by Kat Mizera
“Axel? The American?” He smirked. “You’re helping the foreigner?”
I scowled at him. “No, asshole, I’m helping my family. Now get dressed before I tell Mrs. Freela what you do in her bakery when she’s sleeping.”
He scowled at me and I folded my arms across my chest. “Or I can tell Roselie’s father.” Roselie was his girlfriend.
He grunted and turned, grabbing a pair of pants and pulling them on as he called to his roommate. “Yuri, wake up!”
The explosion was strong enough to shake the stairs and I grabbed onto the railing as I looked in the direction of the sound. Flames billowed up into the sky and my heart started to pound double time. I ran down the steps and down the alley.
“Solange, wait!” I heard Felix calling to me, but all I could think about was my parents and Axel. I had no doubt the flames were coming from the café and I picked up speed as I got onto the main street. The black SUVs were just speeding off in the other direction and the main floor of the building was on fire.
“Mama. Papa.” My voice caught in my throat as I tried to run through the front doors, but Felix grabbed me from behind, pulling me back.
“No.” His voice was loud against the roaring of the blaze, but his touch was gentle. “You can’t get to them. The stairs are collapsing.”
“I have to try!” I cried, twisting to get away.
“Solange, no.” He held me tighter.
“It’ll be at least twenty minutes for the fire trucks to come,” Yuri said. “There’s nothing we can do.”
I pushed against them, torn between wanting to run in, to do something, and terrified of the flames.
Neighbors had begun to crowd around us, and someone brought a hose from the adjoining building. There wasn’t enough water pressure to make much difference at the café but it would keep the ground surrounding the nearby buildings wet enough to hopefully avoid spreading.
I saw a shadow coming through the flames and jerked away from Felix, running to the door as Axel jumped down what was left of the stairs, covered in a wet blanket and carrying my mother. My father landed behind them and I hurried to help them get outside.
We were immediately surrounded, people bringing blankets, water, and food. Everyone had questions and was talking a mile a minute. It took forever before the town’s one fire truck arrived, and by that time, the café was completely engulfed in flames. I couldn’t watch anymore and sank down on the sidewalk across the street, along with my parents and many of our neighbors, as our family’s hundred-year-old legacy burned. There were no words for what was happening, because there would be no coming back from this, and everyone knew it. We’d just lost everything and it was most likely my fault. If I hadn’t called Xander, the situation wouldn’t have escalated and this wouldn’t have happened. I’d saved Kostya’s life, but at what price?
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to keep the guilt at bay. I’d done the only thing I’d been able to do at the time, but if this was the result, I might never forgive myself. Our entire lives were wrapped up in that building. It was where we lived, worked and survived the winters. Without it, we literally had nothing.
What had I done to my family?
“It’s going to be okay,” Mama said to me, though her eyes were misty.
“Do you know what happened?” I asked her, trying to distract myself from impending tears.
She shook her head. “We were in bed for the night. Axel came up the stairs, calling to us, telling us there was trouble. We pulled on clothes and were just about to go downstairs when we heard the explosion. Axel wet the blankets so we could cover ourselves as we ran through the flames. If not for him…” Her voice trailed off.
I reached out to hug her. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“I’m glad you and your brother weren’t here.”
Papa hadn’t said a word and I glanced at him worriedly, but my mother gently shook her head, indicating I should leave him alone.
“How are you doing?” Axel moved to sit beside us and I glanced over at him.
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
“They sent someone to the hospital to go after Kostya, but Sandor handled it, so you don’t have to worry about him.”
“That’s good,” I said. “Does Kostya know what happened?”
“I don’t know what Sandor has told him.”
“This is a nightmare,” I whispered, keeping my voice down so my parents couldn’t hear. “I don’t know what we’ll do.”
“We’re going to figure it out,” he said softly. “Sandor’s on top of it.”
“There’s nothing he can do. The building was ours, both our home and our business. We can’t afford to buy another café or to rent a place to live or anything else.”
“The king isn’t going to let anything happen to you,” he said gently. “You’ll see.”
“Come.” Mama had stood up and was motioning to me. “We’re going to sleep at Mrs. Freela’s.”
“I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep tonight,” I replied softly. “I’m going to go sit with Kostya.”
“I’ll drive you,” Axel said.
“I think I’ll walk,” I said. “It’s just a few kilometers and I need the fresh air.”
“I don’t think it’s safe for you to be by yourself,” he said, meeting my eyes. “Not with the Brat roaming the streets.”
“You can walk with me then.”
“We’ll see you at the hospital in the morning,” Mama said. “Try to rest.”
“I’ll be fine, Mama.” Part of me wanted to be with my parents, but the rest of me desperately wanted to get away from them. I was raw and angry, frustrated and sad, and my thoughts swirled with a dozen emotions that had begun to overwhelm me.
“You okay?” Axel asked as we walked down the street.
“I guess it depends on your definition of okay. My home and everything I own just burned in a fire, but you saved my parents, something I’ll be eternally grateful for.”
“These Bojovnik Brat guys have become a serious pain in my ass,” he grunted. “If it wasn’t for the wedding coming up, we’d have a full team up here handling this, but there’s too much going on at the palace to spare that many guys right now.”
