Page 163 of Ruthless Rustanovs

What are you doing?!?! Stop! STOP!”

Ivan froze at her command, and his blood curdled as he belatedly realized why she’d always come to him at night. Under the cover of darkness when she couldn’t see his face.

“I see,” he said, arms dropping to his sides as he took a pronounced step back. “You only want me like that when it is dark and you can’t see me.”

She swung around, and he was somewhat surprised to find the huge brown eyes behind her glasses wide with indignation, not the disgust he’d been expecting.

“When have I ever wanted you like that?” she demanded.

He narrowed his eyes, wondering if his near-perfect English was failing him. Or if she were joking, asking him this question in order to humiliate him further.

He answered with the most caustic version of the truth. “When? On the night of the full moon, and every night since then. Last night you climbed on top of me and came three times. I was not sure you would ever get enough before returning to your room.”

There, that should put her in her place, he thought, hurt warring with shame inside his chest. But once again, he didn’t get the reaction he was expecting.

“Oh… My… God...” she said, as if he’d just revealed to her that he was actually from outer space. “Oh my God.”

She swayed a little, and Ivan had to fight the instinct to step forward and steady her. To put his hands on her like she was his woman. Instead he stood there, stiffly watching her repeat the three words over and over again, her entire face a study in shock.

“You came to me,” he felt compelled to remind her, voice tight with anger and embarrassment. “I did not touch you because of my face, but then you came to me.”

“No, it’s not that,” she responded, her voice cracking with what sounded like near hysteria.

Then she took a deep breath before saying, “Okay, here’s the thing.

I sleepwalk. It’s been a problem for me all my life, and it gets especially bad when I’m stressed.

Usually it only consists of me maybe wandering around the house a bit and doing things like eating whole cartons of ice cream when I’m trying to stay on a diet.

I’ve learned to control it with a drink or two in the evenings.

And the thing is, I haven’t been able to have my usual nightcap lately because I’ve been too scared to go out at night after that thing with the wolf and—oh my God. I just can’t believe I…”

Ivan watched her take several more deep breaths as if she were trying to snatch her mind back from the edge of panic.

She sounded like she was on the verge of hyperventilating as she squeezed out, “I can’t believe this.

But obviously it’s true—I, um—must have come on to you—had sex with you—while I was sleepwalking. ”

It was an incredulous story. Unbelievable. Impossible for anyone to take seriously.

Anyone, that is, except Ivan. Who believed her immediately.

Who realized as soon as the word “sleepwalking” fell out of her mouth, that every word she was telling him was true.

Of course she’d been sleepwalking. What other explanation could there be?

Why else would she come to him? Why would she allow someone who looked like him to touch her?

“I see,” he said quietly. Because now it all made sense. Humiliating, soul-crushing sense.

“Ivan, I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry,” he heard her say somewhere far in the distance, though she was still standing there in front of him. “This is so weird. I mean, crazy. I can’t believe it. I can’t even imagine how you must be feeling. I’m so sorr—”

He left the kitchen before she could finish the sentence. As it turned out, there was something he wanted even less than her disgust: her pity. He couldn’t stand seeing pity for him written so clearly on her face, dripping from every apologetic word.

Pity that a monster, like him, would ever think, even for a moment, that a sweet, beautiful girl like her would want him.