Page 45 of Maksim

It all, in an instant, becomes clear.

There is no fucking roommate. She is the roommate. Not a man, not a girlfriend, but a sister. She’s the reason he didn’t want to bring me home. She’s the one I’ve been hiding in a motherfucking trunk from.

I turn my head on impulse to glare at the trunk.

I’m gonna kill him.

I’m going to kill him.

That son of a bitch.

To quote his sister, that stupid fucking piece of shit asshole.

I would growl if I didn’t still want to stay hidden.

Why do I want to stay hidden? What the hell are they going to do?

I turn my head back to peek through the crack at the two. The guy’s mouth is on her neck now, and he fondles her as he coaxes her back onto the mattress. When he moves to her mouth, she kisses him back, but I can tell even through a crack in a door that she’s uncomfortable.

“Tanner.” She grabs his hands when he pulls her shirt up. “Tanner, wait.”

He leaves the shirt alone but moves to kiss her mouth, I’m assuming to shut her up. It suddenly feels wrong to watch this, but I can’t look away. Even in my limited experience with men, I know what’s happening. Even with this being Maksim’s sister, someone I could hate for the crime of loving him, I care.

He lifts up her skirt and grinds on top of her, ignoring her meager protests.

Yell, I want to shout. I want to tell her to be stern. Loud. Insistent. But I stay put instead and watch, my heart pounding.

“Tanner.” She pulls her head away so he can’t claim her mouth again and speaks louder this time, but she follows his name up with a laugh to soften her tone. “We’re not seriously going to fuck in my brother’s bed, are we?”

“Shhh, baby.” He puts a finger to her mouth before replacing it with his lips. After a minute, he turns their bodies so her head is on the pillows, blocking their faces from my view, but I no longer want to see.

I can feel the heat in my cheeks when I step back from the door and listen to sounds that turn my stomach until I can’t take it anymore.

Without caring about the consequences or even knowing what they’ll be, I sneak from the room and hurry to the front door. The idea of simply leaving crosses my mind but only for a second. It was never a real option anyway.

Taking a deep breath, I open the front door and slam it as loud as I can.

14

ELIRA

Iwonder, had I not known exactly what was going on, if I would have been able to feel the tension in the house with the same intensity as I do after the door slams shut.

It wasn’t particularly loud before, but a dreadful silence casts over the space as I picture the panic Maksim’s sister must feel believing that her brother just arrived home.

I walk to the kitchen at a leisurely pace and open the fridge door, pulling out items only to put them back in as if I’d just arrived from a store.

Panicked footsteps shuffle down the hall just before the back door slides open, and I think for sure the sister is gone when I hear the faint click. But when I turn toward the living room, I see her scared, timid form appear.

Her face sags when she sees me, but then it goes taut with worry. She spins to face the front door, her hands pointed out like she’s bracing for something. She looks like she’s about to run.

“Maksim isn’t here,” I say to calm her nerves. At the same time, a vehicle roars, and I mean roars, to life outside, pulling my gaze that way. Tires screech, signaling the successful escape of her boyfriend.

When the sister turns to me, she looks more confused than afraid. There’s a bite in her voice when she speaks. The timid little girl is long gone, and I have become the enemy. “Who the hell are you?”

Woah. Potty mouth.

I smile and try not to let her brazenness remind me of Asher. “My name is Elira. Who the hell are you?” I ask the question in a calm voice, as if I’m simply not familiar with the foul language.