All the Lies We Tell (Quarry Road #1)(86)

“Ilya already knows about us,” Nikolai answered. “It doesn’t matter if I stay all night.”

“That’s not why.”

He didn’t reply at first, but the skipping beat of his heart pounded harder against her palm. “Why, then?”

“I’m getting up early. I need to be at the airport by four. My flight leaves at six. It’s late, and I won’t sleep if you’re here . . .”

He covered her hand with his, curling the fingers tight around hers. When he looked at her, the darkness of his pupils had nearly swallowed up all the gray green. She could see nothing of herself reflected there.

“You’re leaving . . . tomorrow?”

“Yes.” She waited for him to ask her where she was going, but he didn’t. She thought he might at least ask how long she’d be gone, but he didn’t ask her that, either.

“Were you going to tell me?”

She pressed her lips to his skin. “No.”

“That’s . . . I can’t even think of what that is. It’s bullshit, Allie.” He sat, pushing her hand away from him hard enough for it to smack against the covers before she withdrew it. “But seriously, what the hell, you were just going to . . . leave? Without saying anything?”

“I don’t want any long, drawn-out good-byes. Okay?” Irritated at the waver in her voice, Alicia sat, too, and swung her legs over her side of the bed. She found a T-shirt and tugged it on over her head. It hit her midthigh and meant she could feel covered up without finding a pair of panties, but . . . it was his.

“You want to leave without any good-bye.”

This time, with her back to him, she felt exactly like she was shutting him out and not drawing him in. The best truth now was still mostly a lie, though. “Yes. The way you did to me.”

“Fine.” Nikolai didn’t sound angry anymore. He sounded resigned. She heard the soft thump of his feet on the floor on the other side of the bed. “I’ll go, if that’s what you want.”

Ask me to stay.

Irrational. It was all he had to do, wasn’t it? Say the words out loud. Tell her that he loved her and he wanted her. All he had to do was ask her to stay, but of course, Nikolai didn’t.

He didn’t ask her to walk him to the front door, but she did. He turned before he opened it, and she hadn’t thought she would kiss him again—why drag this out? Yet her mouth found his, and she backed him up against the wall, and his hands were in her hair, and her tongue was in his mouth, and all she could do was try not to devour him where they stood.

She didn’t try very hard.

He was the one who broke the kiss, panting. Nikolai wiped the wetness of her kiss off his lips with the back of his hand. With his back against the door, there was no place for him to go, but he turned his head and held up his hands, pushing her away as effectively as if he’d shoved her.

“You wanted me to go. Let me go,” he said. “That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

Alicia could still taste him. She could still feel him against her, though inches of space now separated them. So many words left unsaid, and she was as much at fault as he was, if not more. How could she hate him for not asking her to stay when she hadn’t been able to ask him to go with her?

“Sometimes you love someone who can’t give you what you want, so what can you do but love them enough to let them go?” she said.

“Bullshit,” Nikolai answered. “If nine planets in this universe can align, why can’t we?”

For that, Alicia had no answer. This time, Nikolai was the one who bent to kiss her. The briefest brush of his lips on hers, nothing more than that.

“Close your eyes,” he told her, and she did, waiting for another kiss that never came.

She heard the click of the door. Felt the rush of winter air that started her teeth chattering. Then silence.

When she opened her eyes, Nikolai was gone.





CHAPTER FORTY-TWO


“I should punch you right in the face,” Ilya said. “But to be honest, I’ve run out of energy.”

Niko hadn’t bothered to sneak into the house, but he hadn’t expected to find his brother sitting at the kitchen table with a full bottle and an empty glass. “Pour me one?”

“You can have mine. I tried, but it doesn’t taste good to me. Hell if I can figure out why.” Ilya filled the glass halfway with amber liquid and pushed it across the table toward Niko.

It didn’t taste good to Niko, either, so after a single, grimacing sip, he pushed it away. He looked at his brother, not sure what he expected to see. Ilya leaned back in the chair with a shrug, when he caught his brother’s look.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Ilya told him.

“You could say congratulations. That’s what I said to you,” Niko replied, knowing the response was shitty but saying it anyway.

Ilya snorted rough laughter. “Why? You guys running off to get married?”

“She’s running off. I don’t know where.”

His brother’s laughter faded, and he tilted his head, brow furrowed. “What do you mean she’s running off? Where’s she going?”

“I don’t know.”

Ilya sat up straight. “What do you mean you don’t know? What’s wrong with you? You didn’t ask?”