Page 20 of Doctored Vows

“That’s right. You were there to help my mother.” He licks his lips like they’re as dry as my throat, his nostrils flaring when he tastes me on his mouth. Don’t ask if it is a good or bad flare, as I couldn’t tell you. “The woman who birthed me. The woman who raised me. The same woman whose admission was never documented on any official paperwork. My mother was as fit as an ox before she arrived at your hospital.” He steps back before tugging up his pants with the same aggression he used to remove mine. “I can’t believe I forgot that’s what started all of this.” When he gestures his hand between us, he doesn’t look at me like he did only moments ago. I would say he hates me, but since he’s looking past me, not at me, I’m going to assume some of the fury is directed at himself. “I’ve often been told I put my cock before anyone.” His eyes are back on me, hot and angry. “Never believed it until now.”

Disappointment flashes through his eyes for the quickest second before he exits the washroom without glancing back my way.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Zoya asks as we exit the plane on the heels of the first-class passengers who glowered and snickered at me when I made my way to my seat after the pilot announced we were about to begin the descent. I would have never left the washroom if given the choice, but my options were limited. “You’ve been quiet.” She leans into my side and lowers her voice. “I didn’t snore, did I?”

“No.” I gulp before correcting, “I don’t think.”

I haven’t told her about what happened in the washroom. I’m clueless about how it went from exhilarating to disastrous in seconds, so how can I explain it to anyone else?

She probably wouldn’t believe me anyway. My cheeks are still flushed, my panties are still saturated, and lust is still beaming from my eyes. Not even the flight attendant believed my mumbled excuse that I’d been in the washroom for so long because I was cleaning Maksim’s shirt as initially planned.

It was wet from a soda water sponge bath and folded over my arm, but she still tsked me.

Her scorn took me back to my pre-med days and how the head professor was harder on me than everyone else. I thought it was because he wanted me to succeed, but I learned otherwise when my father was convicted to life behind bars.

His constant ridicule almost had me leaving medical school. I only stayed because Zoya got him off my back.

Married men will do anything for their wives not to find out that they’re adulterers.

I’m drawn from sordid memories when the woman who will go to hell and back for me suddenly stops walking. After cocking her brow, Zoya fans her hands across her tiny waist. “Why do you smell like a hot hunk of a man with too much testosterone?” A second after her eyes lower to my neck, her mouth gapes like a fish out of water. “And what caused that red mark on your neck? Neither it nor that expensive aftershave I’m smelling were present when we boarded.”

“Everyone on our flight now smells like a hunky man. It is the airline’s preferred scent.” I’m only good for one lie. It is all downhill after that. “And what mark? My neck feels fine. It isn’t the slightest bit achy.”

When I stupidly shoot my hand up to rub the stubble burn Maksim’s beard left, Zoya’s mouth no longer hangs open. It hits the floor. “You’re the woman they were talking about in first class! You stamped your mile-high card in the bathroom during the flight. Who was it?” She twirls to face the people exiting the plane with us, making a spectacle of herself. “Which one of you horny fuckers claimed my BFF’s airplane virginity?”

“I’m so sorry,” I apologize to the men close enough to hear her before I clamp my hand over her mouth like she did mine earlier and drag her toward the baggage carousel. Once we’re at a safe distance from prying eyes, I say, “I didn’t lose my airplane virginity.” When her nostrils flare like she is dying to call me out as a liar, I add quickly, “He would have had to fuck me for that to happen, and he didn’t. He left me hanging.” My next words are barely whispers. “I didn’t even get to orgasm.”

Her nostrils flare for an entirely different reason now.

She is disgusted.

Mercifully, she is more subdued when confused by the actions of the opposite sex.

After warning her that I know how to dismantle her voice box permanently, I slowly lower my hand from her mouth.

It takes her a moment to find her bases, but her voice is more respectable once she does. “One, who the hell would walk away from that?” While whistling like a construction worker on a building site, she glides her hand up and down my body. “And two, was penetration involved? Because if something was poked, it could be classed as virginity popping.” She pays my gaped mouth and wide eyes no attention. “Remember Alekstar Quinovic? He had that issue where down there didn’t work unless he was being poked in his…” She pulls a face I can read with no issues, and it has the tension tightening my shoulders easing a smidge. “He didn’t class that as losing his virginity, but when it was multiple fingers and a handful of kitchen gadgets, my opinion on virginity popping changed.”

Since she looks settled for a long conversation on a card she stamped far too young, I wrap my arm around her shoulders and escort her toward the luggage carousel our fellow passengers are surrounding. It is late—or early depending on whether you’re a sun chaser—and I’m more than eager to get out of the clothes I’ve been wearing for almost twenty-four hours and wash off the funk of a long flight.

During the short trek, Zoya continues reminding me of the horrifying men she’s met in her jam-packed twenty-eight years. Her trip down memory lane ends when we reach the baggage carousel assigned by the airline.

“What the…” She storms away from me with the determination of a momma bear about to protect her cubs. Her possessions are the only thing of value she has, so to see her clothing shredded and strewn across the conveyor belt of the carousel is devastating for her. “Someone is about to get a new asshole… and don’t go looking at her.” She points to the lady behind the lost baggage claim desk. “Because she’s sick of cleaning up your guys’ mess just like the rest of us.”

I’ve never seen Zoya so quiet. Anyone would swear the 3,800-dollar compensation check she got for her ruined luggage was a million dollars. She wouldn’t have gotten a single cent if our tickets hadn’t been upgraded, but since she was first-class, she got the max and is tickled pink.

“Imagine how many margaritas this will buy.” She grips my arm as her eyes widen. “Or maybe I could book us a private poolside cabana. Then you’d have no excuse not to come swimming with me.”

“Cabanas don’t offer shelter from the sun’s harsh rays in the pool.”

She slaps my arm before she returns to daydreaming about the luxurious life she could live with her small windfall. I’m not as appreciative of the silence as you’d think. It gives my head too much time to wander back to my exchange with Maksim in the washroom and the possible cause of his rejection.

Twenty minutes of deliberation only awards me more confusion.

I am completely lost as to where his anger stems, and out of time to deliberate further.

We’ve finally arrived at our hotel.

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