by Lexy Timms
She couldn’t look at him. Her face was tear-stained, and she was still on the brink of sobbing again. Never had she felt so destroyed. Why had she allowed herself to fall in love with a man who was so bad for her? She couldn’t speak to answer his question. She could only shrug. She really didn’t feel well. She had already been up for ten hours, and only slept three or four before that.
Without warning, Sasha swept her into his arms and lifted her up and over the water with no problem.
The flight made her stomach drop like she was on a roller coaster. It was so stupidly unnecessary that she almost laughed. Here he was, still showing off his great prowess, as if he still needed to impress her. Her long pony tail flew behind her, swinging against her back as he set her down as though she weighed nothing at all.
Oddly enough, the showy display left her feeling better. She grabbed a paper towel from the dispenser and mopped at her face. “I’m just tired,” she said finally, not knowing what else to say.
The cook and the lunch waitress stared at her as she left the bathroom. Behind her, the delivery guy mopped up the water. Sasha said something else to him in Russian.
Surprisingly, the delivery guy responded in English. “It’s no problem,” he said. She eyed him suspiciously. The delivery guy had been harsh to Kallie all day, and his tone, though not aimed at her, was the nearest to nice she’d ever heard.
“Thank you,” she said, eyeing him suspiciously.
It was a mistake to speak. Kindness, even not directed at her exactly, had the power to undo everything. She was going to cry again, and this time in front of an audience. It was hot outside, but she could walk back to the town house. She had no place she needed to go. It was somewhere between four and five miles, and the hike might do her good. She pushed past everyone, heading to the office, so she could grab her purse. The sooner out of there, the better.
Sasha followed her.
“I’ll give you a ride,” he said, putting an arm out to stop her.
She hadn’t been expecting it, and stumbled right into him. She gripped his massive bicep for dear life as she righted herself. This isn’t mine to touch anymore. Yet her entire body screamed in electric awareness as she backed away, clutching her purse in front of her like a shield.
“I really would rather walk,” she murmured, ducking under his arm and heading for the door.
He somehow managed to grab her, to turn her so that she faced him. Oddly enough his eyes seemed worried. It was the second time in as many days that he’d been anything other than angry with her. It left her reeling and confused.
He stooped that he might look her in the eye. “You can’t,” he said, as though it should have been obvious. “You’re emotionally fucked up right now. It would be like walking around smashed. Come.”
He held out his hand.
Kallie looked at it a long time. He was right.
There was nothing to do but to take it.
Chapter Four
Sasha loaded Kallie into the car. At this point, she didn’t want to argue. Plus, she got a lot of freebie contact. He had the most amazing body she’d ever had the pleasure to touch, and the way things stood right now she wasn’t going to get a whole lot of opportunities to be hands-on. So maybe Kallie indulged in a little bit, letting her hands enjoy the feel of his skin beneath her palms. The feel of the rock-hard muscles in his arm and chest as he bent, brushing past her to open the door for her.
Yeah, it was wicked, but right now she needed wicked. She needed him.
Breaking up had been harder than she’d expected. She never would have thought the chemistry between them would still be so compelling, so delicious, when she’d been angry enough to break them apart. But someone seemed to have forgotten to tell her body what her head was all too aware of: Sasha was no good for her.
And she still wanted him.
So, she settled in the car, taking the passenger seat and watching somewhat warily as he walked around to the driver’s side. No uniformed chauffeur for this trip. This time Sasha would be behind the wheel. She eyed him shamelessly as he got in and shut the door.
I always feel so tiny next to him. But he outweighs me by a good hundred pounds... or so. I swear I’ve lost five pounds this week alone.
He carried the weight well. Amazingly well. While she was fairly fit, and she’d developed a pretty good routine with weights, it hardly seemed fair to classify anything she had as muscular next to him. Not when his biceps seemed to be as big around as her waist was. He’d wanted to measure them once to find out, but she hadn’t wanted to find out, afraid it might be true.
The Cadillac Escalade started smoothly. She’d ridden in this car before. The last time she’d joked that she could just rent it since it was nearly as big as the town house he let her stay in. It was roomy and comfy, just enough to draw her into much needed sleep. But Sasha’s phone rang, and Kallie willed herself awake. No way in hell was she missing a single word of whatever one-sided conversation would take place next.
“Yallo.”
His tone was friendly, impossible to decipher. It was a stupid word to use, and at one time she might have laughed about it, teasing him for his thick accent. Right now, though, her focus had gone south fast. No more indulging in little fantasies about biceps and the way his aftershave absolutely destroyed her, leaving her weak in the knees. No, she was straining with every fiber of her being, trying to hear the other side of the conversation. Of course, all without looking like she was listening at all. She stared out her window, twisting an errant strand of hair around her finger, knowing she was destroying her ponytail but not really caring.
He was talking to another woman.
The question was who.
She couldn’t make out the words. Only the sound, higher-pitched than most men would be; though, to be fair, some men had higher voices. No, this had to be a woman, otherwise why would his voice soften as he responded. Not only female, then, but someone who meant something to him.
It hurt. It hurt like hell. And she couldn’t say a single thing about it. She’d given up that right two days ago when this whole train wreck was set in motion.
