Roulette (6 page)

“They’re not for everyone,” he adds.

I burst out laughing at that, because the truth is, he probably sleeps with
nearly
everyone. I wipe at my eyes one last time, then put my napkin on the table.

“The French cigarettes might be too strong for me, but I don’t think you are.” I feel bold and empowered. I reach across the table and take his hand in mine. “Let’s go.”

We stand up at the same time, and I nearly stumble when he pulls me into a rough embrace. I think I hear the older woman give a low whistle as she retreats back toward the kitchen. When he finishes kissing me—because that’s what is happening: I am
being
kissed as I half stand, half cave in to him—he gives a tug on my braid and asks, in a sinister, deep growl, “Was that too strong?”

“No.” I breathe the word more than I say it. It escapes from my lungs like a sigh of relief. “I can totally handle you.”

That intense look flashes in his eyes again, but it’s gone just as quickly, and then he’s smiling and we’re saying good-bye to the lady at the back and leaving.

And then we are suddenly back at the brightly lit hotel, in the shiny lobby with all of its sparkling chandeliers and brass accents, and I barely remember walking from the restaurant on that narrow street near the university and hustling back across the bridge.

Then we are in his room, and, well, I don’t really know how to describe what is happening, because it is fast and bewildering. As soon as the door to the room closes behind us, Rome whips off his suede jacket, and then his white button-down shirt is gone a second later. I am walking backward, not really knowing what to do with my hands. I drop my bag on the floor near the coffee table in the seating area of the suite and look around for the bed. His room is huge, much bigger than mine, and I feel disoriented. The bed must be in another room.

He kicks off his shoes and bends down to pull off first one sock and then the other, sort of hopping as he does, to keep his balance. And then he walks toward me—in nothing but those damnably perfect blue jeans—and he starts to unbutton his fly, and I whimper or make some desperate sound that throws him off, and he freezes.

“What?” I cry. “Don’t stop now!”

He closes the distance between us and starts to undress me. He pulls the rubber band from the end of my braid and rakes his eager fingers through my hair. He is touching me everywhere, helping me get my jacket off, and then my gray sweater is up and off, then I am bending over to take off my boots and kissing his hard stomach on my way down, and he’s stroking my bare back and the bumps of my spine as I stretch to get the other boot off. Then I shimmy out of my jeans, and all of a sudden I am standing there in a silvery-gray lace bra and panties and nothing else.

I feel like I’ve run a marathon, and all we’ve done is get undressed. Nearly.

“Oh, Jesus, Miki, you’re so gorgeous.” He rakes both of his hands through his hair and looks almost angry.

“You say it like it’s a problem,” I quip, but I feel all sultry and tempting when he looks at me like that, so I just go with my instincts, reach for his jeans, and finish unbuttoning his fly. Bless the man for not wearing anything underneath.

I kneel down to get his jeans off faster. And then slow. Way. Down.

Holy hell.

He steps out of his jeans, then stands perfectly still. I am on my knees and then lean back onto my heels. Pretty much stunned.

“You’re gorgeous,” I whisper.

Here’s the thing I failed to mention when I was spewing all that talk about living vicariously through my sexually ambitious friends: I love cock. I think I love going down on a guy because it’s one of the few times—maybe the only time—that I don’t think about anything else. When I am totally in the zone, my brain kind of flies off, free.

I get a little shiver just thinking about it. Well, thinking about it and having my face about six inches from the best view imaginable.

“You’re killing me,” he says, his French accent thick.

“Just let me admire it for a few seconds more,” I say, keeping my chin low but lifting my gaze slightly to see into his smoky blue-gray-yellow eyes from my perch, right where I want to be, on my knees, about to devour him.

His hand reaches around to the scruff of my neck and yanks hard, pulling my neck taut so I am forced to look up at him full in the face. I lick my lips and stare into his eyes, the tension in my neck causing a straining, laughing moan of pleasure to escape my throat.

