He was a little slow in processing what she’d said, but as soon as it clicked, he turned the full force of his glare on her.
Brows raised, she asked, “Too soon?”
“What else?”
“Nothing. I stayed here all day slaving away in here until you got here with a rod jammed up your ass. You know, before you decided to act like a dick, you could have at least took a look around to see what I did.”
For a moment, he looked uncomfortable. “You didn’t have to clean my house. I wasn’t looking for repayment.”
“Then don’t look at it that way. Consider it a gift.”
His lips thinned, but he didn’t seem to have an answer for that. If anything, he looked uncomfortable by the idea of her giving him a gift.
“You don’t like gifts?” she asked, tucking her fist beneath her chin.
He was quiet for a moment, pondering his answer. “Nothing is ever free. Not even gifts. Even things that are supposed to be freely given come with a price tag.”
She frowned. “I’m sorry you feel that way, but I didn’t do this because I wanted something from you. It was the least I could do after…well, after everything.”
Picking at the paper towel in her hand, she tore it to shreds, moving the little pieces around the table. “Are you going to tell Mish about Snow?”
“What would I say? You were fucking a guy in exchange for drugs and I found out about it? I’m not sure how well that’s going to go over.”
Wincing, she looked away from him. “That’s not how it happened.”
That was the wrong thing to say. He turned away from the stove, leveling her with a stare that was almost frightening in its intensity. “No? Enlighten me.”
“You’re already mad,” she whispered, still looking out the window. “I don’t want to make your mood worse.”
He crossed over, the island separating them as he leaned forward. “Why? Are you afraid of me?”
To this, Alex met his gaze. “I’ve never been afraid of you, Luka. There’s never a reason to be.”
His smile was cold and unkind. “If you knew what I plan to do to him, then you would rethink that. Fuck, if you knew what I like to do, you’d rethink that.” He shook his head, his smile slipping. “Don’t make me into something I’m not, Alex. I’m not a good person. I never will be.”
“But you are,” she answered softly. “No one else would have done what you did for me.”
“Is that it?” he asked, still staring at her. “I do one nice thing for you and you forget who I am?”
“What’s there to forget, Luka? I remember every little thing about you.”
Luka looked…irritated? “You don’t even know me.”
“But I want to.” She reached for the hand he had balled into a tight fist just in front of her, but when she saw the tendons stand out, she sighed, not moving any closer. “I’ve always wanted to. You know that.”
“And I’ve never understood why. What do you see, Alex? Tell me, I want to know. I’m not a pet project for you to fuck around with until you get bored.”
“That’s not—”
“And you do get bored easily.”
“Luka!”
He blinked, as he had just come out of a trance. That anger that had seemed so present in him drifted away.
“I only ever wanted to be your friend.”
He shoved a hand through the thick tangles of blond hair on his head. “You’re not my friend.”
Her heart sank in her chest, and she wondered again why she had put herself in this position, begging for something he didn’t want to give.
“Then what am I?” Maybe if he said, ‘nothing’, she’d be able to sever this draw she felt to him. Maybe she wouldn’t care as much.
He blew out a breath, his tongue peeking out as it swept over the corner of his lip. “More than that.”
And as quickly as that invisible bond seemed to loosen, it grew taut once more. This was helpless, she knew, but she didn’t think she could let him go until he asked her to…and maybe not even then.
Leaving it at that, she watched him move around the kitchen as he went back to the stove, enjoying the way he immersed himself in what he was doing. She already knew he was skilled at what he did, but she didn’t think anyone could hold a candle to what he did when he put his mind to it.
Something was quite intimate about Luka cooking for her, even if cooking was something he always did. Besides professionals, she didn’t think anyone had ever cooked for her. Funny thing was that she didn’t think Luka thought of it the way she did—like it was a big deal—but it was for her. She couldn’t remember a time when someone had cooked for her the way Luka did, and for that matter, she didn’t think she had ever gone out of her way to do something like this for anyone but herself.
By the time he finished, she was looking forward to what he’d created, eager to see what his passion was all about. She almost volunteered to help, but he was in a world of his own and she didn’t want to take him from it. When the food was plated and offered to her, she waited for him to join her before picking up her knife and fork.
Remembering the way he’d looked when he got back, and the ensuing conversation, Alex thought it best not to bring up her feelings about him again, instead focusing on him.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Alex asked softly, peering up at him as she took a bite out of the buttered roll. “What happened when you left, I mean.”
His expression practically screamed no, but after a few moments, he said, “A job went bad.”
“Bad as in…oh, that kind of bad,” she answered herself when he leveled her with a stare that spoke volumes.
She pushed food around her plate before finally scooping some up and placing it in her mouth, chewing methodically as she tried to think of how best to breach this subject. It was quite obvious that when he said a job went bad, he had more than likely needed to kill someone. She had never thought about what it did to him mentally because he always seemed so jovial, but a brief image of his haunted gaze the night she had seen him come back to Mishca’s apartment, his hands and clothes covered in blood, flashed through her mind.
