Page 57 of Always Yours

She scoffs at that. “Like you care.” Austen almost makes it out the door before I step in front of her, quickly shutting it. Her eyes widen as she looks up at me. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I have absolutely no fucking clue.”

She just gawks at me. “What is wrong with you?”

“I don’t know,” I admit, and her eyes narrow, her breathing labored.

“Move,” she demands.

“I can’t,” I tell her, holding her gaze. “I don’t want to, and I don’t think you want me to either.”

I watch as she moves her hand along her forearm to where the rubber bands sit. She takes hold of them, but I reach out, stopping her. I wrap my fingers around her hand and wrist, a chill running down my spine. Her stunned gaze meets mine, and without thinking, I turn us, pressing her back into the door. She lets out a small sound of surprise, and I try to control myself as her notebook hits the floor. I raise her arms up the door, holding them in place with one of mine as I take her jaw in my other hand. Her skin is so hot, so soft, and everything inside me screams for her. I try not to press my body into hers, because if I do, I will do so many ungodly things to her that I’ll miss practice, the wedding, and basically everything because I want her.

I want her feverishly.

I gaze down into her golden gaze as she brings her bottom lip between her teeth. I groan loudly, surprising her, but I don’t care. She is maddening and almost unbearable, but I leave space between us. Neither of us says a thing or even moves as we gaze into each other’s eyes. I move my fingers along her wrist, soothing the skin she continues to abuse. “I want to lick you, right here,” I whisper, stroking her wrist.

Her eyes are wild, and she doesn’t blink as she looks up at me. I swear time stands still, breathing is not an option, and I am so tight I might scream. Her eyes search mine, and shit, I think I see something I hadn’t before. Fear.

“Janie—” I breathe, but I don’t know what I want to say. I want to reassure her I won’t hurt her or ever do something she doesn’t want, but I don’t know how. I move closer, my lips almost to hers. I’m lost in her eyes, and all I want to do is say her name. “Austen.”

Her lip trembles, and then I notice that wetness filling her eyes, and everything inside me goes still. “Please don’t kiss me.”

Don’t? Have I read her all wrong? “What?” I whisper, my voice breaking, and I can feel the heat radiating from her. I know she wants me; I just know it.

“I don’t want you to kiss me with anger.”

Goddamn, someone throw me in an ice bath. Without even thinking, I whisper, “Sakharok, I’m not mad.”

Heat flares in her eyes as if she recognizes the Russian word for sugar. Knows what it means. But that can’t be.

“But I am,” she says, her eyes imploring. “And I don’t want a kiss between us to be a memory that is tainted by anger.”

“I need—” I stop myself then because her eyes widen. “I would never do something you don’t want.”

“I know,” she whispers. “Which is why I’m asking you not to kiss me.”

I gulp, unsure how that motion is even working at this point as I gaze down at her. This isn’t what I expected, honestly. I fully expected to take her against this door and have her screaming my name. She bites hard into her lip as she pulls her hands from mine, and I let go. She slips out from underneath me, her eyes never leaving mine as my hands fall to my sides. My cock throbs in my pants as I take a step back, stepping on her notebook. I reach down, picking it up for her, and she takes it with a shaky hand.

“Thank you,” she says, but I don’t think she means for the notebook. She looks down at it and then at me as the air around us suffocates me. Her lips part as if she wants to say something, but she refrains.

I clear my throat then, and she looks down at her notebook. She works her lip, and I know I need to go. But I refuse to move until she does. She rips a piece of paper from her notebook, and when she looks up at me, she says, “I need to go.”

“So do I,” I answer, breathing like I just did twenty laps on the ice.

“I had no intention of giving you this.”

I don’t say anything; I just hold her gaze.

“I never give my letters to anyone. I usually just burn them when I’m done writing them.” Her breathing quickens. “I learned it in therapy, and it’s helped me a lot. But there is something different about this letter. I think I need to give this one to you. I think you need to know.”

She holds out the paper to me, and I take it without hesitation. When I see my name at the top, my insides clench, and when I look back at her, I find her hurrying out. I want to call her back, stop her, but something tells me not to. I look down at the sheet, her beautiful script staring back up at me.

Dimitri,

You are absolutely impossible! The audacity you have is frustrating and more. Your ego is bigger than all of Russia and then some. How dare you tease me and exploit me for what I read and enjoy. How could you read my book? How could you take that private enjoyment away from me? Just knowing you know what I am reading has me shaking with anger. I want to beat you with the damn book! How dare you look at me like you enjoy making my life hard. You called me Janie in front of my sisters. You told them about the book. You laughed at me with them. How dare you!

I have never been so mad in my life, and what drives me even more insane is how you make me feel. Your eyes make my insides scream. Those damn dimples of yours make me want to touch them, caress them. When you smile, I swear time stands still, and it’s so annoying because I don’t want to feel any of this. I want nothing more than to never speak to you again. To never have our gazes meet. To just stay away from you. But it’s so hard when I want nothing more than to experience everything I could ever dream of with you.

---