Page 66 of The Lies Between Lovers

“That’s not what I asked,” she said.

“You’re naked under that quilt,” he returned, refusing to engage her prodding.

“You left me naked.”

“Hmm, and?”

Vera have him a demure shrug. “Just pointing it out.”

Why bother?

“I know exactly how I left you,” Vaslav said. “Because I couldn’t stop thinking about getting back.”

Even if the constant crack of hard skull against unforgivable cement, over and over, remained echoing in his mind. The thought of her did too.

If she noticed the fact that he wore a different pair of sleep pants than the ones he’d pulled on earlier to climb into bed, she didn’t say. The clothes he’d been wearing wouldn’t see the light of day again after they were incinerated in the furnace before morning light.

She shivered when he reached out with his other hand to tug away the quilt until it fell to the hardwood floor in a pile all around her. Her nipples had already hardened into peaks that he brushed calloused fingers over until he heard himself another one of her low moans.

As naked as the day she’d been born, every dip and swell of her body’s curves was a canvas that he’d not wasted time exploring and learning. She let him, too, seemingly reveling in every small mark he left behind whether it was a burning handprint on her ass or a bruise from where he’d sucked on her throat for too long.

Every time, she’d asked him for more.

With a hand cupping her ass, he pulled her close enough that he could place a kiss on her thighs. One after another.

And then a little nip after each kiss, too.

Vera sighed a shaky, but sweet noise. Even her thighs rubbed together when he dragged his cheek across the side of her hip. Her trembling vibrated through to his body, waking his cock and thickening his length under soft cotton.

“Open up.”

The order came out husky, every word thick in his throat. He hadn’t lied when he said he was a man with no patience, and he didn’t hide the expectation in his demand. Her feet shifted further apart as soon as his fingers flexed around her inner thighs, and heaven parted there for him to take a taste.

But he didn’t right away.

He glanced up to find her wide doe-like blue eyes were glass staring back down at him. A sweeping blink of her lashes sent one glittering tear falling to her cheek. So small it barely even made a track before it disappeared.

“What bothers you the most about your poor old neighbor and death is that you have an unfortunate understanding of your own mortality,” he explained to her because he bet she’d keep sulking over it, and he had better things to do. “An understanding that has followed you since you were just a girl. And as I imagine your biological mother’s death was a large part of your formative years, you’ve had a lot of time to think about it. But on the flip side of the same coin, you’re barely even a grown woman. Maybe a third of your life is lived, and believe or not, but you’re in the beginning of the best part. It’s not shocking that every time death is around, you know you could be looking at your own. Just admit it makes you uncomfortable, and that will go a long way in helping you to deal with it.”

Some people shied from that part of being human while others became hopelessly devoted to some variant of faith to give their death a purpose.

“You’ve got a while yet to go,” Vaslav added and wet the seam of his lips while he considered his final thoughts on the matter. Vera waited silently above him, still trembling like a pretty little leaf in his rough and bloody hands, but without a tear in sight now. He considered that a win. “It’s going to be a tragically bleak life for you if you can’t see past an end that hasn’t even come—you’ve got too much living yet to do.”

The fascinating thing about Vera was that she had a habit of taking his frank view of the world as an attack on her. A juvenile trait, sure, but her unwavering stare didn’t flicker with what he expected.

Maybe he hadn’t given her enough credit.

“Probably just saved me thousands in therapy—when I finally got around to it,” she muttered above him, laughing into the same hand she then used to rub against her cheek.

“No more tears?”

Vera shook her head, dropping her hand into the short buzz of his black hair. Her fingers massaged down along where the gray had started to pepper more in his temples as she whispered, “No more.”

“Good.”

His hands flipped backwards with his sore side pressed tightly to her inner thighs. Using his thumbs, he stroked at the edge of her clitoral hood and blew a steady stream of air against the nub that barely peeked out.

Her skin pebbled. He could practically taste the tart heat he’d find waiting between the folds of her silky, pink slit.