Alexei (Her Russian Protector #8) (11 page)

“All friendships have disappointing moments, Alexei. That’s just part of the deal.” I found myself leaning into his touch and wondered if it was simply the shock of the night causing me to seek out human contact or the feelings for this complicated Russian finally coming to a head. “Just be honest with me. Tell me the truth, Alexei. Always.”

He nodded stiffly and then carefully prodded the edges of the bruise forming on my cheek. “It’s not broken but you’re going to be swollen tomorrow.”

“I’ve had worse,” I muttered without thinking. Alexei visibly stiffened at the comment. Was he remembering what I had confessed to him last Christmas?

“I still think you should tell me the names of your mother’s old boyfriends so I can kick their asses for you.”

I quirked a smile at that. “Don’t tempt me.”

He murmured something in Russian, and I decided right then and there that I was going to have to track down some books and videos so I could learn his language.

“May I take this off?” He gestured to the jacket draped around my shoulders.

In any other setting, the question would have been followed by the promise of erotic possibilities. Right now, though, it was Alexei’s way of proving that he wasn’t going to hurt or take advantage of me. “Yes.”

He peeled the jacket off my bare shoulders and let it pool around my waist. The second I heard his sharp intake of breath, I knew that he had seen the bruises on my throat. Stepping forward, he insinuated his trim hips between my knees and gently clasped my chin in one big hand. He carefully tilted my face to the side and examined the marks that Lalo’s mean hand had left behind. When he snarled in his mother tongue, I decided it was a good thing I couldn’t understand him. He was furious.

“Shay, did you lose consciousness when he choked you?” Alexei’s eyes were dark with worry and anger.

“No.” I inhaled a shuddery breath when Alexei’s fingertips ghosted over the sore spots developing on my throat. “He didn’t squeeze that hard. He…”

“He what?” Alexei asked when my voice trailed off to nothing. “Tell me what happened, Shay.” He cupped my face between his palms and brushed his thumbs across my cheeks. “You’ll feel better if you get it out.”

My eyes prickled with hot tears as I tearfully told everything. He didn’t interrupt or comment as I described arriving at the Arena and the harrowing moments inside that office when Lalo had tried to rape me. When I was finished, Alexei wrapped his powerful arms around me and pulled me into a comforting, secure embrace. I closed my eyes and found comfort in the strength surrounding me.

“You’re all right now.” He rubbed my back with languid circles. “No one will ever touch you again, Shay. I swear it.”

I didn’t know how he was going to pull off that promise but if anyone could do it? Alexei was that man.

A long time later, Alexei finally unwound his arms. Wordlessly, he picked up the damp cloth and cleaned my face. He bundled up some ice and pressed the cold pack against my swollen cheek. “Hold this.”

I held the ice pack in place while Alexei tugged the jacket he had given me back up around my shoulders. He pulled it tightly closed in front before crouching down to dig through his gym bag. He retrieved a folded shirt and put it on the counter next to me. The logo for Ivan Markovic’s acclaimed MMA fighting gym was emblazoned on the front.

“You can wear this after your shower. It’s clean,” he added with a smile.

“Thank you.”

“Let’s check out your arms, okay? They had you tied up so tight.” Very gently, he grasped my right wrist and lifted my arm. He rotated my hand and checked my fingers before meticulously working his way to my shoulder. After I switched hands holding the ice pack, he repeated the process on my left arm. He asked me to take deep breaths and watched my face for any sign of pain. “How does your back feel?”

“Fine.” Thinking of the old scars crisscrossing my back, I was glad there was no reason for him to investigate. If he had felt them earlier when he was hugging me, he hadn’t mentioned it. After talking about what Lalo had tried to do to me, I really didn’t want to unearth old, buried history from my childhood.

“And here?” He touched my thighs. “Did you get kicked? Did you trip?”

“No.” I tried to concentrate on my limbs instead of the unbelievable body heat that radiated from his larger frame or that incredible scent that followed him everywhere. “I might have bruised them a little when they made me kneel.”

“I’ll put some antibiotic ointment in the bathroom. If you need it after your shower, use it.”

“I will.”

“Can you walk?”

Even though the prospect of having him carry me again sent a bright frisson of excitement through my body, I nodded. “I can walk. Just point me in the right direction.”

Alexei eased me off the kitchen island and gave me a short tour of the apartment. No longer dazed, I took in the sleek, modern furnishings and the art adorning the walls. The place was much bigger than I had realized with three bedrooms and two bathrooms plus a separate office and a generously sized balcony off the master suite.

But as I walked through the rooms with Alexei at my side, I sensed that he spent very little time in this place. Though it was beautifully and professionally decorated, it wasn’t a home. Eyeing the massive bed and the sumptuous linens, I couldn’t help but wonder how many women had tumbled onto it with him.

Jealousy and sadness dueled inside me. The type of women who would be comfortable in a place like this were women I couldn’t compete with in a million years. It was easy enough to imagine the richly dressed, ultra-classy women with perfect manners Alexei chose to play the role of his mistress. They were the types of women who moved easily in the social circles he inhabited. They were the types of women who were confident and sexy and knew how to please a man.

And that isn’t you
, I thought sadly.

Alexei stepped ahead of me and switched on the lights to the master bathroom. After placing the gym shirt on the counter, he moved back outside the door and waved me inside. “There are towels and travel-sized toiletries in the cabinet. I’ll be in the living room if you need me.”

Grasping his jacket tightly to my nearly-naked body, I grew insanely aware of how close we were standing. “Okay.”

“Bring your clothes to me when you’re done. I’ll get rid of them.” He started to back away but stopped. “Where are your keys?”

“To the house? In my purse. Why?”

