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“I thought I told you to relax. If you keep doing the dishes and the laundry, the cleaners won’t know what to do with themselves.”
“I don’t know how to sit around. It feels like wasting time, and wasting time is bad. Besides, television here is confusing. I don’t understand the jokes on the shows, and I never liked watching the romances that play during the day.” She didn’t bother to mention her family didn’t own a TV. She only ever watched when she went to Antonia’s.
Varushka shook out the jeans and hung them over the shower’s grab bar. There had been a stain on them from some kind of food, but they were clean as new now. His machine would have made it worse.
Smiling kindly at her, he dried her hands with his T-shirt, then pulled her into his arms. She managed not to gasp in surprise. He stared down at her like he was thinking about kissing her.
Konstantin, with his sinful good looks, had tempted her into all sorts of fantasies. It was frustrating that he wouldn’t even kiss her.
She wasn’t sure what the rules were for her anymore. There’d always been an expectation that she’d save herself until marriage, but then her parents had shipped her off happily enough with no further admonitions. There were no chaperones here.
He hadn’t tried anything with her, but he was so dangerous. And so, so pretty. Did American girls initiate closer contact? When she’d tried kissing him back in the village it’d embarrassed her enough not to again. But maybe that was what he was waiting for?
Disappointingly, he let her go and led her into the room with the blaring television and the many sofas. He grabbed the remote and turned off the TV.
“What did you do today?” he asked, as she sat on the couch leaving room for at least two more people between them. He stretched an arm across the back of it, and Varushka was tempted to move into the crook of his arm and wondered how he’d react.
“Nothing, really. I prepared supper and put it on the stove and went for a walk. I did a lot of thinking.”
“Oh? About what?”
“About things Everly said when she did my hair last week. I really like her. She said some things, though, that made me confused.”
“Well, we can’t have that.” He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket glanced at it. She inched closer while he was distracted and froze when he laid the phone on the table and turned back to her.
He arched a brow at her, as though he’d noticed she’d shifted closer, and was amused.
“If you’re busy, I can talk to you about it later, Sir.”
“No, I’m not busy. What did she say that you found confusing?”
“Well, I told her that you still haven’t kissed me, and that I wasn’t sure if you didn’t like me, or you didn’t want to frighten me,” she confided.
Konstantin smiled enigmatically. “What did Everly say?”
“She told me you might like it if I sit on your lap and call you Daddy.”
He coughed and covered his face with his hand. Carefully, she inched closer.
“No.” His smile was crooked as he looked at her again. “That’s not something I’d like.”
Now they were so close that their thighs were touching. Close enough to kiss. “I’m harder to scare than you think,” she said shyly. “I may not have been with a man, but I’m not stupid. I know how it all works. My cousin, Antonia, told me all sorts of things.” She did her best to look cool and worldly like Everly.
It was true. Antonia had told her what she’d heard being with a man was like, how it hurt the first time, but was fun after that. Varushka got the impression that most of Antonia’s information came from television, especially when she’d told her about ridiculous things, like how men enjoyed putting their privates in women’s mouths. American shows always liked to shock people, but surely regular people didn’t do things like that.
He was looking down at her, and again she got the impression he may kiss her, but then nothing happened. Again. If they were ever going to do anything interesting again, she was going to have to take matters into her own hands. She did her best to give him one of the smoldering looks women gave the camera in the music videos she’d seen, hoping it would tip the scales in her favor.
“Are you okay?” He was frowning and blinking at her. Not the reaction she’d been looking for.
She sighed. “Other than the fact that the man who’s supposed to marry me won’t even kiss me? Yes, I’m fine.” Enough was enough. She craned her neck, but even sitting he was too tall for her to reach his lips with her own.
“You’re sure you want to try kissing me?” He looked like he was going to laugh, which was annoying. “You don’t want it to just happen naturally?”
“Quit being difficult and lean down.”
The laughter was gone from his eyes. “Don’t try to boss me around, little bird. You won’t like what happens.” There was a chill in his soft voice that made her heart race.
A threat? He didn’t seem the type to beat his wife. “Oh? What won’t I like?”
