Page 19 of Keeping Ruby

The man is undressing! I’ve never seen a naked man, much less had one undress in front of me.

I need to look away, but with every button he pops through the hole, exposing more and more of his hard, carved chest, and the black ink that decorates it, I grow more and more transfixed.

What am I doing? Ruby Belle—shoot—what’s my last name again? Oh, frick.

It doesn’t matter what my last name is. What matters is that I’m drooling over the devil.

Over my husband.

“Come here.” His voice is deep and low as he shrugs from the shirt, tossing it to the same chair he’d tossed his jacket. He’s so big and so—well, defined. Muscles ripple as he moves, the massive black tattoo of a bear seeming to tear from the very flesh he wears, as though it’s ready to rip into any foe who dares to take arms against him.

It’s ironic how I’d compared him to a bear not all that long ago. Now, as his hands fall to the belt that hugs his waist, big hands making quick work of the buckle, I really can’t help but compare him to the bear he wears on his flesh. They’re both massive and ruthless. Deadly.

I shiver.

“Ruby,” he calls, and I blink. When I shift my eyes from his now open belt buckle to his face, I find his expression is impossibly dark and terrifyingly hungry.

Not for the first time tonight, I feel like my knees might give out. I swear, they knock. I squeak, “Hmm?”

“I said, come here.”

I gulp. “Oh. Um. I can’t.”

He raises a brow, but I swear his lip twitches. “You can’t?”

“I need jammies.”

His amused expression doesn’t fade as he abandons his task of stripping from his pants to lift the shirt he tossed to the chair, and then he’s moving to me. My heart climbs from my chest to lodge like a spur in my throat. I do my best to swallow it down. I fail.

Kirill holds his shirt out to me. I stare at the black fabric that dangles from his finger as though it might shift into the very bear that is inked into his skin, to devour me whole.

Dumbly, I ask, “What am I supposed to do with that?”

“Put it on.”

My eyes bug. I choke on the heart in my throat, finally coughing it down. “I’m s-sorry?”

“You say you need something to sleep in.” He pushes the shirt closer to me, a dare lighting his dark coffee eyes. “Sleep in this.”

“I can’t sleep in your shirt.”

“Why not?”

“It’s yours.”

“And you are mine.” His free hand lifts, a finger sliding between the fabric and my overheated skin. When he gives it a firm tug, I stumble from the wall toward him. There’s no way I’m releasing the towel. Standing toe-to-toe with him now, he dips his head. “You can put on my shirt, or I can put it on for you. The choice is yours.”

“You and your choices,” I grumble, but I snatch his shirt.

Then, because I’m feeling all kinds of prickly, and sensitive, and overly confused, I stomp back into the bathroom, slamming the door behind me.

The dog lets out a single bark.

I swear, I hear my devil laugh.

Ten

Ruby

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