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All they’d done so far was hold hands.
“I’ve never…” Again, she trailed off, unwilling to admit to him that this would be her first time with a man.
“What?” he asked gently.
“I’ve never… been intimate,” she finally admitted, eyes downcast.
As he’d done during the ceremony, he placed two fingers underneath her chin, lifting it until her eyes met his. It made the tips of her fingers heat again, and she clasped her hands together, heart picking up its pace at his nearness. He was so intense, gaze searching hers as if there was something written there, and he aimed to read it. She had never wanted to be kissed by anyone as much as she wanted him to kiss her in that moment. But with the following, her second heart was almost stopping in her chest, her eyes widening as he calmly asked, “Not even with Nikolai?”
They stared at each other, his fingers still under her chin, though the pressure hardened. When she tried to turn away, he grasped her jaw in a tight hold, keeping her facing him. He would know that she’d dated his friend, but the fact that he hadn’t brought it up sooner made the heat drain out of her veins, freezing apprehension taking its place. Was this why he’d been so quiet in the car? Had Nikolai been to chat with him too? Had he manufactured a splinter between them even before they’d made their promises?
“Not even with Nikolai,” she stated, her stare daring Zeke to contradict her.
He rested his eyes on hers but finally removed his hand, letting go of her face. She took half a step back, one hand touching the spot, furious that he’d taken away her agency. She practically growled, “Don’t ever touch me like that again.”
He raised both hands in a gesture of peace.
It began a battle within her that made her feel disorientated, because her logical side reacted to the want of control he’d just displayed. It told her that she shouldn’t want him anywhere near her, but the side to her that had just longed for his lips against hers wanted those hands of his all over her.
“Why are you asking about Nikolai?” she demanded.
“Because I noticed the way he was looking at you,” Zeke said. “The way you kept reacting to him. Your fingertips…” He nodded to her hands where before her fingertips had glowed, giving away the turmoil inside of her.
“There’s nothing left between me and Nikolai,” she said. “What we had—it died many years ago.”
“How did it die?”
So, this was it, then. She was going to have to lie to his face, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.
“I think you already know,” she said. “You invited him to the ceremony, didn’t you? You wouldn’t have done that if you weren’t still close.”
“I invited him as a courtesy, to include the Kuznetsovs in the proceedings. An olive branch, nothing more. We haven’t spoken since…”
“Since you left,” she filled in.
There were so many questions bubbling to the surface now that they’d touched on the subject, so many things she wanted to know about what had made him decide to remove himself so thoroughly. Especially since she could tell he was still dedicated to his mother and to his sister. What had his father done?
“You didn’t answer my question,” Zeke pointed out. “What happened between you and Nikolai?”
“I’m tired,” she said, turning from him, but his hand closed around her wrist, stopping her. “Zeke. Let me go.”
“I don’t know what you’re playing at,” he said. “But whatever you’re trying to hide from me, I’ll find out what it is.”
“I’m not hiding anything from you,” she stated, pulling her arm loose, knowing it wouldn’t have been so easy if he’d made up his mind to keep her where she was.
“It’s funny,” he said, his tone making it clear what they were discussing was no laughing matter. “You still have the same tell.”
“What are you talking about?” She crossed her arms over her chest, putting that brave face on she always turned to whenever she was being confronted, her insides trembling from the strain of keeping it in place. “What tell?”
“When you lie, there’s this tiny twitch near your left eyebrow. It was the same when we were kids, and you went to get cookies out of the cookie jar without permission, or when you climbed that big oak in the far corner of the garden and assured your nana you hadn’t, that all those scratches on your arms and legs were from trying to get the football out of the gooseberry bushes. Remember that? You were an accomplished liar in the eyes of your brothers by the time you were seven, but they couldn’t read you the way I could.”
“Maybe they couldn’t read me because they weren’t the ones breaking all those rules with me,” she offered.
She didn’t want the tremble within her to be replaced with softness at the memories they shared, but it was inevitable. He’d been her closest friend for so many years, and then he’d grown up and left her behind in so many ways.
“Not the point,” Zeke said.
Suddenly she could see his father in him. Before her was that same unyielding, tough-as-nails, deeply intelligent man. He didn’t frighten her; he made her suddenly feel sad for him.