Why do I keep going back and forth on this? I go between arousal and awareness, to blind fury. Do I love him or hate him? Am I trying to get away? Or trying to get back? She had no idea. Either way, she needed to hear this conversation. Whatever Sasha did impacted her. That made his conversations her business. Didn’t it?
It was a weak justification, but she ran with it all the same.
“What?”
One single word. That’s all it took to leave her feeling positively scorched. Seriously? What gives? He never used that sweet tone on me.
“No. Okay.”
In what had to be the shortest conversation in the world, she’d gone from insanely jealous to burning mad. Especially as he turned off the phone and dropped it in the center console and turned the wheel, making a sudden U-turn in the middle of the street. Nope, no asking old girlfriend Kallie if she had something going on or if some extra errand was going to inconvenience her any. Typical Sasha. Assuming she had no place to be, and all day to get there.
You realize that’s not going to change if you don’t call him on it. Set some boundaries. Say something!
But she didn’t. He was driving with such intensity that she didn’t dare say a word. One thing was for certain: They weren’t heading back to the bakery.
In another minute I’m going to be sick.
She’d always gotten car sick easily. This kind of abrupt turn, followed by the quick rise in speed over the bumpy road, was going to be her undoing unless she said something soon. She imagined what it would be like to vomit all over the interior of Sasha’s beautiful car, and though the revenge part held a certain appeal, being sick sounded a whole lot worse. Besides, why punish a car for what the asshole driver was doing.
She shifted slightly, trying to breath carefully to ease the nausea. The last thing she wanted to do was say anything. To beg him to
slow down at least. It would be weak, and she needed to show him that she wasn’t weak.
Idiotic maybe. But not weak.
Thankfully he parked, making the point moot, though the way he slammed into the parking space jolted her enough that this time she had to sit up, just to ease the strain against the seatbelt. Besides, pretending to be asleep was juvenile.
He yanked the parking brake and reached across her to take something out of the glove box. “Stay put.”
She closed her eyes and counted to six hundred.
The door opened on the driver’s side. “Do you hear me?”
“Yes.” She opened her eyes and sighed. Seriously, she needed to get her head on straight. Maybe this was an opportunity to do just that. Whoever he was stopping to see had his full attention right now. It made her jealous as hell not knowing who he was going in to see, or what this whole mess was about. It also made her mad as hell that she was jealous at all.
You’re the one who ended this whole relationship. Remember?
She watched through the window as Sasha climbed a handful of steps to the door of an old and dingy red brick apartment building. The neighborhood was equally worn, with several houses in various stages of disrepair. On the corner was an old storefront, the windows boarded over and covered with graffiti.
None of the places Sasha frequented were exactly good neighborhoods.
She sighed, and made sure the doors were locked. At least it was daylight. She’d be scared out of her mind to stay out here at night. Sasha stood at the doorway, talking through an intercom it looked like. Kallie stared at the waist of his pants, at the gun obviously concealed there. A gun. It’s what he had taken out of the glove box.
She wondered if every car he drove held weapons. Were any of them even legal?
She held her breath, hating this aspect of Sasha’s personality. Whatever this was, it was dangerous. And hopefully would be over quick.
Behind her came the sound of an approaching motorcycle. She saw it in the side mirror when she turned her head, sleek and black. Something about this didn’t feel right. Why was the street so deserted? And why was the motorcycle slowing down? She watched as the bike swerved into the space in front of Sasha’s, parking a few feet in front of the Cadillac. Kallie played possum, sitting very still and hoping not to be noticed as the rider jumped off. To her surprise, the tight leathers the rider wore revealed her to be a woman. A woman with an ample chest and, when she took off her helmet, a thick braid of caramel-colored hair that fell nearly to her waist. Kallie’s breath caught in her chest. The woman was absolutely gorgeous, and Sasha had a thing for long hair. It’s what had drawn him to Kallie in the first place—her own cascade of nearly white hair.
But hers would never braid that thickly. Kallie couldn’t help but imagine her with the hair falling loose about her shoulders. It would lay like a cloak over the woman’s shoulders and back.
The woman dropped the helmet on the bike and moved quickly across the sidewalk, her boots making sharp staccato sounds as she headed for the same building. Sasha had long since disappeared. Was he meeting this woman here... or worse? Was she coming to surprise him?
Kallie sat up. What if he were in danger?
“There you are. Are you set?”
It was Sasha’s voice, low and affectionate. He’d stepped out onto the steps in front of the building, with such a welcoming smile that Kallie felt her heart wrench in her chest.
.
“Yeah, I think so,” the woman said, shoving at several errant wisps of hair that kept blowing into her eyes. “Thanks for everything.”
“Let’s have a look around, then.”
Kallie’s eyes burned with unshed tears. Not only was he with another woman, but he was taking care of her. The way he used to take care of her. Of course, he had a generous nature; it’s part of what made him so attractive to her. But she’d always thought the way he’d tended her was something maybe... well... special. That he looked out for her in a way he didn’t for anyone else. Sure, he might have had an inconsiderate side sometimes, but he’d always seen to her needs, like the food in her refrigerator. He often knew what she needed before she did. All of that had been his silent way of telling her that he loved her. Or so she’d thought.
