Page 23 of Erik

She didn’t look nervous, at least. Her slightly curled, brown hair swept from the wind, and bright, brown eyes shimmering with determination met mine briefly. Rounding the front of my car, her heels clicked softly on the frozen asphalt, and I juggled my phone and keys on the way up the short walkway.

“I should just apologize now, I guess.” Sticking the key in, I grumbled more to myself than her, and Natasha frowned out of my peripheral vision. Pushing the barrier open, I gestured her to go first, and she slipped by keeping a really disheartening distance. I could hear her jacket scrape against the door frame, and I hid my frown as I cleared my throat roughly. “It’s a bit of a mess, sorta.”

“You don’t have anything.” Embarrassment clung to my ribs and tightened my throat, and Natasha’s voice lilted in amusement as she looked around my bare living room. I didn’t have anything at all. I didn’t see the point in furnishing a place I wasn’t going to stay. There wasn’t even a temporary setup, and I stalked to the kitchen to toss my stuff on the counter.

“Uh, yeah. The original plan was that I was going to move out after six months when I found my own place, but obviously, I quit, so either way, I didn’t see the point if I was just going to have to haul it all out anyway.” Rubbing my head and neck in discomfort, I leaned on the counter to take in the horrible, yellow paint job and ugly, orange tiling. “Not really a place to be proud of, for sure.”

“My parents always had an apartment, but we were moving into a house when my life fell apart.” Natasha worded things strangely, and she talked about her wretched life like she was describing what a pencil looked like. She rocked on her heels, stuffing her hands in her jean pockets, and I was kinda speechless with the awkwardness of this moment. “You want to ask me anything?”

“Do you have anything you want to ask me?” Combatting her question with my own, I seriously had no damn idea what was going on anymore, and Natasha shook her head. Her hair swished, and I pursed my lips thinly as my mind churned furiously. “Why did you start seeking me out?”

“Because the more I thought about it, the more it made sense that you’re a follower, not a leader.” That fucking—ouch!Natasha smiled grimly as my lip curled up, but she was right, and she knew it. “I’ve seen that other cop around. He clearly hates his job. I realized after a while that it all . . . just . . . plain bad luck, I guess.”

“So, you figured we just got off on the wrong foot, and that I wasn’t as scummy as our first meeting presented me?” She nodded mutely, and my brows furrowed even as a wiggle of relief wormed between my lungs. “On the way back from CVS, you told Illya that cops are the most dangerous, but I’m not a cop anymore. Does that make you feel safer?”

“I don’t feel unsafe.” That wasn’t the question, but I let it slide for now as Natasha shot me a quizzical look. “You still haven’t asked me why I went up to you in the pizza place.”

“What’s there to ask? There’s a few reasons. You had the advantage at the time, and you knew it. Also, we were in a restaurant crowded enough not to be missed if something happened. You also had your two coworkers there. Plus, you were the one who initiated it. Every other time, it was me that fucked up and surprised you.” Maybe, Natasha didn’t think I was that perceptive, and I rolled my eyes when she barked a surprised laugh. “I’ve trained for twenty years to know this kind of shit. Reading situations is what I’m good at. That’s why . . . ”

Trailing off, I could hear my unspoken words hanging heavy in the air, and Natasha wandered across the kitchen to me. She kept a good foot or two of distance, but her eyes didn’t leave mine, and I tensed when she swung her hand to latch her fingers on my own. Her touch was warm, and that heat suffused my chest to the cell as she tinged pink around her ears.

Shuffling a little closer, her heels never leaving the tiles, Natasha’s breath hitched when I tangled our fingers together, and alarm flashed in her big, brown eyes before she ever so gently rested her cheek on my chest. My heart thundered hard and fast, blood drumming in my ears, and I didn’t dare breathe for fear of shattering this moment.

“I don’t know if I can ever do that, Erik, but I’m trying. It’s kinda funny, maybe. Before I went out, I told Carlyle I was gonna go with you because I was gonna kill myself at some point along the way.” Ice lodged in my throat, and I gripped the edge of the counter with my free hand until my nails bend back and throbbed painfully. “That way, Valerie wouldn’t know, and she wouldn’t agonize over anything she might’ve done because it wouldn’t have made a difference, anyway. Right now, today, it doesn’t seem so hopeless.”

