Page 100 of Ruby Mercy

The tension in the room is shifting, slipping from unease to something expectant.

Then Rayne squeezes my hand. “Do you want to know the main reason I never tried to find you? Because I was afraid you’d be married. Or engaged.” She closes her eyes. “I didn’t know how I’d react if I found out you were with someone else.”

“So the other day when Viktoria showed up was your worst nightmare, then?”

“No exaggeration,” she says solemnly. “You were engaged to someone else and it was her. Brutal.”

Slowly, I lay down beside her. Rayne still doesn’t open her eyes, so I tip her chin to me and brush my thumb over her lashes. They flutter open. “There was never anyone else.”

“Viktoria would disagree with you.”

“That doesn’t make it true,” I tell her. “Things with Viktoria were always about business.”

“It’s over now? Whatever thing was between you two?” she asks. “It’s really, truly over?”

“It’s over. It never really started in the first place.”

She stares at me for a long time, her eyes moving over my face. She reaches out and runs her fingers through my hair. “How about a truce?”

“What does that mean?”

“A truce,” she repeats. “Just for tonight, everything between us can… melt away.”

Rayne rolls onto her side, the swell of her hip made for my hand. I grip her waist and drag her shirt higher, revealing more of her skin.

And just like that, she gets what she wants.

Everything melts away.

37

RAYNE

I sound more confident than I feel. My body is trembling beneath his touch. It feels like my heart is going to beat out of my chest.

Kirill’s hand tightens on my waist. He pulls himself closer to me, molding his body to mine. “You know what I want, Rayne.”

His voice is a delicious rumble. I feel it everywhere.

“The same thing I want,” I say. “Sex without all the complications and expectations. An hour to forget about everything else and feel good.”

Kirill rolls me onto my back and settles between my thighs. His brow arches high. “You think an hour is all I want? What a limited imagination you have.”

“What an inflated ego you have,” I tease back.

He settles his weight on top of me, his erection nestled between us. “Something is inflated, anyway.”

I laugh and the spark of joy moving through me steals my breath. How could anything with Kirill ever be meaningless? I’m stupid if I think I can touch him and taste him and then let this go. When he decides to leave, I’ll crumble.

Kirill presses his lips to my neck and my jaw. “Where did you go?”

I blink. “What?”

“You spaced out. What were you thinking about?”

“Nothing.” I wrap my arms around him, smoothing my hands over the bunched muscles on either side of his spine.

He kneels above me and grabs the waist of my pants. “Still lying to me after everything we’ve discussed?”

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