by Megan Hart
“You’re always so in charge, huh?” Nikolai stretched.
She frowned. “I just don’t want anyone to get hurt. That’s all.”
“Mother hen,” Nikolai said.
“So what? What’s wrong with wanting to make sure everyone is okay?” she demanded, suddenly angry, because Nikolai was always ragging on her. Always on her case. It wasn’t fair.
Somehow they were both standing. She poked him in the chest, hard, because he was taller than she was now. Not by much—a couple of inches—but she still had to tilt her head to look up at him, and it annoyed her. She poked him again, but this time Nikolai’s hand grabbed her wrist, holding her tight enough to hurt, if she struggled.
“I’m just teasing you,” he said without letting her go, even though she tugged. “You get so mad all the time, Allie. Why you gotta get so mad?”
“Because . . . you . . . why do you always have to argue with me? Anything I say or do, you’re always making it like some big deal!” She tried again to get her hand free but couldn’t, so she smacked at him with the other.
Laughing, Nikolai grabbed that wrist, too. He took one of her hands and jabbed at her face. “Whattya hitting yourself for? Huh? Why are you hitting yourself?”
She wriggled, furious now. In addition to getting taller, Nikolai had gotten a lot stronger. Gone were the days when she could wrestle him to the ground and knuckle his head until he gave up. Being pressed up against him felt different now.
A lot different.
Alicia had kissed a couple of boys before, but nothing like this. Nikolai’s mouth on hers was warm, sweet, and insistent. Her lips parted; his tongue slipped inside. Stroking hers. This kiss was inquisitive and also demanding. It left her weak-kneed.
It was over before she had time to even think about it, to protest or fight it, because of course she would have. Right? Nikolai?
“Shit,” he said softly and took a few steps back. “Shit, I’m fucked up. Really fucked up.”
She reached for him, but he was far enough away that her fingertips skated briefly down the front of his shirt, and then there was nothing but empty space between them. She should yell at him, she thought in a daze. Tell him off.
Instead, she pushed past him, toward the house. She didn’t look back. Ignoring everyone else at the party, Alicia moved faster and faster through the dancing, hollering mass of kids. Out the front door. Across the street. In her own house, she slammed the front door hard enough to rattle the pictures on the wall. Alicia fled down the hall and into the bathroom, where she brushed her teeth over and over again, leaning over the sink, certain she was going to be sick.
It took a long, long time to scrub away the flavor of that kiss.
CHAPTER SIX
Nikolai smelled so damned good she wanted to eat him up.
Her brother-in-law, Alicia reminded herself sternly. Ilya’s baby brother.
The boy who’d once kissed her in the backyard during a party, a kiss she’d never been able to forget.
The man whose arms felt like iron rods, but bendy. Bendy iron rods, she thought, a little dazed. Bendy, sexy iron rods. His chest, rock hard, firm, the steady thumping of his heart speeding up beneath the press of her palm against it. And lower, damn—not that she was going to assume anything, but there was a sudden rush of heat in her belly at the touch of his body on hers.
He moved away from her with an anxious snicker. Alicia’s small, obnoxious titter was nothing like her normal laughter. Or her normal reaction to being embraced by a hard-bodied, gorgeous guy.
Then again, it had been a damned long time since she’d been held like that by anyone. No wonder her body had reacted that way. Hormones, she told herself sourly. Stupid.
“You don’t have to go back in,” Nikolai said quickly. “I can call you if she takes a worse turn. Really, if you need to get back home . . .”
If she had to go back to soothing Ilya, she was going to lose her shit. If she went home, she would simply fret and stew about what was going on at the nursing home. She cleared her throat. “I need to check in at the shop, for sure.”
Nikolai nodded. “Right. I’ll call your cell.”
“Thanks.” She hesitated, half hating herself for having a single second of concern about what Nikolai thought, but unable to stop herself from asking, “I’m not a terrible person, am I? If I leave? The doctor said he thought it could be any time. Or she could rally and linger on. They don’t know.”
“I don’t think you’re terrible.”
