“I forgot the forks,” she told him. He nodded. “I’m going to get them now.”
He nodded again, just as the microwave beeped, signaling the food was ready. He didn’t move. Neither did she. She just stood there, being weird. Why was she behaving like a high school girl who was experiencing her first crush?
This wasn’t her first time being alone with a man. This wasn’t even her first time being alone with Yury. She needed to pull herself together and at least act like she had some sense.
“Do I make you nervous?”
His question surprised her. “Uh, no. Not really. Why?”
“It seems like I make you nervous.”
“Oh. No. I just, I’m not used to having people over anymore. I’ve become a bit of a recluse ever since…. Since… You know.”
“Yeah, I know.”
And just like that, she’d added tension to the room. Trying to lighten it back up, she said, “So, do I make you nervous?” It was meant to be a joke. But his serious response floored her.
“Yes, Delilah, you make me very nervous.”
For a moment, she forgot how to talk. “How do I make you nervous?”
Eyes never straying from her, he said, “If I told you, it would only make you more nervous around me.”
Damn. She swallowed.
“I don’t want you to be more nervous around me, Delilah.”
He said her name like he was caressing it with his tongue. How was she supposed to keep herself from jumping him when he said her name like that? Ugh, why was her mind filled with horny thoughts?
“I blame Boris,” the devil on her shoulder whispered in her ear. “You stopped enjoying the mediocre sex he provided and your pussy sort of just shriveled up. Then in stepped Mr. Big Dick and your pussy started blooming like a flower in the spring. I think you need to let him pluck you. I think your flower needs a good plucking.”
“Delilah, Con has asked me to watch over you. Someone puts explosives on your car and Con is worried about you.”
Oh, so that was why he was here. Con had sent him. Disappointment crashed over her like a wave. “You’re here because Con sent you?”
“No.”
“You just said…”
“I said he asked me to watch over you because someone put explosive on your car. Which means someone is after you. I can watch over you from down the street. I don’t have to come inside to watch over you.”
“Then why did you come inside?”
“Because being away from you has become too hard.”
Once again, his words floored her and left her speechless.
“If I make you nervous,” he continued. “Tell me now and I’ll go back to the original plan to watch over you from the outside.”
Wait, she wanted to backtrack to that first statement he’d made.
“What do you mean being away from me has become too hard?” He didn’t say anything. “Oh, no. Don’t go back to being silent. You said it, so you explain it. What do you mean being away from me has become too hard?”
He turned and took the food out of the microwave. When he went to pass her, she stepped in his way, blocking him from walking by.
He chuckled. “Now it’s you who won’t let me pass.”
Delilah gasped. “You remember?”
Staring down at her, he whispered, “How could I forget?”
“I… over the years, you never said anything.”
“Neither did you.”
“I couldn’t. I was married.”
“And I couldn’t. You were married.”
Right. Duh, Delilah.
“You’re not married to that bastard anymore,” he told her.
Delilah smiled. A real smile. Not one of those forced ones she’d been displaying for Cristal and Con to keep them from worrying about her. “No, I’m not married anymore.”
“And that’s what scares me.”
“Wait. What?”
He sat the container down on the counter. “I think it’s better if I watch over you from the outside. I’ll see myself out.” He moved to step past her.
She blocked him. “I don’t understand. What just happened?”
“Move, Delilah.”
“Yury, what’s wrong?”
He stepped right. She followed. He stepped left. She quickly moved left. He grabbed her by her waist and lifted her thick ass up like she weighed nothing. He sat her on top of her counter then turned to leave. She grabbed the back of his shirt. He paused.
“If you want to leave,” she told him. “I’m not going to try to stop you. I just want to know what I said or did to make you suddenly want to leave.”
He sighed. “You smiled at me. That’s why I have to leave. Come lower the garage door behind me.”
Turning to the side, he wrenched his shirt free of her grasp then left. A few seconds later, she heard her garage door open. Feeling like a zombie, she hopped off the counter and strode through her house, heading toward the garage.
His car was still sitting in her parking lot on the other side of the garage. She pressed the garage door button. The door started to lower. His car eased out of the driveway. She stood there until the garage door shut completely with a slight bang.
And then there was nothing but darkness. For a brief moment, she’d felt excited again. For a brief moment, the darkness hadn’t felt so cold and a little light had shone through. It wasn’t as bright as the light that Zariah exuded.
She didn’t expect it to be. She was just surprised that he’d been able to provide any at all. So far, none of her closest friends had. When they came over, she counted down the minutes until she was free of them.
With Yury, it had been different. She hadn’t wanted him to leave. But he had. And now she was alone again. For the first time in months, she didn’t want to be alone. His words from earlier drifted through her thoughts.
“Being away from you has become too hard.”
He was out of his mind if he thought he could just say that to her then disappear. He couldn’t just come into her house and make her feel human again then disappear like a thief in the night. No. Uh-Uh. Not happening.
She was going to make Mr. Silent talk. He was going to explain to her what he’d meant when he said that being away from her was too hard. Coming right out and asking him wouldn’t work on Yury.
