“Please.”
Chapter6
Maxim
Ida Jane stilled, much like a wildcat pondering its next move. Except, this wasmore. The moment expanded, need permeating the very air. So many things I needed: her safety, her acceptance, her lips brushing mine, her body quivering under me.
Imuststop thinking about sex. If Ida Jane agreed to my plan, she’d be so much more than a quick lay to me. Actually, she already was. I had those in Detroit, and they meant nothing—left me feeling ashamed.
Ida Janemattered. I had to show her how much—that she wasn’t interchangeable with some other woman. I’d shattered her trust when I blurted out my request.
Heavy-handed and awkward, I’d destroyed what we’d been building and her eyes, so expressive and full of passion, were filled more so with the shadows of wariness. She expected me to laugh off my proposal. I’d never been more serious about anything.
And I had no one to blame but myself.
I wasn’t sure how to explain to her what she meant to me because I’d never needed to make that point before—not to anyone, even Nadia. With her, life had been simple. She’d understood me because we were siblings. We’d loved each other, and we’d failed each other.
But with Ida Jane, my emotions were so big they felt like they were bursting the seams of my very body: tenderness, concern, desire.
I didn’t let people into my home, into my life, or into my heart. But Ida Jane was alreadythere. In all of them. She’d plunked down in my heart that first night when she battled her ex without me knowing or understanding the depth of our fragile bond.
She was still here,andshe was softening toward me. Thank all the hockey saints. Her expression, when unguarded, was just as yearning as mine. Her eyes burned with desire even as her gaze beckoned me to treat her softly, gently—lovingly.
I wanted to. More than anything. So much that my throat ached, and my hands trembled. I trailed my fingers down her neck before sliding my palm around to cradle her nape. Her skin was as silky as her thick mass of spun-gold strands. I rubbed my thumb there, unable to stop the compulsion to touch her. I drew her a little closer, inhaling the fruity tang of her shampoo. Her lashes were long and light, her eyes held flecks of amber and green deep in the brown—like the kaleidoscope I’d loved to look through as a child.
We continued to stare at each other—the moment growing in both meaning and time.
“Please,” I murmured again. It was more than the word, more than a request. I wasn’t sure what I was asking for, but I held my breath, unable to tear my gaze from hers.
She studied me for so long, I became lightheaded. “I’ll stay and hear you out on one condition.” Her soft, sweet voice crackled over my nerve endings, making need simmer in my belly.
“What’s that?”
“You call me krasivaya.” She shivered a little at the term even as she tilted her head. “That meant something to you, and if you want me here, I need to knowImean something to you.”
Whatever flashed across my face caused her eyes to widen.
“Never mind,” she said, pulling away from me. The moment crashed, all the emotion bursting around us in a froth of discomfort and awkwardness.
“You aremykrasivaya. Always. But you are also Ida Jane. Fists.” I lifted her bruised hand and kissed each knuckle. She inhaled and the moment turned heavier, filled with a promise of whatcouldbe.
She’s my future.
And I was beginning to suspect not just because she could help me stay here, in this country.
* * *
Ida Jane
Maxim stared at me as if I had the answers to the deepest questions of the universe. Wouldn’t that be a treat…if it were true.
“I’d like for you to stay here. I’d like to feed you. I’d like…” He blew out a breath. “I want you at ease with me.”
“What do you mean, Maxim?” I asked.
He shook his head. “How about we talk some more tomorrow, when it isn’t late, and when we’re both in a better frame of mind?”
My head ached, so I nodded.
