My work uniform is clean and neatly folded at the end of the bed, and because I just can’t help myself, I put it on over his t-shirt, which looks ridiculously lumpy. But Iwantthat shirt. I need some proof that last night happened, that his low, throaty tone encouraged me to detonate like fireworks on New Year’s Eve. There’s a painful flush of heat moving up my face as I wonder if he despises me now.
“Lucya Dubrovina. Come eat before I take you home,” Alexi calls out from the kitchen. Taking a deep breath and fanning my face, I try to locate the scraps of my dignity.
“I’m not hungry, but thank you, Alexi Turgenev.” If he insists on using the Russian style of address, so will I. He’s at the stove, makingdranikiand seeing him in domestic mode is disturbingly attractive.
“You will eat before I take you home,” he says, not even bothering to turn around.
“I’m fine,” I’m trying for haughty and pretty sure it’s coming out as petulant. And damn, those potato pancakes smell good. “I have a lot to do today, so if you wouldn’t mind-”
“After you eat,” he says, putting a plate of breakfast heaven on the counter.
I stab into one, dropping it on my plate and he hands me a dish of applesauce. After the first bite, I have to cover my mouth to keep from moaning out loud. Thedranikiare perfect, crispy around the edges with a soft, buttery center. “How do you know how to cook so well?” I forget my embarrassment in pursuit of my next bite. “These are the best I’ve ever had.”
Alexi shrugs his massive shoulders, piling a plate high for himself. “I can survive on takeout, but I don’t want to. I ordered in groceries this morning.”
The sunlight is streaming in through the enormous kitchen windows, warming the chilly black granite countertops. With the fragrant scent of potato pancakes and coffee, it feels so homey. “I can see why you like it here,” I venture, “it’s private and so comfortable.”
He grunts, polishing off his third pancake. “It’s home for now.”
“Do you move around a lot asVorfor your Bratva?”
“My Pakhan sends me in to… colonize is the word, I suppose, to colonize new Bratva territory,” he says. “It can be a few months or a few years.”
I want to say, “That sounds incredibly lonely,” but I don’t. He doesn’t want my sympathy.
He doesn’t want me at all.
The ride home is silent and when I request that he drop me off at the restaurant to get my backpack and keys, he pulls in, locks the carwith me insidelike a recalcitrant toddler, and fetches them himself. I can see three of the girls from the day shift peeking out the kitchen door and giggling.
“Good. This is a secure building,” he says approvingly, pulling into the circular drive of our apartment complex.
After opening my door, he looks like he’s going to escort me to my apartment like this is a date and I walk faster. I have zero desire to witness another round of his alpha male douchery with the girls at the front desk. One enormous hand grips my upper arm and I’m forced to walk with him or be dragged in his wake.
His icy eyes survey the lobby. “Does the elevator require a key to open?”
“Yes,” I sigh.
“You have an alarm system in your apartment?”
“She does!” Maddie jumps in. She’s the front desk girl and supplier of all gossip in the building. “The alarm system notifies both the Boston police and a private security company. All the windows require you to disarm them before they open.” She beams at him like that kid in class with their hand up who always knows the answer before anyone else.
“Good. That’s good.” Alexi nods to her and then me, striding out the door and back to his active life of taking over the planet, or at least this part of it.
“Oh. My.God,”Maddie sighs, “I think I just got pregnant.”
“Trust me,” I say, “his personality is not as pretty as his face.”
“I don’t care.” She pushes back her bush of corkscrew curls, she’s got that classic Scottish look with pale skin and violently red hair. “Is he coming back? Do you think he would give me a couple of chest hairs and I could keep them in my locket forever?”
“Maddie honey, that is possibly the most disturbing thing ever to come out of your mouth.”
She waves her hand dismissively. “You haven’t seen me after six beers. “Oh, and your sister is back. Sorry.”
“Why sorry?” I ask, silently mourning the hopes I’d had for a quiet day.
“She dragged in a cartload of bags and shit, and she didn’t even tip Jerry for helping her. She was in a really bad mood, I don’t know why.” She smiles at me eagerly, as if I know what the hell is going on.
“When you say a cartload of bags, you just mean like five or six, right?”
