by L. L. Ash
What?
What did that mean?
“Do you mean—”
“I mean I love you too,” he admitted, his cheeks turning an adorable shade of crimson.
I couldn’t take the cuteness anymore. I kissed his lips, ending it with a loud smack.
“So be it,” I agreed. “It’s up to you to make it so.”
He gave a sharp little nod before backing away and scrubbing a hand across one cheek.
God, the man was sexy. I got a good look from fuzzy-haired head to the wool socks on his feet. It wasn’t just the long, lean muscle or the way his body literally created an arrow at his hips, pointing to his manhood. No, it was in the way he stood, unashamed as I perused him with my eyes.
“Like what you see, kisa?” he asked after a long moment.
“Yes. Don’t move.”
He laughed and ignored me to dip down for our clothes. But when he turned… Oh God…
“What is this?” I asked, stepping forward in all my naked glory.
My fingers slid over the round, puckered hole in his side, then to the seven centimeter long scar that sat just a scant fingers width from his spine.
He glanced over his shoulder, but he must have known the spots because he wasn’t surprised at the angry scars.
“In the Special Forces,” he said. “They kept trying to kill me. Never succeeded.”
Who was ‘they’? And why were they trying to kill him?
“Will you tell me about it?” I asked him.
“Not much to tell. Got shot. It stuck in my ribs so that was a fun surgery. The other one, I got stabbed by one big fucking knife. Luckily we had a really good medic with us and the knife missed my spine and kidney.”
Lucky? I didn’t know how that could have been considered lucky.
“But I’m alive, despite their best efforts, and mine too, sometimes.”
“How did you get them?”
He shrugged.
“The stab wound was on a spy mission that went bad. The gunshot was from going back for my team. We were under heavy fire and two of our guys were trapped behind a concrete wall with nothing but a ten foot gap between them and us. Someone had to take the chance, so I did.”
“You saved them, you mean?” I said.
“They lived,” he confirmed.
“Why don’t you want to be the hero, Max? They lived, but only because you saved them.”
“I’m not a savior or a hero or any of that shit. I’m a soldier and a killer.”
“Speak for yourself. I may think what I like.”
“I can’t make you think any different, but don’t romanticize what I am. You have first-hand experience with my work.”
“What you are means nothing to me as long as you strive to do good. I’ve had enough bad in my life. I don’t need any more.”
“If that’s what you’re looking for, kisa, then I’m not the one for you.”
I couldn’t place it, but something in him switched off. Despite his profession of love and the sweet words, he was drawing away from me again.
“Didn’t you say that you love me, Max?”
“I did. Doesn’t mean I get to be the one who stays with you. Love isn’t always that black and white.”
“So just because you said you love me doesn’t mean anything?”
He paused, his body stiffening at my words.
“It means a hell of a lot,” he almost whispered. “But love doesn’t mean you get a happily ever after.”
The frustrating man grabbed his coat in his hands since he was done dressing, then he breezed through the front door again. That left me baffled, speechless, and alone.
Chapter Twenty-One
Maxim
My fingers dragged over the soft buzz of hair on my head as I walked away from her.
I didn’t want to, but I had to.
Fuck!
Why did I say that? Why did I admit I loved her? It only gave her hope that something would develop between us, and I knew that wouldn’t happen. I would keep her mine for as long as I could because the thought of some other douchebag’s hands on her made me physically ill.
Fuck!
I totally wished I had some hair on my head so I could fucking pull it, because something inside my gut was tearing me apart from the inside out and I had no idea how to fix it or make it stop hurting.
Taking a few fast steps, I picked up a thick tree branch from the ground and smashed the fucker across the trunk of the nearest tree, watching it splinter. It only helped a little.
Chest heaving, I pressed my back against that same tree and closed my eyes.
A man like me had nothing, and everything. I had nothing in the way of physical things that weren’t necessities, and I had no family or friends, with the exclusion of Serge, who I hadn’t talked to in more than half a decade. Because I had nothing, I had everything. I had complete freedom, and I owed nothing.
But it wasn’t that way anymore. Mila had dug into my heart with a fucking dull, rusty spoon and left a trail of blood behind. And no matter how much it hurt knowing she would eventually have to dig out again, I wanted her there. I couldn’t even comprehend how I had managed to live without her there in the first place. Because now she was every beat of my heart. And fuck...if I let her, she would destroy what little was left inside my chest.
Looking toward the sky, little blue streaks peeping between the thick evergreen trees, I wondered how I would go back to what it was before. Money, kills, non-stop travel. There was some reward that came with eliminating the bad guys; the same kind of bastards that killed my mom. It saved lives in the long run and gave justice to all the ones they had stolen before I could get my sight on them.