“I understand.”
“I’m really sorry this is happening to you and your family,” he said, a look of genuine regret in his eyes.
“I’m used to it. Not this extreme, of course, but this is just more shit on an already huge pile of shit that represents my life. In the last ten years, our café has been flooded, we’ve been robbed more times than I can remember, Kostya almost died from an infection he got working in the kitchen… I could go on and on. Life has never been easy. My mother has always told me, us, that life could be much worse, that we could be homeless or sick or some other horrible thing.” I stopped walking and turned to face him, hands on my hips. “And I’m so fucking sick of it. So sick of pretending that this is enough, that it’s okay to live this way.”
Before he could answer, I started walking again, going towards the river instead of the hospital. He hadn’t said a word yet, but Axel followed me, picking up his pace to match mine. I was on a roll, though, letting out years of pent-up resentment and frustration, venting out loud.
“You know my friend, the one who lives in Florida, that I was going to visit? You know how she wound up there? She was supposed to marry Felix, one of the guys sitting with us outside the café just now. They’d been together for years, but then one of those men from the Brat came, decided he wanted her. He offered her father a lot of money, and the idiot said yes. Nicola was furious, tried everything to get out of it, but in the end, there was guilt. The same guilt I live with—the harm that would come to her family, what they could do with that money.
“So we all went to Turkey to buy fabric for a wedding dress, for her trousseau, so to speak. She and I had a plan. She had her passport and I gave her all the money I had. The plan was for her to get on a flight to Greece. She has dis
tant relatives there. Instead, while we were there, she met this nice American soldier named Eddie. He was sweet, a little shy and awkward, but totally in love with her from the moment they met. And there was her way out. Out of a marriage she didn’t want, out of Limaj, out of this life. So she took it.”
“I don’t understand,” Axel said finally, thumbs in his belt loops as he walked. “She went from one unknown to another. What if he turned out to be an asshole?”
“I don’t know,” I said quietly. “But in the end, she fell deeply in love with her husband and she’s happy now, with a new baby and a new life. When her father essentially sold her, something inside of her snapped. She followed her heart and got the hell out of here.” I stopped abruptly and turned to him. “And you know what pisses me off the most, Axel?”
“What pisses you off the most?” he asked in a rough, gravelly voice.
“Even if I had the nerve to follow my heart, I have absolutely nowhere to go.”
8
Axel
If there had ever been a woman who needed to be kissed, it was this one. She was so angry and frustrated with the whole world, she was about to explode, and if she got to that point, it wouldn’t be pretty.
Maybe I was being a nice guy in wanting to help her out with this, but mostly I was a selfish bastard, because I hadn’t wanted anything more than to kiss her since the first time I’d seen the beautiful blue eyes that were now staring up at me.
“Sometimes it’s a lot more fun when you go on a journey with no destination,” I said, slowly wrapping one arm around her waist and drawing her against me. Damn, her body fit right against mine like two pieces of a puzzle and I lowered my mouth to hers. Her lips parted without hesitation and she ran her hands up my arms as I kissed her.
I slid my tongue between her lips and searched out hers. She kissed me back almost fervently, a tiny moan leaving her chest. The heat of our bodies increased exponentially with each stroke of our tongues and I was sporting the boner of all boners. It had been a while since there’d been a woman in my bed and I wanted this one so much I would have sold my soul to the devil to have her. Based on the sounds she was making, she wanted the same damn thing. Hell, I already knew she needed it.
My hands travelled south, cupping that glorious ass of hers and abruptly lifting her so she wrapped her legs around my waist. I backed us against the wall of the nearest building, grinding my crotch against hers. Shit, I needed to be inside of her sooner rather than later, but even under these circumstances, I couldn’t just fuck her standing against a building on a public street. It was deserted, but I had too much respect for her to do something like that. Especially not in an old-fashioned town like this.
“Honey…” Dragging my mouth away from hers was almost physically painful, but our bodies were still tightly pressed together everywhere else. “Do we have somewhere we can go?”
She chuckled, though she was breathless. “Look where we are. The old community center. Come.” She took my hand and led me around back, pushing a rusted old door until it slid aside. I had to duck my head to walk in, but I kept my hand firmly around Solange’s.
She pulled me towards an old couch and I chuckled as she pushed me onto it and climbed onto my lap. Then we were kissing again and I forgot all about abandoned buildings and old couches and everything but the beautiful woman on my lap. She’d straddled me and was unbuttoning my shirt, her hands shaking a little, but I couldn’t tell if it was nerves or excitement. I was about to ask her but then she paused to pull off her top and the picture of her breasts peeking out of a push-up bra made me forget everything else.
I dipped my head and nuzzled her cleavage, which was about as perfect as it could be. I rubbed my thumb over one of her nipples, loving how it pebbled, even through the lacy fabric of her bra. I used my other hand to gently lift it out of the cup of the bra and caught the nipple between my teeth. Her breath hitched and I bit down until she moaned, then I swiped my tongue along it, alternating pressure until she cried out.
