Page 157 of Mile High Ruin

This part is becoming dangerous.

Not the sex. The quiet afterward. The small touches. The way he pulls the sheet over me when the room cools. The way I know he will get up first if we fall asleep again and probably stand there staring at me like I’m another problem he has not solved.

I roll onto my side. Vadim lies beside me, eyes closed, one arm across his stomach.

“You’re awake,” I say.

“Yes.”

“You look asleep.”

“I’m resting.”

“That sounds suspiciously like sleeping.”

One pale eye opens. “Go back to sleep.”

“I have things to do.”

“So do I.”

Neither of us moves.

That’s how this has become lately. Nothing about us could reasonably be called normal. But a routine, perhaps. He finds me at night, or I find him, and somehow one of us ends up in the other’s room.

Sometimes we talk first. Sometimes we argue.

Sometimes we barely make it through the door.

Then morning arrives and reality returns.

I still don’t know whether he believes me. I still can’t leave this estate without somebody knowing exactly where I’m going.

And yet I keep sleeping with him.

I have no idea what that says about me.

Probably nothing flattering.

I slip out of bed while he’s still lying there and start gathering my clothes.

“You’re leaving?”

I look back. “You say that like I live here.”

His expression changes slightly.

I regret the words as soon as they leave my mouth.

Not because they are untrue. Because I’m starting to sound as though the idea bothers me.

I pull on my sweater. “I need air.”

Vadim says nothing.

I don’t know whether he understands that I also need distance.

By the time I step into the corridor, the house is barely awake. The air outside is cold enough that I immediately regret not grabbing a jacket, but I keep walking anyway, crossing the rear terrace toward the gardens as the sky brightens over the trees.