But was that enough—that small satisfaction? Now it seemed so trivial and pointless. There would always be villains, and I would always have work. There was no doubt about that. But now that I had her buried in my heart, no matter how much it would hurt in the future, I didn’t think I wanted to lose her. One memory of her smile, her girlish little giggle or the way she panted when I was balls deep… Fuck. I couldn’t give that up.
Hell, I didn’t want to.
The bad guys could wait.
Mila could not.
There would be a thousand ways I could enact justice in the name of the weak and powerless, but I would never get another shot at her kind of happiness. No matter how short, I had to take it. And then when my time came, I could go out with a smile on my damn face, knowing that at least at one time in my life since Mom died, someone loved me.
My resolve set, I made my way with purpose toward the hut where Mila was still sitting naked on the floor by the iron stove, only a sleeping bag wrapped around her as she stared into the flames. Upon hearing me enter with the thud of my heavy boots, she turned to me and looked up, her face full of confusion.
“I know. I’m an idiot. I’m sorry,” I said, dropping to my knees in front of her.
She blinked at me, sadness reflecting in her bright blue eyes.
“I’m sorry you feel that way about love, Max.”
“I’m fucked up,” I admitted.
“I’m going to make you change your mind,” she whispered, her hand stretching out to stroke the coarse, pokey stubble on my cheek.
“I think you already have,” I whispered back, leaning forward to press a kiss onto her lips.
Mila
The man’s appetite was insatiable.
Not for food, but for me.
We spent a majority of our time between two sleeping bags, naked and flushed. Even with his injury, he didn’t seem to slow down.
“Are you going to get one of those disgusting rats?” I asked Max as he dressed, strapping on his knife and gun.
With a laugh, he shook his head.
“Going to do a perimeter check. If I find a rat, then that’s a nice dinner for me.”
The grimace on my face made him grin, and that made me smile, too.
“Be a good girl and stay here,” he told me, lean
ing over the bunk so he could kiss me one more time.
My kiss-swollen lips protested, but I ignored them.
“I’ll keep the blankets warm,” I told him.
He growled in approval like a caveman, then he climbed up the ladder and out of the bunker, closing the door behind him.
I rolled onto my back, basking in the warmth and comfort the little bunk had become for me. I knew every plain and valley of his body, every bulge and dip. I knew just what he liked when my mouth was around his cock and I knew approximately how long it took for him to harden after an orgasm. I could recall with vivid imagination every single way he’d taken my body in the past two weeks. We had little else to do, and it was as good an entertainment as anything else. Well, probably better than most. Even if it left me sore between the legs.
I also knew that his favorite words during sex was fuck, cunt and tits, all of which sent my heartrate pumping higher. I learned that I liked dirty talk and language while he was inside me, even if I didn’t enjoy it outside such activities, but on him, it was almost like a worshipful prayer.
Time passed, and I wasn’t sure just how long, but eventually I heard the rhythmic thumping of his boots on the floor above, then the squeak and drag of the secret door. He pushed it back, then dropped down the hole breathless and grinning.
“You listened,” he said, ditching his coat on the floor, followed closely by his shirt.
“Max,” I groaned with a grin as he unzipped the bag, flopping it open to the cold air around us and exposing my nakedness to him.
“Fuck, you are perfection,” he said, kissing a line up my belly to my breasts.
My back arched, pushing one breast further into his mouth, but my words denied him.
“I don’t know if I can take you again,” I admitted, thighs still sticky from the last round.
“So? Maybe I should just kiss you better,” he suggested, nibbling harder on one nipple until I was crying out at the pleasure and pain of it.
“Max,” I whined, not sure I could deny him more than once.
“Fine, I’ll give you some more time to recover,” he whispered against my skin, indulging just a moment longer before he got down from the bunk and started digging through some bins toward the bottom.
I turned onto my side, propping my head up to watch as he sorted through the supplies he’d stocked.
“There it is,” he murmured to himself as he pulled a large plastic bag, holding some sort of electronic in it.
“What is that?” I asked as he checked the battery.
“Satellite phone,” he said before going to the far end of the bunker.
“A phone?” I gasped out, turning to follow him as he continued to fuss with something in the corner. “You’ve had a phone all this time?”
“For emergencies,” he mumbled, then exclaimed an ‘a-hah!’
A series of beeps met my ears just as light came from the corner, clashing with our battery powered lamp that had been running almost non-stop since we spent so much time in bed.
“Got a solar panel up there, and a transformer,” he said absently as he watched the phone charge. “Just enough to do something simple like this.”
“Power?” I demanded. “You’ve had power this whole time and didn’t tell me?”
“What were you going to use it for?” he asked with a laugh. “Not like we have hair dryers out here or something. No lights or heaters.”
“It would have been nice to know,” I mumbled as he turned back to the phone with a grin on his lips.
“Sorry kisa. Didn’t think you’d care since it’s useless to you.”
I shrugged, watching him punch in numbers into the keypad.
A moment later he raised it to his ear, the thing still charging.