“Is it…hard for you? Doing…that?”
He chewed methodically, wiping his mouth with a napkin before he spoke. “Depends. I know what you’re thinking,” he said with a ghost of a smile, “but it’s not as black and white as you think. There’s not just a bullet to the head and it’s over. Some need to be kept alive and I have to get information from them. Others are given a reprieve from me and they die quickly. Then, of course, there are the few that I take my time with. It’s not whether or not I enjoy it. It’s not even whether or not I hate it. Hurting people is the only thing I know.”
Alex didn’t like the way he said that. “But it’s not. As you said, it’s not just black and white. I’ve seen the violence you’re capable of.” When he quirked a brow, she quickly explained, “You’re Mishca’s top enforcer, Luka. Sometimes a name slips up here and there, and later I might see the result of a visit you paid that person during a press conference.”
They both knew who she meant when she said that.
“But I’ve also seen the good in you, more times than you realize. And it’s not just what you do for me, but what you do for everybody. When Mish was in the hospital after being shot, you were there for Lauren. I even heard once that when you were in charge of the Gilded Room, you were actually nice to the girls, nicer than anyone else.”
He drained his glass of water. “And this is what you like in me then, this soft spot of mine for helping women.”
“Is it so hard to believe that I just like you.”
“You can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because—”
“Because you’d wreck me?” Alex asked, stifling the urge to roll her eyes. “Yeah, Luka, we’ve already had this conversation. I don’t see how it’s fair that you can say I don’t know you enough to like you, but what do you know about me? Wh
y do you think I’m so weak?”
“I don’t think you’re weak,” he retorted with a shake of his head. “I don’t think you’re weak at all.”
“If you think I can’t handle you and everything that comes with you, then, yeah, you think I’m weak.”
He glanced down at his watch. “It’s late, and I have an early morning.”
The conversation, it seemed, was over.
Rinsing her dishes and leaving them in the sink, she headed upstairs, returning to the room that had once been her prison. She headed into the bathroom first to wash her face, noticing the damage to the interior for the first time. If she had to guess, it looked like he had taken his fist to the wall a few times, and maybe even in his shower since some of the tiles were cracked. She hadn’t been lying when she said his rage didn’t scare her, but maybe that was just because she hadn’t truly witnessed it firsthand.
But either way, she was done fighting with him for the night.
Hitting the light, she headed back into his bedroom, coming up short when she saw him entering, still in his shirt, but he’d replaced his jeans with shorts. When he noticed her frozen in the doorway, just staring at him, he tilted his head toward the bed, a silent command for her to get in.
She did so without hesitation, though wondered if he was supposed to be joining her here. It was his bedroom and he obviously could do what he wanted, but after being cooped up together for three and a half days, she didn’t think he would want to be in a bed with her again. At least not this soon. When he slipped in beside her, she tried to remember to breathe.
Alex was far more aware of his presence now than she had been the last few nights he’d slept beside her. She lay there stiffly, trying not to notice his body heat and how nice it felt at her back. She had never slept with him so near. In the same apartment, yes, but never in the same bed, especially not like this.
She didn’t know how long she lay there like that when she heard him sigh, evidently still awake. She nearly jumped out of her skin when she felt his arm circle her waist and tug her back against him, holding her to him.
“We’re just sleeping, Alex,” he murmured, his breath fanning her hair.
“Luka, I don’t—”
“I need you exactly where you are.”
What rational argument could she produce to something like that?
She didn’t bother with a response, just relaxed, forcing her eyes closed, but as he relaxed behind her, she didn’t find it hard at all to fall asleep as they were.
23
____
When You Need Me
The next morning, Luka was up first. By the time Alex woke up, she felt worse than she had the day before. It was like every part of her ached, and she didn’t think it was just because of all the work she had done yesterday.
Pushing past it, though she wanted nothing more than to lay there and enjoy the comfort of his bed, Alex ventured downstairs, finding Luka standing in the doorway, watching Loki bound across the backyard.
“Luka, I need to go home.”
He turned his head at the sound of her voice, his body still. She could tell just from the expression on his face that he didn’t like that idea.
“I don’t have any clothes here. Well, obviously you know that, but I can’t keep wearing your stuff. ‘Cause obviously you have to wear clothes too…” She finally clapped her mouth shut when his stoic expression shifted into a smile.
Being around him made her weird. She wouldn’t say they were butterflies. At one point, she had gotten those, back when she was still getting to know him after he had just popped into her life suddenly, but now, there was just that sense of calmness she got when he was around. It wasn’t as easy to keep up a front. He saw right through her, every time, and maybe that was why she liked him so much.
“I doubt you own anything to paint a house in,” he grumbled as he pushed off the wall, crossing the floor to a closet nearby.
“Paint a house?”
He lugged out two giant containers, closing the door back. “You offered. I’m taking you up on it. We can knock it out today until I get a call.”
