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  He crooked his finger, motioning for her to come stand next to him.

  She rolled her eyes. This wasn’t going to be good. She stomped back over to his side, hoping he wouldn’t interrogate her in front of his friend. The only thing that could make this even better was if the woman she’d seen earlier actually came out and watched while he gave her whatever dressing down he had in mind.

  And why do you let him have this amazing power over you?

  She had no answer for that.

  It was super awkward to stand next to him. He placed his hand on her hip and repositioned her closer to him, while he stood and listened intently as the biker rattled on and on about stuff she didn’t know about. All the time that she’d known Sasha, she’d never met any of his friends. Apparently, this was one of them. Not that he introduced her. It seemed he was intent to keep her from meeting them still.

  She’d left Sasha because common sense said to, but all these deep feelings confused her. They had, at least for Kallie, a once in a lifetime physical chemistry that had at one time signaled for Kallie to being true love. She constantly needed to do the math as to why leaving him had been the smart thing to do. This was one of those times that helped her remember that sometimes Sasha could be a real jerk. Here he was, going on and on about some fun thing he had done with this guy while she and Sasha had been a thing—and she’d never known about any of it. He’d kept even that much of his life private from her.

  How was that supposed to make her feel?

  So, she discovered a new hurt in not even knowing any of his friends, nor in being allowed to truly know them now. She sighed and glanced down the street, bored and wanting to leave. Okay, maybe it was always her first impulse when the shit hit the fan, but she’d had enough drama for a while and this constant heartache was just getting too unbearable. If she stayed there much longer she was going to cry again and, honestly, she’d had quite enough tears for one day.

  She shifted from one foot to the other, testing the waters. Sure enough, Sasha’s hand pressed her back towards him, guiding her to where he wanted her to be. There was a time that hand on her hip would have left her so electrified that she wouldn’t have been able to think straight. Now it just felt heavy and possessive. What about her? What if she’d wanted him to be somewhere else, somewhere closer. Or further away?

  I’ve had enough.

  “I’m going to go sit in the car,” she said.

  He turned to her, his face pleasant enough, but Kallie could no longer read him. She’d thought they had this rare psychic connection that allowed them to anticipate the other. In bed, that had certainly been the case. Sasha had sent a signal to her from the very first day they met that had them tearing it up way too soon. But then, sex with him was so delicious Kallie couldn’t resist it.

  “Okay,” he said, and extended his powerful arm beyond her to unlock the car with the remote.

  Kallie nodded to the biker even though they still hadn’t been introduced, though she guessed that maybe that was kind of a sticky area. How do you introduce someone in this situation? As an ex-girlfriend? As just a friend? A business associate? For all she knew, this ‘sweetheart’ he’d talked to on the phone was some woman that this biker knew as Sasha’s actual girlfriend. So, anything personal would have seemed strange and out of place. And ‘business associate’ would call up too many other questions. Sasha didn’t like talking about his business to anyone.

  Or at least to her. Maybe he did talk about business to other people. Lots of other people. She was coming to find out she didn’t really know him at all, and it left her floundering, like he was more of a stranger than she’d thought.

  Wrapped up in too many dark thoughts, she headed down the walkway to the car. She could hear Sasha wrap up his conversation. He stutter-stepped to catch up with her, for reasons she didn’t understand. If she didn’t rate an introduction, why did they need to walk together?

  He held the car door for her and Kallie let him. He leaned over to catch her eye. She couldn’t keep from sulking. All she could think of was the beautiful younger woman he had walked into the apartment building with.

  Being Sasha, of course he read her mind. “What’s the matter? Did you think that I was fucking her?”

  His graphic language shook her in a good way. She’d always loved when he talked dirty. And his nasty tone set her heart to racing, even though she knew very well that this was no ‘play’ nastiness on his part. He meant it, and she needed to remember that. So, she said nothing at all, which seemed the safest bet in this circumstance.

  He leaned in to open the door for her when she didn’t answer. “Not even close,” he said softly. He sounded almost sincere. Maybe even reassuring. “She’s his girlfriend. He’s a business associate.” He shrugged, and waited for her to get into the car. “Okay?”

  Kallie couldn’t answer. She wanted to believe him, but wasn’t sure if she ought to. She hated this paranoid feeling she’d been carrying with her since this whole mess began. He shut the door, and she snuggled down in the seat, loving the way the plush leather embraced her, taking that comfort when she had so little else to hold on to right now.

  They pulled up in front of the townhouse only minutes later. She wondered why he hadn’t brought her home first if they were so close. What was he trying to prove? For a minute she thought about making him help her into the house. She’d tell him she was weak from hunger, since there was no food in the place. Let him feel guilty for not taking care of her.

  But then he would. Reluctantly. Resentfully. Food would show up, and then what would she have really proved?

  He came around and opened the door for her the way he always had. Sasha would forever be a gentleman, wouldn’t he? She got out of the car awkwardly, and stood next to him on the pavement without moving. Without getting out of the way of the door so that he could close it.