She studied him. On impulse she hugged him again, harder this time. Arms around his neck. Cheek pressed to his. She clung to him with her eyes closed, wishing she could forget all the bad things that had ever happened between them, but that wasn’t the way bad memories worked, in her experience. Those bitches stayed around.
“It’s good to see you,” she told him, and it felt like the truth.
The breaking off of the hug wasn’t as awkward this time. Nikolai smiled. The small scar at the corner of his mouth made it crooked. She’d been there when a stray tree branch had caught him along the trail to the quarry, making him bleed. She’d been there with Nikolai through so much, and he with her.
And there’d been so much he’d missed.
“I’ll call you,” he said again. “If anything changes. You can be here in twenty minutes. Don’t feel bad. Just go.”
She did feel bad—there was no getting around that—but something in his off-kilter smile made it a little easier for her to leave. He would be there to take care of everything, to make sure his brother was all right. No matter what had happened between her and Nikolai, she knew she could trust him to do the right thing.
In her office at the dive shop, she handled a few deliveries and rescheduled the classes she’d had to cancel so she and Ilya could make it to the nursing home. The classroom sessions were easiest—she could do those herself. The confined water classes that took place in the pool were a little trickier, since she had to go through the local VA hospital for the use of their facilities. The final certification classes were the hardest, though, because those students were the ones on a deadline. Ilya was supposed to be running a trip next month to Jamaica, but if the students didn’t get their certification in time, the trip would have to be canceled. They’d be out a lot of money, nonrefundable, not to mention how disappointed everyone would be. Stuff like that turned customers to other places.
He was the one by Babulya’s side at the end, when she’d been the one there with the old woman all along. A wave of irritation swept over her at all the paperwork in front of her. Ilya was the only one who could teach the water classes because, like the shoemaker’s barefoot children, Alicia had never learned to dive. Everything would have fallen to her, anyway, though. She was the steadfast one who stayed behind. Ilya was the one who got to go to crystal waters and warm sands, hooking up with bronzed and bikini-clad hotties, while Alicia kept the proverbial trains running on time but never, ever left the station herself.
“Stop it,” she told herself aloud. “There’s no point.”
And there wasn’t, really. Ilya was the same as he’d ever been. His brother, on the other hand, had seemed to change quite a bit. Physically, obviously. Nikolai had been a short, skinny, geeky kid who’d always seemed to be all bony knees and elbows.
Now Nikolai Stern stood a few inches taller than she did, which put him at about five eleven. He wore his dark hair to his shoulders, shaggy and unkempt, though not hanging in his eyes. Greenish-gray eyes, clear and bright, not at all like Ilya’s, which were a darker, greenish brown. And Nikolai’s body, Alicia thought a little guiltily, letting herself remember it as she sat back in her chair to spin around with her eyes closed. Thinking of those hard arms, chest . . . his thighs—damn, they were like tree trunks. Nikolai felt like he’d been carved out of stone.
She couldn’t name the cologne he wore, but the scent lingered in her memory. Something fresh. Clean, not overbearing. Like she could bury her face against his neck a
nd breathe him in and in and in . . .
“Umm, Allie?”
With a small shriek, she stopped spinning in her chair and slapped her hands on the desk to bring herself to a stop. Her throat dried at the sight of her brother-in-law—former, she reminded herself. Her former brother-in-law.
“Nikolai. Hey. Is everything all right?” She coughed lightly into her fist, certain her sexy musings were shining right out of her eyes all over him. She lifted her chin and kept her expression neutral, pushing away anything remotely resembling a naughty fantasy about Nikolai. Because that was—no way—going to keep happening. Ever. No matter how his biceps bulged and flexed or how hard his body was . . .
“Yeah.” He gave her a curious look and held up a six-pack of beer from the local craft brewery and a pizza box. “I thought you might want some dinner. I called your cell, but you didn’t answer.”
She looked at the clock, surprised to see how late it had gotten. She put a hand on her stomach, which let out an oddly convenient growl, and checked her phone. “I had the ringer off when we were in Babulya’s room and forgot to turn it back on. How’s she doing?”