Meaning before he had to go out and handle Bratva business. She might have been happy with this change in him, but she suspected that it had less to do with her helping him and more to do with keeping her out of trouble.
“You don’t have to babysit me, Luka. I went out yesterday and didn’t even think about it. I’m gonna have to go home eventually.”
At least he didn’t try to deny it as he said, “It’s not just about making sure you stay clean, Alex. Crazy shit has gone down over the last six months. The last time you and I were together before…this…we had a good time, right?”
They had.
It had only been for a couple of hours, but those couple of hours had been amazing. When it was just the pair of them, nothing or no one else around, they got along amazingly. It was only when outside influences got involved that they had a knack for arguing.
“Right.”
He came closer, his hand coming up to finger a lock of her hair, seemingly hypnotized as he watched the strands drift between his fingers. “I know what it feels like to be lonely, even when there are people all around you.” He looked at her, eyes intent on her face, and she didn’t shy away from that intensity. She welcomed it. “It only takes one person to fill that void.”
Alex didn’t know if he was talking about her, or himself, but either way, she agreed wholeheartedly. “When do we start?”
____
Having washed her face, brushed her teeth, and eaten another breakfast that Luka had prepared—though she wasn’t very hungry to begin with—she helped carry in the paint, going back for paintbrushes and the tarp he used to cover the floor.
She rolled up his sweats at the ankles and the waist, not bothering with the shirt since there wasn’t much she could do about that. Picking a wall, she poured out some paint, grabbing a roller, and got started. Luka was behind her, at the steps it sounded like. She worked silently, her thoughts on what they were doing, at least for a while, then she turned, ready to ask him a question, but was caught off guard by the sight of him sans shirt.
Alex thought she was used to the sight of Luka shirtless by this time, but watching him do manual labor was an experience in itself. It was odd though, helping him make renovations to his house. All of it just felt so…mundane. She was used to the glamour of it all, but working beside Luka—even with the grisly meaning behind the majority of his tattoos—he brought a sense of normalcy that she didn’t get anywhere else.
“Yo?”
Alex blinked, her gaze darting over to Luka as he stood at the base of the stairs, cleaning his paint-spattered hands off with a towel. “Yeah?”
He smirked, the first real hint of amusement he’d shown all day. “You’ve been painting that one spot for ten minutes. I think it’s covered.”
She looked from him to the wall, feeling the blush heat her cheeks as she cleared her throat, setting the roller down on the side of the pan. She had been on autopilot, too focused on him to even see the work she had been doing. Not to mention the fact that she had been painting over the same spot.
“Right, sorry.”
She turned back around, looking for any other place that she could start on, preferably away from him if she wanted to get this done.
“What’s on your mind?”
What he would look like completely naked, but she doubted he wanted to know that truth.
“Nothing important.”
She could tell he didn’t believe that, but he didn’t call her on it. “Are you ready to talk about it?”
This time he was asking her instead of the other way around, and now that she was on the receiving end of it, Alex wanted to find a way out of the conversation.
“Talk about…”
“Anya? Snow? Mikhail? Viktor? Mishca? Me? Take your pick.”
“Luka—”
“Viktor was a bastard, you and I both know that. Mikh
ail…” He smiled apologetically as he looked back at her. “He wasn’t much better.”
“It wasn’t about them,” Alex muttered, looking back at the wall.
“Anya was—”
“It was just everything, Luka,” she said interrupting him. “There was just a lot going on and I didn’t know how to handle it. I just…I couldn’t get any of it off my mind, not when I was sober.”
She wanted to leave it at that, but in the next breath, she was unloading on him, telling him everything she had been afraid to tell another person. There was something both freeing and terrifying about telling someone your innermost thoughts, hoping they understood, but she was glad she did. By the time she was winding down, she felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders.
He came around to her side, pulling the brush from her hand. “Why didn’t you come to me before?”
“It’s not that I didn’t want to. There was never a right time. And I can’t run to you about every little thing. You’re not always going to be around.”
He didn’t respond, just searched her face for answers that she didn’t have for him.
“I can’t promise that I won’t get overwhelmed again. I can’t even promise that I won’t push you away, but I’ll do better.”
A second ticked by before Luka pulled her in his arms, his hand drifting beneath the fall of her hair, his fingers sifting through the strands. His body was warm, overly so, but she thrilled in the feel of it. If there was ever a time where she felt the calmest, then it was with him.
“When you need me, I’m right here. Even when you’re being fucking stubborn. I’m right here.”
She slapped his chest, laughing, but he didn’t let her pull away. “Thanks, Luka.”
Kissing the top of her head, he let her go. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine.”
“Right, now tell me the truth.”
It wasn’t that that had been a lie necessarily. She didn’t feel as bad as she had when she was coming down, but she wasn’t back up to full strength yet. She still had a long way to go before then.
“I feel better. Good enough?”
Swiping a bit of paint onto her forehead, he nodded. “For now.”
Hidden Monsters (Volkov Bratva Book 4) Page 16