He would just shut down and not say a word. She’d have to get creative if she wanted to get Mr. Tall Dark and Handsome to open up to her. Delilah smiled. She strode back into the kitchen and stared at the containers of food on the counter.
Yury had cooked for her. Delilah couldn’t stop a smile from spreading across her face. For the first time in a long time, she was excited about something other than just Zariah’s cute little face.
“Yury Drozdov, you’ve brought warmth back into my life. And I’m not letting you take it back.”
***
A cold shower hadn’t helped.
Neither had one hour on the treadmill. No matter what he did, he couldn’t get Delilah Norrin off his mind. Yury climbed into bed, slid his shorts off and then kicked them away. He couldn’t sleep in clothes.
He pulled his covers up over his face. His dogs were across the room, sound asleep, while their master was awake, unable to get any shut-eye. Every time he closed his eyes, she appeared. He couldn’t seem to shake her, no matter how hard he tried.
He could still see her in his mind, staring up at him with those big brown eyes and that beautiful brown skin. How could she even think that he’d forgotten their conversation in Hawaii?
That had been the first time in his life where he’d stayed up all night talking to a woman. He’d never done it before then and he hadn’t done it since then. To this day, she was the only woman he’d ever wanted to talk to like that.
Talking to her was easy. She didn’t gawk at him like he was a freak of nature. Yeah, he was tall, that didn’t mean people had to stare. She also didn’t treat him like he was a monster. She knew what he did for a living
and she’d still invited him into her house.
She still allowed him to be around her child. Either she was crazy or she trusted that he would never do anything to hurt her or her little one. He hoped it was the latter. He hoped she trusted him.
He’d cut off his hand before he allowed himself to use it to hurt her. Five years ago, she smiled at him and made him feel for the first time in his life. Tonight, she smiled at him and made him want to hold on to her for the rest of his life.
He’d had no choice but to leave. If he’d stayed behind…. Shit, he was afraid of what he’d done if he stayed behind. If you gave a well taken care of dog food, it would eat it at its leisure. No rush. It knew it had more food coming.
If you gave a starving dog food, it would snatch it up so fast you’d almost lose your hand. It didn’t know when it would eat again. It didn’t know if you’d truly let it have the food or if you’d take it away.
Delilah’s smiles were like food to him. And he was a starving dog. Her smiles made him want to snatch her up and hold on to her so tightly that she’d never be able to escape him, ever. The rational part of him that was still human knew what he was feeling wasn’t right.
These weren’t the feelings of a normal man. A normal man wouldn’t snatch up a woman he liked and take her away in order to keep her from escaping him. That was called kidnapping and that shit was illegal.
Then again, it wasn’t like he’d never kidnapped anyone before. Never a woman though. If he kidnapped Delilah, he’d have to kidnap Zariah too. Yury shook his head. He’d never do anything to make mother or child fear him.
Kidnapping was off the table. The only thing he could do was keep his distance. He’d watch over her at night from the outside. During the day, they’d send one of their guys to watch her house and to follow Zariah to school.
This way they’d be able to protect her both day and night until they found out who was after her. It shouldn’t be this hard to find out who was trying to kill her. Yet, so far, they had no leads. The next best thing was to come right out and ask her.
He’d leave that to Con. He didn’t think she’d want to share that with him. After the way he’d stormed out of her house tonight, she’d probably never want to share anything with him again, including a meal.
Yury sighed and tossed the covers off of him. He hated that he’d ran away like a little bitch? He should’ve just stayed and ate, then left. Or, he could’ve just sat there quietly and not said a word. But every time she looked at him it did something to him.
It made him want to do something to her. And a woman like her had no business fucking with a man like him. She damn sure shouldn’t have invited him in to eat pie. Especially not when the pie he really wanted to eat was between her legs.
Yury closed his eyes and tried not to think about her legs. Damn, she had some sexy legs. Even in oversized pajamas, she still hadn’t been able to hide her curves. And when she’d bent over to look in the refrigerator, all he’d seen was her ass sticking out from behind the refrigerator door.
His cock had responded instantly. Hell, he was still rock hard, thanks to her. That was the reason he’d taken a cold shower. The shower hadn’t helped at all. And if he didn’t do something soon, he’d never be able to go to sleep.
Yury closed his eyes and eased his hand underneath the cover. He’d tried to avoid doing this. He’d fought against him, but in the end, his needs won. He gripped his cock tightly and groaned her name.
Fuck, he wished it was her holding him instead of his own hand. He slid his hand up then brought it down fast, wishing it was her sliding up and down him. Moving his hand faster, he pumped his cock, wishing it was her he was pumping into.
He wished he could stare into her brown eyes as he fucked her hard and long. He wished he could hear her moan his name as he pulled her hair and smacked her ass. Fuck, he wanted to smack her ass and watch it shake.
He wanted to brand her pussy with his cock so she’d forever know that she belonged to him. He wanted to fuck her so good that whenever he stepped into the room, her pussy would sense the presence of his dick and immediately get wet.
