22. Mara
22
MARA
I swallow to soothe the dryness of my throat when Ark’s long steps veer us past Veronika’s room. There wasn’t an ounce of deceit in his tone when he said she had left this morning. However, I’m still shocked to see her room is empty. All the designer dresses she picked last week are gone, and the vanity mirror the cleaning staff wipes down every morning doesn’t have a speck of the compact powder that gives her skin a luminous shine.
Even the hundreds of boxes of shoes once stacked on the far left of her room have been removed.
For someone who packed in such a hurry that she forgot her favorite makeup, she must have had an army at her beck and call to gather the rest of her belongings. They cleared out the equivalent of a boutique store in under two hours.
That’s an impressive record.
My heart flips when Ark’s long strides continue until we enter his bedroom. Since it is the furthest from the den and always meticulously cleaned before I arrive for my shift, this is the first time I’ve been here in over two weeks.
It smells different from what it did back then, more feminine than mannish. The girlie palette would flip my stomach with unease if some of it didn’t register as familiar.
Ark is still using my shampoo.
The air that wafts up when he places me on the mattress and stuffs a pillow under my ankle announces this without a doubt, not to mention my quickest peek into his bathroom when he pushes the door wide open to wordlessly assure me there are more exits than people capable of blocking them.
Multiple unused bottles of my favorite shampoo are on the vanity, waiting for him.
As my eyes track Ark to the built-in bar to gather ice in a washcloth, I say, “You don’t need to bother. My ankle d-doesn’t hurt.”
He ignores me. It seems to be his go-to defense mechanism of late.
Silent and brooding are my favorite words to describe his personality over the past two weeks. Teasing is another, but that is reserved for the brief touches he rewards me with when no one is looking, and the longing stares he bombards me with when a dozen people separate us.
I hiss for a completely different reason than pain when Ark places a makeshift ice pack on my ankle. It is freezing, and the coolness of the droplets rolling down my foot and soaking into his bedding makes me yelp.
“Hush,” Ark says, his quirked lips softening the snap of his reply. “The colder the compress, the less chance of inflammation. Rest, ice, compression”—he squeezes the washcloth around my ankle during his last word—“and elevation. All standard first-aid treatment for an acute injury.”
“I wouldn’t say my injury is a-acute.”
I unknowingly walk straight into his trap. “But you admit you’re injured?”
“That isn’t what I meant,” I say with a laugh, grateful for the return of his deeply guarded nurturing side. “You’re twisting my words.”
“Am I, Mara?” I love how he says my name, and not even the tiredness of a long week can conceal that. “Because they sound crystal clear to me.”
It takes me a moment to realize what he is saying.
When it clicks, I’m gobsmacked.
I didn’t stutter again.
This is only the second time in over a decade my vocals haven’t displayed nerves while speaking with the opposite sex.
While grinning about my bewilderment, Ark attempts to cut the invisible rope binding us together. “Rest in here for as long as you need. Once the swelling goes down enough you feel confident putting pressure on your ankle, I’ll organize for someone to take you home. You can start fresh again next Monday.”
My worried gasp reduces the length of his strides.
“Next Monday?” I don’t wait for him to answer me. “I can’t take a w-week off.”
I’m not stuttering because I am nervous. I am stammering because I fear not having enough funds to pay for the groceries I’ll need to purchase since I will miss out on a week of Ark’s generosity.
The food he sends home with me each day doesn’t solely feed Tillie and me. It also feeds Mrs. Lichard and a handful of elderly residents who can’t afford both surging rent prices and food.
I could try to stretch my wages to cover some basic necessities for my neighbors, but I don’t want to do that to Mrs. Lichard. For years, she refused payment for watching Tillie before and after school. Supplying her with some groceries is the least I can do for all the help she’s given me over the past six years. I don’t want to pull back on purchases just as her pantry is starting to look not so empty.
“I c-can work. My ankle is fine.”
A sob involuntarily leaves my lips when I slip off Ark’s bed. The ice seems to have aggravated my injury, or perhaps the tightness of my one-size-too-small shoe was acting as a compression. My ankle is now swollen like a balloon and extremely tender.
“Sit before you hurt yourself more.” Ark’s bossy demeanor should scare me senseless, but I find it as endearing as his handsome face. “Bed. Now.” He lifts me like a child and places me back onto the mattress before he wedges his pillow under my foot. “If you move again, I’ll tie you to the headboard myself.”
Heat floods my veins when images Mrs. Orlov assures me that I have no right to conjure roll through my head. Ark’s fingers. His tongue. Those chunky, kissable lips. I imagine them in places they have no right to be— again —and the furious hotness they trigger have me grateful for the coolness of the ice pack he returns to my ankle.
