All the Lies We Tell (Quarry Road #1)(45)

He said her name, meaning for it to push her away, but it only pulled her close to him again. The kiss went on and on, and he lost himself in it and her, trying hard not to be that guy, the guy who took advantage of someone who wanted something from him he knew he couldn’t possibly provide . . . but he failed. Of course he did.

“We can’t do this, Alicia.”

When they were younger, it had always been her older sister who’d pushed the boundaries and crossed the lines. Alicia had been the one to hold back. To follow the rules.

Obviously, she’d changed.

“Why not?” she challenged. “Why can’t we do this?”

Niko sighed. His fingers tightened on her hips. He wanted to let her go, to step away and put some distance between them to make it easier to deny the heat still palpable between them.

“Because we can’t.”

“You’re not going to stick around. You’re going to fix some things around here for your mother until you can’t stand it here anymore, and then you’ll be back off into the world, having your adventures.” She sounded only the tiniest bit bitter. “So why can’t we do this thing we both want to do, at least for the time you’re here?”

“You were married to my brother.”

Alicia snorted soft laughter. “Who was in love with my sister.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Niko said. “It doesn’t make this right.”

“You had me first,” Alicia told him boldly. Bluntly. She stood on her tiptoes to offer him her mouth, brushing her lips over his before pulling away when he tried to kiss her back. “Everything about this is messed up, Nikolai, believe me. I get it. But you can’t tell me that you want me and then not follow through. It’s not fair. More than that, it’s cruel. Is that what you want? To be cruel to me?”

He shook his head, then pressed his face to the side of her neck. Holding her close. Breathing against her skin. “No. That’s not what I want.”

“What do you want?”

It should’ve been easier to tell her. He’d thought about it so much over the years, after all. Yet words failed him, as they almost always did. All he could do was scrape his teeth along her throat to make her moan again. He pushed his hand between her legs, pressing against the heat there.

“This.”

“Then take it,” Alicia whispered into his ear. “Take all of it.”

Footsteps overhead pushed them apart again as they both breathed hard. The sight of her nipples outlined against the thin fabric of her shirt made his mouth go so dry he had to swallow hard. His cock ached, confined in the denim.

“Niko?” Galina called down the back stairs, her voice getting closer. “Is Allie still here?”

“Just leaving,” Alicia called. “We finished the dishes.”

The door at the bottom of the stairs creaked. Galina peered out. She’d wrapped herself in a silk kimono, her hair piled on top of her head. She had her pack of cigarettes in one hand.

“The hinges need to be oiled,” she said.

Niko frowned. “Okay, I’ll get right on that.”

Galina shrugged and moved past them to go out the back door, where the brief flare of her lighter lit her shadow through the glass. Alicia turned her head to look where Galina had gone.

The line of Alicia’s neck and the curve of her shoulder made Niko turn away so he could get himself under some kind of control.

“I should go,” Alicia said.

Niko nodded. “Yeah. I guess you should.”

She made no move to leave, though her gaze cut again to the back door. The soft mutter of Galina’s voice talking on the phone meant her attention was on that, not them, but even so, Niko wasn’t going to risk another embrace. He walked her to the front door, though, where he did pull her close when it looked as though she meant to leave without another kiss.

“This is crazy. You know that,” he said against her mouth.

“Maybe we can’t help it,” she whispered. Her eyes flashed in the dim light of the front hallway. “Would that make you feel better? Thinking that you can’t stop yourself? Would it give you an excuse?”

He could stop himself. He didn’t want to. He was saved from answering, though, at the sound of his mother’s shout.

“Niko!”

They both turned at the sound of his mother’s voice. He sighed. Alicia laughed.

“I’ll see you,” she told him, and let herself out the front door.





CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE


Theresa had spent a good portion of the past few days putting this deal together, and she had to admit, it was one of the best she’d ever come up with. Making connections was a skill, one she’d had to rely on more than ever since . . . well, if this all worked out, none of that other stuff would matter. She pushed aside all that to look over the packet she’d printed up. The lists of agreements and concessions for each party, the responsibilities and, most important, the payout. She grinned. This was going to work. It was all going to be okay.

“Ilya?” She knocked lightly on his door and stepped through, looking around the room. “Oh. Wow.”

“Galina insisted on taking back the master,” he said from his place on the sagging double bed.

Theresa looked over the yellowed posters of sports figures and cartoon cats and racing cars. “Uh-huh. Okay.”