Page 174 of Deceitful Vows

“Five hours not enough for you,??????”

“Depends. Are we still talking about sleep?”

Her lips curve upward when I growl.

Then, two seconds later, I get the quickest peek of her baby blues.

“Hey,” I murmur like a soft cock, slipping lower down the mattress so she doesn’t have to strain to meet me eye to eye.

“Hey,” she parrots. After swishing her tongue around her mouth to loosen up her words, she asks, “What happened?”

I sigh in relief before asking, “You don’t remember?”

She shakes her head before whimpering in pain. “Ow.”

“Gentle.” I pull her hand down from her wound. “You’ve got a ton of stitches in your head.”

“Oh god.”

Confident her hands won’t be as stabby this time, I release them so she can check her wound. She measures its length with gentle probes before guessing its invisibility powers by dragging her hair forward to cover it.

“I guess it could be worse,” she whispers after checking her reflection in a freestanding mirror in the corner of the room. “I could have been forced to wear bangs.”

“Bangs would suit you.”

She rolls her eyes. “I think you’re willing to say anything to lessen your guilt. Bangs don’t suit anyone.”

When she sits up, exposing more of her luscious body, I say, “Where are you going?”

She forces another groan to rumble up my chest when she replies, “Back to my room.”

When she stands and almost fumbles, I shoot out of the bed and catch her before she hurts herself again. My hands send goose bumps racing across her skin. Don’t ask me what it does to the rest of her body, or you’ll admit me for a psych evaluation.

“You can stay here. I have fresh sheets, and?—”

“No,” she murmurs, her voice announcing she is on the verge of being sick. “The memories will hurt less in my room.”

When our eyes align, shame almost folds me in two. Her memories are back, and they hurt her more than any knock to the head ever could.

“I fucked up?—”

I’m saved from forcing my shame onto her by a rush of vomit she can’t hold back.

As vomit sprouts from her mouth, numerous assurances from a familiar voice outside my room shout that I’ve got this.

Mikhail doesn’t do vomit. He hasn’t since he didn’t realize his mother had used a cereal bowl as a vomit bucket. He thought it was porridge. His instincts have never led him so badly astray.

“Take her into the shower,” Mikhail shouts from outside my room. “It is easier to stomp down chunks”—gag—“than wipe them up.”

After warning him that he’ll be cleaning up his own mess if he sympathy vomits, I scoop Zoya into my arms like my sleep pants aren’t covered with spew and then walk her into the bathroom.

“No,” she whines on a groan when I enter the shower stall and switch on the faucet. “Not this shower. I can smell you in here.”

“You’re puking enough to cover the scent of my cum, so suck it up.”

I almost laugh when her bottom lip drops into a pout.

A groggy Zoya is almost as fun as a drunk Zoya.

---