CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

O skar

Oh God, this was not supposed to happen.

Dmitri was not supposed to find out.

But he knows.

I open my side of the chest of drawers and remove my pajamas. When I turn to head to the bedroom, Dmitri is beside me. I jump.

“You’ve never slept with anyone?”

I draw back, my heart thumping. “It’s not important.”

Dmitri stares at me, his dark eyes intent. “Is very important. Is your happiness.”

“Other things make me happy, Dmitri.”

“Nothing makes anyone as happy as sex, Oskar.”

“Well, I wouldn’t know anything about that.” I turn away, blinking rapidly.

“I wish you’d told me.”

“So we could have had this conversation earlier?” My voice is too high, and my fingers flutter too much.

I’m not myself.

“But now you can’t sleep with anyone,” Dmitri says. “Because you’re married to me. You don’t even have memories of sleeping with anyone.”

Nausea rises in my throat. “You’ve been distracting yourself with memories of sleeping with other people?”

Dmitri’s mouth drops, then he shakes his head. “No. I haven’t. But that doesn’t mean—”

“What? When you asked me to help you, I should have said ‘no thank you, I don’t care about your situation’ because I haven’t had sex yet and don’t want to postpone it for another year?”

Dmitri clamps his mouth shut. “I’m sorry. This is all my fault. We divorce and you’ll be twenty-four-year-old virgin.”

“I’m helping you,” I say. “That’s enough for me.”

He gives me a tender smile that makes my heart ache. Then his eyes round. “I have idea.”

“What?”

“Is good idea,” he declares.

“Okay...”

“We can have sex.”

My jaw drops. Then I realize my mistake. I misheard.

I frown. “And risk your green card application?”

“What does my green card application have to do with anything?”

Irritation moves through me.

He’s proposing this because he misses his hookups.

“It just takes a single news article to derail everything,” I say. “A single social media post.”

Understanding seems to flicker through his eyes, and for some reason his lips move upward, as if I’ve said something amusing.

I haven’t.

I’ve just reminded him that sleeping with people as a newlywed is the sort of thing that might get people to think that the marriage isn’t real, and that’s not the sort of thing I want them to think now.

“Oskar,” he says, his voice gentle.

“I’m serious,” I say. “I don’t want you to sleep with anyone else. It’s not right. I don’t want to tell you this, and yes, I do feel absolutely ridiculous, but I don’t want you to do this. I know how important staying in the US is for you, and...”

“When I said, we should have sex,” he says, his voice slow likes he’s taking to an infant in the middle of an English lesson, “I meant us. Together.”

My heart rate quickens, and I should probably say something, but I must have misheard. Because he definitely did not say that. No way.

His lips move in a sultry manner, and I can’t look at him. I am concocting things with my imagination. My brain has decided that it doesn’t like its normal life and to just instead go about and make up a brand new one.

Oh, God.

“Oskar,” Dmitri says, his voice low and way too appealing. “Don’t run.”

“But...”

“We already like kissing each other,” he says.

“We do?”

He blinks. “You don’t?”

“I-I like kissing you.” My chest tightens, and my tongue feels too thick for my mouth, but when I finally meet his eyes, they’re filled with warmth.

“Same,” he murmurs.

His voice is deep, and my cells zing, as if they want to crawl up beside him.

I stare into his eyes but then force myself to look away. My heart beats wildly, and I have to remind myself not to do something ridiculous like kiss him.

Because Dmitri is straight. And he kisses beautiful, experienced people.

He doesn’t want me. Not really. Not when no one before has claimed me.

I’m not going to make our friendship more awkward, and it’s already pretty amazingly awkward now. I’m not going to test it to the limits. I’m not going to crawl into bed with him...well, not to do anything besides actual sleeping.

I inhale. “That’s nice of you, but...”

He frowns. “No?”

My eyes widen. “No.”

He nods. “No.” Then he takes my hands and pulls me toward him. I stiffen when I realize he’s going for the bed, but when he sits down on the edge, and ushers me into his arms, I slip onto his lap.

Even now, when my heart beats like crazy and embarrassment floods my body, I still feel safest beside Dmitri. His skin warms and soothes me.

“What’s wrong, Oskar?”

“I’m embarrassed.”

He smooths my hair and tucks some strands behind my ear. “You shouldn’t be.”

“But you’ve been with so many people.”

“Is not bad to want more from people,” he says. “Is good quality, Oskar. Besides,” his voice lowers to a super sexy rumble, “I can teach you everything.”

“You’ve never slept with a guy,” I say.

“I’ll figure it out.”

I raise an eyebrow.

“I’m good with my body.”

I snort. “You probably would be incredible at it.”

Dmitri’s chest puffs out. “I know.” He kisses my temple. “You will be too. We’ll both be new at it together.”

“It’s not that easy.” I try to be stern, but I feel a smile bubbling through me despite my best efforts to restrain it. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Only with you,” Dmitri promises. “I’ll make you an expert in bed. And when you meet the man you’re really supposed to be with, you won’t be embarrassed.”

Something in his voice is wistful, but when I glance at him, he meets my eyes and smiles.

Maybe I imagined his tone.

“This sounds like a bad idea,” I say.

He shrugs. “Maybe we can take up boardgames instead.”

My nose wrinkles, and he chuckles against me.

“Is your choice, Oskar,” Dmitri says.

“But you’re straight. I don’t want you to feel sorry for me—”

“I don’t feel sorry for you,” he says.

“But I’ve never—”

He places a finger over my lips. “You are smart and handsome and well-educated and have an amazing family. You don’t have a career that’s about to end in approximately ten days.”

“But—”

“I would be absolutely lucky to make man-on-man love with you.”

“No one calls it that.”

“See, you’re already teaching me.” He pinches my cheek. “And if we don’t like it, we stop. No questions asked.”

I scrunch my lips together and stare into the middle distance.

“You can’t tell me you’re not curious.”

“I’m curious...”

His eyes darken. “Tell me to stop.”

I stare into his eyes, finding only warmth and acceptance there.

After a few moments, he kisses my neck. He’s kissed my lips before, and I’ve felt both his lips and tongue move, but he’s never kissed another area. No one has kissed another area. I shiver when he touches the thin skin, and my cells are doing their zinging thing again. Butterflies swarm my body, and my heart fights to leave my chest.

Dmitri continues to trail wet kisses down my neck, his hands moving over my body. “You smell good.”

“I used your body wash...”

He snorts. “Oh, good. It works on both of us.”

“I-I guess. I left mine in the move. I forgot it.”

“You can use my body wash, Oskar.”

“Oh?”

“Uh-huh.” Dmitri moves his kisses closer to my ear, then he captures my lobe with his teeth.

My eyes round. “Oh.”

“Feels good, huh?”

“Yeah.”

He smooths my hair with reverence, and I arch closer to his fingers.

“I’m going to make you feel so good,” he promises.

And then before I can say something silly like telling him that we don’t actually have to do this, he captures my lips with his, and we are once again kissing.

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