All the Lies We Tell (Quarry Road #1)(54)

“I’m sorry,” Nikolai said.

She shrugged. Chin up. Voice steady. Back straight. “That makes me feel so much better. Thanks. You can leave now.”

“Don’t do that. Please,” he added. “Don’t shut me out like that. Look, you know we . . . we can’t.”

“Right,” she said around the lump in her throat. “Of course we can’t. I guess it doesn’t matter that we already did.”

Nikolai cleared his throat. “He’s my brother.”

“He was my husband. You think I don’t know how messed up that makes this? Do you really think I don’t know?” When he didn’t answer her, she crossed her arms over her chest. With a sigh, she looked away. “Just go, Nikolai.”

This time when he said her name, she couldn’t hide the shiver that rippled through her. Grateful for the thick sweater and her crossed arms that hid her tightening nipples from his gaze, Alicia frowned and closed her eyes. If he touched her, she thought, she would knee him in the junk. She would punch him in the face. She would . . . she would . . .

She would let him kiss her mouth, softly, but with determination. She would let him put his arms around her and pull her close. She would let him tickle her lips with his tongue until she opened for him, and when he threaded his fingers through her hair, tipping her face to his, she would let him do that, too.

“I don’t want to want you,” he said, his mouth on hers.

She’d have pulled away but for the grip of his hand in her hair. “So stop, then.”

“I can’t.” He kissed her again, harder this time.

She pushed herself against him, her thigh going between his to nudge upward. Not to hurt him. She wanted to feel him getting hard for her. She wanted to touch him. When she tried, he captured her arm at the wrist and stopped her an inch from his body—for no longer than a heartbeat or three, however, before he was moving her hand to cup his thickening erection through his jeans.

“Touch me,” he muttered into her mouth, then against her cheek, her throat, as he slid his lips along her skin. He moved her hand slow, slow, curling her fingers over the bulge in the denim.

He groaned aloud when she yanked open the button and slid the zipper down, notch by notch. She freed him, pushing at the waistband of his jeans and briefs until she could hold his bare flesh in her palm. She stroked him as their mouths found each other’s again.

“I’ve been aching for you . . . couldn’t stop thinking about how you felt. How you sounded when you came . . .” Nikolai’s voice rasped, stuttering to silence when her grip circled the head of his cock.

He was so hard it was like gripping iron. The angle was wrong. The position, awkward. She wanted him in her mouth, but she couldn’t force herself to stop kissing him, not when the taste of Nikolai’s mouth was so tantalizing. Her tongue slid along his, mimicking the stroking rhythm of her hand. He pulsed in her grip.

It was her turn to slide her hand along the back of his neck. To grip him there, to hold him still while she nibbled at his lips and kept up the steady, demanding pace of her fingers gripping him. His fingers loosened on her wrist. His hips thrust forward, at least until she closed her fist tight around him, just below the head.

“No,” Alicia whispered into his ear, then took his lobe between her teeth. “Don’t move.”

She laughed breathlessly when he let out a muttered curse, but she didn’t relent. She pulled away enough to look at his face. He kept his eyes closed. His mouth, wet and open. His hands went flat against the filing cabinets, but he didn’t move. Not even when she slowed the stroking to what must have been an infuriatingly slow pace.

Nikolai’s brow furrowed. A soft noise slipped out of him. Then another when she gave in to the desire streaking through her and moved her hand faster. Faster. Until finally, he tensed. Warmth coated her hand, but she kept her gaze focused on his face. Waiting for his eyes to open, for him to look at her when his pleasure overtook him.

He did.

Alicia waited another half minute before she stepped away from him and grabbed a couple of paper towels from the shelf next to her desk. They busied themselves with cleaning up, neither of them speaking. She had her back to him, waiting for him to leave. Because of course he would, right? And he’d probably take the doughnuts with him, too.

Nikolai didn’t leave. He came up behind her and put his arms around her to draw her back against his chest. He nuzzled the back of her neck, and Alicia let herself melt into the embrace.

“Alicia . . .”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Nikolai.”

“We have to talk about it.”

She turned to face him. “Why? Why do we have to talk about it? This thing has been going on between us for a long time, and I guess it’s just something that we have to deal with. But please . . . let’s not talk about it if all you’re going to keep saying is that you can’t and don’t want to.”

He let her step away from him. He’d buttoned his jeans, but the zipper was still down, and she took a certain satisfaction in that, and the way his hair was still rumpled. His mouth still plump and wet from her kisses.

“You’re going to leave again, anyway,” she continued. “Right? In what, a month? You’re going back all the way to the other side of the world.”

Something shifted in Nikolai’s gaze. After a second, he nodded. She shrugged.