by Ava Bloom
Diego was one of my best friends in Barcelona. I’d met him the week that I’d moved there, when he’d tried to steal my wallet out of my pocket. When I’d questioned why an apparently affluent Spanish man would do such a thing, he’d just shrugged and said he was bored.
Suffice it to say, I’d been able to keep his life interesting since then. Granted, he would never be a full member of the mafia given that he wasn’t Russian, but Evgeni had adopted him into the fold and used his skills over the years. I wondered how much of that would change now that the man was getting married.
But for now, I shook my head to clear it, squared my shoulders, and walked confidently across the bar to the group of women.
“All right,” I said, clapping my hands together as I reached their table, “who’s doing shots with my brother and I? My treat.”
The girls looked at one another, and it was almost as though they each wanted to agree but were, for some reason, nervous about it. What a weird group. “I don’t think so,” one of the women finally piped up—not my blonde one, fortunately.
I sighed and put a hand over my heart. “You wound me,” I said. I slung an arm around Dima’s shoulders, drawing him forwards. “But you see, it’s my brother’s birthday, and it’s my brotherly duty to help him get good and drunk. And to find someone for him to dance with.”
Again, the girls looked uncertain. “Oh come on,” one of the brunettes finally said, putting her palms face-down on the table as she looked keenly around at the rest of the girls. “I know we said that we were just coming here for a few drinks, but there’s no reason why we can’t do a little dancing as well, is there?”
There were a few reluctant murmurs of agreement around the table. The brunette stood up and came to stand next to me. “Well, if none of the rest of you are game, I am. I’ll see you chickens at work on Monday.”
Oh. The realization suddenly struck me: they were coworkers. No wonder things were so awkward between them. I had to stifle a smile. It was going to be easy to get the blonde woman to leave behind her friends for the night and come home with me. If girls were out with their friends, they always had that pesky sense of protection for everyone else, wanting to make sure that everyone made it home okay at the end of the night. But if they were just coworkers, then it was understood that each person would fend for themselves and that they would see each other on Monday to compare tales of the end of the night.
Not that most of these women seemed like the type to have a rocking end to the night. I started to wonder if maybe Dima and I should have chosen different prey. I knew that we could take them home, of course; I basically never had to worry about striking out at the bar. But it might be more effort than it was worth.
Still, with the brunette firmly on our side, the others started to waver and stand up as well.
“I think I’m just going to go home,” the other brunette said, faking a yawn.
“Oh come on, Rachael,” the blonde girl said, rolling her eyes, and I had to stifle a smile at that. With how game she was to do shots and the way that her eyes lingered on me, I knew that it was going to be no problem taking her home with me.
Sure enough, by the time I got her out on the dancefloor, she was giggly and flirtatious, her hands roaming over my chest and finally settling behind my neck, leaving me with no choice but to rest my hands on her hips—not that I wanted to put them anywhere else. Especially since she didn’t seem to mind as I let them slide lower until they rested on her curved behind.
Mmm, there were so many ways that I wanted to take her already.
One of the things that I loved about dancing with a woman is that they usually felt like you were getting to know one another, for some reason, even if the only information that you’d exchanged was your names. So amusing…
I let Emily keep dancing for a while, but I knew better than to let her tire herself out already. Instead, I leaned in close to her ear. “You know, I have a very nice bottle of wine back home, if you were interested in moving this to someplace more private.”
To my surprise, Emily froze, staring at me with wide eyes, as though this ending to the night had never occurred to her. She looked around, as though she was suddenly becoming aware that her coworkers were still all around her, dancing with various people or one another. I realized Dima wasn’t with them and spared a thought to wonder where he had gone off to and if he had managed to snag one of the coworkers already. If so, I was impressed.
But for now, I focused on Emily. “You can’t tell me that you don’t want this,” I said, emphasizing my words by grinding against her, knowing that she could feel how interested I had become as we were dancing together.
She pulled away, though. “I’m not like that, okay?” she said.
I rolled my eyes. “What, you never have sex?” I asked, knowing that that couldn’t be true. The way that she’d been swinging her hips on the dancefloor was positively sinful; there was no way she’d never been fucked before. She had to know exactly what she did to men.
“I can’t leave my friends,” she said stubbornly.
I snorted. “Aren’t they your coworkers?”
“Even more reason why I can’t just leave them,” Emily said.
“Why, because you’re afraid that they’ll know you went home with an attractive guy?” I asked. God, women were so ridiculous sometimes.
Emily stood up tall. “If you don’t stop bothering me, I’m going to call security and have you thrown out,” she said frostily.
I laughed. “Go ahead and try,” I told her. “I practically own this place.”
For a moment, Emily looked uncertain, but then she scowled at me. “If that’s so, then maybe I’ll have to quit coming here!” She spun on her heel and stormed out, and for a moment, I actually felt bad, like I had done something wrong.
But that was ridiculous. I had made my intentions clear the whole night, and she had as well. It wasn’t my fault that she had suddenly decided that she had morals and that she couldn’t go home with me.