“She perked up just after you left. They gave her some IV fluids, said she was a little dehydrated, but she was coherent. She was happy to see Theresa.” Nikolai paused to put the pizza on the desk. “Crazy about her showing up, huh? I haven’t seen her in years.”
“We’re friends on Connex, so I keep in touch with her now and again. I figured she’d want to know what was going on. Oh, God, you got anchovies? Nobody likes anchovies on their pizza!” Grinning, she looked up at him, surprised and touched that he’d remembered. “Other than you and me.”
His slow smile matched hers, and for a moment they stared at each other. The tick of the clock became very loud in the silence. This was Nikolai, Alicia told herself.
He only wants you because you remind him of your sister, and you’ll never be able to take her place.
Damn, the memory of his words still hurt. Fierce and pointed. He’d always known just how and where to sting her.
“There are paper plates in the cupboard there.” She pointed. Her voice had come out hard and cold; the grin vanished.
Nikolai shot her a glance over his shoulder. “Ilya went home. Said he was going to crash for a few hours, then head back tomorrow morning unless something happened overnight. I told him I’d be back at the house later. Figured I’d see if you were still working, since obviously he’s not.”
“Thanks. I’m starving.” She lifted a greasy, dripping slice from the box and settled it onto one of the plates he handed her. Then another for herself. Watching him take the empty chair across from the desk, Alicia leaned back in hers. “Fox’s still makes the best all around.”
Nikolai bit into the gooey cheese with a sigh of bliss. He chewed, swallowed. Wiped his mouth like a grown-up, not a caveman. “I’ve dreamed about Fox’s pizza. I mean, literally dreamed.”
“Get out of here.” She laughed, not easily but genuinely.
“It’s the truth. You can’t find American pizza like this in Israel. And when I was in Antarctica, I craved pizza like you wouldn’t believe. Thick slices, greasy cheese, the salty anchovies . . .” He shivered with pleasure and took another slice. His tongue swiped along his lips as grease slipped over his sculpted chin and down his throat.
Mesmerized, Alicia watched the slow, glistening trickle move over his skin. How would that taste, to lick it away? He’d caught her staring. She covered it up by leaning over the desk to grab a beer.
When she looked up, she’d caught him staring.
“You look good without my brother’s ring on your hand.”
Heat rushed so fiercely up the column of her throat and into her cheeks that she swore she was about to burst into flames. She opened her mouth to castigate him, to really let it fly.
Every part of her tensed at his expression.
Narrowed eyes, slightly parted lips. Intensity in his gaze that had nothing to do with disapproval or lacking or anything but everything to do with pure, raw male appreciation. It wasn’t the first time she’d had a guy look at her that way, but it had been a long, long time since any guy’s look had made Alicia feel this way.
What was that old saying about keeping your enemies close? She wasn’t sure she could call Nikolai an enemy, exactly. But all at once, keeping him close had become very appealing.
Still, there was that small and stubborn part of her that remembered how vocal he’d been about his disapproval when she and Ilya had announced they’d run off to Vegas and eloped. Looking back, she’d known as well as anyone—better, even—that she and Ilya had made a mistake, but you couldn’t have made her admit that. Not at nineteen. Barely at twenty-nine, when at last she’d left him after one too many nights staring up at the ceiling wondering how she could spend the rest of her life being so miserable.
Based on her reaction to Nikolai’s look, she seemed on the verge of making a brand-new mistake. A bigger one, this time. You’d think she’d have learned her lesson the hard way from Stern brother number one.
She drank some beer to cool herself down. “Well, I don’t know if that’s something to say thank you for. But thanks.”
“It was meant as a compliment, but I sounded like a dick. Sorry.” Nikolai grimaced, then grabbed his own beer and took a long swig. “I’ll blame my lack of social skills on all the time I’ve spent alone in the wilderness, if you believe that story.”
“I can tell you, being alone in the wilderness has nothing to do with why you’re still such a colossal doofus.”
