Page 25 of Conceal

From here, though, she can’t see my back.

It feels like an eternity while her hand roams, and she inspects my ink. I suck in a gasp when she wraps a hand around my wrist and lifts it to drag her other fingers over my ribs. It fucking tickles.

Finally, she drops my arm and blinks up at me, confused. I don’t know what to tell her. I know she wants an answer, but the past decade of loving her in secret... how can I have words for that? How can I admit that every date that I wished her luck on hurt me so badly that I used pain to escape the possibility of losing her? Even if I knew that I would happily miss her for the rest of my life if it meant she got everything she wanted.

Guilt floods me, and I look down, hunching my shoulders in on myself. I feel like I’ve betrayed her. I may not have lied to her outright, but I’ve been wearing a lie of omission like a blanket.

Her jaw ticks. Angry Tati. I deserve this.

“What is this, Mik?” she asks, her voice quiet and just for us. I don’t want to do this with an audience, but Roman and Lev make no attempt to move.

Do I lie more? Tell her it’s nothing. That I just like her artwork? Or do I pour my heart out and hope she doesn’t kick me out? I want to be here for her, even if I can’t have her the way that I want.

I shrug miserably - unable to lie to her more, and also unwilling to tell her the truth.

She taps my pec, the one with the hands. “I drew this in high school,” she whispers. I think she’s trying to figure out what all this means, especially when I’m not giving her a direct answer.

“I know,” I say quietly.

Blue eyes find mine again. “I... I don’t know what this means...”

I flatten her hand onto my pec with my own. “It doesn’t change anything...” I plead. Please don’t let this change anything. Not now. Not when I almost lost her three nights ago. Not when we don’t know if she’s still in danger.

She licks her lips, but nods as if she’s not really convinced.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” I ask, hope bubbling up in my chest.

She nods again, still looking confused and far away, but she’s nodding. “Okay.”

Relief overwhelms me, and I drag her into my arms, pressing her cheek to my pec and dropping a kiss to her hair.

I know this isn’t at all the end of this conversation, and that I got lucky, but I’ll take the reprieve where I can.

I press her back, double-checking her face, making sure we’re okay.

She nods that we are, and I leave to get dressed.

Chapter eighteen

Tatiana

The first few fat flakes of snow start the minute Lev returns from town. Roman can’t really do much to help. I think Mikhail is hiding from me in his bedroom, and I don’t blame him. I still don’t know what to think about his tattoos. In fact, there’s a red flag waving in the back of my brain, but if I’m good at anything, it’s ignoring the signs.

Lev’s scrolling through the TV, like he doesn’t have a care in the world.

But they’re calling for up to three feet. And we’re in the mountains, surrounded by woods.

“Lev, can you turn that off? We need to prepare,” I say, realizing that I’m not used to being in charge. But thankfully, he doesn’t argue.

I look down at my phone. “It says we need to bring bottles of water inside and fill up a bathtub for flushing water? That we need to fill the generator and test it before we need it. We need to find a place for it where it can vent exhaust fumes but not in the house....”

For once in his life, Lev doesn’t clap back sarcastically, but nods. “I’ll work on the generator. Lemme get Mik for the rest.”

Good. At least he’s on board.

I look past the living room out onto the slope that glides gently down to the mountain lake. The snow is sticking and accumulating quickly. A sense of urgency I’ve never felt before grips my lungs. We could lose power. The SUV has four-wheel drive, but we’re totally unprepared. We’ve never had a snowstorm like this in the city, and if we do get snow, it’s only a matter of days before the city has the roads plowed.