The Player (The Game Maker #3)(73)

“When we hooked up in the bathroom . . .”

“I wanted to believe I would respond to you differently, but I decided not to push my luck by coming. Yet then you were too arousing. I had to release. I went mindless in a completely new way”—he held my gaze—“and I remembered every blistering second with you.”

I inhaled sharply. “You really never had before?”

He shook his head. “In your apartment, the same thing happened when I came: pure pleasure. But on our wedding night, when you went to your knees and sucked me, I realized there were yet more heights with you.”

“That’s why you stopped.”

“Yes. I called Maksim, railing because he’d assured me things could be different once I found my woman. I told him I couldn’t risk dissociating forever and never knowing you.” Dmitri gazed past me as he said, “I just like . . . being with you.”

I like being with you too.

He faced me again. “But Maksim said, ‘Your wife deserves a full life, with everything that entails.’ I decided you would have your wedding night if it killed me. For the first time, someone else’s pleasure was more important than my own. Nothing was going to stop me from taking you. So after a lifetime of desperately fighting that dissociation, I stopped.”

“You risked permanently losing yourself for me?” For a woman he’d known for mere days at that point? He was either the craziest man I’d ever met or the bravest.

Curt nod. “And when my mind was open like that, and I had surrendered to being ruined forever, you seeped into every inch of me. You took over my thoughts. Nothing could pry me away from the present because I was making love to my wife. Each one of your cries, the scent of your hair, the unimaginable softness of your skin—everything anchored me to you. You seared me.”

“You’re making me sound like the key to your recovery,” I said, concerned about that.

“I did the work. I learned to cope. But I never had my own incentive to make truly frightening decisions.”

Out on the cliff, he’d told me, “I let it f*cking bleed.”

I grazed his forearm once more.

His expression was grave. “Can you believe me when I tell you I’m a different man now?”

“Never again, Dmitri. Never, never again. Make me the promise.”

“Very well. I can make that promise,” he said, adding, “as long as you’re alive.”

“Dmitri!” I released his hand to pinch my temples.

“One of those things I shouldn’t have said aloud?”

What was I going to do if he discovered all my lies? Hadn’t I—just like Orloff—insinuated myself into Dmitri’s life, deceiving him, using him, betraying him? The grifter in me clamored to rabbit out of this situation. But the snare was closing.

Dmitri had told me he’d known enough doubt and uncertainty to last a lifetime. Though I never wanted to cause him more, it seemed inevitable. Any move I made in the future would hurt him.

He cleared his throat again. “Now that you know these secrets, do you view me differently?” My husband was holding his breath.

He’d just laid himself bare for me. Despite such traumatic beginnings—his father’s viciousness, his beloved mother’s murder, his brothers’ suffering, his guardian’s appalling abuse—Dmitri Sevastyan had somehow grown to be proud and strong and courageous, amazing in every way. “Understanding your past makes me care even more deeply for you, Dmitri.” Snared. “Understanding the risks you’ve taken since we’ve met shows me how brave you are.”

He drew me into his lap—as if he’d been promising himself he could, as soon as he’d completed his task. “And how crazy?”

Was he? Yeah, at times. And I wouldn’t sugarcoat that. “Well, you kind of are, big guy.” I put my hand over his heart. “But I’d still rather have an honest madman than a sane liar.”

He wrapped his strong arms around me. “I like that you don’t shy away from calling me crazy. For so long, everyone did.” He rested his chin on my head, tightening his hold on me. “But I want you to understand something. I took those risks not because I’m crazy. I took them because nothing matters beyond having you. I am obsessed with you. What I feel will never burn away.”

My heart turned over in my chest, but my jadedness made me ask, “How can you say that if you’ve never felt these things before?”

He pressed a kiss to my head and inhaled the scent of my hair. “I believe when a man finds the one woman meant to be his, he associates her scent with happiness. In the deepest recesses of his brain, he thinks, This woman is where all happiness lies. She is my home. Every time he catches her scent, that link is reinforced.” Another kiss. “My happiness lies with you, Victoria. You are my home. It is because I’ve never experienced these feelings that I recognize them.”

My eyes pricked with tears, and I was glad he couldn’t see.

He’d told me, When you’ve been in the dark as long as I have, there is no mistaking the light.

Maybe he had found his soul mate. Stranger things had happened, right? But the notion didn’t comfort me. After everything he’s survived, my betrayal will be all the more devastating. . . .





CHAPTER 33