13. Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Thirteen
Pasha
T he silence in the car was heavy. It was foolish to have suggested that we take off like two fugitives from the tour.
I had no idea how I would survive the next seven weeks of close contact with Alyssa without being as close as my body craved.
For the entire dance session, I’d been semi-hard, so aware of her I hadn’t picked up the count as quickly as I’d have liked.
“Where are we going?” she asked, breaking the quiet.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. We’d been driving for fifteen minutes, far enough that no one from the tour would be close by. Any farther and we really would be running away because I wasn’t sure we’d have time to eat and get back before my guarding shift started.
“How about there?” She pointed at a popular chain attached to a hotel.
I signaled and drove into the parking lot.
A hotel . Attached to the restaurant.
My mind was going places it shouldn’t, and I wondered if hers was too. An hour alone with her in a hotel room. We didn’t need to eat. We could feast on each other.
Could I ask her ?
The same problems existed, the possibility of putting everyone in an awkward position, of Alyssa or me getting fired.
This new HR company was even stricter than Laura had been about workers fraternizing, and even though I knew the rules, I hadn’t considered that risk seriously enough earlier.
I’d been sure I could keep this fire between us from raging out of control.
On top of that, Alyssa could lose the last ten years of credibility in the industry if Mia fired her.
I closed my eyes. I couldn’t ask, suggest, imply. Unfair to ask. Completely unfair.
She hadn’t gotten out of the car, and when I dared to make eye contact, I saw my own tortured thoughts reflected in her gaze.
“We have seven weeks until the wedding,” she whispered. “Five more weeks on tour. We might never see each other again afterward.”
“You could lose your job.”
“Only if someone finds out. If Mia is forced to make a choice.”
“Too risky.” I shook my head even as my resolve wavered. If she pushed, I’d cave. What I wanted and what I knew to be right were at war.
“We’d have to be careful for five weeks. Just five weeks. Once the tour is done, once we’re prepping for the wedding, no one will care anymore.”
The clock on the dash turned over, and my decision was clear, had been clear from the minute I’d realized the hotel was attached.
So simple. So easy. So dangerous.
“If we’re caught, I’ll tell Mia to fire me. I won’t let it be you.”
Alyssa stared in silence, and then she undid her seat belt, crawled into my lap, and straddled my waist. I got lost in the soulful depths of her eyes, a strange calmness settling at the decision we were making.
If we were caught, I’d survive. Maybe I’d have to return to Russia, but I’d have enough money that going back wouldn’t be a financial hardship.
I’d miss Mia, Tyler, and Victoria, but I couldn’t reject this sliver of something more with Alyssa.
I’d never craved anyone like I craved her.
“You’d do that for me?” Her voice caught on the last word.
“Yes.” There wasn’t a doubt in my mind.
“I didn’t know men like you existed.” She framed my face and kissed me, kissed me in a way I hadn’t felt from her before.
There was desire, like always, but it felt as though she was pouring herself into me, giving me a piece of herself she’d been holding back. I gripped her hips, securing her tight, letting her feel how sure I was about her, about this moment, about whatever came after.
“If we don’t go in,” I said between kisses, “we’ll be put in jail for having sex in the parking lot.”
She laughed and popped open my door, almost falling off me and onto the ground. I caught her, steadying her.
“I feel drunk,” she said.
“It’s the poor decision-making.” I smiled to take the sting from my words.
She smacked my arm and then grabbed my hand and led me toward the hotel portion of the building instead of the restaurant.
“It’s nice to know I can make bad decisions drunk or sober.
They always have something to do with men, though.
I should really pay attention to this pattern.
” Her tone was teasing, but I wondered if there was a grain of truth underneath.
If a part of her knew we were headed for trouble. Secrets rarely stayed secret.
At the front desk, I paid for our room, and she kept her arms wrapped around my middle, as though she was worried I’d change my mind and bolt.
There was no turning back. If we both wanted this, needed this connection, I’d take the fall if it came to that.
I hoped I never had to find out what Mia would do.
She took her contracts seriously—had to with the number of people she employed.
She’d hired the HR company to avoid favoritism, to ensure consistency in hiring and firing procedures.
I grabbed a room-service menu, took her hand, and led her down the first-floor hall. As soon as our door was open, our lips found each other, hungry, insatiable. I pressed her against the wall, and her purse hit the floor with a thud.
She sighed into my mouth, and then her stomach rumbled so loudly I wasn’t sure what it was at first.
“You’re hungry.” I buried my head in her neck, trying to get myself under control. Food. She had to prep for the show almost as soon as we got back. I couldn’t watch her on stage later if I knew I’d caused her to starve to satisfy my hunger.
She guided my face back to hers, and our lips collided again. “Ignore it,” she said between kisses.
