Smoke Signals (37 page)

“Kiss me,” he said. “I want to be kissing you when you come.”

So I kissed him. Eyes still open, staring into his.

My whole body tensed, so tight it was painful. And then, with Razor’s hands holding me close, keeping me safe, I let go into the most earth-shattering release I’d ever experienced.

He increased the pace of his thrusts, and I rolled my hips to help him reach his own climax. He groaned when he came, but he didn’t stop kissing me. Not even after he’d rolled us over so he was on top. The kisses went on for hours. Maybe days. I never wanted them to end.

And they didn’t have to. Because no one was going to take him away from me or me away from him.

Not now.

Not ever.

HOURS LATER, I
was still awake with Razor’s limbs tangled up in mine. He’d been sleeping on and off, but every now and then he’d come awake and kiss me soundly before gradually nodding off again.

I couldn’t sleep because there was a niggling sensation gnawing at the back of my mind.

We were married, yes. And we loved each other. The government wasn’t going to force us apart. The only thing that could do anything like that was if one of us decided it wasn’t working.

I was fairly certain we both knew which one of us it might be, should it come to that.

Me.

In fact, we both knew that I had done my best to convince the immigration people that our marriage was a sham. My efforts had backfired, though, and thank God for it.

But what if Razor still wondered if I thought I should leave? How could I make him believe I had no intention of going anywhere?

And then it hit me so hard it would have knocked me out of bed if not for Razor’s strong arms holding me in place.

The moonlight shining down on us through the window was bright enough for me to see without turning on the lights as I disentangled myself from Razor’s grasp.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice fuzzy with sleep. He shot up in bed, tossing off the covers, ready for anything.

“Nothing’s wrong. Lie down.” I rummaged through my purse. It was just my luck that this bag had no pockets or structure to speak of, so everything sunk into a big heap at the bottom, making it impossible to find what I wanted without having to dump the entire contents on the floor.

“What do you need in your purse at this hour?” This time, his tone wasn’t sleepy; it was wary. Further proof that I had to do this.

“Not going anywhere. Just need something.” And while the moon was giving off a decent amount of light, it wasn’t anywhere near enough to see into the bottomless depths of my purse. I upended it and spread everything out. The light shined down on the two gold bands. I shoved them both on my fingers and shoveled everything else back into the cavernous bag. Then I climbed back into the bed.

Razor hadn’t listened to me. He was still sitting bolt upright, naked save for the bit of sheet covering half of one thigh. I tried not to focus on the fact that he was fully erect again. This wasn’t about fucking. It wasn’t about sex or making love. It wasn’t physical in any sense of the word.

It was my heart.

Facing him, sitting cross-legged, I held out the two gold bands so the light would bounce off them. “Give me your hand,” I said.

He held his out, and I slipped Papa’s ring onto Razor’s ring finger.

“When Papa sent me to America, he gave me two rings. Wedding rings for him and Mama. She didn’t wear hers for long time. Years. Worked at chemical plant, so no jewelry. He still had Mama’s ring when Tambovs took her, and he sent me to America with both rings. So I would always have piece of them with me. So I would never forget how much they loved me, even if it was long time until I saw them again. It’s all I have now.”

Razor brushed away a tear from my cheek with the backs of his fingers, but he didn’t say anything. He cradled my face but let me keep talking.

“You’re part of me. Maybe you don’t know, but you’re part of me.”

“Pieces of me, filling up the cracks,” he joked. Or maybe he wasn’t joking. Either way, it was the truth.

“Yes. So I give you piece of me so I can be part of you. I want you to have Papa’s ring. And I’ll wear Mama’s.”

“Can I see it?” he asked.

I placed Mama’s ring in his palm, and he held it up in the stream of moonlight.

“What does it say inside? I can’t make it out.”

“
Moye serdtse prinadlezhit tebe navsegda
,” I said. “My heart is yours forever. It’s inscribed inside both.”

The corners of his lips twitched up. “Forever, huh?
Navsegda
?”

“
Navsegda
.”

“You mean it?”

“Yes.”

“Give me your hand.”

I held it out, and he slipped the ring onto my finger. It fit perfectly. In fact, when I looked down, it was like seeing my mother’s hand. My eyes stung with fresh tears.

“Forever,” he said, lacing his fingers with mine. After a moment, he laughed.

I glanced up, curious.

“Dima told me we need to have a traditional Russian wedding. To honor your parents. Has he mentioned that to you?”

I shook my head.

“Yeah. Said he’d help plan it, and he’d even take on the role of your family.”

All my tears were gone immediately upon hearing that. “He can’t do that.” The idea that Razor would think about giving me something so personal melted me inside, and that Dmitri had suggested it in the first place was enough to make me feel warm and light-headed. But…no. Dmitri couldn’t take on the role of my family in a Russian wedding.

“You have anyone better in mind?”

“You don’t understand. In Russian wedding, bride’s family steals her from groom. He has to pay bride price to get her back. To prove love. Dmitri wants your money.”

“As long as it means you’re mine, beautiful, I’d do anything.”

“Not giving Dmitri money. Or anything else.” He might have given me a Russian music box for my birthday, but I wouldn’t stand for that. No one was paying for me. Not ever again.