“Hush,” Ark murmurs again, mistaking my whimper as one of pain. “I won’t hurt you.”
His breath quivers in our shared air since he stands mere inches from me when I whisper, “I know.”
As his throat works hard to swallow, his hand lifts a fraction higher. It lingers on a teasing portion of my thigh the immodest hem of my uniform can’t conceal before he locks his eyes with mine.
He stares at me for several heart-thrashing seconds, taking in my parted lips, the rosiness of my cheeks, and my dilated eyes before the corner of his mouth hitches.
I suck in a desperate breath, my heart racing, when his spare hand moves for my face. This time, I don’t flinch. I don’t even blink for fear of giving him the wrong impression. I return his heated stare as he forces a felonious hair back into line before I breathe through the sensation of the back of his fingers trekking down my cheek.
Again, a touch so simple shouldn’t cause such a wild response, but there’s no denying the inferno raging through my stomach when his fingers’ focus shifts to my mouth. The burn makes me squirm and has me wishing he’d move his other hand up a few more inches.
My nipples bud when his head tilts, and then I hold my breath. His closeness is too much to bear. He’s so beautiful, so controlled, yet clearly unhinged to mistake me as a precious gem.
Can he not see my cracked insides? His mother is skilled at unearthing them. The way she cornered me today and gave me the dressing down of my life is why I scaled a ladder outside working hours.
She was extremely clear with her message that I am using her son’s “childhood hang-ups” to wriggle my way into his life, and that she won’t leave Myasnikov until he sees me for who I truly am.
Since Ark has been more stressed since her arrival, I’ve contemplated telling him everything.
A purge is as good as a vacation, right?
When I gasp for air, my lungs never a willing participant when thoughts of my past creep up on me, Ark says, “Breathe, Mara.”
My chest shakes as I draw in a big breath. It thrusts out my breasts and tightens my uniform around my nipples, making their erect state painfully obvious.
A low hum sounds from the back of Ark’s throat. I don’t know if it is his unvoiced approval of my submissiveness or because he’s noticed how firmly my nipples are budded.
I go for the latter when he murmurs, “Good girl.”
I lick my lips, the heat his rumble caused too intense to ignore. We’re so near that my body feels every delicious thud of his pulse. The heat and hunger radiating between us is the equivalent of a dangerous inferno. I am burning up everywhere.
Needing to center myself, I close my eyes.
With one sense down, the other four take up its slack. I hear Ark’s swallow and the movements of his eyes as he drags them over my face, and taste his smell.
God, he smells good.
The femininity of my shampoo does little to regulate the sheer masculinity that bores down on me when I’m no longer capable of fighting the urge to tilt nearer to him.
Just his breaths on my cheek instigate a rush of excitement. I’d give anything to feel the full, throaty rasp of his voice floating over the sensitive regions of my body again.
The thought makes me tremble.
My eyes flutter open when Ark whispers, “It’s almost too much. Having you here. In my bed. Smelling like this.” Everything outside his room ceases to exist when he adjusts the collar of my uniform, his fingertips floating over my collarbone. “It is almost too much.”
My throat is burning so much that it is an effort to get my words out, but I manage—just. “Then I’ll go.”
“No,” he spits out, gently pushing back on my shoulder. His expression is complex, and his eyes are narrow. “My threat is still valid, Mara. I will tie you to my bed if that is the only way you’ll learn to sit still for two damn seconds.”
“You just said you don’t want me here.” I’ve never once in my life snapped at anyone like this, but I can’t hold back. “But you won’t let me go. You’re confusing me, Ark. I don’t know w-what you want.”
“I want you!” Inky-black hair curtains his face when he shoves his hands into his pockets, and he twists away from me. “But having you could come at a cost greater than anyone could ever imagine.” He turns to face me, the fury in his eyes lessening when he notices my bewilderment. “I can’t do that to you. I just can’t.”
“Do what to me?”
I feel the inexplicable pull that forever overwhelms me when he is near growing as intently as the hurt in his eyes when he says, “You’re a mother, Mara. You have a child.” It isn’t hatred for Tillie in his eyes when he continues. It’s admiration. “A precious daughter you’re meant to protect from the monsters of the world.” The animosity I was seeking earlier fills his eyes as he mutters, “From monsters like me.”
The sound he makes when he races through his bedroom door is pained, as tormented as the hiss that whistles between my teeth when I try to go after him and fail.
My ankle could bear my weight. I didn’t lie when I said it was more uncomfortable than painful. I’m just not brave enough right now to pretend it can.