He pulled silverware, napkins and then sandwiches and homemade chips from the duffel bag. “Alena kept it simple for us because I told her we were coming a very long way and we were riding on the Harley.”
She had no idea what to say about his childhood. It was clear he had moved on from that revelation and she didn’t blame him. He’d been honest and she needed to give him something just as honest back. She tried to think what she could say.
“My mother had me when she was very young; she’d just turned eighteen. I never knew my birth father. He was never in the picture. She met my stepfather when I was three. He was awesome. They had my baby sister, Priscilla, a year later. She was the most beautiful girl ever born. I used to tell her all the time she was my fairy princess. She would demand that I read her all the fairy tales nightly and I always did. She never tired of them.”
She drew her knees up and hugged herself tightly, unable to keep from rocking. She rarely let herself go there, but he’d given her that piece of himself, so she was willing to do that for him. She wanted to. It was something real. This was Scarlet Foley. The woman. This wasn’t the bullshit outward shell she presented to the world. She wanted Absinthe to know who she was, at least as far as she dared let him see.
“God, she was so beautiful, Absinthe. I lost her when she was fourteen. My parents too.” She couldn’t tell him how. Not any of them. Or that it was her fault or that she did penance for that every single day of her life and would always. “It’s strange how our lives are so weirdly similar.” Even saying that gave away too much. She didn’t dare look at him. Instead, she stared up at the canopy where the wind set the tops of the trees swaying.
“I’m sorry, literaturnaya ledi, we both have had a difficult time of it. I think we need to stop talking about our past. Let’s just tell each other things about ourselves. I’ll tell you something about me and you tell me something about you. Something easy and fun. My favorite color used to be green, like your eyes. Now it’s scarlet, like your name or the red of your hair, which I’m obsessed with.”
She found herself laughing in spite of the fact that she’d just wanted to cry her eyes out. How could he do that? Turn everything around? She liked that he was obsessed with her hair. She unwrapped the sandwich he handed to her. He looked delicious. She supposed the sandwich did as well.
“I tried to find out last night if you were allergic to anything, but you didn’t answer.”
There was no censure in his voice at all, but she found, for the first time in a long while, that she couldn’t control the color sweeping into her face. She’d found his voicemail and his text, but it was too late to do anything about it.
“I’m sorry, I fell asleep so early. I think the bath made me so sleepy I just went out that fast. Fortunately, no allergies.” She prayed she loved whatever Alena had made to eat. She was going to eat it no matter what it was.
“Good. You still owe me favorite color.”
He’d taken her at her word. She hated that she felt so guilty. Worse, she hated that she’d lied to him. She wanted their relationship to be real. That was impossible when she was deceiving him. “I’ve found lately that I’m really enamored with blue, a particular shade of crystal blue.” That was no lie.
He gave her that slow, melty smile. “Just how warm are you?”
She swallowed the bite of very delicious sandwich that she suddenly couldn’t taste anymore and had no idea what she was eating because his voice had dropped low and sexy. His gaze had drifted over her body, that infinitely slow perusal that dropped the bottom right out of her stomach and made her heart beat right through her clit.
“Very.” That was the truth as well.
He nodded. “I’m getting warm too. There’s no breeze. Take off your T-shirt, baby, and see if that feels any better.”
Absinthe pulled his shirt over his head one-handed and put it to one side. Her breath caught in her throat. Not only did he have more muscles than anyone she’d ever seen, but he had scars everywhere. Burn marks. What looked like whip marks. And tattoos covering them. Interesting ones. The work was incredible, clearly done by the same artist who had worked on his arms. He was incredibly beautiful.
She took a slow swallow of water and pulled off her own shirt, revealing her lacy mint-green bra. She had very few nice things, but she liked beautiful underwear. She’d been hopeful that she’d have a chance to have sex with Aleksei—Absinthe—and she’d worn one of her favorites. The bra framed her breasts, barely containing them. Already her nipples were hard. She had generous nipples and she always thought if she found the right partner, she would enjoy breast and nipple play, but so far that had never really happened. Just being with Absinthe, already she was aching just with his gaze on her.