The moment cracks like a whip between us. It’s incredibly intense, but I chalk it up to something primitive—like grade-A prime lust. I lean forward slightly and caress his silky skin against my cheek. I reach my hands up his legs, rubbing his strong thighs. Up and down, relishing the brush of fine hair that traces over his tensed muscles. He has incredible legs: stable, hard. But I can also feel the pulse and zing of pleasure making him quiver. I breathe in and shut my eyes, then find him with my mouth and lose myself in pleasure.

I reach my hands around to his ass and pull him deeper into me, loving the feel of his hand in my hair, that possessive, thrilling grab. Every motion is a pure expression of this animal give-and-take; the more I give, the more I get. I let my tongue explore every ridge and curve, let my jaw and cheeks burn with the tension of holding him inside my mouth. And every time I take him as deep as I can, I feel the concurrent pulse of anticipatory pleasure between my legs. The heat is pinging through me like a call-and-response, rising and building, my orgasm feeling closer and closer every time that incredibly silky flesh fills my mouth.

I’d probably never have the guts to do it in real life, but this is right about the time when I consider the remote possibility of another man, another Rome, really, who could take care of me—fuck me—so I could be fucking and sucking at the same time.

I must be groaning at the lascivious possibilities of cloning Rome de Villiers, because he shoves me away and says, “The groaning will put me over the edge. No.” His voice is so rough with his French accent, I feel like I’ve really accomplished what I set out to do—namely, to blow his mind.

My mouth is wet and slack as I smile up at him, my eyes moist. He reaches down and grabs me up into his arms and carries me into the other room. We collapse onto the enormous hotel bed, and he has my underwear and bra off before I know which way is up. The light from the living room is just enough to cast him in a particularly flattering light. Not that he needs flattery. His body is insane.

The strong upper arms. The hard, ridged stomach. The thighs. Those goddamned thighs. I reach out one hand to drag my fingernails lightly down his left thigh. He is trying to put the condom on and swats my curious hand away. “
Arrêt
e
!” he chides.

I squirm and stretch for a few seconds; then he’s finished messing with the condom and he cages me with his body and the hard sinew of his tensed arms. I reach my hands around to his lower back and pull him into me. My last conscious thought is,
One night, here I come
.

CHAPTER SEVEN

T
he next morning, we are both surprisingly awake at dawn. My internal clock has been haywire for days. He is just tireless by nature.

“Are you awake?” He is on his side, resting his head on his palm and looking down at me.

“Awake enough. What did you have in mind?” I mumble.

He burrows his head under the sheets and roots around, kissing my hip and tickling the soft skin. I am facedown, and he starts to massage my lower back. I think he’s gearing up for round . . . five, is it? . . . when I shriek.

“Oh my god! Did you just bite my ass?”

He slides out from under the sheets at the foot of the bed and stretches to his full height, extending his arms nearly to the ceiling, an idiotically self-satisfied grin plastered across his face. “
Bonjour.
I’m glad you’re awake. Now, let’s jump in the shower and go for breakfast.”

“You’re unbelievable.”

He’s already crossed to the bathroom door when I reply. He turns slowly back to face me. “It is better in French. And you’re the one who’s
incroyable
.” He pauses, then gestures toward his mouth. “You have the lips of a goddess.”

He turns into the bathroom without looking back and calls, “Now get in here.”

I swoon a little at his insane bossiness, then smile, because French people are the most beautiful bullshitters in the known universe. I should know. I learned at the foot of a master (mistress?): my mother is a seducer by trade. And not just sexual seduction, either—the woman nearly makes love to a croissant. I don’t even resent it anymore; it’s just the way she is. So if Rome wants to play it all goddess-lips for a few more hours, that’s fine with me. Compliment away.

I stretch out in every direction in the now-free bed and take a deep hit off the pillow where he slept. It’s a mix of earthy, exotic French cologne and Rome’s own smoky, masculine scent. I try to capture it like an image. I read somewhere that olfactory memories can be really powerful. I want to be reminded of how I feel just now, physical and alive, with my body humming in the perfect balance between what happened throughout the night and what is about to happen in the shower. I want to keep this as a private hidden memory just for me, something separate from my regular life back home in the States.

