Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 83195 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83195 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Then her phone rings.
And it’s the same ringtone as last time. Fucking Cinita. She freezes and pulls her hands away from me, but I pin her wrists down and stare at her, my cock still buried inside her.
“Don’t pull away from me,” I say. Because right now, I can’t handle her absence.
I need her in every way she needs me.
“But it’s Cinita’s ringtone. Don’t you—”
“I’m where I want to be, Lena,” I insist, and I see something shift in her.
I’m exactly where I need to be.
It’s the first time in my life I’ve ever felt this way.
And it’s all because of her.
CHAPTER 30
Lena
He is wrapped all around me, his body against mine, as we lie here, my head on his chest. His hands on my back hold me tightly, as if I might up and leave at any moment.
It’s strange in the way that it feels so right.
We haven’t spoken, not uttered a word since my phone went off, and I’m sure I heard his phone buzzing somewhere on the floor.
Some might say that’s weird, but who knows? I take comfort in his silence.
He’s bled through his bandage, and I’m certain I’ll need to buy new sheets, but right now, I don’t care. I’m too scared to ruin this moment.
But I feel like this is the only moment.
“What’s on your mind, Lena?” he asks, not even opening his eyes. He just knows I’m watching him. And how could I not? He’s so beautiful. Not that I’d ever tell him that, because it’d inflate his ego too much.
“Tell me about the gloves, Alek.” I need something from him. Anything to show me that this is deeper than some one-night stand, because right now, I’m terrified of the way we gravitate toward each other.
I know he’s bad news.
But can something so bad truly feel so right?
“Why do you want to know?” he asks, and it surprises me that he’s opened up, if even a little. His eyes open now, and he’s watching me in the same way that I am him.
I lick my lips, wanting to kiss him all over again because I sense the tenderness beneath. Or maybe I just want there to be something underneath. Something I can use to justify his actions. No matter what it is, it doesn’t justify killing another. Yet here I am, being ignorant of those sins.
“Because I want to know you, Aleksandr. I need something if you expect me to give you anything.”
I hold my breath, so certain that he’ll deny me.
But to my surprise, he licks his lips, and I see the swallow of his throat before he replies, “You won’t like a lot of the answers I have to your questions, Lena.”
“Will they be the truth?”
“If you want it, then yes.”
“Then tonight, we’ll start with one.”
He licks his lips again. “Not even Anya knows.”
“And it’ll remain that way.” My heart breaks at the way he says it. Whatever burden he’s carried has not even been shared with the one person he shares everything with.
He looks up at the ceiling, as if thinking as to where he even should start. “When we were four, our parents moved from Russia back to America. We were born here. We don’t remember much from that time. We were just thrown into an orphanage and foster carers when our parents disappeared.”
Oh shit, I didn’t know they were abandoned. My heart twists.
“Our first foster parents were able to finally conceive their first child after we’d been with them for two months, and they took us back to the orphanage. Our second foster father…” His jaw grinds.
“I walked in on him with Anya when we were six. We were small then, but I was filled with so much rage and desire to protect her that I attacked him. I hated being touched even then, but I tried to dig his eyes from his head. I shoved him back hard enough that he cut his hand on the corner of the side table. Not enough to do any serious damage but it provided just enough time for Anya to run. But I froze.
“The blood… I don’t know how to express it. Something that was suppressed in me was triggered by the blood. I just remember crying in a pool of it. Screaming for my mother to wake up. That swirl of terror and abandonment all over me, filth clinging to me. On my hands. My skin. Every part of me. I’m certain as distant as it feels, it might be the memory I have of finding my mother dead. But it’s so foggy, that I don’t know if it’s something my mind made up. It’s why I’ve never told Anya of it. It’s only recently that my suspicions were confirmed that they were murdered. But I’d never been sure, especially after having this… defect from such a young age.”