Jessica
The ache between my thighs is soft and steady as I sit at the dining table and eat with Rurik. It’s funny to think about what we did on this table earlier. It seems ludicrous. I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t actively taken part in it myself.
We sit and eat in comfortable silence, sharing looks over bites of steak that’s been cooked to perfection.
“I’ve sent someone to get your things,” he finally says when we push our empty plates away. “You’ll be safer here with me when the fallout around your mother begins.”
I nod, knowing he is right. The best place for me is as far away from her as possible.
“They’ve already gone back to Carson City,” he adds, watching me. I wait for the pang of disappointment that she left without trying to reach out. But it doesn’t come. That’s when I realize I don’t want her to reach out. I don’t want anything to do with her.
“What’s next?” I ask, lifting the glass of wine to my lips and taking a sip.
“You marry me, move into my home, keep living like we have done for the last—” he looks at his watch, “twenty-two hours.”
I blink. “Just like that?”
“Is there any other way?” he asks, eyebrow cocked in challenge or surprise.
“Well, I mean…”
What do I mean?
“I get that there’s obviously some wild chemistry between us. But it takes more than that to make a life together. You don’t even know anything about me. Not really.” The argument feels valid even if my words sound weak.
“I know you were raised in foster care, worked hard to get to where you are. I know you would be further ahead if it weren’t for your mother abandoning you, that you have potential to be more than she ever could be.
I know you could have easily slipped into the darkness of my world, but you managed to stay in the light of your own. ”
“And now what? I’m in your world anyway. I know what people like you do… what people like you are. I spent my life trying to keep as far away as possible.”
“And yet life brought you right to my family’s hotel, my office, my bed.
” His eyes spark, like he is enjoying this a little too much.
“Things in my world are different, and you’ve experienced that first hand.
You felt the pull, the desire, the heat, the thrill…
All of it. Are you going to sit there and tell me you’ve ever felt it with anyone else? ”
I roll my eyes because he is right. I haven’t ever felt it before, but that doesn’t mean it’s right or real.
Or does it?
“Yes, relationships are about more than mind meltingly good sex. But that’s a pretty good bonus, and we are obviously compatible. The rest will fall into place if you let it.”
“What about my work?” I ask. “I love what I do.”
“And you’re extraordinary at it. You can have the contract for the hotel, and grow from there. Which was your plan anyway.”
His hand sweeps over my cheek, then he hooks a finger under my chin and turns me to look at him fully. “Don’t be scared of the unknown, Jessica. Own the here and now. Own me. Own what I do to you, what I can do for you. Take it all and use it to grow into who you want to be.”
His mouth closes over mine, searing his words into my brain.
That’s when I know that I don’t have to know what the future holds to know I want to be standing beside him when it arrives.