Page 70 of The Beast of Moscow

“Vas,” she said. Still a little breathless from her earlier dance, her skin tightened over delicate collar bones with every inhale she took. “Did you know I was going to be here?”

“I was out for a walk, actually,” he lied smoothly.

If she didn’t believe him, Vera never said.

“Did you want to dance, too?” he asked.

Mostly because the slow, waltzing tune was the only thing he could dance to, and now it seemed like Vera’s friend was busy with someone else.

Right, he said to himself. That’s why.

“Are you asking me to dance with you?” she asked back.

He couldn’t remember the last time he danced, but he knew when it was all the same. He had the details, but not the actual memory of his small wedding reception. It’d been years, either way, but he didn’t hesitate to hold an open palm out to Vera.

“If you want to, yes,” he told her.

She took his hand, grinning when he tugged her a step closer. “I’d love to dance with you, Vas.”

*

“Is that for me?”

Vera’s question drew Vas’s gaze to the rose that he managed to keep captured between his fingers even while he held her hand high in his own to dance. “I found it, but it’s just as well—it might as well be yours.”

He continued leading their steps, and without missing a beat, twirled Vera away from him while he used his free hand and his teeth to snap the stem to a third of its previous length, leaving only the red petaled bulb and bit of green behind.

“No thorns,” he told her. “I checked.”

Vera’s cheeks flushed with a light pink when he captured her hand in his own again and pulled her close once more. Their dance stopped just long enough for him to place the rose behind Vera’s ear, tucking the stem along strands of her hair to keep it in place. Another time or place, and Vas would have been too concerned with the amount of people around, and the fact he was in public, but it was easy to push those lingering worries away when a beautiful woman couldn’t look away the closer they stood.

While his fingers at the shell of her ear lingered, his other found hers to hold like they had been before. Her fingers wove with his, and her left shoulder lifted higher than the right as she let out a soft sigh when his fingertips brushed her cheek pulling away.

She wanted to dance, he reminded himself.

Except she inched a bit closer, and instead of putting his hand back to her bare, mid-back, Vas ghosted his fingers over the curve where her neck met her shoulder. Even when her skin pebbled under his light touch, she was still as soft as silk.

“Are we dancing?” he asked quietly.

A part of him wished she would say no. The part of him, beyond the cracked veneer of coldness and malfeasance, that had seen the way her breaths picked up and how she responded physically to being touched by him.

Say no, he wanted to say, and let me take you anywhere; let me taste you everywhere.

He couldn’t get the words out.

Or she nodded before he could and caught his wrist to pull his arm back around her body. She still let him lead their steps, their waltz creating a circle around the outer edge of the tower’s leg. Just far enough from the larger part of the crowd where they weren’t drawing any significant attention.

Although he kept a featherlight touch where his palm and fingertips graced Vera’s skin and spine at her back, he swore he could still feel the heat soaking from her body to his. Like electricity shooting straight through his fingertips, keeping them connected even if his hand barely put any pressure down.

“Who taught you to dance?” she asked.

“They offered a class in prison. I took exactly one.”

Vera didn’t bat an eye at his mention of serving time, but it wasn’t the first, either. “Was that all you needed?”

“The basics are just that—basic.”

“Can’t really argue with that,” she returned.