Smoke Signals Page 3

  “But what?” He stepped closer to me, closing the distance so much that the heat pouring off his body wrapped around me, intoxicating and terrifying.

  “Why would you do for me?”

  For a painfully long moment, he didn’t say anything. He simply stared into my eyes, as though trying to see through the front I kept up when I worked. I’d let them look at me all they wanted, but they could only see what I wanted them to—my body, all the external parts of me. Not the inside. Not my heart, my worries, my pain. I kept that all to myself, a massive well of loss and fear that left me hollow and empty. And alone. All alone.

  If I let him in, there would be nothing left of me. I wasn’t even sure there was anything left for him to take right now, but if there was, I couldn’t let him have it. I’d already allowed myself to be too vulnerable in front of him, and it had to end. Now.

  I willed my tears to stop, and I reinforced my efforts at distancing myself from him, emotionally if not physically.

  The corner of his lips twitched down as soon as I’d gotten my mask back in place, only on one side. He sighed. “I want to do it because I can. And because I should. And because maybe—just maybe—it’ll help me repay my mother for all she’s done for me, in some twisted way.” He shook his head, his eyes searching mine, even though I knew he wouldn’t find anything within them. “Let me help you, Viktoriya.”

  Everything inside me was a roiling, clenching, confused, petrified mess.

  I needed the help he was offering. There was no doubt about it. But could I afford to accept his help when it was clear how much he was trying to get behind my protective walls? If I went along with what he had suggested and somehow he got in, if I couldn’t find a way to guard against his kindness… What would be left of me?

  In the end, I knew I didn’t have any other options.

  “Okay,” I forced through my teeth, the word tasting metallic, like blood. “I marry you.”

  VIKTORIYA INSISTED ON stopping to get blood tests before we made our way to the chapel. It wasn’t a requirement in Vegas, and I wasn’t going to push her for it. Yeah, I wanted to get her in my bed, but considering the way she’d been earning her living for the last few years, I didn’t think she was going to be too keen to go along with it.

  Maybe I should have expected it. After all, she had been trying to get me to fuck her—and to pay her for it—ever since she’d first made eye contact in the casino. Still, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if she changed her mind, and married or not, there wasn’t a chance in hell I was going to do anything she wasn’t fully on board with.

  The bloodwork came back clean for both of us, so we made our way to the marriage bureau to get our license. I knew where it was since I’d gone with Babs and Katie earlier in the day to get theirs for tomorrow. Amazingly, this place was open until midnight every day of the year—a fact that had tickled my funny bone when I’d been there earlier—so I knew we had plenty of time. Once we had procured our license, Viktoriya and I were off to find the closest quickie wedding chapel.

  We ended up at a hole-in-the-wall place with a huge, lit sign out front that screamed “24-Hour Wedding Chapel” into the night sky in bright colors. I chuckled as we walked beneath a bough lit up in neon purples, pinks, and greens that made Viktoriya’s porcelain skin look a garish yellow. No chance my wedding was going to be anything close to Babs and Katie’s tomorrow.

  “What’s funny?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “Just thinking about the wedding tomorrow. Comparing it to this.”

  “Your friend? He gets married tomorrow?”

  An Elvis in full regalia thrust a clipboard and pen into my hands and pointed us toward a waiting room. “Fill this out and bring it back with your license and identification. We’ll have you married in ten minutes or less once you’re done with that.”

  I nodded my understanding and took a seat. Viktoriya sat next to me but not close enough that we were touching. She placed her bag on her lap and held it close to her body, wrapping both hands around it.

  “Yeah. Babs and Katie.”

  Jamie Babcock and I had been rookies together back when I’d played for the Portland Storm. He’d been my best friend since then, even after I’d been traded away and been claimed by yet another team in an expansion draft last summer. And he’d been disgustingly in love with Katie Weber for as long as I could remember. It was high time she finally made an honest man of him. Their wedding was the sole reason I was in Vegas to begin with. Otherwise, I’d be spending my summer at home with Mom and my buddies up in the Toronto area, getting ready for the new season.

