Page 32 of Guarded Hearts
“Do you miss it? Russia, Imean.”
While I chewed, I considered her question. I missed my family, but I didn’t miss the life I’d had there. Zoya and Russia were linked in my mind. Returning might slice open the wound. So I hadn’t. Each year, I paid for a different family member to visit for a few weeks, get a taste of America. “Sometimes.”
“I miss my sister, and we still live in the same country.”
“She lives far from you?”
Alyssa dipped a french fry in ketchup. “No, not too far. But she’s not…” She took a deep breath. “The guy she’s with isn’t good for her. I barely recognize her.” A wry smile crossed her face. “The curse of the Miller women. Doomed to love bad men.”
“That’s what you think?”
She finished chewing and said, “Yeah, I guess. My dad was emotionally distant. Good enough, as a dad. I think Olivia and I have been seeking something we can’t find. We pick emotionally distant men over and over.” She dipped another french fry and held it suspended over the plate. “Even you. You’re one of the good ones, but you’re not exactly emotionally available. Still miles better than any other man I’ve slept with. Don’t worry.”
Her words caused a knot to form in my chest. Was I emotionally distant? I didn’t think of myself like that, but even with the therapy I’d had, Zoya’s memory laid like a thin blanket. “I’m sorry,” I murmured.
“You don’t need to be sorry. The sex is great. I can’t fault you there.” She shrugged. “You still love her.” Her voice had grown thick, and she cleared her throat. “I think it’s beautiful to know a man can love like that.”
The realization that she’d never experienced the right kind of love from a man was painful. I wished I could give that to her.
“You don’t have to feel sorry for me,” she said, as though reading my mind. “It’s comforting, actually, to know men like you exist. Gives me something to aspire to.”
“Have you loved a man like that?”
She scrunched up her face and picked at what was left of her burger on the plate. “I’ve told men I loved them. I mean, I’ve exchanged those words with a few guys. And I thought I meant them at the time, but I don’t know if I ever felt them. You know? In my soul.” She touched her chest.
I did know. The words and feelings had been branded on me with Zoya. Being with anyone else, loving anyone else had been ludicrous. How could I? She’d owned me completely. “I hope you find it.” Even as I said the words, my gut twisted. Someday, someone else would have her like this, have more of her than I was getting. The thought caused a spike of possessiveness, and I moved the plate from the middle of the bed onto the nightstand.
“What are you doing?” She laughed, her dark eyes lighting with amusement tinged with desire. “We only have ten minutes before we need to leave.”
My grin was wicked. “I only need five. Three for you, two for me.”
“You can get me off in three minutes?” She wrapped her arms around my neck, shuffling closer under the covers.
“As you Americans say, piece of pussy.”
Alyssa burst out laughing. “That’s not what we say. It’s cake. Piece of cake.”
“Cake. Pussy.” I threw back the covers, parted her legs, and flicked my tongue along her core. “I eat it all.”
“Jesus, I think I just came,” she breathed, clutching my biceps.
“Has to be a record. Should I call Guinness?”
“You got them on speed dial, big boy?”
I settled between her legs. “Not yet. Let the games begin,” I murmured before I covered her with my mouth.
Chapter Fourteen
Alyssa
In twenty-seven years, I had never been this satisfied. Pasha worked out with Tyler in the morning when he woke up and then spent his lunch hour buried inside me behind a locked door, his afternoons actually learning to dance, and his nights watching me from the wings of the stage.
No other person had ever been so entrenched in my day-to-day routine. Everywhere I turned, he was there, and instead of being frustrated by it, I found his presence comforting. For the rest of my life, Mia Malone’s name and this tour, would be synonymous with happiness.
This time might be fleeting, but I would cling to it with everything I had. I wasn’t going to waste a minute of this experience on the tour, with him, this routine.
Now that we’d developed an easy rapport, he’d loosened up on the dance floor and was picking up aspects of the routine at a good pace. There were still some tricky parts, but I’d always expected those to give him trouble. What I liked best about him was his perseverance. No matter how many times I stopped and started a sequence, no matter how vague or specific my critique was, he never let frustration win. He picked himself up and did it again but better.