“I’ll need you to give them to me so I can stop by your place to get your things.”

The idea of Alexei going through my bedroom and picking through my drawer of boring undies wasn’t one that I relished. “I can pack my own things.”

“That’s not happening.”

“But—”

“Shay, you aren’t leaving this apartment until I’ve secured your safety. Whatever you need? It comes through me.” He must have sensed that I wanted to argue with him because he quickly changed the subject. “Come find me when you’re done.”

Left alone in the master suite, I walked into the bathroom and closed the door. After stripping out of my clothes and his jacket, I stood in front of the marble vanity and stared at my reflection. My face wasn’t as badly bruised as I had feared it would be but my throat would bear Lalo’s marks for days.

I ran my fingers over the marred skin but it wasn’t the phantom sensation of Lalo’s ugly hands that caused goose bumps to rise on my flesh. No, it was the memory of the way Alexei’s hands had felt on me. A part of me despaired at the notion he might not ever touch me like that again.

“So what happens now?” My whispered question barely registered in my ears.

What would happen with Shannon? Would Lalo’s men come after me? What about those skinheads who had tied me up and planned to leave me beaten and bloodied in that parking lot as a message to my sister?

My reflection didn’t have the answers I wanted but I had no doubt Alexei would. If I wanted to get out of this mess alive, I had to trust him.

He’ll take care of you.

If you let him…

Chapter Six

Alexei closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the closed bedroom door. All that separated him from Shay, from the woman that had turned him inside out and left him craving the one thing he could never have, were two thin slabs of wood. Two simple, unlocked doors kept him from the woman he wanted more than anything in the whole wide world.

Leaving her alone in that bathroom had taken every ounce of his self-control. If it had been any other night, he would have stripped her bare and pulled her into a shower with him. He would have lathered up his palms and glided them over her supple curves and then carried her to bed. The very idea of learning every secret, ticklish place on her body with a swipe of his tongue left him lightheaded and aching.

But not tonight.

Tonight she had been through so much. She needed space to decompress. She needed to cleanse away the horror she had experienced. His only goal tonight was to make sure that Shay felt safe and secure. Whatever the cost, he would give that to her.

He pushed off the door and made his way to the office where he opened the safe hidden in the credenza and removed an envelope of cash. He tucked it into his back pocket, closed and locked the safe and left the office. Back in the kitchen, he washed his hands and treated the scrapes on his knuckles from that bastard’s teeth. As he rubbed in the ointment, he thought of all the ways his actions tonight might play out. Mueller might be a racist but he wasn’t stupid. He would try to leverage his threat against Shay to make a deal.

But Lalo? Lalo was the real problem. Newly anointed as the cartel’s top man in Houston, he had a taste for power and the added pressure to prove his worth as a boss. He wanted respect, and if it got out that a tiny little thing like Shay had knocked him the fuck out while his entire crew of thugs and enforcers stood outside? He was going to be a laughingstock.

Alexei placed both palms on the counter and leaned hard against it, dropping his head and closing his eyes as he tried to work out the angles. There was something else about Lalo that was even more dangerous. He wanted Shay. He wanted her in the most primal way a man could want a woman.

She’s mine. She belongs to me.

Shaking his head, Alexei let loose a dark laugh. Shay didn’t belong to him. She wasn’t his. She didn’t belong to any man. She was her own person, independent and strong and ready to fight the world to find her own success.

But as much as he admired that tenacity, Alexei knew better than anyone that it made her vulnerable. She was alone in this world. She had no one to back her up and give her support when she needed it most.

I could be that support. I could have her back. I could be the man who—

“Alexei?”

The sound of Shay’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts. She stood just inside the living area and clutched her dirty clothes to her chest in a neatly tied bundle. His jacket was draped across her shoulders and her shoes dangled from her fingers. The long damp strands of her coffee-colored hair had been combed back and left to air dry, but it was the sight of her in just his shirt that drove the air out of his lungs and made his blood run even hotter.

“Alexei, your phone is ringing.” Still standing there, she tilted her head to the side. “Are you going to answer it?”

He patted his pocket and felt the vibrating, chirping block hidden away there. He quickly answered it. “Hello?”

“We have a problem.” Mob boss Nikolai Kalasnikov didn’t sound happy. “I need to see you.
Now
.”

Glad that Shay didn’t understand a word of Russian, he cast a brief glance in her direction. He couldn’t leave her here alone, not right now and not even for his old boss. “I can’t get away from here.”

Nikolai sighed. “I’ll come to you.”

“I’m at the other place.”

“Yeah. I figured.” He paused. “Do you need anything?”

“Maid service would be nice.” He thought of the evidence that needed to be destroyed. The services of a cleaner like Kostya would come in handy right now.

“Our maid is out on sick leave, but I’ll put in a call with the company.”

The line went dead, and Alexei pocketed his phone. Getting into an argument with Nikolai was the last fucking thing he wanted to do tonight, but it was better to just get the ass chewing over with, pay whatever fee the boss demanded and move forward.

“Is everything okay?”

Shay’s anxious expression spurred him into action. He walked around the long kitchen island separating them and took the bundle of clothing and shoes from her arms. When they were out of the way on the counter, he placed his hands on her shoulders. She had asked him for honesty, and he was going to give it to her.

“Nikolai Kalsnikov is coming over. Do I need to tell you what that means?”

Her eyes widened, and her lower lip actually wobbled. On the verge of tears, she asked, “Is he going to kill me?”

“What? God no!” Alexei hauled her into his arms and crushed her tight to his chest. Dipping his head, he touched his cheek to the unbruised side of her face. The mere mention of Nikolai’s name had scared her so much she was shaking. “I told you, Shay. No one is going to hurt you.”