The giant man doesn’t look my way.
“He doesn’t speak,” Nikolai offers. He’s now on the couch, flipping through channels.
I look him over, dropping some of my bad girl act. He’s not deaf because he obviously heard Maxim’s order not to touch me. I wonder whether his muteness is a choice or a physical limitation. He bears the tattoos proving he spent time in a Siberian prison. I wonder if something happened to him there.
The brother wearing the worn and faded Matrix t-shirt comes into the kitchen and opens the refrigerator. He opens a pizza box on the counter and pulls a slice out. “I’m sorry about your father,” he says in English with his mouth full.
I shrug. “He’s dead.” It’s about all I can find to say about him.
The young man flicks his brows. “Let me guess—Igor was a shitty father?”
I snort in surprise at the acknowledgement, the flicker of a smile tugging my lips. None of my father’s men in Russia would have ever uttered such words. But we are out of his territory now.
“We were part of his cell before he kicked us to Ravil. I’m Dima, Nikolai’s brother.”
I find myself instantly liking the guy—and his brother by proxy. Probably for the sole reason that he called Igor a shitty father. Also, they have that instant familiarity thing that puts me at ease. And they don’t stare at my boobs.
Maxim emerges in a pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt, running shoes on his feet. He looks at home in the clothes, like he runs on a regular basis. This development foils my plan of taking off running and making someone keep up and sends a nervous twitter through me. Maybe I’ll be the one working hard to keep up with him.
“Let’s go, sugar.” He catches my elbow in that dominating way he has and steers me toward the door.
“Bye, guys!” I call out with false cheerfulness.
“Why do you do that?” Maxim asks when we get in the elevator.
I back as far away from him as I can, leaning against the opposite wall and pulling my foot up to my ass to stretch my quad. “What?”
“Act like you’re too good for them. Or you’re making fun of them.”
Something dives in my belly and settles heavily as a stone. I’ve been called a bitch before—behind my back, mostly. So many times.
No one’s ever asked me why I play the part, though. Almost like he knows it’s an act—not my true personality.
Maxim’s suddenly getting real with me.
I switch legs and shrug. “Am I supposed to pretend they’re my friends? I didn’t willingly move in with them. They got foisted on me, same as you did. Same as every bodyguard or babysitter my dad’s saddled me with.”
A muscle jumps in Maxim’s jaw. “All right, let’s get something straight,” he snaps as the elevator door opens.
I charge out of it, but he catches my elbow again and swings me back.
“Don’t run off on me.” He glares down at me, a line between his brows. “Those men aren’t your bodyguards. They’re not your servants—they’re not your babysitters. They weren’t sent to spy on you. They are my fucking brothers.”
The stone in my gut grows heavier.
“Yes, you did get saddled with me, sugar. And I got saddled with you. And we’re going to make the best of it.”
“Says you,” I shoot back, but a terrible feeling of shame seeps in, fueled by that rock still sitting square in the middle of my stomach. I was acting like a bitch. I’m acting like the spoiled mafiya princess I’ve always been. The part I detest but play with aplomb.
But if I don’t war with Maxim, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to be. And the sense of vulnerability that brings up nearly kills me.
Maxim doesn’t release my elbow. He stares down at me with a troubled expression like he’s trying to make a decision, but after several precariously long seconds, all he says is, “Come on, there’s a path on the lakeshore that’s nice to run.”
A sense of relief floods me like he just let me off some hook I didn’t know I was even on. He tips his head toward the glass doors of the elegant building.
He waves at the doorman, who is clearly bratva based on his tattoos.
We jog, side by side, on a paved path along the lake. I’m not used to the heat, and I’m soon dripping with sweat, but it feels good to move after the long flight yesterday and the slight jetlag I still feel.
We run in silence for half an hour or so. Maxim lets me set the pace but keeps up easily. I was right—he’s definitely a regular runner. “How long do you usually run?” he asks.
The truth is, I’m getting hot and tired, but now my pride is keeping me from saying anything.
I shrug. “I can keep going.”
“Come here.” He veers off the path and onto a city street, crossing an intersection, and slowing to a walk.
“What are we doing?”
He pushes through a convenience store door. “Buying some water. You look hot.”
“It doesn’t take much for a redhead to look hot,” I mutter, but I’m secretly grateful he’s looking out for me.
He buys a large bottle of electrolyte water, opens the cap and hands it to me.
I drink, thirstily, and hand it back, half empty.
He finishes a quarter of it and crushes the middle of it before he puts the cap back on. “So we could either go back the way we came, along the lake drive, or we could take it slower through the city blocks where it’s a little shadier, but less of a breeze.”
It’s bizarre, but for the first time in my life, I feel like a grown-up. When I lived in L.A., I had the time of my life, partying with my college friends. But that was still me acting like a rebel. This feels different. One of my father’s men is treating me like an equal. Asking what I want to do and waiting for my answer. I don’t have to run and make him chase. I don’t have to trick him—or manipulate him.
He’s just standing there, waiting for me to make the call.
I reward him with a smile—not the I have you by the balls smile—a genuine one. “Lake path, for sure. But let me see that water bottle.”
He hands it back to me, and I uncap it and dribble a healthy amount down my cleavage, soaking my running bra. It isn’t to fuck with him, it’s because I’m hot.
All right, and maybe to fuck with him a little bit. As he pointed out, I do have a streak of exhibitionism in me.
For a moment, I think he’s pissed, and maybe he is because he grips my ponytail and pulls it back to bare my throat. Then he licks a long line down my throat and across my collarbone to dip between my breasts.
My pussy’s squeezing, and I’m breathless by the time he lifts his head. “You spilled some water,” he says, as if in explanation.
My legs quiver—probably just from the run, but I’m suddenly acutely aware of it.
His gaze dips to my breasts, and my nipples tingle and burn in response.
I suddenly want him. Desperately.
All this pretending I don’t, all this resistance seems stupid. I have a hot husband. Not just any hot husband, but the man who literally molded my view of what makes a man hot. When I look at all other guys, I’m measuring them in comparison to this one.
And he wants me now.
But that reminds me how he didn’t want me once. Of my utter humiliation—how much that rejection burned. Nope. Not giving in. Let him suffer with blue balls. My virginity is the only thing I still have control of in my life.