by Kendall Duke
In fact, I was feeling kind of happy. Particularly if I let myself forget my father.
“Ivan,” I said, putting my coffee down, “how did you get this assignment? I know you didn’t ask for it. You seemed a little surprised when Alexei said you were staying.”
“No, Julia,” he said, watching me, “I did not.” He bit his lip; I took the moment to savor how sexy the sight was. In spite of the emotional upheaval surrounding our introduction, my erotic thoughts continued. Being close to Ivan not only made me happy, it made me wet. Not just excited, randy, or even horny, but actually damp—when I saw him in the morning with his shirt off every day I had to change underwear after breakfast. But I had no idea if he knew how I felt. I certainly hadn’t noticed him having the same trouble, either. “I was surprised. Alexei is… How you say, a very good friend? More than that—”
“A boyfriend?” I really hoped not.
For the first time ever, Ivan actually laughed out loud. It was a glorious sound. “No, no, nyet—we are not…” He calmed himself. “We like women,” he said, his voice suddenly softer. He glanced at me from under his lashes. “Very much,” he said.
“Oh,” I said, and nodded down at my plate, feeling my cheeks heat.
“Alexei say I stay in case your father come home, and in case he do not.” He put his fork down beside his plate; this was coming close to the territory that upset me so much last night. I could tell he was getting uncomfortable.
“Why both? I don’t understand,” I say. Ivan just stared down at the table.
“I not hungry any more,” he said gruffly, and rose from the table in a flash. I thought maybe I’d upset him, but to my surprise he poured more coffee into my cup before he went over to start on the dishes. I listened to him hum a song I didn’t recognize and let myself imagine, for just a minute, that this could be my life. Ivan as the man that loved me, touched me. Ivan putting the dishes down and moving behind me, gently leaning over to kiss my throat while his strong hands ran over mine, pulling my cami over my head, finding my nipples, now biting my throat as he pushed the chair out of the way… “More coffee, Julia?” I blinked, ripped away from the fantasy, and stared up at the reality. He was so beautiful. As was custom, his morning outfit wasn’t any more conservative than mine, and I took in every inch of his muscled body before I could stop myself. “Julia?” He looked down at me and I noticed his eyebrow was headed north, his expression both shrewd and incredulous.
“Coffee. Yes. Thank you,” I said. I was so embarrassed I couldn’t look at his face any longer, and took a scalding sip.
I didn’t know how to handle desire. I’d never experienced it before—I’d had teen-age crushes and the rush and anticipation of seeing a boy I liked, but nothing like this. Not even remotely. And at nineteen, I was still very much a virgin. I’d been kissed once or twice at school, but nothing more. When I looked at Ivan I felt a longing that rang through my entire body. I felt like I was on fire.
He left me to finish my coffee and went back to the dishes. I went up, got dressed, and headed downstairs for our usual drive to school; it was Thursday, and I had a couple quizzes, so I didn’t realize he hadn’t spoken until we arrived. “Hey,” I said, turning to him. “Thank you for driving.” I hated to drive, and traffic in Fairfax was a well-known nightmare. “I’ll text you in an hour?”
“Julia…” He met my eyes, and we stared at each other for a long moment, the whole world freezing around us. I could barely breathe, and I swear he was holding his too. Finally, he shook his head as if he were waking up from a dream. “Yes. One hour.”
“One hour,” I said, and jumped out of the car. I wondered, not for the first time, if he followed me even though I’d asked him not to… Then decided I didn’t care. I realized I trusted him. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt me.
And he wouldn’t let anyone else hurt me either.
“Ivan?” I turned around and put my head through the passenger window. He looked at me, seemingly distracted.
“Yes?”
“Julie. Not Julia—just Julie.”
He smiled. He’d never smiled at me like that—just pure friendliness and joy. Ivan barely smiled at all. I felt like I’d been hit with a sunbeam. “Julie. See you soon, Julie.”
