“I’m hungry,” Tulya rescued me by stating. She stood up from the lounge and nabbed the bottle and glass to take inside.
Like a lost puppy, I followed behind.
Inside, I found her leafing through a room service menu.
“Do you want to go out?” I didn’t know why I asked. Last night ended horribly, and this afternoon was even worse.
“Don, what do you want? We’re here to do a job for our mothers, that’s all. Eating is for survival.” She smoothed her hair back into a low ponytail while keeping her gaze on me.
Every ounce of intelligence I had fled my body as my feet took me closer to the woman questioning me.
“I’m sorry.Again. I know I’m upsetting you. A lot.” My words came out stilted and unsure, which was unlike me. But then again, this woman unraveled me. “I don’t want to upset you. In fact, I want to do the opposite. I want to make you happy and…feel good…more than good. But we are here on a task, and I don’t want it to get all muddled. You, me. Your aversion to suffering, my ability to dole it out—we are a strange combination.”
I left it at that; I wasn’t sure how much Tulya understood about commingling our skills.
Except in this moment I was standing directly in front of the woman, and while we were no longer at the holiday party, alcohol running through our veins (well, she’d had her wine), want and need pulsed through me.
“I want to make you happy,” I repeated. My hand rested on her shoulder, and she didn’t shove me off. “It doesn’t seem right in this instance, but it feels more than right,” I continued.
“You confuse me. One moment, you’re shamelessly flirting and the next pulling back and bossing me around. Another minute, you’re kissing me, and then…”
I didn’t wait to hear what she said next. My mouth found hers and I grumbled, “May I?”
She nodded against my forehead as our lips mashed together with a feverish need.
I wasn’t sure whose tongue entered first, but now they tangled together, the tannins of her wine making me heady.
The room service menu flitted to the floor as my hand roamed up her back and her palms slid down my sides, coming to rest on my hips as we made our way backward to the wall.
“Tulya,” I moaned.
“You feel so good,” she mumbled back. Her palms ran the length of my back, and I could feel her letting go of any reservations she had.
In this moment, I hoped Magnum took a while to show up with Cinder. There was nothing I wanted more than these borrowed seconds, minutes, hours, maybe days with Tulya.
Tulya
With my back plastered against the wall and Donovan’s hard body pressing into mine, our lips ravaging one another, I wanted to stay like this forever.
“You feel so good,” I boldly said, certain I’d never spoken those words to anyone.
I’d had three or four boyfriends since high school, all of them Rubian, none of them remarkable, probably since they were all Ezza-approved.
Donovan’s hand gripped my waist, snapping me back to the present, squeezing ever so gently, holding me in place and sending sparks throughout my body. A low growl emanated from Don’s chest, and he continued to devour my mouth before pulling away abruptly.
I felt my mouth hanging open in shock, something my mother would have been disgusted by.
“You are hungry,” Donovan stated matter-of-factly. “Let’s get something to eat…and then pick up where we left off.” He followed this all with a wink.
“Maybe we should talk?” I stood up straight, smoothing my dress, wondering if this had been a smart idea.
“Eat and talk,” he said, walking toward the room service menu lying on the carpet. “Do you still want to stay in?”
“If we can eat on the balcony, I do.”
He nodded and picked up the phone.
“Are you going to ask me what I want?” The whole dating thing was a bit unknown to me, but I was pretty sure I could decide what I felt like eating.
