Kostya: A Dark Mafia Romance (Zinon Bratva), Nicole Fox [life changing books txt] 📗

non-clumsiness. Reset the count on “days since my last act of stupidity.” Blood drips into the sink.

Then, I feel his presence before I see it.

Kostya is pressed against my back. Head to toe, his torso is flush with mine, enveloping me, swallowing me whole.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“Oh, yeah, lovin’ life,” I grit out.

“Let me see.”

“No, it’s okay, just a little—”

“I said, let me see.”

Uh-oh.

I turn slowly, still squeezing my bloody fingertip in my other fist. He holds out his palm, flat to the ceiling. The air feels charged up all of a sudden. I can practically see the tension binding us together, like steel cords humming in between us.

His eyes lock onto mine, expectant. Like I’m on autopilot, I let go of my bloody finger and put my hand in his.

He looks at my face for a moment longer before his gaze slides down to the injury. He frowns and bites his lip. I’ve never seen him do that before, but Christ almighty is it sexy.

I can barely breathe. He reaches over and grabs a dish towel. Wraps it around my hand. Keeps his palm on top, applying pressure.

“That was foolish,” he says softly. It’s almost a whisper. Husky, deep.

“So foolish,” I repeat dumbly. I know I sound like an idiot, but it’s almost like all conscious thought has abandoned the controls of Charlotte. I’m practically just a spectator now. And whatever happens, happens.

He looks back up at me. His hand is warm through the towel. The pressure feels good, stanching the flow of blood, although I don’t even really feel the cut anymore. My immediate world is too full of Kostya. His scent—how did I not notice that when he first walked in the kitchen?—his eyes, his massive, muscular frame.

“You should be more careful.”

I squeak, “No promises.”

He smiles back. His face is close to mine. I pinch my toes together just to confirm that this is in fact happening, that I am not performing a repeat of yesterday’s shameful daydream.

It seems real enough. He’s so close. His other hand has found my hip somehow. His eyes are bright and blazing with an emotion I can’t read, and it’s like the scene in his office from before the gala all over again, when he caught me from falling and held me for a second and stripped me bare-freaking naked with his gaze alone and I let him because I want him so damn bad that I—

I hear an almost silent cry through the baby monitor on the counter. “Daddy!”

Kostya jerks his head up. “Finish this.” He doesn’t ask. And it occurs to me that he never asks. He tells. I should be offended, but right now, I’m making lists of the dozens of other things I want him to tell me:

Take your clothes off.

Touch me. Kiss me. Fuck me.

Stop it, Charlotte.

I can’t do this. Lust after him. Fall for him. See him as more than a man. A fallible, dangerous man who could break a heart like mine without even taking a swing. Love is for weak little girls who doodle fake married names in their diaries. The stupid ones. Like Lila and my mother who let their emotions rule their lives.

Even if I did somehow manage to turn his head and let nature take its course, we wouldn’t last. I’m a rookie, at best. He’s clearly been playing in the big leagues for a while. I wouldn’t even know what to do with a guy like him.

Even if he somehow looks at me and doesn’t see a mousy redhead with dull highlights, Mom and Lila have done their part to make sure love holds no appeal for me. Lila’s love affair with her guy—a guy old enough to be our dad—and Mom’s mental break with reality when Dad died just reinforce my notions about love leading to psychosis. Proof positive that love sucks. Game, set, match—nihilism wins.

Kostya walks back in a few minutes later carrying Tiana on his back. She’s got her arms twisted around his neck and he’s smiling. They make a pretty picture.

I stare at them for as long as I can, until the eggs are fluffy and ready to come off the fire. As I prepare our plates, I watch them together. When he sits her on a chair at the breakfast bar, she takes his face between her hands and rubs her nose with his. It’s the most genuine smile I’ve ever seen from him. There’s no motive but sincere happiness behind it.

“Here we go.” My voice is too bright, too cheery, and too loud.

Kostya takes his plate and our hands brush. To him, it’s probably nothing, but my heart goes full-on hip-hop and I almost sigh. Not a normal sigh. A dreamy sigh.

“I need to go to the office today.” He forks a bite between his perfect lips and chews. In the interest of not lusting after my boss, I’m trying not to stare, but every move of his mouth is delectable, enticing, and oh-so-damned alluring. “This afternoon should be soon enough.”

Tiana lays her hand over his as they eat, and every little string in my heart tugs.

I watch them together after breakfast, too, when he sits on the sofa reading from a file and she sits beside him holding an empty folder of her own and shakes her head at random intervals. Like her father. When she leans her head against his arm and closes her eyes. When he doesn’t move for an hour while she naps beside him.

My plan is to wait for Kostya to leave, then lay out the blueprint for the nursery with Tiana. I want it to be what she’s happy with and since we’re all just getting to know each other, I can’t pick for her. And I can’t work much with Kostya here making my ovaries want to explode.

But Tiana has caught her second wind and now she’s walking on the furniture, from her annoyed father to the arm of the sofa and back.