Page 89 of Deceitful Vows

There’s no doubt my wild side is whittling its way under Nikita’s skin when she twists to face me just before entering the hospital severely underpaying its staff. “Squirting is the correct medical term, but some people also call it female ejaculation. Women expel fluids of various quantities and compositions from the urethra during sexual arousal and orgasm. There have been several studies conducted on the phenomenon, but most of the researchers were male. They took centuries to find the clit, so I haven’t given their findings much thought.” She tilts her head and flashes the cutest grin. “Should I consider my own study?”

I twist my lips. “I think you should. But can I suggest a practical approach to your research instead of theoretical? The results will be more accurate that way.”

“They would. But then I’d need a research assistant, and I don’t see anyone offering their services.”

“Except Boris,” I correct.

“Except Boris,” she parrots.

After groaning, she drops her lower lip, waves me goodbye, and then trudges into her workplace like every man she crosses paths with today wouldn’t sell their left kidney to assist her with a study on the female anatomy.

Once Nikita is out of eyesight, I take the most direct route home. It is the same bus I’ve ridden the past month. Since it is early, it is brimming with people. The ratio of men to women is starkly different, and the handful who appear attached to a significant other don’t miss the bounce the potholes cause my chest.

Their eyes do the same boing their children do on the knees of their wives, and it makes me sick to my stomach that their wives gave them something I never could, yet they still gawk like the best they can get isn’t directly in front of them.

Don’t they know looks fade, but family is for life?

Or was it only my mother who drummed that into her daughters since adolescence?

With my mood no longer playful, I don’t realize someone is sitting in the stairwell outside my apartment door until we almost knock knees.

His prolonged rake of my body is as deprived as my fellow male riders, but regretfully, he knows what I’m rocking under my T-shirt, jeans, and jacket combination.

“Vlad.” I slow my roll to ensure I maintain plenty of distance between me and the last guy who couldn’t find my clit with a map and a compass. “What are you doing here?”

He looks at me in shock. “It’s your birthday. As if I wouldn’t visit my favorite girl on her birthday.”

“I’m twenty-eight.” With him lost, I continue. “Where were you when I turned twenty-seven?”

Vlad is the man who had me believing abstinence was the better option. He was the last person I slept with before Andrik, and he only cared about getting himself off, leaving me unsatisfied and sore enough from his jackrabbit moves not to rush out and seek a replacement.

I assumed all bed companions would be like him. Selfish.

Andrik taught me otherwise.

I take some of the anger I should be directing at myself for letting Andrik slip into my head again for the umpteenth time today out on Vlad. “I would show you out, but I’m reasonably sure you know the way.”

“Come on, Zoy.” His nasally whine annoys me, but not as much as his following words. “We were good once.”

“Once,” I agree. “Then you snuck out in the middle of the night and I never heard from you again.” I could leave it there, but life without drama is dull. “It just happened to be the same night I tried to assure you not all the dryness was your fault. It was, by the way.”

He smiles like he doesn’t believe me.

It doubles my anger.

“You’re an asshole.”

I make it to my front door before his sniveling tone ends my steps. “All that mess was my ma, Zoy. I didn’t want ankle biters. Never did. But I was the last of the Stronovics, and Ma didn’t want Pa’s name to die with me.”

The honesty in his tone cools my turbines by a smidge. “So what’s changed?”

His smile slips as he rubs his hands together. “I’ve got a couple of rugrats now, so she’s good. She is off my back.”

“A few?” My pitch is as high as my brows.

I realize I’ve forgotten Vlad’s quirks when he rubs his hands faster. He isn’t gleaming with attitude. He’s shitting his pants.

“Yeah… I’ve got four.”

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