“See you soon.” I walked on air towards my classes, not even caring that my studying had really fallen behind. I could fail every quiz today and keep my 4.0, besides, but all I was thinking about was Ivan. Ivan and his smile.
~~~
I didn’t fail my quizzes—well, all of them. I aced one, passed the second and failed the third. I think I was just looking forward to getting back to the car to be with Ivan. I started beaming helplessly when I saw his face in the car, and I’ll be damned if he wasn’t smiling back at me. “Hi Ivan!”
He seemed to catch himself and looked down at his lap for a moment before meeting my eyes again. “Hello, Julia,” he said in his deep voice. I didn’t see a smile now, and I wanted to. I wanted it badly.
I didn’t have hardly any experience with boys—men. Males. I got flustered even thinking about them. There had been one boy in my sophomore year of high school who transferred in from somewhere, stayed for one month, and then went back to Russia. My feelings about him were the closest I’d ever felt to the ones I had for Ivan, even though I’d known him a bit longer and they were much, much less complicated. He had been my only real kiss. I’d flirted recklessly with him, leaving my shirts a little less buttoned, my skirts rolled a little higher. The afternoon he stayed after school to kiss me, I’d grown very bold and when we were pressed shoulder to shoulder in the library, looking at the same book, I’d turned so that my breast touched his arm. It felt like an electric shock when my nipple brushed his flesh, even through two layers of clothing. I backed away quickly, but I hadn’t forgotten that feeling. I only found anything similar late at night, when I was older and alone, reading romantic stories in bed.
Lately that library card was getting a work-out. I couldn’t get enough of the steamy scenes this week. And brooding, sexy heroes with hearts of gold that always got their girl. Sound familiar?
My brooding hero was in the middle of a particularly bad mood right now. Usually we talked about class on the way home, and even brought up movies that were coming on television that night. But this time he was distant and silent, a bad combination for my fragile heart. “Ivan… Is something wrong?”
He heard something unsure in my voice and glanced over at me. After the first day he let me ride in front with him, even though I knew it was against whatever protocol he followed. “Julie?” It was impossible not to notice how instantaneously he changed—no darkness, just light. The first time we’d met, I thought he seemed more than distant—even arrogant—but now he just looked like…He looked like… “Julie?” He asked again.
“I’m sorry, I got…” Flustered. “Distracted. Is something wrong, Ivan? You’re acting really… Tense.”
“I am sorry too, Julie.” He paused as we pulled into the driveway. “I am feeling tense. Today is Thursday. I spoke to Alexei.”
“Okay?” I followed his lead and opened my door, climbing into the garage as the door slid shut behind us; since he drove us now, he made me park in the garage alongside his massive SUV. Every decision he made was about security. “Is that bad?”
“Yes,” he said sharply, then froze, shook his head at himself, and kept moving. “It is… How you say, irrelevant?”
“Nice one,” I said, and he gave me a shy grin before it melted away again. We were talking so much that his spoken vocabulary was expanding to match his understanding, and he tried out new words with me that I could tell might have embarrassed him to attempt to pronounce around other English speakers. “But what does that mean?”
“Alexei say your father have one week. One week is almost gone.”
“But he only showed up on Monday!” I stopped in the hallway and slammed my books on the hall table. “You only showed up on Monday! That’s not a week—it’s
barely half a week!” Something about his demeanor was making me very scared, and my fear was escaping as anger. Alexei silently moved to go around me into the kitchen, but I blocked his path. He held perfectly still, then gently wrapped my upper arms in one hand each, and moved me aside. Just like that. One hundred and fifty pounds, just up in the air and over to the side. Didn’t even take a breath. “Ivan!” It made me angrier. “Stop!”
I grabbed his arm. He stopped moving again, and I saw him inhale before he turned to look down at me. Our eyes met.
And suddenly, I understood. Every sonnet, every love song, every cheesy romance novel mentioned this: the flames of love that erupt at a single touch. He’d touched me through my jacket, and I was touching him through his. But then he’d placed his hand over mine. Skin on skin, for the first time ever. And I felt the searing sensation of it down to my bones.
