Modern Romance June 2016 Books 5-8. Tara Pammi

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СКАЧАТЬ would never discuss what went on in the bedroom with you and I shall extend the same courtesy to Celeste. All I shall say is that affection grew. Anya, when I turned up at Daniil’s Libby embraced me. When I turned up at Celeste’s door and she did the same I recoiled.’

      Anya could not speak.

      ‘I wanted to improve myself. Which I did. If you don’t approve of my methods, that is up to you.’

      ‘I don’t approve...’ she said, and then she closed her eyes. ‘I don’t know.’ She looked at him. ‘It was supposed to last only two years, yet it went on for longer?’

      ‘Celeste found out that she was dying. I chose to be with her till the end.’

      And how could she hate him for that?

      ‘What is your new name?’ she asked.

      It was the only question he wasn’t prepared for.

      ‘Roman?’ Anya begged. ‘Surely you can tell me that.’

      It was so hard to, though. ‘I wanted to give my brother a chance of a life without his poor relation on his back. I wanted you to have the life you deserved. I couldn’t turn my back on it all, though.’

      ‘I don’t understand.’

      ‘I was given a new identity—we all are for that first year. Then you get a choice, retain the new one or go back to the old. If I kept my new one, I could never look you up, I could never see my brother again. And I couldn’t do it. I am still Roman Zverev.’

      ‘So why have you stayed away all these years?’ she asked.

      ‘Because I never felt ready, because I still thought I would be a strain...’

      ‘So, what, you had to change before you could find me?’

      ‘I didn’t do for you, Anya, I did it for me.’

      Anya sat there as he stood.

      ‘I am not going to apologise for Celeste. Get used to that,’ he said. ‘Anya, had we stayed together we would have been as poor as church mice and I tell you now...’ he made a gesture with two fingers to the back of his throat, and her own throat closed as he touched on a painful subject ‘...I could not have put up with that. I would have held you back.’

      He was done explaining, and left the table and went through to the bedroom.

      He lay on his back with his hands behind his head. He loathed sharing his feelings, he loathed to admit that need for Anya that had clawed at his heart.

      And Anya came to the door and she remembered a time many, many years ago.

      Flu had swept through the orphanage. In an effort to contain it, all the orphans had been confined to their dormitories and rooms.

      Katya too had been ill and Anya had been asked to work in the kitchen. She had taken suppers around on a trolley without the perpetual guard of her mother.

      As she’d looked in she had seen Roman, lying on his bed, his hands behind his head.

      He hadn’t been sick but had been confined.

      The guard had opened the door and she had gone in.

      Roman had stared up at the ceiling and had not turned to look, for he’d expected it to be Katya bringing him his meal.

      ‘One day you will get out of here and do great things,’ Anya had said, and his face had turned towards her.

      Anya smiled at the recollection.

      He was out of there and had done great things.

      He’d done them in his own unique way, and she was proud that he had.

      ‘How did you get the chocolate?’ she had asked as she had walked towards him, carrying his tray.

      He hadn’t answered.

      Instead he had smiled.

      She had walked into his room utterly innocent, but he had stripped her bare with his eyes. She had walked over, her eyes on his crotch, watching him harden.

      His eyes had been on her breasts, which had ached.

      ‘What time are lights out?’ she had asked.

      ‘Ten.’

      ‘Anya.’ A worker had called for her to hurry, but their love had been born by then.

      And at ten that night she had lain in her own bed and thought of him, and Roman had done the same as her.

      ‘You did get out of there, Roman,’ Anya said, and he turned and looked. ‘And you have done great things.’

      ‘I had to do it by myself, for myself.’

      Anya nodded, even if she did not quite understand.

      Now, though, she could do as she had wanted to back then. She walked towards him, and he smiled as she stripped herself of her robe.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

      ‘YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED to be here,’ Roman warned as she walked towards him. ‘No sex before a match...’

      ‘Sergio had no idea,’ Anya said. ‘Anyway, I’m not a boxer.’

      She bent her head and kissed his sulky mouth as she had wanted to back then.

      And he stroked her breasts.

      His kiss felt like a delicious reward, and all the promise of his mouth and the skill of his tongue and cares and worries faded.

      She stroked him, unzipped him and he kicked his jeans off. Their mouths barely parted.

      As she knelt over him his mouth took her breast and sent little volts of pleasure through her body. Her breast felt hot, tender, and he roused in her an endless ache.

      ‘No bruises,’ she warned.

      He knew now.

      ‘Turn over,’ she said, and though her voice was husky with lust there was something she had to do.

      And she did.

      She looked at his back and now he liked the soft kisses she rained there. He thought of that time and the sand, like salt in wounds, and now they were bathed by the salt of her tears. He thought of that long, lonely night she had been by his side, even if not physically.

      He liked too the heat of her sex in the small of his back yet he rolled them over because he wanted more.

      There was no better feeling than being taken by Roman and she could feel the warmth spread through her, a deep, enduring warmth that was always waiting for him.

      She looked at him СКАЧАТЬ