Yury pumped his cock hard. Precum coated his palm as he thrust into his own grasp. He tightened his grip and pumped harder. His cock throbbed and his body jerked. He rubbed his thumb over the tip and that was it.
His cum spilled forth as his orgasm slammed into him. He called her name while pumping his dick until he’d wrung every drop of cum from his it. Even after his breathing returned to normal and his body ceased trembling, his cock was still semi-hard.
Jerking it off had taken the edge off. But his cock knew what it wanted. It wouldn’t be satisfied until it was deep inside the pussy of the woman he’d dreamed about for the past five years. Only then would he be truly satisfied. But that was never going to happen. He needed to stay away from Delilah. Sighing, Yury sat up.
It was time for another cold shower.
Chapter Five
You can run, but you can’t hide
Operation: Make Yury Talk had begun.
And so far, she was failing at her mission. Not just failing a little bit. She was utterly failing. All last week, he’d come by to pick up Zariah and take her to school. This week, he was MIA. Criss was the one picking her up and Con was the one dropping her off.
And when it wasn’t either of them, it was Rico, one of the guys from the club. It was time for Con to either give her back or car or stop complaining about her buying a new one. She didn’t like having to depend on others.
Then again, if it had been Yury picking Zariah up and dropping her off, she wouldn’t have complained. She’d known for sure he would be the one to come pick up Zariah for the sleepover on Friday.
Nope, it was Angelina who picked Zariah up. It was official, Yury was avoiding her. And that pissed her off. How could a cold-hearted killer be afraid to be around one little woman? It made no sense.
Unless… unless… Delilah’s grown-ass blushed, something she hadn’t done in ages. The only reason she could think of was that he liked her. As in, like-liked her. As in, he wanted to get to know her on a more intimate level.
As in, being alone with her made him nervous because he was probably picturing himself screwing her against the wall. Or against the floor. Or the table. Actually, any hard surface that was able to hold them both up.
“No bitch,” the naughty devil on her shoulder whispered. “You’re the one picturing him screwing you on the wall, or floor, or any hard surface that’s able to hold you both up.”
Her naughty devil was right. Ever since that night he’d left her house in a rush, she hadn’t been able to get him off her mind. He even invaded her dreams with his big dick swag. In her dreams, he put it down so good that she woke up trembling with her panties soaking wet.
Part of her felt guilty for the filthy thoughts she’d been having about him. The other part of her was like, bitch you grown and you’re single, get you some. That was the naughty devil part of her.
The rational part of her knew she should just push all thoughts of Yury to the side and try to help Con figure out who’d put explosives in her car. For the life of her, she didn’t know. Unless it was the Soldiers or someone else Boris had offended who were trying to off her, she had no idea who else would want to hurt her.
The ghosts from her past had no idea where she was. She’d fallen off their radar a long time ago. They didn’t know her new name. They only knew her by Lisa Russel. They had no idea who Delilah Norin was, and she wanted to keep it that way.
She wanted to share her past with Con and Yury but she couldn’t risk them looking into it and stirring up old dirt. She was safe from the monsters of her past. She wanted to keep it that way.
And with Con and Yury watching over her and Zariah, she knew they’d be safe from the demons of Boris’s past. This was just another reason why she wished she could dig his body up, reanimate him and then kill him all over again.
That bastard deserved to die a thousand deat
hs. Though she still wanted to mutilate him, she was no longer feeling the same burning anger she’d felt before. She wasn’t as tired as before and she didn’t feel as depressed as she had before.
Even if he never stepped into her house or life again, his presence for that one night had reminded her that she wasn’t dead inside. She still had the ability to feel. And though she had no plans on falling in love anytime soon, she knew she was still capable of caring for another.
It would be kind of cool if that other person was Yury. But, she couldn’t force him. Hell, she couldn’t even get him to talk to her. He was ghosting her. If he kept this up, she’d never know what he meant by, ‘Being away from you has become too hard.’
She spent the next three weekends alone. No sight of Yury whatsoever. Her daughter, who had a more active social life than her, saw more of him than she did. On the fourth weekend, her baby left for Disney World.
And Con was kind enough to loan her one of his cars. Which meant, that there would probably be no one around to drive her anywhere if she needed a ride. Which also meant that Yury was probably going to Disney World also.
While everyone else was having fun, she was inside with Ben and Jerry. And no, she wasn’t doing anything exciting like having a threesome with guys by the name of Ben and Jerry. She was eating ice cream and watching Netflix until the wee hours of the morning.
Just last month, she’d wanted nothing more than to be at home and not be bothered by the outside world. Now, she felt like she was suffocating and the walls were closing in on her. She should’ve just gone to Disney World with Zariah.
Instead, she ended up falling asleep in front of her television. She awoke to the sound of something crashing. A few seconds later, her house alarm blared. She sat up on her couch and stared around the room.
The crashing sound must’ve been something crashing through her window and triggering her alarm sensors. But which window? Her gun was locked up in her bedroom, on the other side of the house.
She heard movement toward the front hall. Shit. She needed to do something. She stood up slowly and quietly headed toward the kitchen. She pulled a knife out from the display set next to her dish rack.
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