It took a couple minutes, but after another call he spoke.
“Serge, yeah. What’s going on out there?”
He was silent for a minute, listening.
“The hell does he want? I’m not going to go out there and fucking bow to his will,” he growled into the phone.
“I’ll call you back. This is Mila’s decision.”
Just like that he hung up and squeezed the phone in his hands until his knuckles turned white.
“What is it?” I asked, both curious and terrified.
He put up the phone, wrapping it in the bag even though it was still charging.
“The war’s over,” he said slowly, not looking into my eyes. “That means you’re free to go.”
My heart fluttered.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean Popov can’t come after you anymore.”
“What about my father? My brother?”
“Don’t know about them. They’re back in Romania so you don’t have to worry about them. You have a new identity.”
I licked my lips, feeling chapped from all the kissing I’d been doing lately.
“So what? We go? Where?”
“You don’t need me anymore,” he said, all but whispering the words.
He looked a little pale in the white lamplight.
“You mean you won’t go with me?”
“I mean you don’t need me anymore,” he repeated, finally looking into my eyes.
This was going nowhere.
“What was up to me? You said something was my decision.”
He sank down to the ground, sitting over the wooden floorboards.
“There’s a woman, Popov’s widow, Zoya. He said she’s demanding to see you.”
“What could she want?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe to spit on you.”
I shook my head, frowning.
“No. She’s the one who told me to run. She encouraged me to go away before I got trapped with her son.”
He lifted an eyebrow.
“She’s like me. She got forced into a marriage too. She just didn’t have a man like you to steal her away first.”
With a grunt, he took the phone in his hand again.
“What do you want to do, Mila?”
“I want to go see her. Is she safe?”
He shrugged but dialed on the phone again until he had his friend on the line again.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Maxim
I felt like throwing up as the phone dialed.
Serge had given me the number to his own satellite phone before leaving and I’d committed it to memory so that I could communicate with him.
The war was over. That was good. Only problem was, that meant Mila was free. She could go live the life she wanted to live, going back to the opera or marrying and having a dozen babies. Hell, a woman like her could do both.
I bit the inside of my cheek until it bled while I waited for him to answer.
“So?” he greeted me.
“What is the woman’s situation?” I asked.
“Zoya? Vishka took her under his care immediately after moving into the compound. I think the bastard intends on sinking nicely into the notch Nico left when he died.”
“In Russia?”
“Yeah, in Russia. So? What am I supposed to say? Vishka’s demanding she go.”
“Mila wants to see her, but I’ll only allow it if she’ll be safe.”
“Fuck man, she’ll be safe. Vishka doesn’t hold anything against her. Besides, she’s still the daughter of Vasile. She holds weight in leverage.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. She’s earned her freedom.”
“God...Max, I swear. Vishka’s breathing down my neck and his guys are parked outside our apartment here in New York. If you can get the fucker off my back, I’d appreciate it. Just put the girl on a flight and send her over. He’ll take care of it from there. After that, you’re off the hook. We’re even and you’re free.”
Freedom.
It tasted pretty bitter all of a sudden.
“She will go to St. Petersburg,” I told him. “I’ll see to it myself.”
“Thanks dude. Seriously, I owe you after this whole fiasco. You saved
my ass so hard on this one. We’re all so incredibly grateful.”
I cracked a smile for the first time since starting our call.
“Good. Maybe you’ll stay away from the gangs like I warned you when we were twelve.”
Serge barked out a laugh before there was a shuffle on the line.
“Maxim?” a feminine voice spoke up.
“Adele?” I asked back.
“I just wanted to say thank you. I know you didn’t have to do this but...I’m grateful to you. We owe you our lives.”
“Don’t think about it again,” I told her, letting my voice soften.
She might have a streak of bitch running through her, but she was a good woman. I could tell just from the way she said thank you.
“Repay me by having a couple more babies and naming one of them after me.”
She snorted out a laugh.
“I’m not that thankful, Maxim Kovac. I’d rather leave all the Russian shit behind and focus on things that don’t come back to kill us later.”
I grinned and shook my head.
“Fine. Hand the phone back to Serge please.”
More shuffling and Serge was back on.
“Sorry. She stuck her finger in my bellybutton like a fucking fish hook.”
Laughing, I leaned back against the walls before asking what I didn’t want to.
“When does he want her?”
“Two weeks ago.”
“Shit...”
“She’ll be safe though. Vishka promised that she’d be safe.”
The promise of a mafia boss was no promise at all.
“Ok.”
“Well, I’m keeping my phone charged just in case you call again. It’s been charged since you guys left. I was afraid of missing your call.”
“I won’t call again from here. Next time you hear from me will be from a new phone. You got a new one, didn’t you?”
He spouted off a new number and I closed my eyes, repeating the number silently three times until it was ingrained, then I hung up with my one and only friend in the world.
Well, besides Mila.