“Now!” he calls from the shower, and I bound out of bed and into his slippery, welcoming arms.

An hour later we are driving back to my office in silence and it’s like a curtain is coming down on our little one-act play. We’re in the back of his hired limo, and it no longer feels like the languid silence of the hotel room while we were getting dressed and still giving each other all those flirty once-overs. I start to check emails, when my cellular signal perks up and then my phone rings. My thumb is already hovering over the screen, so I accidentally answer the call.

Landon.

“Hey, beautiful! Where’ve you been?” He sounds like he is walking and talking. I can hear the hospital loudspeaker in the background. In the quietness of the backseat, Rome probably can hear it, too.

“Hey,” I answer. “Sorry, I was out of range for a while. I ended up going out—”

“No worries. I won’t keep you. We’ve been invited to the Pearsons’ for dinner Sunday night. Do you want to go? Think you’ll be back in time? Up for it?” He answers a nurse or someone who is asking him to confirm a dosage for a patient, saying something about micrograms.

“I should be back,” I say. “Do you want me to call Stephanie, or will you?”

“I’m playing tennis with George today, so I’ll tell him we’ll be there. Have a safe flight back. I’ll talk to you soon. Have to hop.”

The line goes dead, and I look up to see Rome staring out the other window. Smoking.

“Sorry about that,” I say.

He turns to look at me. His game face is back. The half grin, the slightly raised eyebrow. “Don’t be silly. No need to apologize. Real life returns, eh?”

He doesn’t sound particularly disappointed . . . Oh, but his eyes.

I can see that his phone is also lighting up to indicate an incoming call, but instead of taking it, he slides his thumb across the
DECLINE
tab and slips it back into his pocket. I feel like I was the one who put an abrupt end to the end.

He starts to speak, then stops.

“Just say it,” I mumble to my lap.

“Do you love him, Miki?”

It’s my turn to look out the window. How the hell should I know if I
love
Landon? I’m just trying to do the next right thing. Landon is definitely the next right thing. Deep down, I think love is a bit of a racket. I guess I’m a cynic.

“Rome . . .”

“Forget I asked. It’s none of my business.”

Damn it.
I suddenly want it to be his business. I want him to
want
it to be his business. I know he is trying to respect that I had a life before he showed up—
have
a life. Even so, for a split second, I wish he’d be a tad less respectful and just demand things of me and tell me how he is going to rip me out of the life I had before he showed up.

I guess he is the grown-up after all, because the fact that I think I need to be rescued is seriously messed up. Plus, even if I were to go out on a limb and pursue it, what sort of long-term relationship could ever live up to this spectacular day and night of bliss?

That sort of thing just can’t be maintained over the long term. I think of my parents. All that roiling passion one minute, and then . . . kaput. Nothing. Or worse than nothing. I suspect they’d actually come to hate each other and how badly they screwed up. How badly having me screwed up their wild, crazy love affair.

In this moment, I convince myself that a perfect day and night is a million times better than a long, drawn-out two years—or even two decades—of trying to recapture some magical moment on a bridge.

“Rome?”

He turns back to face me, but he doesn’t say anything. I stare into his eyes, and he waits for me to say whatever it is I’m trying to say, which is impossible, because I certainly don’t want to say any of that craziness about ripping me out of my life. A sexy night is one thing. Changing my entire future is something else entirely.

I take a deep breath. “It’s taken a long time for me to build my life the way I want it. I don’t want to do anything to ruin that. It may not be perfect—”

“You deserve perfect, Miki.” The way he looks at me, like he believes such a thing is even possible . . . it’s too much. I can take all the crazy-parent stories he can throw at me: water off a duck’s back. But a look like that? That asks me to believe I deserve perfect? I can’t do it.

