Lead and Follow(59)

“We can make room,” she said. “Even for a big boy like you.”

“I have to be in Westchester in…” He looked over to Dima’s glowing red alarm clock. “Shit, four hours.”

“Crash on the couch. Leave tomorrow?”

“Nope. Gonna head home. You stay here and enjoy this for both of us, okay?”

Stay with Dima. In his bed. Wake up in his arms. Lizzie bit her lower lip and closed her eyes on a rush of pure want. An exhale shuddered out of her chest.

Paul traced a finger over where Dima had held her throat. “We weren’t too rough, were we?”

At least that was a topic she could discuss without a greed so swift it left her lightheaded.

Sex? Easy.

A heart full of forever? No way.

“You were just right. All of it, just amazing.” She grinned big time. “And you? Something to write home about?”

“Oh, fuck no.” He chuckled as he stroked a strand of hair off her shoulder. “But it was damn, damn good. Tell him that for me when he wakes up, yeah?”

“Paul…”

“You promised. This was a reprieve. A filthy hot reprieve. Now you have to fix this.” He glanced down to where Dima’s legs had tangled with hers. “Liz, how can you not?”

“I’m scared.” Admitting it was like talking with crushed glass in her throat.

“Think about the alternative, then think about scared.” With one last kiss, his lips warm and gentle, he stood away from the bed and got dressed. The same white tank, jeans, cowboy hat. Their sunshine was leaving. “I’ll be back for Dima’s big performance, yeah? I hope the waters are calmer by then.”

“No repeat of tonight?” One last try. She forced herself to keep petting Dima with the same quiet strokes. Casual. Easy. Even though her pulse had climbed up from her chest and into her mouth.

“Fun time, remember?”

Lizzie understood the unspoken reciprocal. She and Dima weren’t fun anymore. They were complicated. Paul was one hell of a smart guy.

“You deserve better than being used as a life raft.”

“Don’t you dare think this was some mercy mission. You two have been an education.” His lopsided shrug and endearing smile were so damn adorable. “I’ve never had any ideas otherwise.”

She nodded, as tight on the inside as a rubber band stretched near to breaking. “Thank you, Paul. I hope the job goes well.”

“Me too. Good night, Lizzie.” He kissed his fingertips and touched them to Dima’s shoulder. “And good night to you, you stubborn Russian bastard.”

He tipped his cowboy hat and left. Lizzie flinched only a little when the front door closed behind him.

She snuggled into Dima’s arms and closed her eyes, enveloped by their shared scent. Sex and sweat and satisfaction. Tomorrow would come soon enough, as exhaustion scratched behind her lids. She had a promise to keep and a partnership to save. Or more like, to mend and transform.

Sink or swim, Dima. We have to do this without him now.

As they lay there cradled and wrapped together, she realized—no matter how scary—that was exactly what she wanted.





Chapter Twenty

Dima woke in the middle of the night with Lizzie in his arms. They were spooned together on their sides, like a crescent moon. His hand was wrapped low over her hips, with her head pillowed on the biceps of his other arm.

It wasn’t the first time they had fallen asleep together. They’d spent plenty of nights watching crappy rental movies in borderline seedy hotel rooms while waiting for the next day’s competition. Nearly every time, Lizzie fell asleep first with her head on Dima’s shoulder. He’d indulged in stroking her hair as he finished out the movies, mostly missing that she no longer poked fun at the poor kung-fu dubbing. Occasionally he’d fallen asleep as well. He would wake up completely twisted together with Lizzie, who slept like a goddamned log.

So waking with his thigh hugged between Lizzie’s smooth legs wasn’t new. That both of them were naked, with his cock pressed against her soft, bare ass… Yeah, that was new.

His dick woke up so damn fast.

The room remained dark with night and thick with the early season heat of a city summer. The comforter was long gone and only a top sheet twisted around him and Lizzie. Although Paul had left hours earlier, his cologne layered over the fainter smell of sex. What a fucking night that had been. In both the best way and the worst.

He’d fucked his Lizzie for the first time in a decade. More than that, the experience had gone beyond anything he’d imagined. Anything he’d instinctively thought could be there. What he had hoped for was nearly too big to think about, but the night had shown him the hard, stark truth. He was so desperately hungry for Lizzie that he wouldn’t be satisfied with less.