The room-service menu had fluttered to the floor, and I broke the kiss to collect it, gathering some willpower in the process. “First this,” I said, passing her the menu. “Then this.” I gave her a peck on the lips and headed for the phone. “Pick something.”
“Burger and fries.” She tossed the menu beside the TV without looking at it and wandered over to stand between my legs.
I picked up the phone and dialed room service. She undid my jeans, slid a hand under my boxers, and palmed the hard length, stroking slow but firm.
I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate long enough to order us the same thing. As soon as the phone was back on the receiver, she pressed a finger into my chest, and I collapsed backward on the bed with a grin .
“How long?” She crawled up my body and hovered over me, her lips inches from mine.
“Twenty minutes.”
“I can work with that.”
Then we were swept away in a haze of desire, all the pent-up frustrations from the last two weeks released on each other in a torrent of sighs, moans, and gasps. Almost twenty minutes later, when she came apart on top of me, I’d never loved my name more.
I fed her a french fry off the plate between us on the bed. I’d polished off my food while she’d been talking about her childhood. “All your best memories are from dancing?”
“All the best ones.” She cut her burger in half and passed me some. “What about you?”
“My best memories?”
“As a kid, yeah.”
“Playing hockey on a frozen lake in my town.”
“On a lake?”
Wasn’t that what it would be called? Sometimes my English words got a little muddled. “Maybe a…” I searched for the word. “Pond?”
“Wasn’t it cold?”
“Very cold. But no such thing as too cold. Only bad clothing.” I took a bite of the burger she offered.
“Do you miss it? Russia, I mean.”
While I chewed, I considered her question.
I missed my family, but I didn’t miss the life I’d had there.
Zoya and Russia were linked in my mind. Returning might slice open the wound.
So I hadn’t. Each year, I paid for a different family member to visit for a few weeks, get a taste of America. “Sometimes.”
“I miss my sister, and we still live in the same country.”
“She lives far from you?”
Alyssa dipped a french fry in ketchup. “No, not too far. But she’s not…” She took a deep breath. “The guy she’s with isn’t good for her. I barely recognize her.” A wry smile crossed her face. “The curse of the Miller women. Doomed to love bad men.”
“That’s what you think?”
She finished chewing and said, “Yeah, I guess. My dad was emotionally distant. Good enough, as a dad. I think Olivia and I have been seeking something we can’t find.
We pick emotionally distant men over and over.
” She dipped another french fry and held it suspended over the plate.
“Even you. You’re one of the good ones, but you’re not exactly emotionally available.
Still miles better than any other man I’ve slept with. Don’t worry.”
Her words caused a knot to form in my chest. Was I emotionally distant? I didn’t think of myself like that, but even with the therapy I’d had, Zoya’s memory laid like a thin blanket. “I’m sorry,” I murmured.
“You don’t need to be sorry. The sex is great. I can’t fault you there.” She shrugged. “You still love her.” Her voice had grown thick, and she cleared her throat. “I think it’s beautiful to know a man can love like that.”
The realization that she’d never experienced the right kind of love from a man was painful. I wished I could give that to her .
“You don’t have to feel sorry for me,” she said, as though reading my mind. “It’s comforting, actually, to know men like you exist. Gives me something to aspire to.”
“Have you loved a man like that?”
She scrunched up her face and picked at what was left of her burger on the plate. “I’ve told men I loved them. I mean, I’ve exchanged those words with a few guys. And I thought I meant them at the time, but I don’t know if I ever felt them. You know? In my soul.” She touched her chest.
I did know. The words and feelings had been branded on me with Zoya.
Being with anyone else, loving anyone else had been ludicrous.
How could I? She’d owned me completely. “I hope you find it.” Even as I said the words, my gut twisted.
Someday, someone else would have her like this, have more of her than I was getting.
The thought caused a spike of possessiveness, and I moved the plate from the middle of the bed onto the nightstand.
“What are you doing?” She laughed, her dark eyes lighting with amusement tinged with desire. “We only have ten minutes before we need to leave.”
My grin was wicked. “I only need five. Three for you, two for me.”
“You can get me off in three minutes?” She wrapped her arms around my neck, shuffling closer under the covers.
“As you Americans say, piece of pussy.”
Alyssa burst out laughing. “That’s not what we say. It’s cake. Piece of cake.”
“Cake. Pussy.” I threw back the covers, parted her legs, and flicked my tongue along her core. “I eat it all.”
“Jesus, I think I just came,” she breathed, clutching my biceps .
“Has to be a record. Should I call Guinness?”
“You got them on speed dial, big boy?”
I settled between her legs. “Not yet. Let the games begin,” I murmured before I covered her with my mouth.