“Valerie’s not the only one that cares about you, you know.” I said the only words I could think of, and Natasha sighed, her hot breath seeping through my shirt to scorch my skin. She leaned forward a little, but only her cheek touched me— nothing else— and I unfurled my fingers stiffly to cup the back of her head above her hair. My eyelids fluttered closed, and I inhaled into screaming lungs soothed by the thick vanilla scent that wafted off her hair.

24

Natasha

“You didn’t spend the night? Why not?” Casting Illya a dumb look, I paused my fiddling, and she blushed pink as she shrugged a little, ducking her head in embarrassment. “I’m just sayin’ . . . that seems like the next logical thing to do considering, you know, you’re going to be stuck in a car with him forever. You’re gonna have to sleep in the same eight-foot space.”

“I like him.” Theo surprised both of us, and my brows nearly flew off my face as Illya jumped a little with a squeak of her own. Turning to him dying of boredom of the couch, I blinked hard, but he continued staring at the ceiling as if he hadn’t said something so shocking. “Him taking medical discharge voluntarily, it says a lot about him. Even you two did fuck, he’d probably be really okay about it. Erik’s an okay dude.”

“Youlikehim?Theo, you don’t eventolerateme most of the time.” Shooting Illya a snooty look, Theo sat up a little to stretch his legs, and she, in turn, looked at me wild. “What the fuck?”

“I didn’t get a chance to talk to him because you two were fucking draining that bottle too fast, but if I did, it’d probably be real . . . pleasant.” My mouth dried as Illya’s jaw dropped, and Theo grinned maliciously at his girl as he settled back into the sofa. Turning to stare at the table, I let that comment circle in my head— TheolikedErik. What a fucking insane concept. Theo didn’t like anyone, and if he did, he hid it behind that scowl that never left his face.

I didn’t know if that was worrying or not.

“Anyway, no, I didn’t sleep over. It was great, but I didn’t want to push my luck.” Popping out my lower lip as I sunk in my chair, I twiddled a shirt between my fingers and frowned under furrowed brows. “Holding his hand makes me so nervous, I can’t even think about the other stuff. I mean, I was thirteen when it started and sixteen when it ended. That’s a long time.”

“Who says you’re definitely going to have sex if you sleep over? Even if things do have a chance to get hot and heavy, circumvent it early. Tell him as soon as you get in the car, ‘I don’t want to do anything tonight’.” Scrunching up my face at that, my mind whirred leisurely as I distractedly put my shirt in the pile to the right of my chair. “Erik won’t pressure you.”

“I know that.” We’d been slowly sorting clothes forhoursnow, doing more talking than anything else, and I sat up with a sharp, slightly clogged breath. Illya held up a pair of shorts, and I nodded before she dropped them to her left into a much smaller pile. “He asked me if I felt safe, and it’s like I don’t even know what that even means. Plus, what’s the point of a relationship if you can’t have sex with your partner?”

“Maybe, you can have an open relationship.” Surprise and disgust gripped my heart in a vice, and Illya giggled at the twisted expression that instantly sprung to my face. “It’s an option— if Erik gets antsy, tell him he can go screw someone else because you can’t or won’t.”

Pursing my lips thinly, my brain started to work faster. I had never considered having to worry about this shit, and we fell into silence. There was absolutely, positivelyno friggen wayI’d bring that up to Erik, and my heart throbbed painfully in my chest. Was this what liking someone felt like? Because I didn’t enjoy it and I wanted it to stop. I had never kissed a man. I’d never been completely naked in front of a man. I’d never voluntarily submitted to even a caress on the cheek.

Even at the raves and the parties, I’d conditioned myself to be better at being touched, but there were so many people so tightly packed together. No one ever lingered more than a few seconds before finding a more enticing silhouette in the gloom.

Plus, what would happen if Erik stopped wanting to spend time with me and be with that other woman?My chest tightened at the notion, and I ground my teeth as my fingers stopped working through clothes. All my attention turned to that. Even the world around me went black and silent for a second.What’ll happen then? I have to make him think I’m a good option— the only option.

My skin crawled, but I put on my best smile as small hands caressed down my arm and back. The other men in the room didn’t see anything wrong with this situation— me, sitting on some guy’s lap, even though I hadn’t even gotten my period yet. How messed up . . . how deplorable . . . how . . . how . . .

How did this happen? The question had no answer, and I tensed, my breath catching in my throat when that hand stuck between my legs. My smile froze, but I knew.