  Instead I was here. And now, I was getting married, myself.

  I was tempted to reach for Viktoriya’s hand and draw her closer to me, but I held back. Baby steps. If I pushed too hard, she would run. I knew that much about her, even if I’d only known her for an hour or two at this point. I picked up the pen and started filling in the blanks. “I’m the best man,” I explained to her. “I hope you don’t mind coming to another wedding when we’ll have only been married a few hours.”

  “I can’t go to friend’s wedding.” She sounded serious as a heart attack.

  “Why not? You’ll be my wife. You’ll be with me. We won’t stay too long if you don’t want…”

  She shook her head adamantly. “No. I can’t. Someone might rec…” She trailed off for a moment, pressing her eyes closed. Then she opened them again and stared straight through me with fierce resolve. “I have no clothes for wedding.”

  There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that it had very little to do with clothes and a hell of a lot to do with her former occupation. Someone might recognize me. That was surely what she’d been about to say.

  “It doesn’t matter to me who sees you with me or what they think. You’re going to be my wife. People are going to see us together.”

  “But I—”

  “I mean it,” I said. “I don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks. I have to go, and I want you to be with me.”

  “What if your friend—”

  “Let me worry about my friends, okay?” I reached up and brushed the pad of my thumb over her cheek. She didn’t flinch or pull away, but she didn’t lean into me, either.

  I wished there was a way I could ease her mind. But I knew there wasn’t. Mom still worried that one of her former clients would see her at her job and cause a problem for her. That anxiety would probably never fully go away, and since Viktoriya had been in the porn business, there were a lot more people who might recognize her. Thousands. Hundreds of thousands. Maybe millions.

  “Maybe this is bad idea,” she said, getting to her feet.

  “It’s not.” I took her hand before she could run away. It felt like ice. “It’s not a bad idea.”

  She had tears in her eyes again, but I could see her effort to keep them from falling in the way she was pressing her lips together and grinding her jaw. She was so fucking scared of letting anyone see her vulnerability, and it killed me.

  “My mother was a prostitute,” I said, hoping it would convince her to stay if she knew more about me and where I’d come from. I’d never told anyone before. Not even Babs. It was a piece of me that I’d always kept locked in a corner of my mind. I’d never said the words out loud. It felt like eating shards of glass, but I told her anyway. “She had sex for money, so she could pay for the things I needed. So she could send me to hockey camps and pay for all the gear. She did it because she thought she had to. She did it because she didn’t think there was any other way, and she didn’t want me to end up poor and struggling like she was. She wanted me to have a way out. At first, she thought she could keep it from me, that I wouldn’t realize what she was doing. But I knew. I knew why she did it, and I knew what it did to her. And I love her. I love her, and I don’t ever want her to have to do anything like that again, so I make sure she doesn’t. I don’t want you to have to do it, either. So, no, it’s not a bad idea, you marrying me. It’s the only idea that makes sense.” />
  The whole time I was talking, she stared at me, blinking those wide eyes at me in an effort to prevent herself from crying. She didn’t sit down again, but her hand relaxed in mine. She wasn’t going to dart. At least not right this second.

  I could finally make out the color of her eyes, though: they were the gray-blue of the Tulsa sky when an afternoon thunderstorm was rolling in. Dark. Tumultuous. Ominous.

  “Your mother, she still sells sex?” she asked.

  “Not since I signed my first pro contract. She won’t ever have to do that again.” And you won’t, either.

  “You’re good son, Razor.”

  I’m going to be a good husband, too. The thought sprang to mind, but I didn’t want to push. This conversation was the most she’d talked since consenting to marry me, and I didn’t want to spoil it.

  After she’d agreed earlier, she’d clammed up, speaking only when necessary and giving the bare minimum to answer every question she’d been asked. There had been a moment just before she’d accepted my proposal when I’d thought she was going to let me in, at least a bit. It had only been fleeting, though. She’d put an end to her tears, and the self-protective blankness had come back over her features, and that had been that.

