“You sort of softened when I told you I hadn’t been with anyone else. That I didn’t want to bring anyone else home but you.”
As if his words are magic, tension leaves my body and my limbs grow limp, softening just as he predicted, just like I had dreamed. Or I guess it was an actual memory of earlier tonight.
Still, I haven’t completely forgiven him, even if I have the sudden urge to lick every inch of his bare, sexy chest and abs. “Why didn’t you call or text or send a smoke signal, anything for six freaking months, Verek? And don’t try to tell me it was because Roman told you not to! Even if that was true, you’re not the type of man to sit back and obey orders as you’ve already proven.”
Sighing heavily, he gently grabs a strand of my hair, careful not to touch my face, and twirls the curl around his finger. “Have you been avoiding Paul for the last six months?” Verek asks out of the blue.
“W-what does that have to do with anything?” I huff.
“Just answer the question, sweetheart.”
Again, I melt faster than chocolate on a hot southern day when he calls me sweetheart. It’s embarrassing how easily he can affect me with just a few words, and how I already want to forgive him even though I shouldn’t.
“Fine,” I reply. “Paul still calls me every day without fail. But, um, I haven’t answered much since we went on that trip.” By trip Verek knows I mean killing spree. Paul has no clue just how different I am now from the woman he used to know. There are so many things I can’t tell him, like what Verek did to those other men while I stood nearby, or what those men did to me in the van and storage facility.
“And why do you avoid his call?” Verek asks softly, still twirling my hair around his finger. “Is it because you don’t care about him?”
I start to deny that I still have any feelings left for the man I was supposed to marry but can’t lie to Verek. He knows all of my truths, even the ugliest ones. “It doesn’t matter if I still love him. He should just give up and move on. I’m sure he will eventually. He’ll be better off finding someone he can have a normal life with.”
“There you go,” he says simply.
“What do you mean?” I ask in confusion.
“That’s pretty much your answer for why I didn’t call you.”
“What?” I mutter as I play back the last few minutes of our conversation and try and imagine it coming out of Verek’s mouth instead of my own. Jesus. “You wanted me to give up on you and move on?” I say in disbelief as I scramble to my feet. “Then why are you back, Verek? Why didn’t you just stay away and wait it out a little longer?” I shout at him.
I start to storm off, to take Lola out or go to my bedroom and slam the door to let out some of my aggression when Verek grabs my hand to stop me. He clasps my fingers loosely in his so that I could still pull away if I wanted to. When I don’t, he lifts my knuckles to his lips and kisses each one slowly and sweetly yet still somehow erotically when his tongue sweeps over my skin four separate times.
“I didn’t want you to move on,” he says, his bluish-gray eyes looking up to meet mine after the melting process is complete and I’m completely liquified inside and out thanks to his irresistible charm. “I just hoped that you would have by now,” he remarks, still holding me in place. “You’ll be better off with Paul or someone else.”
As soon as I can find my voice, I ask, “Why would you think that?”
I hate myself for voicing that question when Verek instantly drops my hand in response. At first, I don’t think he’s going to tell me. Then he props his thick arms behind his head and says, “My father runs a strip club, has ever since before I was born.”
“Okay?” I say when I kneel back down beside the sofa to hear what is sounding like his past, something he’s never really talked about.
“I grew up there, lived there pretty much my entire childhood and teenage years. Naked women were everywhere, all the time, strutting around in heels, counting their wads of cash.”
“That sounds like a strange upbringing,” I remark, trying to picture a young boy in a place like that.
“If it was, I didn’t know it. I thought it was normal. It was my normal,” he says. “I didn’t date much in high school. The girls my age didn’t look or act like any of the ones at the club who were not just flirtatious but…forward, giving me lap dances and blowjobs in the private rooms when my dad wasn’t around without me even having to ask. I think Dad knew we fooled around but that I never fucked any of them,” Verek says. “On my sixteenth birthday, he fixed that. Told me it was time to finally become a man.”
“Your father gave you a stripper for your birthday?” I ask in concern.
“No, he gave me six strippers in one of the private rooms, all of which he paid and instructed to finally pop my cherry,” he replies. “Oh, and that’s the same birthday he gave me my first motorcycle.”
“That’s…wow, Verek,” I mutter because I have no idea what to say to that.
“It wasn’t like I was…I wanted them, really,” he clarifies. “It was sort of embarrassing in the beginning, having my first time in a room full of highly experienced women when I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. But they were all nice and very eager to teach me every position possible. By the end of the night, I felt like a god.” Pausing a moment, he goes on to tell me, “See, what I’m trying to explain to you is that sex was never anything more than a transaction to me, with no feelings involved whatsoever. It’s just a physical act with a woman that feels amazing no matter who I’m doing it with. Then it’s simply over and done, I move on. So, I don’t know if I’m capable of having it mean more. I think it’s too late for me to figure that out now. All I know is that I’ve hated myself ever since I let you walk away from me. I don’t even remember much of that woman that night. I wish I had never left with her, and that’s something I will regret for the rest of my life.”
Sitting up on my knees, I lean forward, reaching for the side of Verek’s face to slant my mouth over his. As our lips part, both of our tongues sliding against each other, I feel his fingers in my hair a second before he drops his hand.
When I eventually pull away, I look him in the eye and tell him, “You could’ve slept with a hundred women that night and I would still want you. It’s just hard for me to believe you want me.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Verek asks, looking adorably clueless even though it’s so obvious.
“Let’s forget for a little while,” I reply as I get to my feet and climb on top of him, my thighs straddling his with part of the blanket between us as I lean back down to kiss him again.
Chapter Twenty-One
Verek
* * *
When Tessa kisses me and then climbs on top of me to kiss me deeper, my first thought is that she must still be drunk.
But it’s been hours since I brought her home, and based on the conversation we were having, she’s definitely sober.
So I don’t try and stop her this time, unlike earlier when she tried to coax me into her bed. Then, I had to lock her out of the bathroom so she wouldn’t join me in the shower. Not that I didn’t want her in there with me, I just didn’t want her to do anything she would regret later or even worse, wouldn’t remember.