In which it is now Alexi’s turn to do a little yearning.
Alexi…
I’m a fool.
Lucya, my Kolibri, is asleep in my bed and it’s taking every ounce of my self-control to keep away from her. Her cunt was tight, gripping my fingers. The vision of my cock crammed into her instantly makes me hard again.
I’d tidied her up – her embarrassment was sweet – and put her back into my shirt to sleep. It would be so easy to push it up over her perfect breasts and sink into her. Her sea-glass eyes would open wide, I would make her come screaming until she was hoarse…
Shooting out of my chair, I head into the living room, grinding my teeth. What I’ve done already could be considered deeply disrespectful if her uncle knew. Her reputation would be ruined.
Hearing her moans, the feel of my fingers inside her… for the first time in an age, I’d felt a sense of true happiness. It alarmed and disgusted me. I have no fucking business being happy. The moment is gone as quickly as a flash of lightning, with nothing left but the darkness and my guilt.
Guilt. Another thing I no longer feel. I’ve killed and tortured in the service of my bratva for years without a moment of lost sleep. But this is different. Lucya is innocent. She isn’t meant for me.
I want her anyway.
Vors don’t “date.” We rarely even marry because of the brutal business we deal in. Lucya’s a good girl. I have to keep my fucking hands off her.
Checking my watch, I groan silently. I need to wake her one last time. A quick check to make sure she’s still good and she can rest. I’ll take her home in the morning and I will never see her again.
“Kolibri. Wake up, just one more time.”
Groaning, she opens her eyes, which brighten when she sees me. “Alexi. Have you slept at all?”
I rub the back of my neck. “I don’t need much sleep.”
“Everybody needs sleep,” she scolded. Adorable isn’t a word I ever apply to anything, but her attempt at a stern expression is… adorable.
“Are you dizzy? Do you feel nauseous or confused?” I turn on the lamp on the bedside table to check her pupils.
“I’m fine,” she says, looking down at her hands. “Are we… um.”
“Are we what?”
“Are we…” She’s waving her hand as if she’s conducting the world’s most awkward symphony. “Are we going to talk about… earlier?”
Yes, I am a fucking idiot.
“It should not have happened.” My voice shifts back to its usual cold monotone. “You are a Bratva princess, I should not have-”
“I’m no princess! I work for a living, just like everyone else,” she interrupts me, “the rules that apply in St. Petersburg don’t apply here. We have a right to be who we want to be.”
“The rules are always the same, no matter where we are. We are Bratva, Lucya Dubrovina, it was a mistake that will not happen again.” I turn off the lamp, leaving her in darkness.
I know I should comfort her, tell her how beautiful she is when she comes, that I want nothing more than to make her mine. Instead, I walk out of the room, cursing myself.
Lucya…
For just a few, blissful seconds, I’m happy as I wake up. I can smell Alexi’s scent on my pillow and the t-shirt he loaned me. Then, I remember that I’m pathetic and practically begged him to talk to me about our experience. He must think I’m insanely desperate and needy.
Men like Alexi don’t talk about anything.
“They just kill people,” I mumble spitefully.
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 I want that 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, making draniki and 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. The draniki are 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 as Vor for 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 car with me inside like 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?”
“No, she had to pile them on the luggage cart. And she didn’t bring the cart back down,” she says disapprovingly, “you know tenants are required-”
“Great. Okay. See you later.” I trudge toward the elevators, already dreading the financial fallout of my sister’s shopping spree.
“Why are you so upset?” Inessa snaps, standing in the rubble of her spending binge. “You know I need a decent work wardrobe! I’m so close to graduating, and those job interviews are going to be so stressful!”
I pick up a big, glossy bag from La Perla and pull out a bra. “This is necessary for- oh, my god you spent $300 on a bra? What the hell were you thinking?”
Her big, brown eyes, so much like our mother’s, fill with tears. “You’re right, pukhlyy. I’m sorry. I’m just so worried about getting the right job so I can pay for your tuition. It’s your turn next and I haven’t been able to sleep, trying to figure out how we’re going to do this. I guess I just went overboard. I could return some of it…”
She knows perfectly well that most of this can’t be returned. Fancy boutiques do not accept returns. “It’s not like this stuff is from Amazon, ‘Nessa. We’ll…” I ran my hands through my hair, “We’ll have to economize. I’ll get more shifts at the restaurant.”
“I’m going to get an insanely good job and we’ll have a bottomless bank account soon,” she promises, hugging me.
“I’m sorry this stressed you out.”
Sighing, I return her hug. “Just the essentials from now on, okay?”
“I promise,” she whispers. Breathing in her wildly expensive perfume – Dior, I’m guessing – I hope that this time, she means it.