  I got it. Holy fuck, did I get it. Viktoriya had very good reasons to be wary, to think she needed to keep everything locked up inside her. I just hoped she would eventually allow me to see who she really was, not think she had to protect herself against me. I wasn’t going to hurt her, but why should she believe that? Even with knowledge of what my mother had done, there wasn’t any good reason for Viktoriya to trust me, so I knew I was going to have to tread carefully with her.

  I went back to filling out the form, asking her questions that only she could answer. Eventually, she sat next to me again, keeping that bag tight against her body. When I finished, I reached for her hand. Surprisingly, she took it and walked with me to return the paperwork to the Elvis who’d greeted us when we first came in.

  He scanned the forms, comparing what I’d filled in with the marriage license. The next thing I knew, we were walking up to the altar and standing before an officiant. A little person in matching Elvis gear took up a spot next to the larger version.

  We said our I dos, I gave her a chaste kiss on the lips, and we were on our way back to the hotel as a married couple, all before midnight. Shocker of all shockers, somehow I ended up married before Babs. I doubted anyone who knew us would have seen that one coming, me included.

  The crazy thing was, the actual getting married part had been easy. Whatever was still to come, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that it was going to keep us both on our toes.

  Too bad I didn’t have a ballerina’s balance. I got the sense I might well end up falling on my ass a time or two.

  ALL THE WAY back to the hotel, Razor kept his hand on the small of my back—unobtrusive but ever present, making it impossible for me to forget, even for a moment, what we’d just done.

  I was married. To a man I’d only met hours ago. I must be as crazy as he was.

  If not for the fact that I had no earthly idea what else I could have done, I would be a shambles, falling apart because of the absurdity of it all. What would Papa have thought? After all he’d done to keep me safe… If he could see what I had become, he would likely roll in his grave. Maybe it was good he wasn’t alive to understand how far I’d fallen. I was not the woman he had sacrificed everything to see me become. I’d squandered it all, and now I was selling myself in every way imaginable.

  Even marrying Razor was, in a way, selling myself. I hadn’t had much choice, short of ending up in jail for prostitution and being deported to a country that had nothing left for me but worse than anything I’d faced in America. So now I was his wife. He would take care of me, he said. But it would come at a cost. He hadn’t spelled it out, but there’d been no need. All men expected sex. So now, I was once again mentally preparing myself to give up my body in exchange for what I required to survive.

  Only sex, I reminded myself. It was only sex. Nothing more. Just my body. I can get through this.

  He closed the door behind us, and I clutched my purse tighter to my side. It was a habit. A safety reflex, I supposed. It wasn’t likely he would steal the few things I had inside it, and there was no one else here.

  “There’s another room in here,” Razor said, guiding me to a bedroom to the left of the main living area. It was opposite the master suite, where he’d clearly been spending his nights, if the strewn clothes and the open, half-empty suitcase on the floor were any indication. “If you want to sleep in here…” He left the words hanging in the air between us.

  He was giving me a way out.

  No, not a way out. A reprieve. He was granting me time to adjust to being married to him before he made use of my body.

  That wouldn’t help anything. All it would accomplish would be to put off the inevitable. No, it would be better to get it over and done with, let him fuck me now. Not that I thought he would be happy with fucking me for only tonight, but going through with it now would give me a better idea of what to expect from him in the future. Rip off the Band-Aid.

  I stopped before we reached the second bedroom and spun around to face him. Then I wished I hadn’t, because we were chest to chest, nose to nose—or really more nose to Adam’s apple—and he didn’t back up. Not even a half a step. Like so many other men before him, he didn’t appear to have any qualms about being in my space. He might as well belong there.

  I swallowed hard and took a small step back, trying to regain my focus. “No. I sleep with you tonight. We took tests. Both clean. I will sleep with you.” That was why I’d insisted on getting that part done now, after all.