I shook my head and headed for the bar. If I wasn’t going to get laid that night, after getting all worked up and horny, I was going to need some strong alcohol to put me to sleep. I glanced around, wondering whether there were any other females that I should attempt to go after, but it was getting late, and most of the attractive ones had already paired off.
I knocked back a triple-shot of vodka and then grabbed my coat, heading out into the chilly autumn night.
Chapter Two – Emily
My head was throbbing, and my first thought upon waking was, thank God I didn’t have to teach that day. I wasn’t sure that I would have been able to manage it.
I thought back to the previous night, wondering what had gone wrong. Shots, I remembered. Those Russian guys had come over and convinced us all to do shots with them. And I had had not only one vodka shot, but also Tina’s shot, when she had realized that it was vodka. She might not drink vodka, but I certainly did, especially when I was already feeling so awkward and bored with the whole thing.
And especially when there was a hot Russian guy standing there looking like he wanted to devour me.
I shivered all over as I thought back to Nikolai. Hmm, there was a thought to make the hangover go away, or at least to make it more bearable. I’d been drawn in instantly by those classic features: the strong jaw and the piercing blue eyes. We hadn’t had a chance to talk very much; it had been too loud in Ritmo for that. But from what he’d said, I could imagine how deep and husky his voice would become when he talked dirty, how he would growl as he threw me back onto the bed…
Unbidden, my hand crept down between my legs. Then, I paused, feeling embarrassed.
I hadn’t come to Barcelona looking for a one-night stand. I had to focus: I liked my job, and I wasn’t about to lose it. I should never have gone out to the bar the previous night, and I definitely shouldn’t have had so much to drink. There were placement tests to grade and lessons to plan. The school hadn’t had its bilingual
program for long, and it was clear that the previous teacher hadn’t had much experience in curriculum planning. I basically had to come up with a new plan from scratch.
But I didn’t mind the work. I got to work with adorable 5- and 6-year-olds, who would hopefully grow up through the program, with a couple lessons a week in each art, music, P.E., and science, so that by the time they were ready to go to university, they would already be fluent in English. It was an amazing idea, and I was so excited to get to work on that.
Beyond that, this was the first time that I’d been able to net a job in a major city that I wanted to live in. Because I didn’t have a European passport, I had had to gain experience teaching ESL in places where they were desperate for teachers or where visa requirements were a little less strict. That had meant taking a couple years teaching in Asia, followed by a couple years in small villages in Eastern Europe.
There were so many reasons that I wanted this position to work out, and I couldn’t afford to get distracted by a guy. And I definitely didn’t need all my coworkers to see me in such a…compromising position.
I blushed just thinking about it, and I slowly withdrew my hand from my panties.
I sighed as the throbbing in my skull worsened. Fortunately, I had left a full bottle of water and two aspirin tablets on my nightstand. Thank you, drunk Emily, I thought sarcastically. Might have been wiser to just, you know, not do all the vodka shots, but at least I had kind of taken care of myself.
And at least I didn’t have work today.
I rolled out of bed a little while later and stumbled into a hot shower, wishing that something would cure my hangover. Wishing that I could get the sexy Nikolai out of my head as well…
Finally, I decided to head up to Mont Juïc that afternoon with my art supplies. It was one of my favorite spots in the city: never too busy if you knew where to go, and it offered magnificent views of the Barcelona skyline. You could see everything, from the spires of Sagrada Familia to all of the fancy office buildings. The only place to get a better view, really, was from out on the water, but I didn’t make enough with my painting (or my teaching) to warrant hiring a boat every time I wanted to go paint!
I smiled a little at the thought, collected my things, and headed up the hill. Fortunately, it wasn’t a very long walk, although it was a bit steep in places. One of the perks of living near La Rambla was that I was pretty central to everything. I had lucked out in finding a studio apartment in that area for so cheap, but as I understood it, my landlord had had problems with the previous person, so he’d just been happy when I’d been able to pay the first three months’ rent upfront.
I sighed as I settled into my spot in the park, taking a sip of the tea that I’d brought with me in a thermos. It sure was beautiful up there, and already I was starting to feel better about my day. Of course, this still wasn’t the productive workday that I needed to have, but if I could power through enough work the next day, then I’d be fine. I didn’t need to turn in the full year’s curriculum just yet anyway.
I mixed a couple colors on my palette and then started painting the background in slow, soothing brush strokes, feeling myself relax as I did so. At least until-
“Fancy seeing you here.” That smug, Russian-accented voice…
I looked up, seeing Nikolai smirking down at me, and for a moment, my brain clicked offline. Oh God… If I’d thought that he was sexy the night before, it was nothing compared to how he looked right now, dressed in tight-fitting running shorts and no shirt. There was a thin sheen of sweat coating his tanned, washboard abs. I felt a tug of lust in my gut, and I fought it down, along with the blush that came with it.
“Are you all right?” Nikolai asked, and I could tell from his amused tone that he knew exactly what was wrong with me. Especially because…
I hurriedly snapped my eyes back up to his, aware that I’d been staring. Sure enough, he was laughing at me.
