Maybe I give too much away in how I say it, but Isaak stares at me with an expression that borders on suspicious. I’m not sure how to walk this conversation back without looking like I’m trying to hide something.
“We’ve always been very close,” I explain hastily. “Sometimes, she’s felt more like my mother than my sister.”
“I suppose I can relate. Sometimes, Bogdan can feel like my kid.”
He’s joking, and I’m thankful for the tension breaker. But the distraction I need comes when he pulls the covers off his body. He gets off the bed and grabs a glass of water from his bedside table. While he drinks, I take a moment to admire him.
He looks like he’s been carved from stone. His angles are fierce and strong, his torso ripples with abs, and even his arms look like they’re flexed even when they’re not.
And of course, there’s his cock.
His massive, beautiful, capable cock that’s made me come more times than I can count now. He just fucked me to within an inch of my life and somehow, he still manages to look hard.
I mean, that’s got to be a talent, right? Sometimes, it’s true what they say: God really does give with both hands.
“Like what you see?”
I flush with color as he calls me out for staring. “Sorry,” I mumble, turning my face into my pillow.
He chuckles under his breath. I hear him walk around the bed to my side. I very pointedly bury my head further underneath the pillow, hoping he’ll just leave me to my embarrassment.
No such luck.
He snatches the pillow off my head, and I’m forced to turn up and look at him. The fact that he’s still naked is incredibly distracting, but I manage to keep my eyes above his neck.
He bends and grips the side of the bed with both hands. “You can use this line,” he tells me, gesturing to the phone on the bedside table next to me. “It’s secure.”
I sit up, not even caring that the sheets fall off my body like water.
His eyes land squarely on my breasts, and unlike me, he doesn’t seem in the least bit embarrassed to be caught staring. In fact, he looks as though it’s his God-given right to stare.
I’d call him out on it, but I’m too excited by the opportunity he’s offering me.
“I can call my sister?”
“For as long as you want,” he says. “I won’t even eavesdrop.”
“Where are you going?” I ask, my hand already inching towards the phone.
“To shower,” he tells me. “I’ll probably be in there for a while.”
Before I can say another word, he leans in and catches my lips with his. It’s a deeply possessive kiss, one that he finishes by biting down on my bottom lip.
It’s not so hard as to draw blood, but enough to sting a little.
Though the absence that follows when he pulls away stings more.
I watch him walk into the bathroom on the other side of his gigantic room. He shuts the door with a soft bang and a few seconds later, I hear the shower turn on.
Confident that he won’t be able to hear me, I call Brianna. It takes a few rings, but Brianna picks up at last. Her voice sounds blurry and muffled though.
“Hello?”
“Bree, it’s me.”
“Cami?” she croaks.
And that’s when I remember the time difference. I feel like a total putz, but I’m selfish enough to not want to hang up.
“Bree, I’m so sorry. You’re sleeping, aren’t you?”
“Well, I was,” she says, whispering a little. I hear movement on the other end and then the click of a door. “Okay. I’m in the living room now.”
“What time is it?”
“Almost five in the a.m.”
“Fuck, I’m an idiot.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ve been waiting to hear from you. You’re okay, right?”
“I am,” I tell her hurriedly. “Everything’s fine. I just… I got excited about calling you and I forgot that Scotland is four hours ahead.”
“Um, Scotland?”
“Yeah, I’m in Scotland at the moment.”
“With… Isaak Vorobev?”
She says his name like he’s a stranger. But then, that’s exactly what he is to her. Which makes me realize that he’s no longer a stranger to me.
And that realization feels… transformative somehow, in a way I can’t quite explain.
“Yes, with Isaak.”
There’s a long pause on the other line. I want to break the silence, but my heart is pounding really hard and I don’t even know why.
“Cami… what’s going on?” she asks, and I know exactly what she means.
“I slept with him last night, Bree,” I admit, lowering my voice just to be doubly safe. “And this morning. And… neither one of those times was the first.”
“Well…” she says, leaving the word hanging on its own for an eternity. “Fuck!”
A burst of almost hysterical laughter bursts from my lips. The absurdity of my life. I can’t quite get over it. I can barely begin to wrap my head around it.
“Cami, are you falling for him?”
“That… would be insane, wouldn’t it?”
“Whether it is or it isn’t is immaterial,” she says. “Are you falling for him?”
“I… oh Bree, I don’t know.”
“You slept with him. More than once.”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to sleep with him again?”
God help me.
“I do.”
“Fuck.”
“Stop saying that.”
“I don’t know how else to express myself.”
Panic bubbles up in my chest, and I don’t know how to tell Bree that I need her now more than ever. But I force down that need. What I actually need is to stop relying so much on her. She’s already raising my daughter for me. I’ve asked too much of her already.
“Does he treat you well?” she says suddenly.
“What?”
“Focus, love,” Bree says, using her mother’s-in-charge voice. “Does he treat you well? Is he kind to you? Does he make you feel all warm and gooey inside?”
I’m silent so long that Bree actually checks to make sure she hasn’t lost me.
“Cami… you there?”
“I’m here.”
“Are you going to answer the question?”
“Bree, I can’t… I can’t say it out loud.”
“Well… fuuu… fudge.”
I almost laugh. “Nice save.”
“Cami, honey?”
“Yes.”
“If you mean what you’re saying… then you need to tell him about Jo.”
And there it is. The thing I need to hear, but don’t want to face. The big secret sitting between Isaak and me. The truth that I want to protect at all costs.
I don’t need Bree to say it to know what I have to do. But it helps all the same.
“You need to tell him about Jo, Cami,” Bree repeats when she gets no response from me.
I take a deep breath. “I know.”
37
Isaak
“Bogdan.”
The line crackles for a second before it clears out. Sometimes, the connection gets a little gravelly in certain rooms in the castle.
“How’d it go?” he asks.
“It went… better than I thought.” Although I’m talking more about everything that followed Lachlan’s funeral than the funeral itself.
“You told his parents that they’d still receive his salary?”
“They refused it at first,” I tell him. “But they’re good people. Once Mr. Murphy realized I wasn’t going to budge, he accepted. They need the money.”
“I’m glad they’ll be provided for.”
“I’m starting to get the feeling that you’re gearing up to tell me something I’m not going to like,” I say.
There’s a second of silence that confirms my suspicion.