Smoke Signals (16 page)

But I couldn’t move a muscle.

And then he kissed me, and it was too late.

His lips glided across mine, the faint trace of his tongue a velvet-soft request for entry. I opened and almost sighed when his tongue met mine, stroking and tangling in an unhurried exploration.

The ache in my belly only grew, and the ripples turned to supercharged jolts that shot out to my limbs in devastating surges. He was making me want things I could never have. My fingers itched to sink into his back and draw him closer, to knot in his hair and drag him down to me. I burned to feel his hands on me, molding my breasts to fit his palms or digging his big hands into my ass cheeks and grinding into me.

If he would just take me, manhandle me, hard and fast and rough, then I could find a way to drift off. I could brace myself against the pain and, at the same time, make him think I was into it.

But as long as he kept up this slow seduction, I couldn’t escape to a safe space in my mind. Razor intended to undo me.

And with every day that passed, I grew more and more afraid that I would let him.

He broke away but didn’t move back, his lips hovering millimeters over my skin but not quite touching as he moved along the curve of my jaw.

“What are you doing?” I demanded when I could form words.

“Kissing my wife.”

My chest rose and fell like I’d just danced a
pas de deux
. “Why?” No one was around to see us. Putting on a display like this wouldn’t make any difference in whether I would be granted a green card if there weren’t witnesses. All it was doing was ripping away layer after layer of my defenses.

Razor let out a sigh and backed away, looking at me with the sort of expression my dance teachers had given me when I failed to properly perform the same move for what must be the thousandth time. “Because if we’re ever going to be able to convince the people around us that we’re desperately in love with each other, then we’re going to have to act like it all the time. Besides, would it be the end of the world if maybe we started to believe it ourselves?”

Yes
. Because if I loved him, he could hurt me. Not just physically but deep down on the inside. If I loved him, the Tambovs could use him against me. They could take him from me, the same as they’d taken everyone and everything else from me. I couldn’t afford to love anyone, not ever again.

And there was no one left in this world who loved me. At least no one I would ever see again. Mama might still be alive, but only a fool would hold out hope for a reunion.

I said nothing. He didn’t want to hear the truth.

He backed up a step. I wanted to follow. I wanted to take what he’d started and push him toward its inevitable conclusion. Because if I couldn’t get him to fuck me—to really, truly fuck me and forget about his slow come-on—he would maintain the upper hand, and I’d never get any semblance of control over my life.

But then he said, “I asked Tallie about her doctors because I think we need to go to one. For you,” he added when I merely blinked at him.

“I don’t need doctor.”

“You do.”

I shook my head and made my way back toward the living room. No doctor could help me. All they would want to do is test for STDs and pregnancy, and stick things up in my pussy that would hurt as much as fucking only without the benefits of fucking. They’d pry into my past, and they’d tell me I just needed to relax. That I was clenching from stress. Maybe that I needed more lubrication. Like any of that had ever done a damn thing to stop the stinging, biting pain of having something ripping me to shreds over and over again.

I didn’t need a doctor telling me I was crazy and it was all in my head, or at best that it was simply a bit of discomfort and I was exaggerating, and those were the only things they would tell me. I knew. I’d already seen a doctor about it when the pain had first started.

I just had to cope with the pain. Frankly, that was something I’d already been doing for years, so there was no reason I couldn’t keep doing it now, with Razor.

“Tori—”

“No doctor. I’m fine.” I plopped down on the chair that Tallie had vacated, bypassing the sofa because I couldn’t handle him sitting next to me right now. If he touched me, I’d lose it.

He sat on the arm of the chair and tipped my chin up toward him. “You’re not fine. I want to help you. You were in pain when I was inside you, and that’s not normal. It’s not okay. And I refuse to put you through that, so until you can handle sex without being in pain, we’re just not going to have sex.”

I blinked back my tears in frustration. “But you’re husband.”

“I am your husband. And I’m not denying that I’m an asshole, but I’m not that much of an asshole. I’m not going to cause you pain if I can help it. But there’s no reason we shouldn’t go to a doctor to find out what’s behind it and see what we can do about it.”

“Doctor says it’s in my head. Make it up. Just uncomfortable.”

“Then we’ll keep seeing different doctors until we find one who’ll believe us and help you. Because you and I both know it’s not just in your head. Or are you going to try lying to me about that?”

He looked like he might kiss me again. Could I take advantage of the situation and redirect him? And maybe then I could get him to forget about it long enough to just fuck me. Get it over with. I could mask my pain better this time. I’d done it countless times on camera, and they’d never had to reshoot because I wasn’t convincing enough.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I reached for his cock, rubbing him over his pants. His dick was already big and hard, and it jerked to life at my touch. Razor groaned, and I fumbled to open his fly. I almost had it undone, but then—in a single move—he picked me up, took my seat, and settled me sideways on his lap with his cock pulsing against the outside of my thigh and my knees draped over the arm of the chair.

“I don’t understand,” I said in a huff. “You’re hard. Cock is ready. You want to fuck. So fuck me. It’s fine.”

