Chapter 34 Pula Monstru #2
I’d agreed that we could pretend for the night, but tomorrow things had to go back to the way they were. For her security … and for my sanity.
The door opened, and she reappeared, anticipation on her face, and a plate of fairy bread in her hands.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m starving, and this just feels like the perfect late-night snack.” She settled herself cross-legged on the bed, the plate between us. “And it’s one of the few recipes that I can pull off without a hedge.”
I jammed a piece of fairy bread into my mouth to stop myself from correcting her. I groaned, because she was right. She could pull it off.
“You really have perfected this one. I think we need to add that to your visa application. In fact, we should suggest to the government that being able to make fairy bread become a prerequisite on our citizenship test.”
She grimaced through her own mouthful. “I’m starting to get a bit worried that we haven’t heard anything back about the application.”
As if it were magnetised, my hand found her knee, and I gave her a reassuring squeeze. I let it rest there as I said. “Bureaucracy always works at a snail’s pace. But if you like, I’ll call them tomorrow and get an update.”
She rested her head against my shoulder, jaw working as she chewed. My lungs felt like they’d been inflated with helium. I wrapped an arm around her shoulders, enjoying the warmth of her against me. Enjoying even more the way she snuggled closer into me
“Is it wrong that I sort of would rather not know?” she asked, sleepiness blurring the edges of her voice. “Because if it’s bad news … it’s better to let them take their time in acting on it.”
She picked up another piece of fairy bread.
“Why didn’t you tell me that your family was a risk when we were making our list?” I asked, then immediately wished that I’d kept my unthinking mouth shut, when she stiffened and pulled away from me. She set down her nibbled bread, eyes fixed on her hands.
“I hate burdening people with my shit,” she confessed quietly.
Heart aching for her, my fingers itched to drag her back into my arms. But she’d pulled away, and I should respect her desire for space. “It’s not a burden,” I rasped instead. “You are not a burden, Irina.”
Her head lifted, her eyes, glistening with unshed tears, found mine.
“I spent all my childhood worrying about how I might be punished if I showed even the slightest sign of weakness, of … not complying with my uncle’s demands.
I taught myself to never rely on others, to keep all my worries inside.
” She rapped on her chest, and I couldn’t keep my hands to myself a moment longer.
I gripped her trembling fist in both of mine, clutching it to my chest instead.
“You don’t have to do that with me.”
She shook her head. I gripped the back of her neck, holding her face still. “I’m not kidding, Catnip. You do not have to hold onto everything yourself. I want to help you.”
She snorted, a tear slipping from her eye. “You’ve already helped me more than you ever needed to.”
I swiped that tear away with my thumb. “It’s not a need. It was never a need. I want to help you. But I can’t help you with things I don’t know. So … will they try to force you home?” I swallowed back a sudden pang of fear. “Have they already been trying?”
She shook her head. “No … Not yet anyway.”
Bogdan ‘Lupucojoc’ Rusnac would be going on my list first thing in the morning, and now that she’d told me about him, I wouldn’t feel guilty if I did some digging into him and his Clanuri Interlope.
But these were morning problems. And right now, I had her in my room, showing no sign of wanting to leave, and hours left before I needed to re-establish the rules of our arrangement.
“Can I hold you?” I asked gently. “And for the rest of the night, let’s just pretend that none of these problems exist.”
Ri nodded and wriggled her way back into my arms. I pressed a soft kiss to her forehead, and she yawned widely.
“You’re tired.” A flash of disappointment gripped me, but I held onto a tiny thread of hope as I asked, “Would you like to sleep in here tonight? With me?”
“We really are breaking the rules tonight, aren’t we?” she teased, smothering another yawn. “Fair warning; I’m terrible at personal space when I’m asleep. I’ll wind up half on top of you before morning.”
I lost all ability to speak. Instead, I silently tugged back the covers, which was more than enough of an explanation on how I felt about letting her encroach my personal space.
Her eyes found mine, the blue in them bright, conveying something that I wasn’t sure I understood.
But when she crawled into bed with me, I didn’t hesitate before I tugged her against my side, wrapping her up in my arms. She’d said earlier that she wanted the full no-rules experience. Well, so did I, and that meant holding her while she slept.
And when I woke in the dark to her sleepy kisses, and her hands trailing down my stomach, I rolled over her, swept her hair away from her face, and I revisited all the places on her body that I’d discovered earlier in the night.
We made quiet, slow, wordless love, until she was mewling under me, and I was spilling into her, and the moonlight bleached her hair silver, and set stars to sparkling in her eyes.
She was like a creature from a fantasy world who would disappear when the sun came up.
And I was terrified of the sudden realisation that I didn’t want her to disappear. Not from my bed, not from my yacht … not from my life.
But this wasn’t about me. It had never been about me. What she needed from me was something that these feelings couldn’t provide. I lay awake for a long while afterwards, her head on my chest, her leg flung over my hips, reminding myself that getting emotional about this was a recipe for failure.