided her every time she poked at my temper.
That afternoon, I had another call from Hunter, begging me to talk Harper back to sleep. They still had power, and I was half tempted to ask if I could send London over to stay with them until everything thawed, but I knew Tallie would insist I come, too. My plan was to get away from her, not simply move our base camp from one place to another. Besides, I wouldn’t want Hunter and Tallie to be responsible for London. They already had enough on their hands with Harper’s colic.
Once the baby was settled and asleep, I hung up and went back into the living room, only to find London staring at me with one of those looks I couldn’t interpret.
“So I guess I just need to learn Russian, huh?” she said.
“Why you need to learn Russian?”
“To figure out what you talk to that baby about. You have no problem talking to Harper. Just to me.”
“Nothing to talk about.” Not to her, at least.
“Hmm,” she said, but she went back to building a house of cards on my coffee table.
I joined her, since she was otherwise occupied and might leave me alone. We kept working at it in silence until the sun set and I had to light candles in order for us to see. Then I left her to it and got up to make us something for dinner.
The power came back on not long after dark, thank goodness. That meant we had heat, so I could put London back in my bed while I slept on the couch as I’d planned to do. That would prevent me from spooning with her again. I didn’t think I could get through another night of having my cock nestled up against her ass without doing something else I’d be sure to regret, and Lord knew I’d already done more than enough things worthy of remorse for one lifetime.
When I came into the living room after washing the dishes, I found her next to one of the big windows, looking out in front of the house. She glanced over her shoulder at me momentarily, but then she returned her attention to the street.
“It’s starting to melt,” she said. “It’ll refreeze tonight, after the temperatures drop again, but I bet it’ll warm up again tomorrow. Maybe enough will melt that the streets won’t be so bad.”
Ghost Dance (Tulsa Thunderbirds Book 3) Page 11