“See? I get that. Why didn’t Vasily just say so?”
“Because he likes to baby you.”
“Me?”
“Us.”
“That’s more like it. Speaking of Morales; did I tell you Luiz has gotten in touch twice now asking about Elli? Fucker had the balls to request a meet with her. Syd went ape-shit.”
“I’ll bet she did. What are you going to do? He is Elli’s family.”
Maks’s face went granite hard. “We’re her family. She’s mine now, and if that fucking prick thinks I’m going to allow a little girl anywhere near a man who wanted to punish my Aussie by raping her for a couple of weeks, he’s using too much of his own product.”
Supportive grunts filled the SUV. Seemed Luiz Morales was going to have to be satisfied with the family he had because he wasn’t getting anywhere near Maksim’s.
♦ ♦ ♦
Ten minutes later, Alek was reaching for the door handle as he watched Sacha’s client drive away with his little girl.
“Shoot me a text if you hit some pillows. I’ll come back later to pick you up,” Maks said as he worked his phone.
Alek wished. “I can’t see any pillow hitting going down. Not unless it’s one she decides to slam me in the face with.” His feet hit the sidewalk.
“Bite it and consider it foreplay.”
He shut the door and took only a cursory glance around once he made it inside the building, noting the cleanliness of the hallway couldn’t hide the wear and tear. He made a mental note to have someone come in to do a quick switch when he heard the hollow sound his knock made on Sacha’s door.
He braced himself when the security chain went, but he was in no way prepared for the sight that greeted him when the flimsy wood was pulled out of the way.
Curves.
The shapeless winter coat that had reached below her knees was gone, and utter perfection was exposed to his ravenous gaze. He stared, because, damn.
A black sleeveless shirt clung to full, jaw-dropping breasts and an absurdly small waist while the beautiful swell of her hips was accentuated by jeans she made work despite the frayed tears he normally found unattractive. Not on her. Not when they offered him flashes of smooth, creamy skin and were rolled at the cuff to show off the high-heeled boots he’d noticed outside. They were black leather and covered what he knew to be slender ankles.
Yeah, she made the outfit work all right. Stylish, subtle, stunning. From her head to her toes she was a feminine work of art. There should be some way to get the message across to women that this was what they should look like. She wasn’t thin and hard. She was full and soft; temptation itself. Her supple thighs used to have him regressing to a caveman mentality he should have been put away for.
Jesus Christ, he wanted to devour her, to bury himself in her—face first, then tongue, and then his cock. The urge was crippling and undeniable, and nothing short of catastrophic that he had to stand there and pretend he’d be satisfied with a reluctant tell-me-your-story-and-maybe-I’ll-forgive-you.
“Are you finished, Alekzander?”
He looked up from a navel he wished his face was pressed against and was as honest with her as he could be without flashing the solid erection he was now sporting. “Fuck no. But I’ll set it aside for now and pretend I’m a normal, civilized man. May I come in?” Into your body? Where I’ll stay for days?
“If I say no?”
He shrugged. “Then I’ll talk very loud through your door.”
Her mouth compressed into a thin line. “You would not do that.”
He held her eyes. “You’d be horrified at what I would do for you.”
Her lips parted on a soft breath that was the exact sound she used to make the moment he slid inside her. His entire groin throbbed. He needed this one back in his bed. On him. Under him. Next to him. All over him, for days on end. He needed her sitting across from him at breakfast. He needed her showing up at his office, self-consciously asking if she could take him out for lunch. He needed to come home at the end of the day, turn her away from whatever she’d decided to prepare him for dinner, and just hold her; draw comfort from that gentle way she used to sift her long fingers through his hair.
His eyes narrowed, his heart slamming hard when he saw a flash of hunger skip across her face.
Aaand then her thoughts got in the way, and her expression turned to cement. Fuck.
“A few minutes,” he said, hiding his frustration. “That’s all I need.”
“Then you will leave?”
For now. “Yes. You have my word.”
She stepped back and silently waved him into her home. Despite the seemingly polite gesture, her eyes now blazed with a rancid emotion he hoped to kill dead in these minutes she was granting him.