“That dirty mouth is a sign you’ve been spending too much time with Yuri if there ever was one.”
Now Aleksandr is really staring at my mouth. I take another sip of the beer and his eyes never leave my lips.
Maybe that’s what gives me the confidence. Maybe it’s Vera’s theory that he does like me.
“Dirty mouth, huh?”
Something flickers across Aleksandr’s face and he takes a step closer.
“Filthy.”
I think I know what this is.I don’t think I’m misreading the situation.
I tilt my chin up to Aleksandr and pray that he closes the distance between us.
He grabs the beer back and takes a sip. When he speaks, his voice is low and rough, rumbling deep in his throat.
“Are the rumors true, princess?”
He doesn’t flinch away from my gaze the way that I always shrink from his. He meets my eyes with steadiness as though he’d been waiting for me to look at him like this.
“Is it your first time?”
My heart races at the implication behind his statement. That this could be my first time.
I search his gaze to detect whether Aleksandr is joking. As always, he’s unreadable, the midnight-blue depths endless.
He sets the beer bottle down and steps closer, close enough that I can feel the heat of his body. I place one shaking hand on his chest to steady myself.
I’m surprised by how solid he is, how dense, as though he’s a marble sculpture instead of a man.
“Is it?” His touch is light, his rough fingers trailing over my shoulder, along my collarbone. A shiver follows.
It’s obvious, isn’t it?
I worry that it’s a problem. That he won’t want me if he knows that I’m deficient, that I’m not a proper Russian woman who’s sexually fluent and knows all the tricks that can please a man. I have only the vaguest idea of what might be involved.
Aleksandr wraps a strand of my hair around his finger, his eyes fixed on me. He likes to play with my hair and I allow myself to relax into the soothing touch.
“Natalia? I asked you a question. Is this yourfirst time?”
My eyes jolt back to his. Sucked in by his mysteriously intent gaze.
He said my name. He didn’t call me princess. There’s no mocking edge to his voice, no sharpness in his tone. He used my name.
“I’ve never… Never.”
“Never, never?” The mocking tone returns but it’s not cold. His eyes crinkle at the edges and he cups my chin, his hand swallowing most of my neck in the process. “You’re pure as the driven snow,zolotse.”
If only he knew. I’m staring at his mouth now, the cupid’s bow of his lips, and I’m wondering if it would be painfully obvious that I have only ever kissed him, at the wedding.
The problem is that I can’t think about anything else when Aleksandr is this close to me. He’s so close that I can feel his body-heat, like a furnace, and imagine the beat of his heart in that broad chest.
For a second, I think he is about to kiss me, his hand stilling on my chin and his eyes turning serious. He pulls back and traces one inked finger over the curve of my lips.
My stomach buzzes with anticipation. I’ve heard about butterflies but this feels more like a beehive, the sensation as dangerous and unpredictable as it is irresistible.
“Open.”
