Page 22 of Sexting my Bratva Daddies

Two hours later, Misha passed close enough behind my chair that the air shifted, bringing his musky whiskey and leather sent to my nose. His fingers grazed my shoulder in the suggestion of a touch, so light it could have been an accident. He didn’t slow, but the heat of it stayed on my skin, leaving it sensitive.

Leo was the worst of all. He stopped at my desk mid-afternoon to ask about a rescheduled call and leaned one hip against the desk while I pulled up the calendar. We’d done this exact thing a hundred times. It was all completely normal, but when I confirmed the time and looked up, he held my gaze.

“You’re good at this. Not just your job, but the way you hold it all together.” He crossed his arms and relaxed, looking for all the world like he might perch on my desk all day. “I’m glad you’re here.”

I did not know what to do with that, with being looked at like I mattered and was worth paying attention to. “Thank you.”

He straightened, buttoned his jacket, and walked away with a nod.

To him, it was nothing.

A compliment that anyone might have given me.

But it created a crack in the armor I’d been trying to build.

By four o’clock, I stopped pretending I could concentrate on anything other than the address they’d sent me and the hours remaining between now and tonight. I knew their coffee orders and how they preferred clients to be presented to each of their offices.

But I wanted to know what they talked about on Sundays when they were not at work.

Did they sit around and watch sports? They obviously worked out.

Did they make it a competition to see who could lift the most weight?

I wanted to know who they were when the suits came off, and not just for sex. And that was a dangerous thing to desire.

9

LEO

Patience had never been my problem.

Viktor second-guessed every variable before committing a move. Misha had patience, but his hunt drive and hair-trigger twitched at the first sign of resistance.

It was this complex interlocking of abilities that made us unique.

Most would have fallen apart by now, one man attempting to lay claim to the entire empire. We remained happy to share, to lean into our strengths and let the others cover our weaknesses. It was why I managed to sit quietly while Misha paced as we waited in our penthouse.

I had always been able to hold still, to read a room and wait for the exact right moment to make a move. Useful in board rooms and dangerous everywhere else.

Peyton stripped that from me, leaving me tattered but unwilling to bend and relinquish my hold.

I stood and made my way to the floor-to-ceiling window that ran the length of the penthouse’s main room. The city spread out below did nothing to settle the restlessness coiling at the base of my neck and tightening my pulse to a loud thrum in my ears.

The sun dropped behind the skyline, and Peyton had confirmed that she was on her way. That should have been enough.

It was not.

“She’s seven minutes late.” Misha paced in my peripheral vision, hands loose at his sides. The veins stood out, which meant he’d been flexing, trying to relax.

I focused on the building across from us, counting windows and examining their interiors. Those people should invest in privacy windows. Just because we were this high up did not mean they should leave their windows unprotected. Take the window on the twelfth floor, third from the east corner. A painting hung on the wall directly in front of the window. A very valuable painting that the rising sun would destroy in a matter of months.

Lazy. They did not deserve such an artifact if they did not care to preserve it. “She will be here.”

Misha growled low in his throat. “What does ‘where things go from here’ even mean?”

Footsteps sounded from behind the bar. Viktor moved into place, and the clink of ice, followed by the splash of liquid and the scent of whiskey, told me he’d poured Misha a drink.

Viktor’s tells were invisible to most people, but I’d spent fifteen years learning them. The quiet pour of a second glass, the slow clink of three ice cubes in his own glass, told of his uncertainty.