“Axel, please…”
“Patience, baby.” I found her mouth again, kissing her until we were both panting and breathless. I reached down to unbutton her jeans and slid them over her ass, down over her thighs, and finally off. She was standing in front of me now, in nothing but a pair of black bikini panties, and it might have been the sexiest thing I’d ever seen. I fumbled for the condom in my wallet, thanking god I still carried one even though I almost never needed them anymore.
As much as I wanted to rush, I also needed this to be good. She needed the distraction and I was due a fun night with a gorgeous woman, but something told me sex with Solange would be a lot more than one fun night. She was beautiful and spunky but with a touch of innocence that brought out the alpha protector in me. I wasn’t interested in protecting her right now, though. Mostly, I wanted to fuck her into the middle of next week.
“Come here, beautiful.” I slid my slacks off and rolled the condom down my aching shaft, watching as she took off the last of her clothes. She straddled me without hesitation, her lush breasts against my chest and her sweet lips softening under mine. There was something beguiling about her that turned me on beyond her curvy body and smooth skin. I needed to taste her, fill her, fucking consume her, and I didn’t know why.
Her mouth was fused to mine and I ran my hands down her back, cupping her ass and lightly squeezing her cheeks. I was positioned between her legs and every time she squirmed, my dick throbbed a little more. I was already harder than fucking granite and waiting for her to sink down on my cock just about took my breath away. My hands were all over her, exploring as much skin as I could in this position, and her eyes met mine just as she started to lower herself on me.
It felt so good, so hot and tight and smooth, I almost missed the tiny hint of resistance as she sank down, her slight grimace as I filled her. It was the most exquisite feeling in the world, being buried to the hilt inside of her, but what I’d felt somehow managed to register in the deep recesses of my brain.
“Solange…babe, what did you—”
“Shh.” She put a finger on my lips, her breath coming in little gasps. “I wanted this. Wanted you.”
“Fuuuckkk… Did I hurt you?”
“No. It’s lovely. Much nicer than I thought it would be.”
I rumbled out a laugh, despite how much control it took to keep from moving, to give her time to adjust. “Honey, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.” I was confused and turned on, reluctant and anxious, so many disparate things, and it all came down to her, this gorgeous creature I’d only known for twenty-four hours.
I wrapped one arm around her waist as I captured her lips once more. The other hand was on the side of her face, caressing the skin and keeping her mouth a prisoner. This time I was tender, loving, determined to make her first sexual experience memorable beyond the crazy circumstances surrounding what had brought us here. As sexy and passionate as she was, I loved her lack of worldliness, and being the man who’d taken her virginity blew me away.
She squirmed, her hips shifting with need she didn’t yet understand, and I slowly lifted her, giving her a taste of what was to come.
“It would be so much better if I was on top,” I whispered against her mouth. “This time, I mean.”
Her eyes blazed with passion. “I like it here.”
I groaned, the impact of her words hitting me right in the groin.
“Axel.” My name on her lips was like a shot of bourbon laced with lust. “Show me what to do.”
“You know what to do.” I breathed, pressing my forehead to hers and putting my hands on either side of her face. “Whatever feels good.”
She let out what sounded like a sigh, something as pleasurable as it was new, and slowly lifted herself again. She moved slowly, as if testing out how it felt, and then dropped back down again.
“Help me,” she whispered.
She didn’t have to ask twice and I looked around. The floor was filthy and I didn’t trust the couch
enough to lay her bare ass on it, but I had another idea. I slowly lifted her off of me and pushed her down.
“On your knees, baby.” I kicked her jeans in front of us to cushion her knees, and dropped down behind her. Gently but firmly, I pushed back into her, running my hand down her back and leaning over to press a few kisses between her shoulder blades. Taking my time was killing me, but I wanted her to enjoy this.
“Ohhh…” Her voice was a little breathy as I picked up my pace, gliding in and out. “That’s…nice.”
“If it’s only nice, I’m not doing my job.” I reached around front and found her clit, slowly circling the little nub. I matched the rhythm of my finger with that of my cock and it only took a few minutes for her to start panting, her ass surging against me as she started meeting me thrust for thrust.
“Oh my god…” She started mumbling in Limaji, her body straining to take more of me, no hesitation at all in her movements.
“That’s it, baby…just like that.”
“Axel! Oh, please, don’t stop…”
“Come for me, Solange.” I thrust in harder and faster, increasing the friction of my finger on her clit.
Her scream echoed off the walls of the near-empty room, and as she clenched around me, milking my cock, I lost control too. I came so hard, the force of it pushed her, and the couch, forward a few feet.
We collapsed together, breathless and laughing, since we’d wound up on the dirty floor I’d been trying to avoid.
“Are you okay?” I whispered, turning onto my back and pulling her on top of me so most of the filth was on me and not her.
“I’m wonderful.” She nestled into my chest.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked after a moment, wondering what kind of conversation you were supposed to have with a sexy woman whose virginity you’d just inadvertently taken. I’d thought this would be a one-nighter, or maybe a few nights, but now, well, this was suddenly a whole different thing. And the kicker was that I’d enjoyed it—and her—far more than I should have.
