Page 61 of The Beast of Moscow

Once he did that, who could tell how this would go.

After yesterday ...

While the smoke would usually do wicked things for his lingering migraine, he didn’t mind when he got to enjoy the way her lips hugged the filter. A picture-perfect pout—ready for a kiss. She was close enough to the windows that she was able to just reach over and flick the ash out.

Maybe it was the sight of her stark-white yoga pants and matching sports bra that contrasted with the sun-kissed tone of her skin, but Vaslav suddenly understood why Vera would have been the wet dream of every man in Moscow back when her pictures were being splashed across every tabloid magazine.

Hell, she looked like his wet dream.

Actually, the one he’d had last night.

That was some bullshit. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a wet dream. Probably when he was a teenage boy, sleeping on a cement slate with a blanket for a mattress. It was as humiliating now as it had been then—but good Christ, Vera had been a sight in his dreams.

The way the stretchy fabric hugged the slender curve of her hips and the small swell of her breasts proved his imagination could still do worthy things.

Vaslav blamed his current situation—mostly the semi-erection he’d walked around with for most of the morning—on the fact his pain had been lower on the scale for the better part of the week. He always had too much time to think, or apparently fantasize, when he wasn’t in constant agony.

Even better when he could sleep.

“That’s a terribly filthy habit for a former professional ballerina who I just saw come back from a run a while ago,” Vaslav said.

He decided to let her know he was standing in the doorway where she’d left the door open against the wall. At least, she had opened a couple of windows for the smoke to travel out. Not enough, considering he’d still smelled it.

Vera didn’t even glance his way, nor did her sneaker-covered feet move to suggest she was going to exit the hammock. “I allow myself one a month—I feel like I get to enjoy them that way.”

“Maybe I can understand that. There was a time I bartered extra pieces of bread for a hand rolled cigarette to take the edge off before the lights went out, after all. Those were the days.”

She did turn her head his way at that statement. “Like ... prison?”

A grunt of agreement escaped his lips, but Vaslav was already moving on to another topic.

“Oh.”

“One a month isn’t bad,” he said, opting to fill the silence because he still couldn’t see her eyes, and he didn’t know how she had reacted to that statement.

Yesterday, he’d blown up at having something personal about his life shared. Now here he was, offering it.

“I let myself have two this month.”

He didn’t miss the bite in her tone for a minute.

“Because of me?” he asked, curious but he was sure he knew the answer.

“If the shoe fits,” she might have mumbled.

Vaslav allowed her the slight.

He might have deserved it.

“Keep the windows open for a bit longer, yeah? The friend who allowed me to borrow this place for a few nights while he visited the Riviera isn’t a smoker. And if I have to listen to the man bitch, I might just stab my eardrums out.”

In the process of lifting the sunglasses from her face, Vera’s hand froze at the top of her head. “You do hear how stuff like that sounds, right?”

Vaslav nodded. “That’s the point, kisska.”

“Huh.”

“How was your run?”