“I . . . I don’t know what to say, Rome. I guess I’m a realist at heart. Landon is real.”

He pulls his lips into a tight line. “Well. I won’t interfere. If you want to talk . . .” He takes my cell phone out of my hand and punches in his number. “That’s my private line. Call anytime. For any reason.”

I get the feeling when he says “private line,” it means really super-duper private. Like maybe I’m the only person—other than his assistant—who has the number.

When we pull up in front of the office building, the driver hops out and opens my door for me.

I turn to say good-bye to Rome one last time, and he leans across the backseat and kisses me quickly on each cheek. Very French. Very nothing.

“Au revoir,
Mikhaila. It was a wonderful night.” His eyes shimmer, or maybe they don’t, but for that brief second I think he is about to tell me he loves me. That I should run away with him. But he doesn’t.

God, of course he doesn’t. It was a one-night stand with a playboy, Miki. Get ahold of yourself.

Still, my heart breaks a little for our tiny, isolated romance, and then I take a deep breath and reach out my hand to shake his.

He smiles and takes it, respecting my need to call it over.

“It was wonderful to meet you, Rome,” I say as I shake his hand. I might sound overly formal, but I am being completely honest. It
is
wonderful to have met him. I am very much in a state of wonder.

“You, too,” he whispers. Then he releases my hand and I slip out of the car. I watch as the limo pulls away, until I can no longer spot it in the sea of traffic, and I make absolutely sure he never looks back.

I take a deep breath—at this rate of constant deep breathing, I am going to start hyperventilating—and walk slowly across Nevsky Prospect to the new Starbucks. I need a taste of home.

For the next few days, I reluctantly bond with the management team at Voyanovski Industries. At the board meeting on Friday afternoon, my last work day in Russia, I agree to be named temporary CEO, only after assuring them that it will be in name only, to keep things running smoothly until they find a proper replacement. My resistance is starting to sound hollow even to my own ears, but I hope that once I get back to USC, this burgeoning tug of filial allegiance will evaporate.

I spend Saturday going through all the leftover paperwork in my father’s office. Uncle Alexei and I spend hours shredding everything from old passports to faded ticket stubs. It feels so final, but Alexei and I both agree it’s better to clear everything out than to leave it for another time. He goes through the old business documents, setting a few aside to make sure he also has copies, and I go through most of the personal files, keeping a few things for sentimental reasons.

There are some old clippings I decide to save, especially of Mikhail with my mother. One in particular, from
Paris Match
, shows them in some café in 1984. I count back from my birthday to the date in the magazine and realize Simone must have been pregnant with me when it was taken, but she’s not showing. They both look bored. Simone is all blond and leggy, with huge shoulder pads and a miniskirt, and Mikhail is looking all Russian Mafia as he reads a newspaper. I shake my head while I look at it.

“They really should have stayed together,” Uncle Alexei laments.

“Oh, please.” I snort. “They would have killed each other. She was probably already looking at another man behind those enormous Chanel sunglasses.”

Alexei laughs. “You’re probably right. But they were happy with each other in a way that neither one ever was after they parted. Or maybe your mother is now; I don’t know.” He shrugs.

“She’s not, not really. But maybe that’s why it would never have worked, eh?” I pat Alexei’s shoulder. “Maybe we’re not really meant to be that happy every minute of the day.” I think briefly of Rome, of pursuing him, of how happy I felt when I was with him. It would probably end horribly, like it did for my mother and father, bored with each other after a fortnight. I turn my attention quickly back to the busywork in front of me to chase away the thought.

Early Saturday evening, after Alexei and I finish clearing out my father’s office, we say our good-byes and I decide to wander through the city. I know something is changing—or has changed—in me. I try to parse whether it’s just a matter of being carried along by circumstance: the excitement of what I discovered by doing
real
work for a change, the raw sensuality of Rome, the death of my father. Or am I really evolving in some way instigated by—but ultimately unrelated to—what is happening around me?