by Stacy Gail
“It’s Saturday before noon. Therefore, it’s fucking early. Something you’d know if you had a social life like me.”
That was a little too accurate for comfort, but I chose not to rise to the bait. “I take it you and that bottle-server are getting to know each other better?”
“Ollie.” Konstantin grinned while he kept his eyes on the winding road. “We are, but last night I had a date with Julian at the Ritz.”
“Wait, who’s Julian?”
“You were there when we met. He was one of the guys who raided Chicago’s Future with that prick Schott. Come to find out, I like a man in uniform.”
Holy crud. “You are, without a doubt, a total action magnet.”
“This is true.”
I held up one finger. “Earlier in the week, we met up with the party planner handling the Chicago’s Future fundraiser dinner. While I was signing the contract for the live band, you hooked up with one of her assistants.”
“Biff. Shit, can you believe I’m dating a guy named Biff? Don’t tell anyone.”
I held up another finger. “Yesterday morning we stopped by the florist’s to pay for all the centerpieces, and he greeted you with an oh-my-God, so-much-tongue kiss.”
“Lars. Yeah, he is an enthusiastic kisser, isn’t he? Very much into tongue-swirling.”
“I actually didn’t need to know that.” I held up two more fingers. “Plus there’s Ollie and now Julian, and that’s just this past month.” Well and truly impressed, I stared at him. “What the hell is your secret? Whatever it is, we need to patent it and make billions.”
“It’s no secret. I just make sure that when I’m with my beautiful babes, they know they’re number-one on my list of priorities. Nothing but the best for them, you know?”
“Uh-huh.” I couldn’t help but smirk at his well-worn phrase. “I can’t believe anyone actually falls for that. Nothing but the best for you, baby.”
“Laugh all you want, but someone in this car got laid last night, and it wasn’t you.”
My smile vanished. “It’s official. You suck.”
“Aww.” Not taking his eyes off the road, he reached out to catch my hand to bring it to his lips. “Don’t be mad, sweetheart. Tell me about you and Polo.”
“There is no me and Polo.” Unfortunately. I hadn’t heard from him in days other than text messages, and those were usually brusque, one-word responses to me reaching out to him. I knew he was busy, and I respected that. But I was busy too, yet I still had time to pick up a damn phone. When he texted a no-nonsense message yesterday morning to set this date up for target practice, it wasn’t even a private text; he’d sent it to both Kon and me.
What the hell was I supposed to do with that?
“There’s no you and Polo?” Konstantin slid me a sidelong look even as the single-story shooting range came into view. “If that’s the case, why am I driving you to meet up with him at a gun range at ten in the fucking morning on a Saturday?”
A gusty sigh escaped me as the car slowed down to turn into the almost-deserted parking lot, populated only by Polo’s one true love—a bright red Ferrari. “Your guess is as good as mine. I think he’s got this idea that with the Scorpeone name popping up all over the place—specifically popping up around me—I probably need to be ready. I get the feeling he believes war is coming, and he doubts I’m still the gun-toting badass that he first met.”
“I suppose I should’ve had you out here more often to practice.” Parking next to the Ferrari and pocketing his keys, Konstantin climbed out of the Wraith and escorted me toward the squat gray building’s cinderblock façade, eyes alert and looking for trouble. “But shooting a gun is like riding a bicycle, know what I mean? Except it’s a deadly weapon, and a bike isn’t. And you can destroy your life or someone else’s if you don’t what the fuck you’re about, so... shit, you know what? Forget what I just said, it was fucking stupid. Shooting guns and riding bikes are nothing alike.”
“I’ll try to keep that in mind.” I was still chuckling when the front door opened and Polo was suddenly there, lifting a dark brow at me as we approached.
“Glad to see you’re in such a good mood this morning,” he drawled before he switched his attention to Konstantin. Which was just as well; I didn’t want to be as overjoyed as I was to see him, so I needed a moment to check my damn self, hold onto my leather tote bag slung on my shoulder like it was my lifeline, and not fling myself at him like some desperate cling-on. “I’ve got Dash from here. Meet her back at her place in three hours, but don’t make plans for tonight. She’s going to Heaven.”
