“Is it because Mama was there?” I squeaked, afraid I’d crack, and then it wouldn’t stop, and I would be ugly and puffy-eyed on top of being unwanted for the rest of the day.
“No,” he said. “You’ll understand someday.”
“Will I?” I snapped, the anger coming on so unexpectedly that it couldn’t have been anything but the cumulative frustration of his telling me nothing for months. Nothing. I wanted to yell, maybe even slap him if I was feeling dramatic. But he held me tightly, not allowing me to turn around to face him.
After a pause, he said, “Trust.”
And that was all I got on the subject, but he didn’t let me mope in peace.
He stayed until evening, not quite late enough to count as overnight in Mama’s eyes, but late enough that she’d already put Maxim to bed and retired to her bedroom to read questionable novellas with shirtless, long-haired men on the covers.
I turned off the lights, leaving only the speckled green and red bulbs glowing on the tree. The glass ornaments amplifiedtheir reflection into something brilliant dispersing among the branches. Vitali sat on the floor, leaning against the blanket-covered radiator with his long legs stretched out before him, leaving hardly any room for me. One might think it was intentional, because when I moved to sit beside him, he caught a hold of my waist, and his hand clamped tight against my mouth to stifle the yelp as he wrestled(ha!)me down.
The floor shuttered, and the ornaments softly clinked as they swayed. I tried to hide my laughter as he rolled on top, hovering above me braced only by a knee and his forearm. A handful of fir needles stuck in the fine fibers of his sweater, and in his hair. I unconsciously reached to pick them out, but paused, my hand less than a centimeter from his cheek. Everything went still, broken only by the twinkling lights and soft hiss of the bundled radiator.
The way his eyes were on me, and only me, brought warmth to my cheeks. But after what happened, I didn’t want to risk touching and having him recoil. My heart could not handle any more that day.
We were motionless, and then he broke his gaze away, letting his eyes drift to his hand over my lips. He wasn’t quick to let go, moving his thumb against the swell of them instead—unhurriedly dragging my red lipstick until his fingers firmly cupped my jaw.
He took in a slow, uneven breath as his thumb pressed to the corner of my mouth, forcing my lips to part. I let my eyes drift closed, and he let out a single ragged breath, the kind that breaks all restraint in a man.
And rolled onto his back.
Vitali tucked an arm under his head, adamantly staring at the ceiling. He did not blink once as I propped myself up on an elbow, lightly touching my cheekwhere I could feel the gritty texture of the smeared Dark Cherry No4 I put on that day.
I didn’t mean to—but my eyes flickered down to the denim pulled taut against his inner thigh. It caught me off-guard, as if I was a school girl who had never seen a cock before.
God—but why was my heartbeat in my throat.
He wasn’t fully hard, but the fabric struggled against his size. Thick, and so terrifyingly proportional to the rest of him.
He exhaled through his nose, and I snapped my attention back to his face before he caught me admiring the way his pants bulged.
God forbid. Katya wasn’t supposed to be this girl. But I was.
“Swallow,” he murmured.
I choked. “What?”
“The chocolates,” he said, giving a light nod.
I followed his eyes. Little gold wrappers with purple swallows in flight. He freed a hand from beneath his head and plucked one off the fir branches above us.
“I liked these when I was a kid,” he said, working the twisted wrapper open between his thumb and index finger. “Didn’t see a lot of candy.”
Instead of popping it into his mouth, he held it out to me. The thing was hardly bigger than a pinkie.
“Ey,” he grunted when I reached for it. “Half.”
I held the laugh in my throat, my body shaking from the efforts, as I struggled to break it in two while he held on to the other end. I succeeded, but it was smeared all over our fingers and could hardly be called chocolate anymore.
“You can pick one next, Kotik,” he said, gazing across the edible ornaments. “I know you don’t like chocolate.”
I scooted closer to get a better vantage point. Many of the good ones were gone, courtesy of Maxim.
“Are the swallows the ones you liked best?” I asked.
“I don’t know. It’s what I had.”