  “Look...” She lifted her head, and forced herself to look Sasha in the eye. He liked when people were direct with him, so she’d be direct. That much she could do. “Can we at least have a conversation? I fucked up. But –”

  “No,” he said with finality. “You had a chance to have a conversation. I was all ears for you. You can take any action you want. You know that. I do what needs to be done. But there are consequences.”

  This statement made Kallie’s blood boil. She lifted her chin, forgetting that she’d been trying to open a discussion and avoid this argument entirely. “Bullshit! You ruined... not ruined... decimated my business, my relationship with the man I was going to marry, my reputation, and you got zero consequences. I fuck up ONCE and cost you nothing, and I don’t even get a sit-down?”

  “So, I stand here while you have a tantrum, then think you can crawl back to me as soon as the air is clear?”

  Anger filled her in great, stormy waves. She embraced it, let it flow through her veins until she felt as big and powerful as the great and mighty Sasha himself. “Well, what do you know? I think you cured me. I think I’ll live now. I don’t need you after all, imagine that. NOR WILL I.” She brushed past him, heading for the door. “You can leave now. You said you would see me home. Well, I’m home. Text me the number of the lawyer. I don’t need my daddy to take care of business. I’ll handle it. I’ll get me out of this fucking bakery. I’ll sign over everything to ‘sweetheart’. I never want to see you again.”

  “Yeah, until you do,” he said, sneering at her.

  She spun around and plowed into him. It was like ramming into a brick wall. She tweaked her shoulder which, knowing her luck, was going to hurt a whole lot worse later on.

  He gripped her firmly at the shoulders. “I said don’t do that stuff,” he warned in a low voice. “I’m a big guy. I can take it unless you get lucky and land one the right way. But it pisses me off, and neither of us wants that to happen.”

  He was holding her. Dammit, he was holding her, and it felt good. He smelled good, like Sasha. This nearness was going to be her undoing. For that tiny blinding instant
, a wall of emotion crested within her. She wanted to bury herself in his arms, to bury her face against that massive chest and listen to his heart pounding just beneath her cheek.

  “I gotta be alone, Sasha...” she said, desperately trying to twist free.

  But he stepped forward instead, his arms coming around her in the way that he used to hold her, back when they were an ‘us.’

  His lips pressed her hair, and just when the past few days were beginning to seem like a bad dream he stopped. “I’m not ready to do this,” he said, and to her surprise his voice sounded... sad. Desperate. As though he felt it, too. Every last thing that she did. “You aren’t the only one here who has been hurt by what you did.”

  Him? Hurt?

  For some reason, that had never occurred to her. The great Sasha, always in control... was... human?

  I thought he was a player.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, confused and unsure now that this new thought had captured her attention. “I didn’t think I could talk to you. I saw drugs in the delivery bag and I thought it was happening all over again. I wanted to talk to you, but I reasoned myself out of it. I’m tired of the drama. This isn’t who I want to be.” She stepped away from him and put her hand on the doorknob, looking almost blindly for escape. “I’ll order from Oscar’s and go to bed. And I’ll take the bus tomorrow.”

  “I’ll send the car.” His tone was apologetic. His eyes sad.

  “No.” She laughed. “It’s like night and day. I guess your staff got the memo that I’m out, so they aren’t the least bit nice to me. Not that I blame him any. It has to be weird, driving around the boss’ ex-girlfriend.” She shook her head. “I’d rather take the bus.”

  “He’ll be nice tomorrow.”

  And he would be, too. Sasha had a way of making that kind of promise stick.

  Which also made her wonder how much things worked in the opposite direction. For all she knew, a similar ‘memo’ had been given out recently, which had created the problem in the first place. It would be just like him to tell the staff to treat her unkindly.

  Kallie’s eyes connected with his, but she could no longer read what was there. Shaking her head, she opened the door and slipped inside, closing it firmly behind herself and locking it for good measure.

  Only then did she allow herself to fall, dropping into the nearest chair, holding her head in her hands.

  Dammit, but Sasha drove her crazy.

  Chapter Five

  After a massive good cry and a couple glasses of water, Kallie ordered her usual from a place called Oscar’s. It was the Mediterranean place in a Russian community. She knew at the time she was buying the food that she wasn’t going to eat it, so she got something that would keep until the next day. At least then she’d have something in the house to eat.

  She dressed in a T-shirt of Sasha’s she found when she first moved in, and a pair of cut-offs. Her long, stick-straight, nearly-white-blonde hair was in a tangle on top of her head. She was fresh from a shower which she took after her cry, so she wore no makeup. She sat in a daze on the couch, waiting for the knock to come at her door. It finally did.

  “Coming,” she called, feeling like someone forty years older as she wearily got to her feet.

  Oddly enough, she wasn’t hungry, but was looking forward to the food all the same. Delivery from Oscar’s reminded her of happier times. She grabbed her wallet, thankful she’d found that emergency twenty from the secret compartment in her wallet that she’d forgotten about entirely. Hopefully there would be enough left over for bus fare without having to visit the ATM before work.

  She pulled open the door, half-distracted and trying to juggle wallet and purse, so she wasn’t really paying much attention as she asked. “How much?”

  “How much have you got?” asked Sasha, holding her food.

  Kallie froze, bill in hand, suddenly confused.