  Razor didn’t answer immediately. He stared at me instead, the same way he had earlier. Like he was trying to see inside me. Like he wanted to know what I was thinking.

  I couldn’t let that happen. Not for him or anyone.

  “All right,” he finally said. “I’m not going to lie and say I don’t want you in my bed, but I’m not going to force you to be there. So if you’re really sure—”

  “I’m sure. I want you to fuck me.” And, to prove my point, I slowly licked my lips before biting down on the lower one, fluttering my eyelids at him. Never mind the fact that it was an outright lie. I didn’t want Razor to fuck me. I didn’t want anyone to fuck me. But what I wanted didn’t matter. I’d learned that lesson a long time ago, and there wasn’t a chance in hell I would forget it any time soon. That wasn’t the way the world worked.

  His eyes followed the path of my tongue and settled on my lower lip, darkening with lust the way men’s eyes always did.

  But he didn’t touch me. He didn’t push me against the wall. He didn’t rip my clothes off me or put his mouth all over me or do any of the things I had come to expect. Granted, he was a real man, not a porn star, and this was a real sexual encounter and not something performed to a script. Maybe my expectations weren’t fully in line with reality.

  “In Russia,” he said after a moment, his head cocked to the side, “what’s the nickname for Viktoriya? What would someone call you if they cared about you?”

  There wasn’t anyone left who cared about me, but I brushed that aside. It would be better to stick to what he’d asked, try to play by his rules even though I didn’t know what they were.

  “Vichka,” I replied, giving him the name Papa had used for so long.

  “Vichka,” he repeated, letting the diminutive roll off his tongue. He brought one hand forward and touched mine, only a couple of his fingers brushing my knuckles and sending shivers racing up my spine. “Hmm. I’m not sure if that’ll work for me, beautiful.”

  “Call me what you want. It’s fine.”

  His lips curled up a bit. “Vicky?” He raised a brow, his nose wrinkling as he shook his head. “Nah. You’re not a Vicky. How about Tori? Do you like Tori?”

  I didn’t understand why he was spending so much time trying to
come up with a name to call me instead of fucking me. Most men called me slut or whore, maybe bitch. They didn’t call me names anyone would want to be called.

  But the longer he waited to make a move, the longer I had to dread what was to come. I decided to take matters into my own hands, dropping my bag on the floor and stretching up on my toes to kiss him. He let out a groan and opened his mouth, letting me take the lead and allowing my tongue entry. I put both hands on his hard chest and pushed him against the wall, hoping to speed things along. He caught hold of my hips and dragged me against him, his hot cock pressing into my belly.

  As hard as he already was, I knew I could have him ready in no time. I tugged his shirt free from his pants and slipped one hand underneath to explore the planes of his abdomen. Almost there. With practiced fingers, I undid the button and fly of his pants and reached in to take hold of him.

  Then he laughed against my mouth. “Slow down, beautiful. We have all night. I guess you like me calling you Tori all right, then, huh?”

  It didn’t have a damned thing to do with him calling me Tori or beautiful or anything else, and the last thing in the world I wanted to do was slow down. I wanted to push him past the point of no return. I wanted to have him hard and hot and so ready he might blow his load the second he got inside me. I couldn’t handle all night, and I intended to do everything in my power to make sure it was over as soon as possible, leaving him sated and me still as intact as I could possibly be.

  So I dropped to my knees and yanked his pants and boxer briefs down to his ankles. Then I took him in my mouth, swirling my tongue around the head to lick up the pre-come before taking him deep.

  He let out a shaky sigh and leaned against the wall as I worked him over with all the skills I’d learned in the porn business. I used my pointed tongue to glide along the ridged underside of his dick, and he swelled in my mouth. I massaged his balls, sucked and licked, and made heated, sexy sounds like I was into it, knowing all of those things would bring him closer to completion. When I felt his hands settle on the back of my head, giving gentle pressure and a hint of guidance, I took him all the way inside me, swallowing the head of his cock past my gag reflex.