Chapter 070

Share his bed?

Lyra’s lips parted, her heart beating frantically as she looked up at him.

Let him make love to her?

She’d been trying to build up enough courage to kiss him. What would it

be like to have him make love to her?

With a shuddering breath, she looked up at him. “I thought you said our marriage was in n-name only.”

“I changed my mind,” Viktor said huskily. “You know I want you. And I’ve come to enjoy your company. There’s no reason we shouldn’t

be...friends.”

“Friends who will divorce in a few weeks.”

“We could still see each other.” He looked at her. “If you want.”

Her lips parted. “If I want?”

“I would very much like to still see you, after we are divorced.” His blue eyes seared through her soul. “For as long as you are still interested in seeing me.”

Lyra sucked in her breath. For as long as she wished to see him? That

would be forever!

She looked back over the edge of the dune. It didn’t look so frightening

anymore. Not with this new challenge. Not with her very virginity on the

line.

But...

What about saving herself for love, for commitment, for a lifetime?

She looked back at him. Was Viktor the man? Was this the time? Was this how she wanted to remember her first night, for the rest of her life?

Her heart pounded in her throat.

Should she let her husband take her virginity?

“Just so you know,” she said hesitantly, “my babysitter taught me to snowboard.”

“Even better.” He gave her a cheeky grin. “So with your head start, you have pretty good odds.”

She couldn’t help but smile at his smug masculine confidence. "Illyra’s the gambler, not me.”

He gave her a long look beneath the blazing white sun.

“Are you sure about that?” he said softly.

On the other end of the dune, with a loud shout, the boys pushed off again, going straight down, good-naturedly roughhousing and cutting in front of each other as they skidded down the sand.

Lyra closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and made her choice.

“I’ll do it.”

“Excellent.”

His blue eyes were beaming. He clearly expected that this would be no

contest and that he would easily overtake her. He didn’t know that the entirety of the choice was still hers. Would she let him beat her? Or not?

Before her courage could fail her, she breathed, “Just tell me when to go.”

“One...two...three...go!”

Hastily, Lyra tilted her snowboard and went off the edge, plummeting

down the dune. Her body remembered the sport, even though her brain had

forgotten, and her board picked up speed. For a glorious instant, she flew, and wild joy filled her heart—joy she hadn’t felt for ten years.

Then she remembered: if she won, she would sleep alone.

And if she lost, he would seduce her.

Slow down, she ordered her feet, and though they protested, she made

them turn, her body leaning to drag the board against sand as hard and glassy as ice. It was hard to slow down, when her body yearned to barrel down the dune, like the reckless child she’d once been.

“You’ll never win that way,” Viktor called from the top, sounding amused. “Turn your feet to aim straight down.”

Lyra choked back a wry laugh. He had no idea how hard she was trying not to do that. A bead of sweat formed on her forehead from the effort of fifighting her body’s desire to aim the snowboard straight down and plummet

at the speed of flight. Couldn’t he tell? Couldn’t he see she was actually

forcing herself not to win?

“Ready or not...”

Behind her, he pushed off the top of the dune. Smiling, she looked up at him as he glided past her on his snowboard. She saw the joy in his face—the same as when they’d galloped together across the desert that morning.

“You are mine now, kroshka!” he shouted, and flew past her.

Let me fly fast, half her heart begged.

Let him seduce you, the other half cried.

Let him seduce you, the other half cried.

Then Lyra turned her head when she heard a scream at the bottom of the

hill. One of the roughhousing boys had lost control and crashed into the

other, sending the smaller one skidding down the hard sand in panicked yells. The smaller boy, perhaps twelve years old, had a streak of blood across his tanned face and a trail of red followed him across the pale sand.

Lyra didn’t think, she just acted. Her knees turned, she leaned forward and she flew down the hill. She had a single glimpse of Viktor’s shocked face as she flew right past him. But she didn’t think about that, or anything

but the boy’s face—the boy who moments before had seemed like a

reckless, rambunctious teenager, but who now she saw was barely more

than a child.