Henry’s expression was dead serious. “I will. And I’ll worry until I know you’re safe back here. So…” He looked down, tracing a vein in the marble, as it wended its way towards my fingers. When my hand stopped him from tracing it further, he hooked his thumb around it, caressing back and forth along my metacarpals. “Just know I’m available, no matter what time, for anything. Okay?”
“Okay,” I managed, voice strangled with suppressed emotion. “I’d better get going; don’t want to keep Lucian waiting.”
I allowed myself one moment of weakness … I wound my fingers through his for a brief second before I tugged my hand free and escaped.
“I swear, that man is such a worrywart!” Kat complained after hanging up on Sir Dom. She collapsed onto the floor beside the coffee table, grabbed a bottle of my nail polish and propped her foot up, wriggling her toes as she shook the glittery bottle.
“He cares about you.”
She snorted. “He cares about not impregnating me. I had to explain to him that my period-less state is because of the pill, not pregnancy.”
I sighed. “The fact that he thought hard enough about your menstrual cycle, or lack thereof, to put two and two together tells me that you’re on his mind … all the time. You get it girl!” I snapped my fingers and winked at her.
Kat guffawed. “Well, it’ll be time soon enough for me to schedule in a red week, and I’m going to have to avoid him.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
Kat eyed me incredulously. “Because I’ll be a bleeding, emotional demon, that’s why! He doesn’t need to see me like that.”
“My darling Kat, if he can’t handle you at your worst, then he’s not the one.”
“Are you telling me I should use my period as a test to see how he handles me?” Kat asked, mildly horrified.
I shrugged. “Not a test. But it’s part of life, and if he … if he really loves you, he’ll handle the hard stuff, as well as the easy.”
“Firstly, who are you and what have you done with Irina ‘keep it casual and sexy’ Rusnac?” Kat unscrewed the lid on the bottle and started in on her big toenail, cheeks pink. “Secondly … love? This isn’t love. This is a sexy situationship that works for both of us right now.” But her hands shook, and she smeared purple glitter nail polish across her toe.
I slid off the lounge and onto the floor beside her, taking the bottle and brush. Cleaning off the mess with a makeup round, I said softly, “It’s alright to admit that it might be deeper than that, Kat.”
She sucked in a shuddering breath. “Okay, maybe I might be getting in deep with him, but we haven’t had that conversation yet, and I’m terrified to be the one to bring it up. What if he thinks I’m being ridiculous? What if it’s just about the sex for him, and honestly, I couldn’t fault him if it were, because holy hell, Ri! It’s … filthy hot, but also the most intimate I’ve ever been with a man.”
My throat felt thick suddenly. I’d had loads of filthy hot sex in my life, but it had never felt intimate. And often it had been less fulfilling than I’d hoped. With Henry … I hadn’t needed the filthy for it to be hot. And intimacy?
I felt it in every brush of his lips on my hair. Every graze of his knuckles on my cheek. Every word that left his mouth that showed he cared about me.
Pizda. I had no right to lecture Kat on talking to Sir Dom about love when I was too much of againato have the same conversation with Henry.
“Hello? Earth to Irina?”
I blinked. “Huh?”
“Where did you go just now?”
I sighed, focusing on her toes. “Deep into my own head.”
“Are you going to give me a hint about what you found in there?”
“Chicken feathers.” I managed a snicker at my own stupid joke.
“How’s the Trickle stuff going?” Kat asked.
“It’s Tickle, and I haven’t posted much for a few weeks. I’ve beenbusy.” I hadn’t posted because I couldn’t bring myself to film my explicit stuff. Not only did the thought of fantasising about Henry to get off for my followers feel like I was somehow betraying him … I suddenly found the idea of putting myself on display like that a total turn off. I didn’t want anyone watching me climaxing.
Well, anyone except Henry.
I was completely screwed.
“Busy doing what?” Kat demanded. “All this secret squirrel business that you refuse to tell your best friend about?”