Obviously, that was a lie.
So, she sat there in silence, tortured in ways she hadn’t even been able to imagine yesterday. She’d never known it could hurt like this, this whole letting go thing.
Shit-faced. I intend to get absolutely shit-faced drunk as soon as I get home. If this is the way he’s going to be with me, then I can do that much. Especially if he’s going to keep me around like this until that whole damn bakery is resolved.
It was a stupid resolve, but it gave her something to think about while she waited for him. In the course of ten minutes, she’d amused herself by creating different mixed drinks in her mind, trying to remember just what liquor was in the cabinet. She was giving herself extra points for creativity with added bonuses for figuring out the cocktail with the highest alcohol content by the time he got back.
In that time Sasha and the woman had disappeared inside, and the only movement on the street had been a kid on a skateboard, and a woman walking a very large dog that snarled as it passed the car. The woman had given Kallie a suspicious glare that left Kallie cringing a little against the seat, wishing that Sasha would just hurry up with whatever he was doing.
Instead, he seemed to have no problem at all with keeping her waiting indefinitely.
They’re probably having sex, she thought miserably, and slumped in the seat, not even caring anymore about the neighborhood even though it would be starting to get dark soon. Numb. She would be numb to it. I don’t care. If I keep saying that enough, I’ll eventually believe it.
So far it wasn’t working.
She stared out the car window. Another motorcycle pulled up and parked behind the smaller one.
This time the rider definitely wasn’t a woman. It was a guy who looked every bit the part of a biker. Tall, with broad shoulders that strained at his t-shirt, long hair gathered at the nape of his neck, he moved with the grace of something exotic. Something wild. Tattoos crawled out from under his t-shirt, snakes that wrapped around his forearms and ended at the palms of his hands. His eyes were sharp, alert. He saw her, noted her as nothing even remotely threatening, though he nodded in her direction as he dismounted the bike and headed up the sidewalk. She stared at the heavily muscled arms, watched the way he moved, like a fighter, and realized that this man would be a match for Sasha.
The biker glanced at her again as he strode past, by some chance looking her dead in the eye. Kallie recoiled as if slapped, letting out a small shriek. His eyebrows shot up, like she’d done something weird, and he stopped to look at her, shaking his head when her cheeks flamed scarlet, and she wished she could just crawl under the dash and just hide.
He studied her a bit before heading up the steps to the building. Kallie buried her face in her hands and wondered why she didn’t just die now and be done with it.
Until she started thinking about it. That biker had been huge. What if he had something to do with that woman? Like was maybe her boyfriend or something? Sasha could be in real trouble. Kallie’s stomach tied itself up into tiny knots. She couldn’t breathe. What if that man caught Sasha with the woman biker? Would there be a brawl? She remembered the gun. What if the biker had one, too?
Aware that she was working herself into a panic attack, Kallie scrambled out of the car. Her hands shook as she shut the door behind her. Behind every door, at every window in this neighborhood, was a potential enemy. Was she being watched right now? It was too unsafe out here. She felt too exposed.
Needing to not be alone she dashed up the steps, trying to catch up to the biker, though who knew what she would do if she caught him. Was she trying to save Sasha or herself?
She joined him on the small stoop. The biker looked at her again, like she was nuts. Right now, she agreed with
the assessment.
Sasha pushed out the main door of the apartment building just as the biker was about to go in. To Kallie’s surprise and relief, the big guys smiled at the sight of one another. They bumped fists, shook hands, and hugged, talking rapidly in Russian the whole time.
Surprisingly, when they weren’t standing next to each other, Kallie would have sworn the men were the same size. The biker was an enormous guy by any standards, but Sasha dwarfed him. He was a couple inches taller, and broader all around. Looking at them together, she felt stupid. Not only for doubting that Sasha could hold his own in a fight with this guy, but also because she had no real reason to be there. Whatever half-formed plans to rescue Sasha she’d had, had fled now. In fact, if anything, she was kind of mad that she’d been about to jump in, doing that crap enabling thing she’d hated when she’d seen it in other women. Why was it her job to save her ex from the bullies, or imagined bullies of the universe? Even to the point of giving him a heads up when they were banging (or maybe banging) other women?
Could she get more pathetic?
Kallie turned on her heel and headed back towards the Cadillac. Of course, Sasha didn’t so much as acknowledge her. What a comedown. A few days ago, he would have called her to his side and positively flaunted her in front of other men. Sure, it was juvenile, but she had to admit it had felt pretty good when he’d done that. She’d been something to be proud of.
Now she was... what exactly?
She was almost to the car when he called to her.
“Hey!”
Sharp, imperious, she knew it was an order. To disobey would be unimaginable. He sounded angry, which he had every right to be. He’d told her to stay in the car. She wasn’t in the car. It was that simple.
She turned, opening her mouth, trying to come up with some cock and bull story that he would buy, only he never gave her a chance. Instead, he leveled her with a look, brows coming down in such deep disappointment that it far surpassed any lecture he could have come up with.
