He pushed it back. “I want to see if you would rather eat it than answer my question.”
“I’m all right with both.”
“I do not believe you.”
I stuck the orange in my mouth and it didn’t choke me. It hadn’t for a while now, but I hadn’t got round to telling him. I’d been too busy kissing him in that fucking club, and I had the neon body paint permanently embedded in my skin to prove it.
And a gun that was now moulded to the palm of my hand. Cos nothing about being around this dude was easy. If I hadn’t known it already, the last week or so of fuckery had proved it. The endless nights we’d roamed the island capital, goading his would-be assassins out of the shadows, only to give them the slip and sneak into his club. As if painting my body and kissing the shit out of me was my reward.
I want to kiss him in daylight.
Under the sun.
I wanted to kiss himnowso he knew how he felt when we were together in the dark was stronger than every demon any sick fuck had left him with. But I didn’t know how to do that without cracking his world open with a sledgehammer.
So I cracked mine open instead. “My dad died when I was seven. My mum didn’t want me, so I lived with Jean instead.”
Viktor lowered the orange he’d been about to eat. “Your mother did not want you?”
“She remarried. To some nasty posh cunt. And I was too fucking feral for him, so she binned me off.”
“When you wereseven?”
“I was eight by then, but I reckon she’d been knobbing this other bloke the whole time anyway.”
“How did your father die?”
The orange in my hand turned cold, and the sun faded from the sky. Dark spots danced in my vision and I had to look away,unblinking, grief this old and wicked wave that wouldn’t fuckingstop. “Riot outside Anfield stadium. He got hit and went down. Smacked his head on the pavement and never woke up.”
Viktor let that sit for a while, and I was glad of it. Talking about my dad... it never got easy, and I’d given up hoping it would. Instead, he’d become this thing that derailed my entire fucking life whenever I pictured his face, and I hated it. I hatedmyselffor being so weak, and the blowback from that made me miss Folk. Made me worry about him, as Cam’s concern filtered back to me.
Call Finch.
Couldn’t. If I knew for sure it wouldn’t put her at risk, I’d have done it already.
“You are more of a thinker than I ever realised.” Viktor brushed some messy hair out of my face. “And you are tired.”
“Whose fault is that?”
“You have a bed in your room now. I do not stop you using it.”
“It’s amattress.” From Jake’s room. Vik had hauled it down the hallway a week ago, giving up on the idea of me crashing in the den at the other end of the house. “And I’m fine.”
Lies. I was fucking knackered. Despite the routine we’d fallen into, Viktor was still erratic enough that I didn’t trust him to stay put while I slept. I’d taken a lot of cat naps leaning against the doorway, and I was starting to feel it, especially on days like this. Long afternoons in the sun, just watching him exist. Watching himlive.Even talking about my old man didn’t dull the peace I found in that.
Viktor coaxed me to eat the rest of the orange with him. His nephew—Yuri—came for the peel with Lida beside him. He said something to Viktor that I had no hope of understanding. I’d learned zero Spanish while I’d been here and even less Russian. To the point where I couldn’t always tell which language theyspoke. Only that they laughed. At me. And I was okay with that too.
Like I was okay with mauling Vik under the sultry lights in his club, knowing there was every chance it was all we’d ever have. Those fuck-hot kisses that made him gasp into my mouth. That made him grind against me in the moments he let himself be.
Those moments came more frequently now, and maybe if I didn’tknow, I’d be all over that shit. But every night I held back, and I’d hold back forever if that’s what he needed. Lots of things about Viktor Petrenko made me stumble, but for this—for him—I was rock fucking solid.
I lay back on the patio, the sun warming my face now I could see it again.
Viktor stayed where he was, drifting, like he did sometimes, still caught between trauma I only knew the half of, and reaching for the junk his addiction believed would take the pain away.
He scratched his arms, distant gaze lingering on the gate. On the electric fence. A reminder, as if I needed one, that he’d been clean a while, but this shit was far from over.
It’ll never be over. A reality that kicked me in the dick, cos I didn’t have forever to sit up and curve around him, easing him against me, drawing him out of a fight or flight moment that could’ve killed him if he’d been alone.