He shook his head, slowly. Deliberately. “It’s not fine, beautiful.” Then he pressed a kiss to my forehead that made me want to scream in frustration. “I am hard. I do want to fuck you. But I can’t do it. I can’t be inside you and know I’m hurting you. I can’t take pleasure and know it’s torture for you. I
won’t
. Someday you’ll understand. Someday I’ll get through to you, and you’ll know you’re a thousand times more valuable than the sum of your parts. You’ll believe that your worth isn’t directly related to how wide you spread your legs. Someday, you’ll take control over your body again, and you’ll own it. And maybe then, you’ll see how beautiful you are to me. Maybe then, you’ll be beautiful to yourself.”

“I’m not…” I started to shake my head, without a clue what I intended to say, but he put a hand on the side of my face, cupping my ear. He brushed the pad of his thumb over my cheekbone, his touch barely there, and buried his fingers in my hair.

I couldn’t breathe because of the vise squeezing my chest, stopping my heart as surely as it stopped time.

“Don’t,” he said. His voice had become deep and harsh, and the blue of his eyes matched. “Please, stop telling me you’re not beautiful. It’ll never be true, and it kills a piece of me every time.”

I didn’t trust my voice, so I gave him a reluctant nod. I doubted I could manage to do what he’d asked of me, but he hadn’t insisted on my promise.

He kissed the end of my nose. “Good. Now, will you let me take you to the doctor? They might not be able to help, but it’s worth a shot.”

I nodded again. Maybe the doctor could convince him that it wasn’t as bad as he thought.

“Okay. One more thing.”

I flickered my eyes up to meet his. At this point, I couldn’t imagine what else he intended to throw my way.

“I think you need to move into my bedroom. Tallie saw you go down the other hall to put away your purse. If people believe we aren’t sharing a bed…”

He didn’t need to finish that statement.

But if I was in his bed, the likelihood that we might fuck would only increase. Maybe I could change his mind about the doctor, and then I could start to repay all his kindnesses. And if we were fucking, it wouldn’t be as difficult to convince anyone that we had married for love.

“I’ll sleep with you,” I said as decisively as I could. I added a firm nod for good measure.

He studied me, his eyes roving over my face, taking in every feature. Then his lips touched mine again.

The tenderness of his kiss shattered me. I might never be whole again, no matter what Razor thought.

THE FIRST COUPLE
of nights Tori spent in my bed, I woke up several times to find her fingers surreptitiously attempting to free my cock from my boxer briefs. There was no point in pretending my cock wouldn’t have been more than happy to play along. There was also no point in denying that she definitely knew how to use her hands.

But none of that mattered. I had no intention of taking our physical relationship beyond the point of kisses and cuddles until she’d seen a doctor and we could find a solution to her pain. Not only that, but I still meant what I’d told her on our first night together—if she didn’t come, I didn’t get to come, either. No hand jobs or blow jobs just because she had it all fucked up in her head that sex was the only thing she was good for.

Still, the combination of her warm body beside me as we slept and waking up to her determined efforts was doing a number on me. I was horny as hell all the time, and no matter how many times I dragged her hands away from my cock, she kept going back when I least expected it.

I’d taken to rolling over her, holding her hands still at her sides, and kissing her senseless every time she did it. Yes, it made me harder and more desperate to be inside her, especially when she wiggled underneath me and tried to grind herself up against me and said things like, “Fuck me, Razor. Please, fuck me,” all the while sounding like she meant it. But I couldn’t do that, so I kissed her until I couldn’t take it anymore and then begged her to go back to sleep.

The day after she’d gone shopping with Tallie, I’d made an appointment for Tori to see Dr. Rodriguez next week, but that was the soonest the OB-GYN had been able to get us in. In the meantime, Tori and I were both doing our best to keep busy.

We’d gone together to check out a few ballet studios in town, and we’d found one she liked. She was set to start classes next week, and the studio owner said Tori might be invited to take part in some local performances. Until we got her green card sorted out, she couldn’t do professional work, but nothing would prevent her from participating in community productions.

She was also spending more time with Tallie while Hunter and I went up to the Thunderbirds’ facilities to work out.

Hunter was in Tulsa since Tallie was about to pop at any moment and she wanted to be near her father. I was here because of Tori. But it wasn’t just the two of us around this summer. Most days while we were in the gym, Dmitri Nazarenko was also in the gym, working with some of the team’s trainers. Dima’s hip surgery had taken place a few months ago after a nagging injury had slowed him down all of last year, and now he was in the process of rehabbing it to get ready for the start of the new season. I wasn’t exactly close to either of them—hell, I didn’t think anyone on this team was close to anyone else—but it was nice to have some company for the monotonous reps of bench presses, box jumps, and other shit we all had to do.

“Why you marry Russian girl?” Dima grumbled at me on Friday afternoon. “Leave Russian girls for Russians. You don’t know how to treat them. Should’ve married an American. Puck bunnies always chase after you. Take one of them home instead.”

They were always chasing him, too. There was apparently something about surly, bearded guys with bad attitudes and heavy accents that attracted women. Who knew?

I rolled my eyes despite the anger churning in my gut at his suggestion that a Russian would better know how to treat a woman than I did. I wasn’t the one trying to kidnap her and force her into sexual slavery, like the freaking Russian Mafia had wanted to do. “I think if she’d wanted to marry a Russian son of a bitch like you or Petro, she would’ve done that before leaving Russia.”