“I’m sorry,” she tells us.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “Dima never would’ve let this go.”
“No, I wouldn’t have,” he agrees. With a very big smile on his face, he leans back in so Allie’s face is close to his. “Why didn’t you just tell me you burnt your ass, Allie cat?”
“Because my ass is none of your business,” she growls back at him.
“Everything is my business,” he says before standing back up and heading towards his bike.
“You sure you can ride, tomato ass?” Misha asks me.
I groan at what I hope is a very short-term nickname. “Please don’t call me that, and I’m fine. I can ride.”
Yuri steps up beside me. “Why are you trying to tan your ass anyway? No one is going to be seeing it.”
“Fuck no, they’re not,” our older brother agrees.
“Stop talking about my ass,” I tell them as I push by and walk to my bike, more than ready to start the thing back up so I can drown out all their voices.
Before I start it up, I can’t resist the urge to look over at Damien. With his helmet and goggles on, I can’t see his face in the dark, but he’s staring right at me. I have no doubt that my face is the exact shade of tomato red as my ass right now.
When the others start taking off, I race after them, wanting to disappear into the forest as quickly as possible. On the plus side, it looks like I’ll definitely get to keep Damien’s shirt because there’s no way in hell I can face him again tonight.
Chapter 7
Damien
It’s been five days since the ride in the woods, and I’m not sure if it’s because she’s avoiding me or if it just happened to work out like this. Ev is thrilled that we haven’t been woken up at dawn to go surfing, but it worries me, makes me think that maybe it’s because she just doesn’t want to see me.
Max finds me sitting in one of their lounge chairs that overlooks the ocean and takes the seat next to me. He’s been gone all day, and he looks exhausted when I turn my head to see him.
As if he can read my mind, he says, “They’ve been busy. Some shit happened in the city that needed to be taken care of.”
He doesn’t elaborate on what exactly that shit was, and I don’t ask. I’d never make him choose his loyalty like that. Medvedev business is none of my concern, so when I just nod and rest my head back again, he does the same and we sit in silence for several minutes, both of us watching the sun start to set. The wind is still cool, and when I slip a hand into my hoodie’s front pocket, the image of Sitka wearing the one I lent her fills my mind. God, she’d looked sexy, standing in front of me, looking so small in my shirt while her grey eyes stayed locked on mine.
I’ve never wanted to kiss someone so badly in my life.
There’s a lot I want to do to her, and thanks to Dima, I now have visions of her laying out with her bikini bottoms wedged up her ass, both cheeks on full display, slowly turning a beautiful shade of red. I wonder if they’re still red or if they’ve turned to the same golden-brown shade of her tanned arms.
I’d give just about anything to find out.
“Volodya can be a little overprotective,” Max eventually says, ignoring the huff of a laugh I give at the understatement. “When there’s even a hint of danger, he usually puts her on lockdown. I’m sure she’ll visit as soon as she can get away.”
“She pretty much spent that whole family supper reading,” I say, a gentle reminder to us both that I’m not the kind of guy she’d be in to if she knew the truth.
Undeterred, Max says, “And you didn’t. From what I could see, she didn’t seem to care that you hadn’t brought along a book of your own.”
“It’s more than that,” I tell him, “and you know it. Most guys don’t carry a book around with them like that, but it’s not a big deal because they could easily read one if they wanted to.”
Irritation runs through me, that antsy, pissed-off feeling I always get when I think about my brain’s inability to process letters like everyone else.
“I don’t want to talk about this,” I tell him.
He gives me the same respect I gave him earlier by not pressing the issue. Instead, he lets out a loud whistle, and when Wallace comes running over with his orange tennis ball, Max praises him and then throws it into the yard.
“Where’s Ev,” he asks after he’s thrown the ball several times.
“Studying,” I say, “because he just can’t help himself.”
