3

He just shows up. Same time every week.
Dependable like no one else in my life has really been.
And yes, I know he can’t talk to ask me out. Annie, the cocktail waitress at Rue’s had told me that when he first started coming. She said he usually ordered by pointing at someone else’s beer. I didn’t even know he was Russian until his friends came in with him and introduced us.
And it’s that realization that makes me sure he’s safe. He’s not going to get weird. He’d leave if I told him to leave. He’d respect the hell out of me.
I already know that because I’ve climbed this guy like a tree during my performances. It’s one of my favorite things to do. I’ll crook my finger from the stage, and he’ll launch out of his seat and stand below, so I can pull a Dirty Dancing flying leap into his hands. Or crawl on his shoulders or fall into his arms in a honeymoon carry. I can count on the guy to catch me and carry me around while I sing. It’s become part of the performance. The band members and my fans expect it now. I know Oleg would never let me fall.
“Come on,” I tell him.
He hesitates, looking at me with so much suspicion it makes me laugh.
“You have to walk me to the door.” I sound drunker than I am.
I blink. One second he’s fifteen feet away on the other side of the van, the next he’s at my elbow, steadying me when I don’t walk a straight line up the sidewalk.
I unlock the door to the building.
Oleg doesn’t move.
“You have to walk me all the way to my place,” I tell him. “What if someone tried to mess with me in the stairwell?”
His brows slam down.
Okay, maybe I’m not as sober as I think. That sounded really stupid. “You’re my bodyguard,” I affirm.
It’s a fact he already knows since he’s self-appointed.
We walk the three flights up through the old Brownstone to my floor, and I shake out my keys to find the right one. When I get the door open, Oleg takes a step back. He’s huge-wide shoulders, barrel chest, arms like tree trunks. His dark brown hair is cropped close like his beard.
“Do you want to come in?”
His heated brown gaze rakes down my body, but he shakes his head. I’m surprised how much his refusal disappoints me. I mean, I guess I thought he was a sure thing. There’s no way I read this thing wrong, is there?
I face him and lean in, standing on tiptoe to throw an arm around his neck and tipping my face up to his. “Why not?”
He freezes, his big body going rigid.
If I didn’t feel his erection prodding my belly, I would think he wasn’t into it. But he is.
“Why are you holding back?” I whisper. I pull his head down and close my lips over his, tasting him.
He remains rigid for one second.
Two.
“Please,” I ask, needing him to know I want this.
And then he surges to life. My back slams against the wall beside my door as Oleg unleashes the months of pent-up attraction between us. One beefy hand cups my ass, the other captures my nape, and he claims my mouth like it’s his last chance at breathing.
My core instantly turns molten. I grind down on the leg he thrust between mine, kissing him back with as much frantic need as he’s giving. I don’t feel his tongue, but I use mine-probably too sloppily. He kneads my ass, helping me hump his leg.
I reach out to open my door then grab a fistful of Oleg’s black t-shirt-the one stretched taut over his broad shoulders and chiseled pecs and try to tug him into my apartment.
Try is the operative word here.
Because Oleg doesn’t move.
The pulse between my legs makes me antsy. “Come inside,” I encourage.
He shakes his head.
What… the F?
“Oleg, come inside,” I say it more like an order now. I mean, this guy’s into me. He’s going to give me what I need, right?
He shakes his head again then mimes drinking.
Aw, fuck.
Really?
“You won’t touch me because I’ve been drinking?”
He nods.
He’s that much of a gentleman?
“That’s… sweet.”
Really, really sweet.
“And annoying. Oleg, you can’t do this to me,” I reason, tugging fistfuls of his shirt. “That kiss just got me all hot and bothered. You can’t leave me all needy. It’s not fair.”
His brows go down again. Jaw clenches. He wipes his lower lip with his thumb, eyes dropping to my mouth. I can see him struggling. The guy who respects me versus the guy who doesn’t want to deny me. And also there’s the guy who’s going to have blue balls, himself. Because I felt his boner, and it was rock hard.
Like before, the moment he makes his decision, he surges into action. He crowds me backward, into my one-bedroom apartment, then kicks the door shut and locks it.
“Yes, Oleg.”
I drop my purse, throw off my jacket and lunge for his lips again. We kiss like it’s a contest to see who can devour the other one first. Still no tongue from him, though. Like he’s too much of a gentleman for that, too. He picks me up, his forearm under my ass, and I straddle his thick trunk with my legs. He turns in a circle to get his bearings and then correctly chooses the door to my bedroom, where he takes me and drops me in the center of the bed.
The moment I’m down, he tears at the hole in my fishnets-like wrecking them was a premeditated crime-and then drags his open mouth along my inner thigh until he meets the edge of the short-shorts I wore over the fishnets. There, he bites the fabric and tugs, the heat of his breath fanning over my core.
“Eager, huh?” I ask with a laugh. He grunts in reply. That sound… fuck, it makes my pussy melt.