“Fuck, Janella,” he breathes, every syllable shrouded in reverence.
Oh shit.Fuck.Did he see me? Has he—?
No. His eyes are half-lidded, rolled back.
I grip the doorframe as he does a fistful of his sheets. My legs threaten to give out. My insides have turned hot and tight and strange. I can’t. I can’t think.
His eyes find me.
Didn’t I know all along that they would?
The rainy-morning grey of his eyes is a midnight thunderstorm. Lightning strikes through my system. Every nerve ending finds itself fried.
“I’m—” I squeak out, frozen in place. “I’m so sorry! I wasn’t—”
His grin, lazy and satisfied, makes me dizzy. A smug flush has spread halfway down his chest. His voice is wrecked when he taunts me, “Are you going to run again,kukolka?Or will you stay and watch?”
My mouth is dry, and my tongue is reduced to sandpaper.
Yet I dare to ask, “What does that mean?”
His laugh unspools into a groan by his own hand. His strokes have slowed—and I know it’s for me.
“Little doll,” he answers, shameless.
His eyes, glazed with pleasure, never leave me. I push the door open the rest of the way and step inside.
I don’t step any further into the room. I can’t. But I stay, answering the challenge in his eyes.
“Good girl,” he croons to me, hoarse and wrecked and stunning. He looks at me like I’m the only woman in the world. Like I’m the only person. And he bares himself to me, letting me see him splayed out and ruined. Unravelling. Tremulous and arching off the mattress with mindless, desperate breaths past parted lips.
His tongue darts out to wet them.
My breathing quickens to match this. His doorframe must be embedded in my palm by now. My nails scratch at the wood as I witness him find his release—and milk it to its end, one propulsive tip of his pelvis at a time. He spills over himself.
I have never wanted to touch someone so badly.
I want it so badly, the only choice I’ve got is to stumble away from him. The messy, marvelous evidence of him, his desire, his pleasure.
It doesn’t matter. It’s no good. I already know that getting him out of my sight won’t erase him from my mind. He’s etched there now, burned into place like a brand.
***
I sleep fitfully.
For a long time, I’ve had a strategy in place to deal with my circumstances. I just fake it till I make it. That may not be novel or unique, but it’s been mostly effective.
In the harsh light of day—and in the wake of a night of tossing and turning, sweating in my sheets withskinskinskinon my mind—it’s the only thing that can get me out of bed.
I can’t handle the thought of stern-browed and stiff-lipped Oksana reappearing at my door. So I peel myself out from under the covers and beneath the scalding shower, punishing myself.
Every time I close my eyes, Iosif is there. In all his glory.
When I open them, I am haunted by the ridges of his abs glistening with—
Stop it. Stop it right now. No!
But I can’t. I can’t stop thinking about him.
