Chapter Nine
“Areyousureyou two aren’t cheating?” I demanded, flinging my shirt onto the pile on the floor that already included my skirt and wooly socks.
Ilya grinned. “You’re very bad at playing Durak.”
“I’ve played strip poker before, but is stripping even part of this game?”
“Only if you are good at Durak and want to see your opponent naked,” Bron said, topping up everyone’s drinks.
It was a good thing I had a high tolerance for alcohol. These two weren’t lightweights.
“You’ve already seen me naked. If you want my clothes off, all you have to do is hold me down and strip me. That’s what you usually do.”
“We kept her naked for one day, and she’s still complaining.” Ilya threw down his cards and stretched.
“It was cold!” I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to keep my body heat in, but Yana’s old sports bra and my granny panties were no help.
“This isn’t cold. Wait until winter.”
“I’ll be gone by then, thank god. I’d freeze to death.”
They both took a drink then and didn’t reply.
I narrowed my eyes. “I am going home in twelve weeks or so.”
Bron thumped down his glass on the wooden table. “That’s what it says in your contract.”
The statement should have been reassuring, but it wasn’t.
“You do look cold,” Ilya noted. “You could sit on my lap.”
“If I sit on your lap, you’ll see my cards!”
“I promise not to cheat.”
“You mean, you promise not to cheat anymore?”
“He won’t cheat any less.” Bron’s normally dour expression seemed lighter tonight. The alcohol was doing the trick. “Maybe we should stop playing. You keep forgetting the rules.”
So much for impressing them with my card playing. I hadn’t impressed them with my chess skills a few nights ago, either.
“I thought Russians drank vodka.” I swirled the brownish amber alcohol in the glass tumbler.
“They do, but that is like saying Americans always drink lite beer. Not all of them do, and most don’t drink only that.” He raised his glass to me. “You don’t like cognac?”
“It’s different from what I’m used to, but it does the job.” I laughed, and then stopped, realizing they were both inspecting me. Although I hadn’t been shy or innocent in years, I felt myself blushing.
Bron looked away first. He gathered the cards and set them aside, then downed his drink and poured himself more.
“What was the game you played with the other women the night they gave you stuffed toys and had you watch cartoons?” Ilya asked.
“Which game?” Memories of that night were fuzzy, which was probably for the best.
“The one where you were all shouting and laughing. There were no cards, but you asked each other questions or made each other do strange things. It was hard to hear from where we were watching.”
“Oh. Truth or dare.” I explained the idea of the game, and by the time I was done, they both looked perplexed.
“And this is fun?” Bron asked, unconvinced. “Why not simply refuse to do these dares?”
“A lot of kids won’t turn down dares because they’re afraid of looking afraid or weak.”
“It would be a sign of intelligence to turn down a dangerous dare,” Ilya pointed out.
“Well, yes, but is that really how things work here?”
“I was raised with siblings much older than me, so I do not know. They mostly tried to keep me from bothering them.”
I grimaced, remembering doing that to my own siblings sometimes, and feeling guilty about it now.
“That must have been lonely for you.”
He shrugged. “It was what it was.”
“Should we play?” I smirked at Bron. What were the chances a grown man with a serious disposition would agree to play something so silly?
“Why not?” He crossed his arms.
“Okay. Bron, truth or dare.”
“I need to pick one or the other without knowing what the challenge will be?”
“That’s what makes the game interesting.”
He studied me. “Do you have ideas for both?”
“I do, but I’m not telling you what they are.”
He grunted. “Ilya will go first.”
“Chicken.”
His scowl made me giggle. I wasn’t a big giggler, but between the alcohol and his expression, I wasn’t able to restrain it.
“Truth,” Ilya said immediately.
I straightened my face, trying to look serious. Might as well start off with something easy that I already knew the answer to, just to get them used to the game. “How many people have you slept with?”
“Slept with?” he asked, frowning.
“Had sex with?”
“Ah. Well, you know the answer, I think. Two.”
“Including me?”