“All right. But will you marry me?”

That threw me for a loop. “We are married.”

“I know. But we didn’t exactly do it right the first time. Unless you ask Tallie, of course. But I’m thinking we could do a real wedding—Russian or otherwise—and do it right. Not just a quickie. Something where we can build some new memories.”

Everything inside me expanded to overflowing with love for this man. “Yes, Razor. I’ll marry you.”

“My heart is yours forever.” He smiled as he lifted my hand and placed a kiss on my knuckles. “Any chance you’re ready to show me what else you’ve been carrying around in that purse all this time?”

“My purse?” There was no good reason I couldn’t show him. I climbed out of the bed again. He turned on a lamp. When I returned, we sat face to face. One piece at a time, I took out the contents. “Ballet program from first recital,” I said, holding up a tattered pamphlet.

He took it and carefully flipped through the pages, even though he couldn’t make out the Cyrillic words.

“I was five years old.” I pointed to the photograph of me when he reached the correct page.

“You were a little pixie. Did you wear a pink tutu?”

I raised a brow in curiosity. “Yes. We all wore pink tutus for recital. Why?”

There was a sparkle in his eye, but he said, “No reason. Tell me more.”

I took out the next item. “Train ticket from St. Petersburg to Moscow. Traveled with ballet company when I was eleven.”

I kept taking out items, telling him about them, and answering his questions until the sun came up. But we both knew it wasn’t just a bunch of stuff I was telling him about. It was me. My life. My heart.

And I was sharing it all with him.

I STUDIED THE
final design Ravyn, my tattoo artist, had come up with, taking in every aspect of the artwork before she inked it onto my skin. It was an angel’s body with a phoenix’s wings. If you looked closely, you could tell that those very wings were formed from words.

Russian words. In Cyrillic, which I sure as fuck couldn’t read, despite the lettering on the inside of the wedding ring Tori had given me.

I turned to Dima. “You swear this is right? If I put this on my body and it says something like
Razor is a fucking cunt
, I’ll rearrange your face until you’re even uglier than you already are. It won’t be easy, but I’ll do it.”

“Words are right,” he said. The guy never cracked a joke. He was always straight to the point.

I’d talked him into helping me with the Cyrillic, in addition to the few lessons he’d given me as far as speaking Russian, in exchange for all the shit he was putting me through for his sledge hockey game in a few weeks. It seemed only fair.

“All right,” I said to Ravyn. She was probably seven or eight months pregnant, with violet dreadlocks and bright tattoos all over her body. I’d never had a woman do any of my other tats, but they’d all been done in other cities. Asking around had led me to Ravyn and her tattoos. A look through her online portfolio was more than enough to convince me she was the artist for this job. I nodded at her. “Let’s do this.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

“All right. I’ll go put this on transfer paper and we’ll get started.” She headed up to the front of her shop.

I took out my phone to send Tori a text.

She should be busy at the studio for at least a couple more hours, so the tattoo might be close to finished by the time she could come out. She’d been selected to be part of a community ballet for Christmas, and she had also started teaching a class for four-year-old beginner ballerinas in addition to all the classes she was taking. The video she’d done for The End of All Things had garnered her a lot of attention in the Tulsa ballet community, opening up countless doors. She’d even been invited to audition as a principle for the Tulsa Ballet next fall.

All of that meant we were taking our time in planning our wedding. We didn’t want to just throw something together. We’d already had a quickie. Now we wanted something meaningful, something including bits from traditional Russian weddings, some American traditions, and maybe a few things that were specifically about the two of us.

I sent her a note, asking her to meet me here when she was done, and then I dropped trou and settled into the chair so Ravyn could do her work on my thigh. Once he’d verified the Cyrillic for me, Dima took off.

Ravyn didn’t talk much while she worked, but at least every twenty minutes, she had to stop to go to the bathroom. The stopping and starting was starting to wear on me when Tori walked through the shop doors.

She shook her head and raised her brows when she saw me. “You’re getting new tattoo?”

“Yeah.” I couldn’t help but grin. Tori was going to flip when she understood what it was about. I nodded at Ravyn. “Mind if she takes a look now?”

“No problem. I’m almost done. And I could use a bathroom break, anyway.” She wiped the excess ink off my skin and backed away so Tori could lean in.

Tori started crying almost immediately. “It’s for me?”

“Who else? Get closer. Take a look at the wings.”

She sat in Ravyn’s chair and wheeled over. “
Yesli ya izbavilsya ot moikh demonov, ya by poteryat moikh angelov
,” she murmured.

“Please tell me that means
If I rid myself of my demons, I would lose my angels
and it’s not some bullshit Dima thought it would be funny to slap on my thigh.”

She laughed through her tears. “Dima wouldn’t do that. He’s good man.”

“Sweetheart, I think we’re going to have to have a talk about what constitutes a good man.”

She bent over me to give me a sound kiss. “I know what makes good man. Good heart makes good man. You both have good hearts.”

I still wasn’t sure about that, but I figured I’d better take her word for it. My heart belonged to her, so it needed to be better than good. It had to be the best, because there wasn’t a chance in hell I’d give her anything less.