  He swept his arm around the small of her back and lifted her and the food, carrying both into the living room. “Can we talk?” he asked gently. “I tried this being mad-at-you thing, but I can’t do it.”

  He looked so earnest, so real, that her heart almost burst with emotion. “I tried this not wanting to see you ever again but I can’t do it,” she confessed, tears in her eyes.

  She pressed her head against his gigantic upper body, like he was the most comfortable bed in the world. She craned her face up towards his. Yes, she still wanted this, regardless of how much her mind was screaming at her to be careful. She still wanted HIM.

  Only... she had absolutely no idea where things stood. And him being charming... even adorable... was not helping her to think clearly.

  “I took off the other day and you made me believe that we were finished. Final. Done,” she said, taking a step back both physically and emotionally. “Now I get the distinct impression you want to fuck me.”

  He was frustrated. It was clear to see, and to be honest she couldn’t blame him. But she was frustrated, too, and needed to have this conversation. She couldn’t just fall into bed with him after all they’d gone through, and think everything would be all right.

  “I told you I was crazy in love with you,” he replied, his face tight, tiny lines appearing around his mouth. “That doesn’t just turn off. At least not for me it doesn’t.”

  “Is that an accusation?”

  “Kallie, you’re in love with me. You never said it, but you are.” It was his turn to cross his arms and look smug.

  “Maybe it was a good thing I heard the ‘sweetheart’ part of that phone conversation the other day because, apparently, you have a whole social scene that I didn’t rate to be a part of,” she snapped, grabbing the takeout box from his hands and turning to take it to the kitchen.

  “Like Nikolai and Katerina?” he asked, following her, every inch the predator. “The chick you thought I was banging today?”

  “Don’t make this about me and my jealousy,” she snapped, slamming open the refrigerator and dropping the takeout bag inside without looking. “You keep twisting me around to where I don’t know which end is up.”

  “I thought you wanted to go back to work,” he shot back at her, going to the fridge and taking out the bag she’d just put in there and taking it to the counter while he dug around in the counter for a clean fork. “So, I got you a business.”

  “One that fronts for a drug operation,” she snapped, rescuing the carton before he could take a bite.

  “Let’s talk about that,” he said, reaching past her and snagging a forkful all the same. “You and I do own a bakery. It’s a real bakery. It’s going to be a full-scale restaurant. It’s not a front. It’s real.”

  “It might be, but as you reminded me, you own everything. I signed some papers, but you own it. You put up all the cash. So, no, you and I don’t own a bakery.”

  “Technically, Ms. Margolis, we do own a bakery. But, as you know, there a lot of old people around here and some of them have aches and pains...”

  Kallie dropped the takeout on the counter and put her hands over her ears, already anticipating the incredible story he was going to spin for her. “I’m not going to listen to this!” She just knew he was going to tell her he offered old people medicinal marijuana. She didn’t know how to tell the truth from a lie where he was concerned, mostly because she wanted so badly to believe him. “So just don’t.”

  He took hold of her hands and lowered them. “Why are you always looking for the worst in me?” he asked, bending his head to nuzzle her neck. “What are you so afraid of?”

  “Why did you take a gun to the apartments today?” she whispered, shivering at the feel of his hot breath on her neck. She turned away, not liking the way her insides warmed, the way her heart thundered in her chest when he touched her like that.

  “Because it’s a bad neighborhood. I walked Katerina into the building because Nikolai was running late. We bought the building. They’re managing it. It’s iffy now, but we are going to turn it around. She had a bad situation the f
irst time she was alone there, and I said if I was nearby to call me. I went and checked to make sure no one was where they weren’t supposed to be, then came down and got her to take her up. Do you have a problem with that?” He danced her backwards with a sly smile on his face, until she felt the counter hard against her back.

  She was caving. The pressure in her chest that was an ache for him was too intense. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. Her head spun.

  I want him. I want him, and I don’t know what to do about it.

  But deep down she did know. She knew exactly what she wanted. She needed to possess this man, mark him for her own and no one else’s. That was the heart of why she was so upset. It wasn’t that Sasha might dabble in the illegal. Not that that was okay. But it was that he had a whole part of his life, his world, that he didn’t include her in.

  But with his arms around her like this, none of that seemed to matter. For tonight at least, she was ready to cast all these arguments aside. Let them find an answer to all that tomorrow.

  I want tonight.

  I want him.

  It was she who made the next move. She reached up, twining her arms around his massive neck, and kissed him with everything she had.

  He muttered prayers against her lips. He felt it. Damn them both then, there was no way either of them could break from this storm of desire that raged when they touched.

  She hitched her knee up to his hip and pressed the softness between her legs up to his groin. She pulled upwards and lifted herself on to him while he was standing. Her lips and hips ground into him.

  Little moans escaped him, his voice hoarse. Incoherent with need and desire.

  She might have been smaller than he was, but she was in total control. She lifted her mouth from his and buried her face in his hair, kissing the side of his neck with feather-light contact. His hands spanned her waist, lifting her onto the counter so that she could reach him better, staggering a little, not from her weight, but because his knees buckled as she bit his earlobe and then drew it into her mouth to suck away the sting.