Page 22 of Valentine's Miracle

“I like a man of action, but shouldn’t we call first to see if it’s appropriate to go up?”

I glance over at my shoulder. “What are you afraid to find?”

He cocks an eyebrow back at me, straightening his body while dropping his foot down. “What are you afraid to find when one of them opens the door? You can’t go back if you find incriminating evidence.”

I thought about it in a short amount of time from the bed to my shoes. It’s not a long time to think and develop my solutions if I do find them a bit preoccupied, but I have also given it a thought that Victoria is a single woman.

She is independent, beautiful, and possesses a charm that lures me in.

I’m prepared to face the fact that they are intimate. Just the word has my tongue digging into my teeth, and I bite down on it to draw pain; it doesn’t wash out the throbbing in my heart.

I’m a jealous, possessive, and irrational man. I don’t want her, but I don’t want anyone to have her. I do want her, but I also don’t want anyone to have her either.

The ride in the elevator and the travel to the door with the number on Sebastian’s keycard is too short, way too short for me to gather my fraying nerves.

He knocks, and I wait silently, focusing on the dark eyehole. The door opens to a disheveled Fyodor, and he lets us in without any question. My stomach has tied a knot by itself, coiling tightly with disappointment that what I had conjured up in my mind was true.

I just had to jinx myself.

Dumbass, I chide mutely in my head.

“Sweetheart, let’s turn up the heat. It’s going to be cold tonight; the temperature will drop even lower than yesterday.” Fyodor’s voice echoes after the locked door.

I look over to the bed; it’s messy and rumpled with Victoria hiding under the covers. “You went skiing in a speedo during January.”

“I’m Russian.” Fyodor gives an explanation that is too simple.

“That means nothing, you reckless loaf of skin.” Her muffled voice shifts when she pops her head up. Her eyebrows curl, and the glossiness in her eyes suggests that she’s exhausted.

Papers are scattered on the desk and on the chairs too, but everything else is in the right place. Nothing out of the ordinary, and I let out a breath that I didn’t know I was holding.

“Actually, I have been working out. Do you want to see?”

Victoria doesn’t look at him. “I rather not.”

“We’re about to retire for the night,” Fyodor says as he slides into his side of the bed. “Stay if you wish, gentlemen.”

“No one sleeps on chairs or the floor,” Victoria warns with her face hidden into the blanket.

Sebastian’s eyes dart from one place to another, and he takes a step to Victoria, but I pin him in mid-step with a scowl. He shrugs and asks for permission with his eyes, and Fyodor opens his cover with a smile.

This is so wrong. It’s a two-bed hotel room and four people are sleeping in here when there is an empty one registered under Victoria’s name.

I don’t feel comfortable leaving her here, but I can’t find it in me to wake her up. Pushing aside any feelings, I slide in the cover with her, and she doesn’t seem to be awake enough to know that it’s me when I lay stiffly.

Her small hand searches for mine, fitting my arm around the curve of her waist, and she presses her back to my chest. This easy movement is done under subconsciousness, and it means that she’s done this to Sebastian too.

Lucky bastard, I bitterly curse at him. It’s going to be the last time he’s going to be in the same bed as her; he needs to learn personal space with me as his teacher, or he won’t learn.

She shivers, curling deeper into the covers and I squeeze her tighter to me. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore, but it feels right to have her in my arms.

I’m following pure instinct, and for the first time after a long break, I sleep without waking up.

Chapter Seven

Victoria

The contrasting temperatures on my face and below my neck do serious damage to my sleep as my eyes open. The curtains are drawn, but a line of light breaks through the heavy curtains while I yawn.

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