My heart bounced around my chest, but this girl had her pride. I had to at least make a token effort to grab for some personal autonomy. “Actually, I don’t think I have time for that. I’ve got to work on the seating arrangements for the gala—”
“Screw the seating arrangements. You’re making the time for me, just like I’m making the time for you.” He slung an arm around me and hauled me in, my body touching his in one long line, and my arms landing around his middle to keep my balance. “You’re with me tonight.”
“I don’t know about leaving her here, man. You’re not on the payroll anymore when it comes to protecting her.” Konstantin backed up as Polo shifted his attention to him, and I could understand why. He’d given Kon the look of Scorpio, and that would make anyone back up. “Okay, okay. Apparently I’m fluent in stupid today. I’ll just go inflict myself on one of my boys and hook back up with you all at some point after lunch.”
I glanced back at him. “Which guy? Ollie, Julian, Lars or Biff?”
Polo lifted a brow. “Biff?”
“I’m never going to live that down.” With a sigh, Kon turned and headed back toward the car. “Have fun, kids, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
I pursed my lips as the Wraith’s fancy taillights disappeared. “Can you think of a single thing Konstantin Medvedev wouldn’t do?”
“Nope. Which means he just gave us some excellent advice.”
“That’s one way of looking at it.” Still torn between being thrilled that I was with him again and less than thrilled that he seemed to remember me only when it was convenient for him, I tried to gain some distance by pushing my hands against his rock-hard torso. “Listen, I wasn’t kidding about being busy. In fact I’m going to be insanely busy until I’ve got this charity gala behind me, so if you don’t mind, we can put whatever you had planned on the backburner—”
“I do mind.” The arm already around me tightened, and he pivoted toward me until we were belly to belly, his other arm coming around to pin me against him and making my bid for distance a joke. “What’s going on with you today?”
Wow. He actually had to ask. “I’ve got a lot on my plate right now, and obviously you do too. So, since things have cooled off between us maybe we should just put things on hold until our schedules are better.”
“Cooled off?” A scowl darkened his expression, and it was so dangerous I almost preferred the chilling blank stare of the torpedo Scorpio. “Where the fuck is that coming from? There’s no way I’ve done anything to piss you off. I haven’t been around to do it.”
“Exactly. We’re both living our lives, busy doing what we have to do, and I get that. But as busy as I was, I still reached out to you when I had a few free minutes, because I wanted to hear your voice and because I wanted you to know I was thinking of you. You’re worth that time, worth that effort. But since you didn’t do the same, you’ve let me know what your priorities are, and I’m not one of them. So I’m fine with taking my cues from you, and putting us on hold.” No, I wasn’t fine, and I didn’t want to take my cues from him, because his cues sucked. But it was obvious his attention was waning, and that left me with two choices. I could either be a clingy stalker bitch, or I could give him the space he obviously wanted.
Though, with his fantasy-worthy hard body melded to mine, being a clingy stalker bitch was sounding better and better.
He eyes narr
owed as he studied my face. “My Fearless is feeling neglected.”
Like that, the Vitaliev pride slammed into place. “Hardly. You think I need anyone to keep me entertained?”
“Yep. Me.”
“No—”
“That’s why you’re so pissed.” To my absolute amazement, he looked inordinately pleased with this state of affairs. “You’ve been pining for me, haven’t you?”
Oh, my God. “You know, I wasn’t pissed at you until this very second, but now you’ve got me there by laughing at me. Let me go.”
His arms tightened. “I’m not laughing. What I am is happy that you’ve missed me, just as much as I missed you. See the difference?”
Apparently not, because it sure as hell looked like he was laughing at me. “If you missed me so damn much, why didn’t you bother to call or drop by? It’s not like we live on opposite ends of the country.”
