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I picked up my glass of vodka that was still sitting where I left it and took a sip. “I don’t know. Do you?”
“You not-so-sly jackass. When are you going to come clean, man?”
I shrugged, not too concerned, because Roman wasn’t one to blab about shit to others. “I’ll do whatever Sorina feels comfortable with. Her opinion is the only one that matters.”
He raised his eyes as if my words were some kind of revelation. “Well, fuck.” He slowly raised his bottle of beer in a toast of amusement before joining the others outside.
Back to the present, I glanced down at Sorina and nuzzled her nose. “I’m all in for being open with my friends. It’s you who feels uncomfortable about it.” If it were up to me, I would’ve told them so she could fucking move into my bed where she belonged. I was too old for this sneaking around shit.
“I don’t want things to get awkward between me and your friends. I mean, they knew me as your sibling.”
“But you’re not my sibling, and they’ll adjust. I promise you they will.” They would. I would make certain if there was a problem.
“And Arty.” Finally, she voiced his name, as if saying it out loud would bring immediate doom to both of us. We both knew he was the real obstacle here. “We can’t hide this from him forever.”
The gravity of her words made me clench her closer and devour her mouth until she softened in my arms. I knew we had to face the music soon, but not now. I didn’t want to think about anything but enjoying my time with Sorina for the next few days. When our mouths parted, I ran my thumb over her ravished bottom lip. “We’ll deal with him soon, but for now…” I lifted her up by the ass until I settled her sweet cunt on my cock. “I don’t want to think about anything but making you scream my name over and over.”
The next few days were filled with food, sex, and sun. I rented a private yacht with a captain and a chef, and we cruised the lake. Sorina and I lounged on the bow and ate like royalty, and she sipped champagne while I drank imported vodka. Then I took her below deck to one of the private cabins and fucked her until she could barely stand. Later, we returned above deck, and I held her in my arms as we watched the sun set around us.
“I could get used to this,” she sighed, lacing her fingers in mine.
“Yeah?” I smiled into her hair.
“Mm-hmm.” She looked beautiful. Content. Sun-kissed. And royally fucked by me. I would never get tired of pleasing her. “I hope Arty doesn’t see the bill for this. You’d have a lot of explaining to do.”
I tilted her head to face me. “What do you mean?”
“The house, the yacht. This couldn’t be cheap.”
“You think I used Arty’s money?” For some reason, her comment rubbed me the wrong way. “You think I need his money? I paid for this, Sorina.” Yeah, Arty had supported me growing up, but I’d saved and invested money since I started Hillside, which I’d attended on my own merit on a full scholarship. Not to mention, I made good money off endorsements because college athletes were now allowed to make money. “I have my own money, and I assure you, I will be set on my own when I make it to the NFL.”
“Oh,” she said in a small voice. “I didn’t know. I didn’t mean anything by it.” She laid her palm on my chest. “Thank you for this.”
“You don’t need to thank me. It pleases me when you are happy. This is just the beginning,zaychik. You’ll see.”
Later that night, I lay in bed with Sorina in my arms, and I couldn’t sleep. More fascinated by watching how her lips slightly parted in slumber and the steady rise of her chest. She was dead to the world and fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow, while I stared at her like a creep. These last few days had been some of the happiest of my life.
I heard a whimper, and she twisted in my arms as if she were struggling. When I glanced down at her, her brows drew together, and her forehead wrinkled like she was suffering a nightmare. “Sorina?” I shook her, and her arms flailed at me as if she were fighting me off. “Sorina?” I pinned her arms to her sides.
She woke up, her eyes wide, frightened and disoriented as her chest rose and fell rapidly.
“You had a nightmare.” I released her arms and smoothed her hair from her face. Her skin was damp and clammy.
After several minutes, her breathing regulated, and it registered where she was. She rubbed her lips together and stared at me silently. Sorina was sweet, caring, and witty, but as far as knowing anything about her, like her own secrets, I was clueless. She’d even drawn out my darkest secret, and it didn’t take much for me to spill. I hated sharing personal shit with people.
However, I realized Sorina might be just as closed off as me, but she was more subtle about it. She didn’t present herself as standoffish to people. She wasn’t cold or an introvert. Quite the opposite. She was charmingly adorable and genuinely friendly to anyone I’d ever seen her come across. She was fucking sunshine personified, which could be annoying. No one would ever know if she were holding deep, dark secrets about herself. I thought back to when her demeanor changed in high school and how she suddenly quit gymnastics. It could’ve meant nothing at all, but I didn’t think so. “Talk to me. What’s going on?”
Her eyes shifted quickly. “Nothing. Just a bad dream. Haven’t you had nightmares, too?”
I could tell by the tension in her shoulders, she was nervous and didn’t want to talk about it. By the way, I did have fucking nightmares about my time as a child in the past, but they were almost null and void since I’d told Sorina about what happened. Maybe I just needed to get my story off my chest that had stayed inside me under lock and key. I was assuming Sorina could benefit from talking to me, as well.
I cleared my throat and studied her, realizing how her well-being was more important to me than anything in the world. It was drilled into my head by Arty to protect her like a good brother would, but this was different. Now, I would slay every fucking dragon for her and put her on a pedestal. “I did have nightmares about what happened when I was a child. I kept it inside and never told anyone because I was too embarrassed or thought it was my fault. I never told anyone what happened, not even Arty.” I swallowed.
“I was a kid who watched my mother slowly kill herself with heroin. She lived—we lived in a crack house.” I inhaled deeply, trying to calm the chaos my memories still incited. “I watched as that fucking asshole dealer treated her worse than a stray dog, while I stood by as my mother threw away all her dignity in front of me. She begged for his attention as he degraded her because she didn’t care about me. She didn’t care about anything except getting her next fix. He prostituted her out to other scumbags, and she obliged him. She was sick, and I couldn’t help her no matter how I tried.”
I ran both hands over Sorina’s face, needing to touch her, needing her understanding, needing to show her that she was my salvation. I wanted to be all of that for her as well. “It was hard to see her destroy her life. It was worse because I didn’t understand why I wasn’t enough.”
“I’m so sorry,” she murmured, running her fingers through my hair. Her eyes softened. “It’s so difficult to understand why the ones we put our faith in can hurt us so much.”
