Ariana shakes her head lightly. “And you were okay with it?”
I shrug. “Like I said, it’s the way I was raised.”
“How old are you now?” she asks, and I’m taking it as a very good sign that she’s trying to get to know me better.
“Thirty-one.”
Her eyes widen. “Wow, that’s eight years older than me. I don’t know how I feel about that.”
“Why?” I ask, narrowing my eyes on her.
“That’s a big age gap, Demitri. The guys I’ve dated were my age.”
There’s a burst of anger in my chest, and I grumble, “The guys you’ve dated?”
“Ah… yeah.”
“How many?” I demand.
A slight frown forms on her forehead. “Three.”
Then I remember she’s only slept with one other guy, and it makes my anger rocket through my chest.
“You’re upset?” Ariana asks, her eyes searching my face as she tries to read my mood.
“Of course I’m fucking upset. No man wants to know how many men his woman has been with,” I practically bark. “It’s enough to send me on a killing spree.”
Her eyes grow huge, and she turns her body to face me while she quickly explains, “It was nothing. The longest relationship I had was three months. They didn’t mean anything.”
I pin her with my eyes. “You cared enough to give one of those men your virginity.”
Ariana smiles awkwardly. “It was more an experiment on my part. I just wanted to know what doing the deed was like.”
“And?”
She pulls a disgruntled face, and shaking her head, she looks back to the lake. “Nothing memorable.”
It makes me feel a hell of a lot better hearing the fucker didn’t measure up to her expectations.
“And you?” Ariana asks. Her teeth tug nervously at her bottom lip, then she continues, “How many girlfriends have you had?”
I shrug. “None.”
“Huh?” Her eyes snap back to me. “That’s impossible.” When I just shrug again, she gasps, “So what? You just have one-night-stands?”
“Something like that,” I answer with a chuckle at her shocked reaction.
Confusion washes over Ariana’s features. “But… then why are you so insistent on a relationship between us?”
I lift my hand and wrap my fingers around the back of her neck. Leaning toward her, I answer honestly, “Because you’re the first woman I’ve ever wanted.”
“Why me?” she breathes, the atmosphere between us beginning to fill with tension.
I brush my thumb against her soft skin and stare deep into her eyes. “Because I worry about you. Before we met, I never cared about a woman. With Winter, I felt some pity when she lost her family. With Haley, I was more upset that a woman got beaten. But I never actually cared what happened to them.”
I shift my hand to her chin and brush my thumb over her lips. “You’re the only woman who’s made me feel a fuck-ton of emotions. Everything from anger to possessiveness.”
“It’s only been two weeks, Demitri,” she whispers, but her eyes are soft on me.
“So?” I shrug.
“How can you fall so fast?”
“If I didn’t fall hard and fast, we wouldn’t be sitting here, Malyshka. It’s all or nothing with me.”
Ariana tilts her head, her gaze searching mine. “Are you scared of failing or…” she takes a breath then continues, “losing me?”
The thought of Ariana dying sends an overwhelming surge of wrath through me. My muscles instinctively tense as if the threat is nearby. “Losing you is not an option.”
“Why? You don’t owe me anything. You can walk away right now.”
My heart beats hard in my chest, and I stare at Ariana, realizing she’s become just as important as Alexei to me.
If I lose Alexei, it will cripple me. I’d be lost without my best friend because up until now, he’s been my sole purpose for living.
If I lose Ariana, I will fucking lose my mind. I can’t even think it.
“You’ve become as important as Alexei is to me,” I finally admit. “I won’t lose either of you.”
Ariana moves onto her knees next to me, and placing her hands on my jaw, she leans into me and presses her mouth tenderly to mine. When she pulls back, her eyes are filled with emotion. “Thank you for kidnapping me.”
I let out a burst of laughter. “That’s the last thing I ever expected you to say.”
Chapter 23
ARIANA
After dinner, Winter made me empty clip after clip on the targets and showed me how to knee a man. We trained until after midnight, and as we head back into the house, we hear the men talking in the living room.
I actually feel comfortable handling a gun, but I know it’s not the same as shooting at a living person.
When we walk into the living room, Demitri climbs to his feet, then says, “Let’s get some sleep. We have a busy couple of days ahead of us.”
He walks to me and, taking my hand, pulls me back out of the living room. I follow him up the stairs and into a guest bedroom where our bags are already waiting near the bed.