“I didn’t know you wanted me to.”
It was a frigging miracle my head didn’t explode. “What the hell did you think I was going on about when I texted you that I’d love to see your face for lunch or coffee, and you texted back, and I quote, ‘busy’? One word. Out of a series of one-word responses that made it clear I was bothering you, so I finally took the hint and stopped texting you days ago.” Not that he’d noticed.
That dimmed some of his amusement. “Not a good idea to put words in my mouth, Dash. You weren’t bothering me. I’d tell you if you were bothering me.”
“You did, just as you told me you didn’t care when I finally left you alone. That’s why I’m hitting the pause button on us now, because when a person is ignored it’s time for them to walk away and find a place where they’re not.”
“No.” All traces of humor fled, replaced by a furious kind of urgency while his hand came up to grip a handful of my hair. “You won’t leave.”
I could feel the sudden hammer of his heart against my breasts. “Then what is it that you want from me? To leave you alone or not? Because if you think I’m going to patiently wait around in limbo for you to remember me whenever you have the time, you’re out of your damn mind.”
“I’m bad at this.” His breathing was as harsh as his stone-carved expression, and he bent his head down so that his brow touched mine. “I can handle anything, do anything, and until about five seconds ago I believed there wasn’t a damn thing on this planet that could scare me. When it comes to dealing with all the shit there is in this world, I’m fucking Superman. But you hitting the eject button on me...that scares me all the way to my core, Dasha, so don’t ever say that again, you hear me? Don’t even think it.”
Relief washed through me like healing waters, but the confusion wouldn’t go away. “So...what are we doing? Are we together? Or are we a casual thing that’s going to naturally fade away into nothing because we don’t talk to each other for days on end? I honestly have no clue what we’re doing.”
“I’m bad at this,” he said again, and he raised his head just far enough to look down at me. “I told you what my life is like—I don’t do relationships, I do one-night stands. I don’t call. I don’t text. I don’t share my schedule, because being careless like that is how your enemies gut you like a fish. This is the only life I’ve ever known. Changing that up now...it’s like learning another fucking language. But make no mistake, Fearless, I will learn, because your happiness is at the top of my list of priorities. Everything else is second to you.”
The impact of his words was so deep, so beautiful, it knocked the breath from my lungs. “Polo...”
“And we are together. Don’t think for a second that we’re not. There’s no one in your world but me, and there’s no one in my world but you. You know why? Because you and I share the same world, and no one else is allowed in. Obviously I’ve done a piss-poor job of making that clear, so you’re going to have to tell me what you need so that you’ll understand that we’re the real deal.”
I blinked, because I was busy trying not to burst into happy tears over what he’d said. “What I need?”
“You felt neglected, like we’re not even together. A man never allows his woman to feel that way if he has any hope of keeping her. So, since I’m all about keeping you, give me a list of what you need to make all that shit go away.”
“A list.” Oh dear God, he was such a man. “Um...the usual stuff, I guess.”
“Don’t know what the usual stuff is, beautiful. That’s how we got here in the first place.”
“Good point.” I took a breath and tried figure out how to put it in a way that he’d understand. I had to get through to him, because this was just about the biggest and best chance I’d ever have to ensure this relationship didn’t fizzle before it began. “Okay. If you look at the text history between us this past week, you’ll see lots of gabby, wordy stuff from me, lots of sharing and openness. Big blocks of text. You’d respond with one word.”
“We’ve already covered that ground, and it’s not gonna happen again. But to make sure you understand I’m serious about that, I’ll call you whenever you text me so that you know you’ve got my attention.”
