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This time, I let her do her thing, though I have no idea what’s come over her. Her eyes are too bright, feverish with some repressed excitement, and her face is still too pale. Maybe she’s coming down with something? But then she should be tired, not running around in a frenzy.
“Here,” she says, shoving the pie in front of Ilya. “Do you want anything else? Like whipped cream?”
“Um, no, thank you.” My teammate blinks at Sara. “I’m good.”
She gives him an uncharacteristically bright smile and grabs Anton’s plate next. Plopping down a slice of pie on it, she hands the plate to him, and then does the same thing for Yan and me before snagging a piece of pie for herself.
Sitting down, she stabs a fork into her slice and looks up, surveying our puzzled faces.
“So,” she says in a voice so cheerful I hardly recognize it, “do you guys have apple pie in Russia too, or is this more of an American thing? You know, as American as apple pie and all that?”
Yan recovers first. “We have apple pie,” he says with an amused grin. “It doesn’t look exactly like this, but we make pies and little pies—pirozhki—filled with apples and berries, as well as meat, potatoes, mushrooms, cabbage, green onions, and eggs.”
“Cabbage, green onions, and eggs?” Sara wrinkles her nose. “Really?”
“Well, not together,” Yan clarifies. “It’s eggs and green onions, or cabbage. Oh, and mushrooms can also be with onions and cheese.”
Sara cocks her head, regarding him with interest. “Oh yeah? What other kinds of baked goods do Russians like?”
“Oh, there are lots,” Anton says, jumping into the conversation. Unwittingly, Sara has touched on my friend’s biggest weakness—sweets and baked goods—and Ilya and I exchange exasperated looks as he launches into a long list of his favorite cakes and pastries, describing each one in drool-inducing detail.
“Wow,” Sara says when he pauses to catch his breath. “Peter, do you know how to make all of these?”
“Some,” I say, putting down my fork. “If you want, I can try my hand at the Napoleon when we return—that’s the Russian version of mille-feuille, the multi-layered custard Anton was telling you about.”
“Yes, please,” Anton replies, though I wasn’t addressing him. “How do Americans say it? Pretty please with a cherry on top?”
Ilya and Anton laugh, but Sara’s face tightens for a fraction of a second. In the next moment, however, she joins them in laughter, and I have to wonder if I imagined it. Not that it matters—her behavior is strange enough as is.
As we eat dessert and drink tea—a Russian tradition the guys tell Sara all about—I watch her, trying to figure out the reason for her sudden animation. It’s as if a different person took over Sara’s body. She’s joking and laughing with my men, as though she has not a care in the world. Yet under the table, she’s shifting in her chair and holding her arm curled around her stomach—a clear sign of the cramps that plague her.
It bothers me, this puzzle, and when all of the apple pie is gone, I tell the guys to take care of the cleanup. Sara jumps up to help them, but I catch her wrist before she can start running around again.
“Come,” I say. “It’s time for bed.”
She doesn’t offer any objections, even though it’s barely nine o’clock, and when we get to the bedroom, she starts to undress without prompting, her eyes still gleaming with that feverish light.
My physical response is instant. As soon as she takes off her shirt and unclasps her bra, my cock goes rock hard and prickles of heat run over my skin. And when she lets the bra fall to the floor before shimmying out of her jeans, my heart starts slamming against my ribcage. What turns me on the most, though, is that she holds my gaze throughout, the feverish gleam in the hazel depths transforming into the seductive glow of desire.
Her thong is last, and then she comes toward me, her slim hips swaying with unconscious grace.
Impossibly, I harden even more, and it takes everything I have not to seize her as she stops in front of me, her slender hands reaching for the top button of my shirt.
“I thought you weren’t feeling well.” My voice is hoarse, filled with the lust pounding through me in savage waves. “Ptichka, you don’t have to—”
“Shhh.” Reaching up, she presses a delicate finger to my lips. “I don’t want to talk.”
My heartbeat roars in my ears as she lowers her hand and starts working on the buttons of my shirt. It’s the first time Sara’s initiated sex with me like this, and as her fingers brush against my skin, the heat inside me turns volcanic, the urge to fuck her so strong my hands curl into fists. She’s working with exquisite concentration, her sexy lower lip tucked between her teeth as her hair tumbles in thick, shiny waves around her face, and I literally shake with the need to reach for her, to grab her and take her, over and over again.
