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“But I don’t know what else to do,” he confessed, squeezing my hand. “I don’t know how to do anything but fuck.”
“You’re really good at that, by the way,” I said, daring to meet his eyes again.
Hayk grinned in a way that had my heart, and my cock, ready to explode. “You’re not so bad yourself.” Again, I wanted to argue with him—I’d mostly just lay there while he fucked me earlier anyhow—but he went on. “What I’m really intrigued to know is why you think you don’t deserve to have a common whore like and appreciate you.”
“You’re not a common whore,” I insisted, a little offended, even though he was talking about himself.
Hayk laughed. “Sweetheart, I am the very definition of a common whore. I fuck for money, and I work at a brothel, not as a courtesan. Common. Whore.”
“But you’re not—” I gave up my argument immediately and blew out a breath, then pulled my hand away and took a large bite of my sandwich so I could avoid saying anything else.
“One day,” Hayk said, pulling his hand back as well and continuing to eat the salad he’d been given, “I want to meet the people who destroyed your self-esteem. And when I do meet them, they’ll envy Dmitri’s fate and see it as merciful.”
“You’re too late,” I mumbled around the bite I was chewing. I swallowed, then said, “They’re already dead. They were victims of the Dying Winter. I don’t have anybody left.”
For a moment, Hayk looked struck, as if he had even more reasons to feel sorry for me. I hated the very idea of him feeling sorry for me.
“Well, what about this Ludvig fellow?” he asked. “Did he make it better or worse?”
I sighed and shrugged. “I don’t know. Better, I suppose.” My shoulders sank even more. “I need to visit him and tell him what’s going on. I haven’t gone up to visit him once since we arrived yesterday. I’m a horrible—”
I stopped my self-castigation after one piercing frown from Hayk.
“I have been remiss in my duties to my friend,” I corrected myself, sitting straighter and trying to look confident. “Ludvig is my friend,” I went on. “Yes, I used to be his pup, and it was uncomfortable when we broke things off, but I still consider my him my friend.”
“Good,” Hayk said with a nod, spearing another fork of salad. “Then as soon as we finish our lunch, you’re going to take me to wherever he is recovering and introduce me.”
I heated sharply at the thought. Ludvig knew me well enough that he’d be able to see in an instant what I thought and felt about Hayk. He would probably be able to guess at a look that we’d fucked. But I couldn’t imagine what he would think about me falling for another man so quickly and so ridiculously.
“I should probably try to find Dmitri while you and Billie look at the notebook,” I said, taking another bite. “Just so he knows what’s going on.”
Hayk shook his head and finished chewing his bite before saying, “I’m not letting you out of my sight. Maybe not ever, especially now that I know you better.”
I stared flatly at him. “We’ve still, in spite of everything, only known each other for a day, less than a day.”
Hayk shrugged and stabbed his salad again. “And I still don’t think it matters,” he said. “Because I still think you’re one of the most fascinating men I’ve ever met. We’ve already fucked, so that counts as years of knowing each other, if you ask me.”
I tried not to laugh at the idea, or to cling to it like the last loaf of bread in a famine. My mind and heart were rushing so far ahead of me that I didn’t know what to think or feel anymore.
We finished our lunch, thanked the kitchen staff profusely, then headed around the outside of the kitchen building to Lord Vikhrov’s house to visit Ludvig.
Except that before we had made it halfway across the garden, I heard Billie call out, “Hayk! You have to see this! You’re never going to believe it!”
She sounded ridiculously excited, but it took Hayk and I a few seconds of searching around the garden for her before we realized she was calling to us from one of the balconies on the second floor of Olympus’s house.
When we spotted her, she held a small book and jumped up and down as she waved it at Hayk. Her smile was beyond excited. I also noted that Lefric was staring in slightly horrified awe at Billie’s breasts as they jiggled while she jumped, nearly falling out the top of her blouse.
Jace had his fingers stuck in his ears as she squealed. “Are all women this loud?” he asked, his own voice booming.
It wasn’t lost on me that Gennadi was laughing at him from the side of the balcony.
“We’ll come down there,” Lefric called out once Hayk and I had moved across the garden to get a better view of the balcony. “It’ll be faster that way.”
“What do you suppose they found that could make your sister so happy?” I asked Hayk.
Hayk shrugged. “There must be names in the book of people she knows.”
He had to be right, and sure enough, less than a minute later, Billie came shooting out of Olympus’s house, Lefric right behind her, Peter and Neil, Jace and Gennadi, Sebald and Avenel following them.