“Oh,” I said stupidly. I caught my breath.
Ivan was staring down at me. His nostrils flared as he drew in a long breath, and then he very carefully, very precisely pulled each of my fingers off of his coat and gently removed my hand. And then held it, right there between us, and I felt his thumb slowly travel across my palm and saw myself falling, falling in love with this—
He put my hand down and abruptly backed away. “Julie—” He took a deep breath, and tried again. “Julie, our business does not care about the rules…” He struggled and took another breath. “Your father was supposed to bring a package to someone last Saturday, but he never come. He never bring package.” He was looking at me now, the tone of his voice returning to normal; I tried to pull it together. “Your father, he take a very valuable package.”
“I’m sure something just happened. I’m sure he’ll show up with it.” But a new fear gripped me, something that strangely hadn’t occurred to me in all this time. “I’m sure, if he’s alright, he… He’ll call, he’ll come back…”
Ivan seemed to realize what I was thinking, and that it was a new idea. He started to come towards me again, then stopped himself. I watched as he pulled himself upright. Was my father dead? If he was, what would happen then? Would the same people that killed him think I might be worth killing too?
I plopped down at the table, glad I didn’t have any classes the next day. Ivan sat down in what was becoming his customary seat. “Julie,” he said. I stared at the tabletop. “Julie,” he said it again, a little more forcefully. And then I felt it again—that blaze of heat, the brush of his callouses on my skin. He wasn’t careful this time. Ivan squeezed my hand and then, with a gentleness I couldn’t misunderstand, used the cradle of his palm to lift my face so he could see my eyes. “Julie,” he rasped. “I not let any bad thing happen to you. I promise.”
I believed him.
~~~
Ivan was as good as his word. The next day he made food for me, instead of the other way around; he treated me to American staples like pancakes, and then showed off his pirozhki in the afternoon. He asked me if I wanted to order food in, and I asked for Chinese. We settled on the couch side by side, watching an endless marathon of old Supernatural episodes while we waited for the phone to ring.
Ivan explained that he’d have news for me that night. His boss was either able to locate my father, or locate the people that had him. The package was in the wind, at this point; even if my dad turned up with it, they would probably kill him. Getting cold feet when you betrayed the Russian mob didn’t end well, and it was damn near impossible to out-smart them. If you somehow managed to escape, you would spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder for someone like Ivan to end it forever.
Ivan was quiet for a long time after he cooked for me. I thanked him profusely; the food was delicious. We were settled comfortably on the couch, next to one another. An hour passed. I moved so that I could prop my feet up on the ottoman, which brought us another foot closer together. An hour passed. I slid onto my side, realized my head was almost in his lap, and turned around to rest it on the arm of the couch. An hour passed. My feet were touching him.
“Do you want me to move?”
Ivan glanced over at my face, then down at my feet. “Nyet, Julie,” he said gruffly. “But be quiet. The ghost is coming.”
I poked him with my toe, and he glared down at it. I couldn’t help myself; I laughed. Just a little bit. I was wearing my pajamas again, the same ones I wore all the time now; he’d put on a shirt. But we looked for all the world like a couple hanging out on a Friday night. In spite of the somber mood—or maybe because of it—I was feeling a little giddy. Anything to take my mind off of my impending doom. And a giant, delicious Russian man would take anybody’s mind off of just about anything.
And here he was, being adorable and hilarious. So I poked him again.
“Julie!” He snapped at me, but he was smiling. I could see it. “The ghost!” His reprimand was so funny and silly that I burst out laughing. It made me wiggle a little bit, and now he was laughing too, while telling me to be quiet. He grabbed my ankles and pinned them in his lap, which pulled me closer, and as I struggled I slid towards him, until eventually my butt was almost touching his hip.
“Oh,” I said, feeling the laughter dry up. Something changed on his face… He was still smiling down at me, but it felt like his hands were going to burn me, or maybe it was his eyes because they were locked on mine like lasers, and then he was leaning down towards me and I was moving up to meet him and—
The phone rang.
