“Go to sleep, malyshka.”
I wanted to know why he obviously wanted me and still denied me, but soon grew too tired to press it. I twisted around and fell asleep with my face in his chest and his hand in my hair.
The next few nights went similarly.
He asked me to stay and make him dinner before he left in the morning. I must have been an internal misogynist because I did. It didn’t take long to realize that, even as meticulously clean and organized as it was, I loved being in his space and having something to look forward to, like cooking for him.
What I didn’t love?
The fact he wouldn’t sleep with me.
Before the kissing and heavy petting could get too far, he’d pull away, and then I’d hear, “Go to sleep, malyshka. I’m tired.”
The man wasn’t tired. He slept an average of three hours a night. I’d usually wake up in the middle of the night to find him sitting at the kitchen island on his laptop or going through paperwork. He was so sexy at three in the morning I couldn’t resist sitting on his lap and kissing his mouth and neck until he grumbled in frustration and told me to go put my ass back in his bed.
The third night, I even crossed my arms and refused to come to bed with him. He chuckled, picked me up off the couch, and carried me to the bedroom.
I sighed in frustration, moaning, “I feel used,” while rolling over onto my side.
Amusement coated his tone. “How so?”
“You eat my dinner and then don’t fuck me afterward. It’s rude, Christian.”
He laughed. That warm, deep laugh that was too sexy to be angry with.
He usually went to the gym and showered before I even awoke. But a couple times, I woke up to use the bathroom and found him shaving at the sink.
“I have to pee,” I told him.
“Then pee.” He made no move to leave.
I hesitated.
I wasn’t modest about my bodily functions, but as I sat on the toilet and peed in front of Christian Allister, it felt so taboo it made me squirm. And it might have turned me on a little. His humored gaze slid to me as I finished my business, a stupid flush rising to my cheeks when I realized he could probably read my twisted thoughts on my face.
When I was done, I sat on the sink in front of him, placing my legs on either side of his. I leaned back on my hands, just looking at him and the steady strokes of the razor.
A corner of his lips lifted.
That was when I realized I loved to watch him shave.
He was shirtless, only wearing a pair of white briefs. My gaze settled on his tattoos, and I ran a finger across the rose on his chest.
“Tell me what this one means.”
His movements stilled for a second before resuming. I wished I could be in his head at that moment. To understand why he was so conflicted about sharing things with me.
“It means I turned eighteen in prison.”
I held in my surprise that he’d answered me without a fight and focused on tracing the rose with a finger. “When did you get out?”
“Nineteen.”
I was only nine when he’d first gone to prison, and fourteen when he’d been released. I’d never had a picturesque childhood, but I was beginning to believe this man’s was deeper and darker than I had ever imagined.
My fingers trailed lower to his ribs, to a tattoo I hadn’t noticed before. It was a constellation; I recognized the open-squared shape. I’d found it with a telescope before, all because of a single night on a terrace. Andromeda. It looked darker, fresher than the rest of his tattoos.
“When did you get this one?”