I swallowed hard. “I’m a bit hungover, actually,” I admitted, my mouth feeling parched. “I’m…not really processing properly.” As though that explained why I’d been staring.
“Sure,” Nikolai said easily, dropping onto the bench next to me as though he belonged there. Which I supposed he did, as much as the next person, because this was a public park and Nikolai was the public, and-
I had to shut my brain off somehow.
“What are you painting?” Nikolai asked, nodding at the canvas in front of me.
“It’s going to be the skyline, but I’m starting with the background,” I told him.
“Oh,” Nikolai said. “And you, what, sell those pictures to tourists?”
I blushed again. “No!” I said. “I just…paint them for myself, I guess. Sometimes I give them away as gifts. But I just like painting. I’m a teacher, that’s my job.” I paused and then blurted out what I really wanted to know: “So are you following me or something?” How was it that in a city as large as Barcelona, we had just happened to bump into one another?
Nikolai laughed, though. “I wouldn’t know where to follow you from,” he pointed out. “You didn’t even let me walk you home last night.
I wanted to feel indignant at the fact that he thought I needed someone to walk me home, but there was another part of me that appreciated the thought of someone strong and caring—not to mention sexy—walking me home at the end of the night. But I knew that Nikolai probably would have pushed it, that he would have tried to come up to my apartment with me. And anyway, I didn’t need the girls from work to see me leave with him, because even if he really was just walking me home, they’d infer something more.
“I’m not having sex with you,” I blurted out.
Nikolai looked taken aback. Which, of course he did, since my outburst was totally unfounded. For yet another time, I felt myself start to blush as Nikolai laughed. “Duly noted,” he said. “But how about we go get coffee?”
I shook my head vehemently. “I’m…busy,” I said weakly, gesturing towards my painting.
“Coffee is the perfect cure for a hangover, though,” Nikolai said sagely. “And just imagine how much better your painting would be if it didn’t feel like someone was shoving spikes into your skull…”
“You sound like you have some experience with this,” I said, raising an eyebrow at him.
“Russians don’t get hungover,” Nikolai said. “But alas, now I am used to drinking with Catalonians.”
“And they get hungover?”
“They pass out in alleyways,” Nikolai sighed. “One of the greatest laments about this country.”
“Why are you here anyway?” I asked curiously. “I mean, why not in Russia?”
“The Volkov family has been in Barcelona for a few generations now,” Nikolai said, his eyes shifting away from mine. He didn’t seem interested in elaborating.
I frowned. “How about this: I’ll go to coffee with you if you tell me why your family decided to settle in Barcelona,” I told him.
Nikolai laughed, but there was something more than amusement in the tone. Whatever it was, I couldn’t put a finger on it, though. “You would have to do more than go out for coffee with me if you wanted to know what my family does here in Barcelona,” he said.
“Something illegal, then?” I asked shrewdly.
“Get coffee with me,” Nikolai suggested.
“All right,” I found myself agreeing. I knew this wasn’t the kind of thing to get myself tangled up in, but at the same time, my curiosity was piqued. I packed away my art supplies and followed Nikolai down the hill, grateful when he took some of the bulkier items out of my hands.
Even though I lived near there, he seemed to know the area better than I did, and he quickly found a cute little café for us which was surprisingly empty for this hour on a Saturday. I looked consideringly over at Nikolai after we had placed our orders. “So you know this city pretty well?”
Nikolai shrugged and grabbed his coffee from the counter. “I’ve lived here for almost ten years now,” he sai
d. “I moved here to live with my uncle right after I finished what you would call high school.”
“So you didn’t go to college?” I asked.
“It wasn’t important,” Nikolai said. “If I had stayed in Russia, I would have taken some sort of trade job, probably. Our family owns a lot of farmland. And here…” He trailed off, hinting again at that strange reason for his family’s presence there in Barcelona.
But that wasn’t what I focused on right then. Instead, I laughed. “I can’t picture you as a farmer,” I told him truthfully.
Nikolai shook his head. “I never wanted to work on the farms,” he said. “My younger brother, Andrei, helped out far more than I did. That’s why he only moved here to Barcelona a little while ago. I always wanted something more.” He paused. “Even growing up, I didn’t spend a lot of time in the countryside. My father had apartments in Petersburg, and I lived there for the most part.”
“Wow, St. Petersburg,” I said. “I’d love to go there sometime.”
“Why?” Nikolai asked curiously. “Not that it isn’t a beautiful city, but you don’t meet many Americans who want to travel there.”
I shrugged. “I guess I’m not like most Americans,” I said. “I’ve been teaching English abroad for a while now, first in Asia—Thailand and then Mongolia—and now Europe. I spent last year in Hungary and the one before that in Poland, and the one before that, I was in some podunk village in the Czech Republic. The Eastern European culture is really fascinating.”
“But you, like me, have chosen Spain instead,” Nikolai said, grinning at me. He shook his head. “Mongolia, not many people choose to travel there.”
I laughed. “They hired me, and I figured that since I didn’t really know anything about the place, I might as well go!” I said. “It was cold. Very beautiful, but very cold.”
