Page 174 of Toxic Temptation
The park fades away. The noise disappears. I forget we’re being watched, forget this is all pretend, forget everything except the way he’s looking at me.
“You have no idea what this means to me,” I whisper.
“Actually,” he says, leaning closer, “I think I do.”
When he kisses me, it’s soft at first. Almost tentative. Then his lips part mine and it becomes something else entirely. Something desperate and real and impossible to fake.
At least, not for me.
With that one kiss, he obliterates every rule I made this morning. He wants to flirt? I’m his. He wants to kiss me? He can have my mouth whenever he wants it. He wants to make love to me? My body is already putty in his hands, and so long as the PIs don’tphotograph the private bits too closely, I’ll be whatever he’d like for me to be, for as long as he’d like it.
Do no harm?Ha. That’s a joke. Loving Kovan is the most harmful thing I’ve ever done.
And yet I can’t find it in me to regret it.
61
KOVAN
“Luka!” I call out. “Luka, it’s okay. You’re safe. It’s me. It’s Uncle Kovan.”
My nephew thrashes against his bedsheets, trapped in whatever hell his eight-year-old mind has conjured. His legs kick and churn, fighting invisible demons with every ounce of spirit he has in him.
“No…!” he whimpers, eyes closed, chest heaving. “Please no… Leave me alone…”
I grab his shoulders and shake gently. Finally, his eyes snap open. The nightmare dissolves as reality crashes back in. Sweat beads across his forehead.
“Uncle Kovan?” he says in a sleepy, terrified voice. “Wh… what…”
“Just a bad dream,malysh. That’s all it was.”
He launches himself into my chest. His small body is trembling so violently I feel my own heart skip.
“Are you okay?” I ask after his breathing has calmed down. “What happened in the dream?”
“Nothing,” he mumbles against my shirt. “It was nothing.”
I consider pressing the issue, then decide to let it rest. “Alright. I’m here now. Everything’s okay. Every single thing is okay.”
“Is it?” His head jerks up, eyes huge and desperate. “The social worker lady is still coming back. She told me yesterday she hasn’t decided yet. What if she makes me go back to Mama?”
I have to close my eyes in the face of the wave of pain and fury that that simple question stirs up in me. When I open them again, he’s watching. Waiting. “You get a say in this, Luka. It’s your life.”
“I don’t want to live with Mama again,” he says, face downcast. “She’s mean. And she makes me sad all the time. And I can never talk about Papa when she’s around because it makes her angry.”
I pull him closer. His bird-thin shoulders fit perfectly under my arm. I wonder idly:Was I made for him or was he made for me?Vitalii would’ve known. Vitalii would’ve been able to see the answer in the stars.
But Vitalii isn’t here anymore to tell me.
“Don’t worry. I’m doing everything I can to make sure you stay here with me.”
“With you and Vesper,” he corrects, his fingers curling into my sleeve. “Can she…” He looks up at me shyly. “Can she come put me back to sleep?”
I shudder. “Vesper’s sleeping. You’ll see her tomorrow.”
“I want her now.”
It’d be easy. She’s twenty feet away, one thin wall between us. All I’d have to do is walk across the hall and wake her. She’d come running without complaint. She’d hold Luka until his breathing evened out. She’d probably fall asleep right here beside him.