I didn’t fully register what was happening, Ivan moved so quickly. He was off the couch and pacing, everything else forgotten immediately.
He only spoke in Russian. I could barely follow any of it—I heard the word ‘American’ several times, and then it sounded like he was getting angry, then deferential. He said yes several times. The conversation took four minutes. I counted.
“What’s happening?” Ivan sat back down on the couch next to me, and this time there was no going back, no pretense that I wanted some distance between us. I sat right beside him, my hip digging in to his, and when he wouldn’t look at me I did what he had, the night before, and gently pulled his face towards mine. That seemed to wake him up. He reached up and held my wrists in his grasp for a second before gently removing my hands from his face as he stared down at me. His eyes were very dark. “Ivan?”
“Your father has defected,” he said softly. I felt myself start to cry, knowing that nothing good could come of this, but he immediately tried to soothe me. “Shh, Julie, beautiful Julie, do not cry. Nyet, do not cry. We will not hurt you.” I heard it in his voice. He’d argued to save my life—that was the anger. “Pozhaluista, Julie. No crying. Good. Good girl.” He wrapped me in his arms, pulling me into his lap. I’d never felt safer in my life. “Your father has… Your father made offer. For compensation.”
“Okay,” I said. But something told me more was coming. Something big, that I wouldn’t like. That Ivan didn’t like.
He gently placed me next to him on the couch after I finished crying, and then he couldn’t look me in the face. “Ivan, please,” I whispered, and he nodded once, as if to himself.
“No cry, Julie,” he told me again, but I could tell it was because it upset him, not because he was judging me. He took a deep breath and stood up, then walked over to the window and looked out at the street. It took him a minute to turn around, and when he did there was a strange rigidity to his shoulders. “Julie, your father… Your father trade you for package.”
“What?!” That didn’t make sense. I sprang off of the couch. “What did you just say?”
Ivan’s face was hard. “Your father trade you for package. You very good asset, he say.”
I was speechless. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought this possible. Never. “No.”
“Yes,” Ivan said more forcefully. “Your father is very smart. He know you valuable asset.”
“They’re going to make me… To make me a…” A prostitute? Is that what they meant by valuable?
; “They think of this, yes—to punish him,” Ivan said quickly, understanding immediately what I was trying to say. His hands were tightly clenched. “But I tell them… I tell them you good girl. Beautiful, nice American girl, very smart. Will be doctor one day.” His eyes were pleading with me not to make him say more.
“And?” Now I stood up too. Ivan bit his lip. Such an erotic visual should never accompany such an awful moment. “Ivan, what else?”
“I tell that such a man…” His voice trailed off as he looked at me. His knuckles were white. “Such a man that trade daughter, would not care if she prostitute. If you want to punish such a man, must find better way.”
Uh-oh. “Ivan…” I whispered it. I don’t know why I felt such dread in my stomach—they said I wasn’t going to be a prostitute. Wasn’t that enough?
“I made you very good deal,” Ivan said, but now I could tell he was almost talking to himself. “I promise to take care of my beautiful Julie.”
“Ivan, what happened?”
His face shuttered. He was present in one moment—the man I’d been falling in love with, the man that could touch me with one finger and fill my body with tingling. That man, that Ivan, was gone. In his place was The Bodyguard. “Alexei father, Sergei, he say he like all things he hear about you. He say you will make good wife for Alexei.”
I was stunned. I couldn’t move.
“Alexei will be leader one day—big boss, very big.” He stood ram-rod straight, now staring at some point above my head. “Very good for you. Very good he have American wife, doctor. Very good your father not have this asset, to trade for more package. Now he will be shut out of the circuit, and you will be safe.” I saw him swallow, once. “Very good deal, Julie.”
I didn’t know what to say. I slowly went upstairs, and when I looked back he was still standing there, ram-rod straight, staring at the wall.