“Thank you, and I’d love that since I love hearing your voice, but it’s not the point I’m trying to make.” I got my phone out, hit the screen a few times and showed him what I meant. “Strictly from a visual standpoint, do you see how lopsided this is? Look at this as a graph instead of a conversation. I missed you this past week, so I put some serious effort into showing you just how much, and I tried to share how much you were on my mind. I was happy to do that, though. You’re worth any amount of time it takes to show you how important you are to me. All I’d like is for you to feel the same way.” Then my heart sank when I heard my own words. “But, if you don’t feel that way, and if this isn’t your natural response to me, then I—”
“Don’t.” He scrolled through the text history, his expression tightening with understanding before he palmed my phone and wrapped his arms around me so hard my feet left the asphalt. “Don’t you give up on me, Dasha. Don’t you ever do that. I might not know what the hell I’m doing, but I’m a quick study, and I am fucking motivated to make sure you understand you’re the reason I open my eyes every morning. You’re my Dash, the reward I was given for enduring hell on earth, and the only reason you don’t know that is because I haven’t figured out how to share all that with you. But I will figure it out,” he added, giving me another squeeze that pushed the air out of my lungs. “Don’t you give up on me.”
“I won’t.” From feeling lower than the bottom of the ocean, my heart flew up into the stratosphere with a relief and joy so sharp it hurt. “We’ll get this right as we go along, okay? Together we’ll figure out what works for us.”
“Damn straight.” Giving me one last squeeze that nearly did me in, he put me down, took my hand and led me toward the shooting range. “And while we’re figuring things out, my number-one priority is always going to be to keep you safe. That’s why I wanted to do this today.”
“I’ll be honest,” I said as Polo held the door open for me, “I haven’t been to a shooting range since before Papa died.”
“We’ll do this every weekend, then, to get you back into the groove.”
“Sounds good.” Wandering into Sherwood’s front showroom as Polo fiddled with the door, I took in the open area filled with all sorts of handguns locked securely behind two-inch thick Plexiglas display cases. There were also circular racks that had everything from T-shirts to camo—even the pink kind—to neon orange vests and coats. I couldn’t help but smile as I went to one of the racks, touching a puffy pink camouflage vest.
“I remember when I was in middle school, I once asked my father for a pink camo jacket for my birthday. He just snorted and asked if I was going to hunt down all the free-ranging gingerbread men running wild in Candy Land.”
Polo’s mouth curled. “Sounds like Borysko.”
“Yeah, that pretty much killed any desire of wanting something like that.” As my eyes adjuste
d to the dimness of the showroom, I took in my surroundings. From the sales counter to the showroom, to the shooting lanes in the back of the complex, there wasn’t even a hint of anyone around. “Wow. Wonder why it’s such a ghost town?”
“I’d never allow strangers to have a loaded weapon anywhere near you. That’s the main rule when it comes to keeping you safe, so I acted accordingly and rented the place out. I’ve even locked the door behind us so no one can wander in by accident,” he added as I turned to stare at him, touched beyond words at all the trouble and expense he’d gone to just to make our time together happen. “You gotta admit, having the place to ourselves is kinda nice.”
“Yeah. Nice.” I couldn’t seem to get my mouth shut, even as a tender fist squeezed around my chest at how diligently he guarded me. The man might have crappy communication skills, but he more than made up for it by making me feel like I was his precious treasure, and that filled me with a warm glow as he led me toward the handgun firing lanes.
“This is amazing, Polo.” There was only one stall that had sound-canceling earphones and clear-lens safety glasses laid out on the stall’s built-in steel table, and that was the lane he led me to. “Especially on a Saturday. I’ll bet this place is usually packed.”
“It is. But the owner’s an old friend of mine, and he was good enough to make this happen. He gave his word that he’d stay out of here until I gave him a call to let him know we’re done. I don’t like the idea of both of us wearing noise-canceling earphones and not being able to hear if someone rolled up on us. You bring your piece?”
“Of course.” Technically speaking, I had broken the law by hiding the hard-sided gun case in my tote bag without a concealed-weapons permit. But not only was I a Vitaliev, which meant I had trouble with things like laws, I was also a woman who thought that the ugly gun case clashed with everything I wore. So obviously it needed to be covered by butter-soft Italian leather accented with pretty copper grommets.