It was easier after that. Less awkward, anyway. It wasn’t that she forgot, exactly, that Nikolai had turned into the sort of guy who could turn her head so fast it gave her whiplash. It was more like she was forcing herself to remember to look past the arms, the thighs, the chest, the abs—oh, Lord, the abs. Rippling, rimmed ridges of delicious muscle she glimpsed when his shirt rode up as he stretched while regaling her with a tale of his adventures on a kibbutz in Israel.
She forced herself to remember him as the guy who’d made her feel like she was somehow lacking in comparison to her sister. That she hadn’t been enough for his brother.
And there it was, she thought, watching Nikolai tip back in his chair and lift the bottle of beer to his lips. The real reason she’d been so angry at him for so long. All he’d done was reinforce the feelings she’d been pretending she’d gotten over. Hell, the ones she wanted to pretend she never had.
“You were right,” she said quietly.
He’d been telling her about working in the kibbutz’s apiary, taking care of dozens of hives and harvesting gallons of honey. Now Nikolai stopped, looking her over.
“About?” he asked.
“Me and Ilya.” She didn’t say the rest, but his expression told her he understood.
“Oh. That.” He looked uncomfortable and scrubbed a hand through his hair, pushing it off his face. “I was a dick then, too. I thought we’d established that already.”
“You were still right. You were the only one to say so out loud, though. That’s why we fought.” Alicia laughed ruefully and shook her head. “I was so furious with you.”
“You and I always fought,” Niko said. “We were constantly at each other. It was kind of the way we worked, I guess.”
She nodded, thinking of all the insults and teasing. “This was different, though. What you said hurt so bad. That somehow I wasn’t as good as Jennilynn—”
“Wait, what? No. No, Allie.” Nikolai wiped a hand over his mouth and looked stunned. “That’s not what I meant at all.”
“It’s what you said,” she told him.
He shook his head. “It’s not what I meant. When I said you’d never take her place, I didn’t mean because you weren’t good enough. I meant that my brother wasn’t capable of giving you the relationship you needed or deserved. You weren’t your sister. She might’ve put up with his bullshit and been satisfied with it.”
Alicia swall
owed a weakly bitter taste. “We won’t ever know.”
“No. We won’t. But dammit, I’m so damned sorry if you thought back then I meant that somehow you weren’t as good as she was. I never meant that. How could you ever have thought it? God, no wonder you haven’t talked to me in years. What the hell must you have thought about me?”
The truth was, no matter how often she’d found herself thinking of him and what might have been, she’d always pushed those thoughts away so fiercely there’d been only one way to remember him at all.
“I thought you were a know-it-all jerk,” Alicia admitted, certain he’d frown.
Nikolai smiled. “I thought you were smart and beautiful and amazing, and it made me nuts that you were with him, when he so clearly didn’t deserve you.”
Silence, a beat of it. Then another. The clock ticked, and so did her heart. She smiled.
“Maybe,” she said, “we can get over all that crap and put it behind us. Be friends.”
Nikolai leaned over the desk to offer her his hand. “It’s a deal.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Then
Babulya and Galina were fighting again.
Dinner had been a disaster, with Galina leaving the table to go out back for a smoke and Babulya clattering pots and pans and slapping plates of food on the table before leaving the room without eating anything. Ilya didn’t seemed to care. He shoveled his mouth full of food while he read some comics, ignoring everything around him. Niko wasn’t able to eat, though. Too much tension. It left him with a sour stomach.
The women had always gone at each other, Babulya with her muttered, under-the-breath criticisms and her daughter with her too-loud defenses. Sniping and griping. It had been better when Barry and Theresa lived here, because Barry seemed to keep Galina in check, at least a little. Of course, that had gone tits up years ago. Niko had come home from school to find Barry’s and Theresa’s stuff moved out; their names had become persona non grata.
His mother hadn’t said much about it, only that it wasn’t working out, and that she and Barry would be getting a divorce. No counseling, no trial separation. Definitely no reconciliation. You didn’t dare mention Barry or Theresa now, either, not unless you wanted Galina to totally lose her shit, which is what happened tonight when Babulya had made an offhanded comment about her daughter finding herself a new husband that she could toss aside after only a few months.