Page 175 of The Pucking Arrangement

Is he staying with me until I go, and then we just…part ways? Am I supposed to come back in August and play house with him and Ris on Fire Island? What are we going to tell Ris? What if we try long distance, and he meets some leggy, hockey-obsessed blonde who doesn’t overthink every second of her life? What if I’m just a conquest—some challenge he finally overcame? What if this whole girlfriend thing is just his way of making sure I don’t bolt before he’s had his fill?

My brain fires questions like a machine gun while my traitorous heart just beats his name on repeat.

But then he pins me to the bed, and every question, every doubt rumbles beneath the weight of him. His body cages me in, his mouth finds mine, and just like that, I’m lost—drowning in him, in this, in the unbearable, aching inevitability of us. My hands fist in his hair, my legs tighten around his waist, and whatever rational thought I had left dissolves as his teeth scrape my throat, his voice a low, wicked growl against my skin.

“You think too much,solnyshko,” he murmurs, his hands dragging fire down my body. “Let me fix that.”

* * *

Hours later, I’m staring at the ceiling, trying to catch my breath while Dmitri traces lazy patterns on my hip. The afternoon sun has shifted, casting longer shadows across my rumpled sheets. My body is wrung out, deliciously sore, but my mind refuses to shut the hell up. So, I try again.

“You know that saying, ‘You can have anything, just not everything’?” My voice is quiet, but I can already feel him tense beside me. “This thing between us…feels exactly like that.”

Dmitri turns to me so slowly it’s almost menacing.

His expression is somewhere between horrified and personally offended—like I just confessed to eating pizza with a fork.

“What?”

I squirm under his stare. “You must have heard it before. ‘You can have anything, just not everything’.” I wave my hands vaguely, like gesturing will somehow help my case. “It’s, like, a philosophy. Or…something people say. It definitely sounded smarter when Oprah said it.”

He blinks.

Then blinks again.

Then drags a hand down his face, like I’ve physically hurt him.

“Wait.” He sits up fully, crossing his arms over his massive chest. “I thought you were Irish.”

I frown. “I am. What does that have to do with anything?”

“Then why do you sound like someone’s Italian grandmother guilting the family over Sunday dinner?” His accent morphs into something truly heinous as he waves his arms around in full nonna mode. “You can’t-a have everything, Erin! Life’s not-a buffet at Olive Garden!”

I stare at him, deadpan. “What the fuck are you doing right now?”

He grins. “Just making sure I understand the logic. No second helpings. No unlimited breadsticks. Oprah said so.”

I groan, flopping onto my back and dragging the blanket over my head. “I hate you.”

“Liar.” His hands are suddenly on my waist, sliding me back toward him. “You love me. And you love it when I’m right.”

I shove at his chest, scowling. “I do love you. But you’re not right.”

“Mm.” He pins me under him easily, lips ghosting over my jaw. “Let’s review. You can’t have music and me?”

I open my mouth. Close it. Open it again. “Not at the same time?”

Dmitri snorts.“That makes zero fucking sense.”

“It does if you think about it!”

He lifts a brow. “No. It really doesn’t.”

“Well, I’ll be traveling! And you travel! And what about Ris?”

“What about her?”

I huff, grasping at the last fragile shreds of my argument. “She’s getting attached! What if I go on tour and she misses me?”

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