Page 58 of Deception

The air solidifies around us, a new tension forming that I can’t quite make sense of while my heart races so fast that I might break out in a sweat if he continues looking at me. He’s smiling with a softness in his eyes that I’ve never seen before on anyone, let alone him. Everything about this man is hard and unyielding, except for the way he’s smiling at me right now. And it’s doing things to me that are beyond wrong and tragic. Things that I need to shake off before our truce is confused with something that can never be.

Forcing a laugh, I fake a teasing smile. “The fact that you associated it with Meat Loaf says a lot more about you than you think.” I’m not sure what, but it certainly makes him appear more human than cruel monster or wicked god.

“I was an eighties baby. What’s your excuse?” With a hard nip of my nose, he pulls back to nudge the tip with his as the seriousness sets back in with the draw of his brows and the silent hitch of my breath. “We’re leaving.”

“When?” Not that it matters or that I have a say, but the questions make all of this feel a tad less helpless.

“When the chopper gets here.”

“So soon…”

A small smile upturns the corners of his lips. “I like it here too,” he says, shifting so that his arms are behind my knees and back. “We’ll come back soon enough.”

Standing, Tomasz lifts me in his arms. We’re almost out of the room when I look over his shoulder and spot the book on the floor by the window seat. “Can I take it?”

“Take what?” He pauses in the doorway, spinning to look back in the direction I’m looking. “You like it that much?”

Yes.That’s the answer that blares inside me while I tell him, “It’s interesting…”And it means something to you.

As ridiculous as it is, it seems as wrong to leave it behind as it is for me to take it, hoping that if it means something to him, and that he trusts me with it, that I mean something to him too. Or that I’m worth something.

“Sure,” he tells me, putting me down on my feet slowly. The weight of his gaze follows every step I take. When I pick it up and flick through it, it’s impossible to contain my smile. “Given it’s my book, are you going to look at me like that too for letting you have it?”

Of course, his words have my pulse roaring to life. Butterflies rage in my belly while I hold the book to my chest and sway on the spot.

God, he shouldn’t make me feel like this. After all the shit he did to me…knowing the depravity of his world…

I shouldn’t feel so overwhelmed with giddiness that I’m practically beaming.

We’re not all that different. His words echo, making the moment freeze. Everything fades as I watch him watching me with a barely contained smile that twists the pinched expression on his face.

“You didn’t answer my question before.”

“Your question,” he reiterates with a questioning lull while he comes closer.

Habitually, his hands push into his pockets, making his forearms bulge and his shoulders widen with his stance. I’ve never felt so small like this. My toes curl into the plush rug, and my chest constricts around my lungs. The gonging of my heart reverberates in my ears as he comes to a stop. We’re toe to toe, my head tipped so far back that my neck is craned.

“I know that love is non-existent to you. Control gets you off…and makes you happy…but you said we’re not all that different.”

“I did.” Slipping a hand from his pocket, he anchors it on my waist, tugging me closer.

“That implies that we have at least one thing in common.”

“It does.” Clutching his other hand on the other side of my waist, he pulls me all the way flush to him, lowering to my height so that I’m bending back to meet his gaze. The pressure of his fingers fizzes through me with his tight grasp and unyielding squeeze.

When I open my mouth to coax more of an answer from him, he sucks my lip into his mouth. Nibbling on the throbbing flesh, he tugs back to release it with a silent pop before licking into my mouth. The swipe of his tongue over mine draws out a low groan from me while I continue clutching at the book in my hand, and his hands palm down to my arse, kneading while he devours my whimpers and growls into his lungs.

Everything pulses and pounds, thrumming for him and his demanding touch. The moment is a piece of heaven while we’re standing at the mouth of hell. And when he finally pulls away, holding me upright through my hazy sight and gasped breaths, I am bereft. I want more. I need more.

“Breathe, malyshka, breathe…” he orders with a growl, shaking me to my senses with his hands trailing up my back and then hooking them over my shoulders.

“Yes…yes…” With a hiccupped gasp, I add, “Breathing.”

“We need to go.” Without warning, Tomasz lifts me, throwing me over his shoulder with a playful slap to my arse that makes me giggle as he tells me, “The book.”

“What about it?”

“We both like it…there’s one similarity.” Before I can say anything else, he swats my arse again, harder this time so that the strike heats through me and my giggle is cut through with a moan while he rubs the sting away. “My mother wants to meet you.”