23 #2
I press my lips together, feeling those pangs of jealousy again.
Then I ignore him as he goes to the bathroom and turn my back on that door, pretending to be asleep.
When he returns to the bedroom and approaches me, I have to make an effort not to open my eyes and control my breathing as he begins to slowly caress my face.
Until he reaches my lips. He stops abruptly, then he brings his lips close to my head, keeping them there as he breathes me in.
I don’t know when I actually fall asleep, but I do know that it’s quite late when I wake up.
Even though it’s dark, I can see through the windows that there’s no one else in the room.
I bite the inside of my cheek, debating whether I should go out and look for him or just keep sleeping.
I doubt I’ll be able to get back to sleep, so I quickly go down to the main room.
I frown when I don’t find anyone. I keep walking until I see a shadow coming from a terrace.
Without hesitation, I go there, stepping through the doorway with almost silent steps and breathing in the fresh night air.
For a few seconds, I stand there watching his silhouette.
He is shirtless and wearing loose gray pants as he smokes a cigarette.
He looks like an angel from hell. He seems so lost in thought that he doesn’t notice I’m behind him.
“Hello.”
“Are you okay?” He asks, turning his body toward me. I can only focus on his chest and his tattoos, lowering my gaze to his perfect navel. I swallow hard, thinking about how I’d like to run my fingers over it again. Or maybe somewhere else. “Lyubov’?” I blink, raising my eyes to his smirk.
“Yes, I… I just woke up and didn’t know where you were,” I murmur, looking away with some embarrassment. Suddenly, it’s very hot.
“Sorry. I can’t sleep.”
“Why?” He looks at me with pursed lips, putting out his half-smoked cigarette and tucking it behind his ear.
“I don’t want to talk about it now.”
“What do you want to talk about?” My question seems to take him by surprise. “I’m not sleepy either, and I can’t think of anything better to do right now.” Or maybe I do.
He stares at me for a long time with a strange gleam in his eyes.
Then he sits down on a sofa I hadn’t noticed before.
I sit down next to him, not too close. His attentive gaze already makes me nervous enough to sit closer to him.
We sit there admiring the sky in pleasant silence.
He’s one of those people you can spend hours and hours with in silence without needing to bring up a topic of conversation to make yourself look good.
“Ask me questions. You said you didn’t trust me, so I want you to ask me questions,” he clarifies in response to my silence. I could start by asking what his favorite positions are. I murmur to myself, forcing myself to focus on squeezing my thighs together and not on his crotch.
“What do your tattoos mean?” I ask, trying hard not to stare at his abdomen any longer than necessary. He parts his lips as if to say something, but closes them again.
“Many things.”
“This one here?” I point to the flower on his chest. It’s not very big. Next to it is a scorpion, both surrounded by letters I can’t read.
“What keeps me alive,” he says, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “It’s my favorite.” He holds my waist and lets me sit on his lap, burying his nose in my messy hair.
“You must really like flowers…” I whisper, ignoring the fact that he has started sniffing my neck as if it were some kind of drug.
When he lets out a low moan, he digs his nails into my hips.
“It’s like the one on my pendant,” I add, glancing down at my chest. He lifts his head and nods slowly. “Did you give it to me?”
“Maybe,” he says with a barely visible smile.
“That’s not an answer,” I complain, pursing my lips.
“If I hadn’t given it to you, I would have had to hunt down the son of a bitch who dared to give it to you and rip his guts out.” His smile fades and his hoarse voice makes no effort to hide his threat. That makes my heart stop beating for a second.
“What if it was a girl?” I whisper, unable to look him in the eye. For some strange reason, that seems to piss him off even more, but it’s too late to regret what I said when his warm breath hits my shoulder as he speaks.
“I don’t care what that person has between their legs. You’re mine, and therefore it’s my duty to shower you with gifts. No one else’s.” Him being so close makes it really difficult for me to remember what he just said without stopping to breathe. “What else do you want to know?”
“What’s your favorite colour?” I murmur in a vague attempt to distract myself.
“Green.”
“I thought it was black.”
“I prefer green to any other color,” he says. I refocus on the cigarette behind his ear, resisting the urge to rub against his leg like a cat in heat.
“May I?” I ask, pointing at the cigarette with my eyes, wanting to distract my dirty thoughts with something else.
I thought he would give it to me, but instead he takes a long drag, opens my lips by pressing my cheeks with his fingers, and exhales the smoke into my mouth, almost making me choke on it.
His crooked smile has me on the verge of a heart attack.
I divert my attention to the starry sky when he takes another drag.
I shake my head when he gives me a questioning look, asking if I want another drag.
He exhales again, lifting his head slightly and parting his lips.
Since when did smoking become so attractive?
“I have another question.” He nods, turning his attention to me. “What are your intentions with me? Be honest,” my voice comes out more forcefully than I intended, but I don’t care too much. He now looks at me as if I had said the most ridiculous thing in the world.
“You’re my wife, Lena. What intentions do you want me to have with you?”