Nikolai Read online

  "Then we'll use both."

  Surprise rippled across her face. "We?"

  He picked up the purple bottle and gave it a shake. "I painted all the walls in this house. How hard can it be to paint ten little toenails?"

  She bit her lip to keep from smiling. "Um…okay. Just so you know—there are plenty of cotton balls and swabs right there to clean up your mistakes."

  He scoffed playfully. "You're not the only artist in this house."

  "Uh-huh," she said with a laugh.

  He changed his position on the couch and dragged her dainty feet onto his lap. She'd rolled up the bottoms of her pajama pants to her knees so her calves her totally bared. Despite the fact that he was only supposed to be painting her toenails, he couldn't let this chance to stroke her soft skin pass him by.

  Heat curled low in his belly as he trailed his fingers up and down her slim, toned calves. Very soon, he wouldn't have to content himself with merely touching her skin. In a few short weeks, her body would be his to discover and enjoy. The myriad ways he could make her sigh and moan and cry out her pleasure made his cock throb.

  Ignoring his baser thoughts, Nikolai unscrewed the polish lid and wiped the excess polish against the glass rim before dabbing at her big toe. He planned to paint every other toe purple and then do the others in pink.

  "Kolya?"

  "Yes?"

  "I think…I think I saw my dad today."

  His head snapped right up at her shocking statement. He smeared purple polish all over her toe but neither of them hurried to clean it away. "You think or you did?"

  She gulped. "I was sitting at the window in the library after I called Lena. It was sort of misting, and I couldn't see very well. There was this blue truck coming down the street, and it slowed down right in front of the house. The window rolled down—and I saw a man's hand. It wasn't waving. It was just…there. It only had four fingers."

  "Which four?" Romero Valero had lost his forefinger after a drug deal gone bad many years ago. Lorenzo Guzman's father had chopped it off with a damn machete to send a message to anyone else who tried to short him. Years later, when Lorenzo was ready to lead a coup against his father, it had been Romero who killed the elder Guzman—with that same machete.

  She wiggled her forefinger. "This one was missing."

  He put down the bottle of polish, picked up a cotton ball and soaked it in the remover. As he wiped her skin, he said, "Don't let him rattle you. He's only trying to push your buttons."

  "Well, it worked, Nikolai." She wrung her hands. "What does he want?"

  "Who knows," he grumbled. "He's not an easily understood man."

  "Was he threatening me? Was he threatening us?"

  "It's possible."

  "What more does he want with me? Hasn't he done enough to hurt me?"

  Thinking of his discussion with Mr. Lu, Nikolai revealed, "He's not the reason you were taken or the reason I was attacked."

  "But…"

  "I think it's probably a coincidence that all of this happened right after your father was popped from prison. It's two separate issues. Whatever your father is doing, I don't think it really concerns us much anymore."

  "What about the hit the Calaveras put out on me?"

  "I doubt it had any teeth behind it." He dried her skin with a paper towel and opened the polish again. "It suited Lorenzo Guzman to use it against me, and I let him do it so he would think he was winning that round."

  "But he wasn't?"

  Nikolai shook his head. "He actually played right into my hands."

  "How?"

  He debated how much to tell her. "I wanted to stop the trafficking, but I needed something to offer to the importer handling the shipments. Lorenzo wanted guns so I put him together with my connection—"

  "The Irishman?" she interrupted.

  Nikolai stared at her. "How do you know about Liam?"

  She shrugged. "People say things."

  "People?"

  "Well…I mean, sometimes I overhear things at Samovar…"

  "Overhear?" He pinched her leg. "You mean eavesdrop."

  "Ow!" She lightly smacked his hand. "Okay, so maybe once in a while I listened in on conversations I shouldn't."

  "Vee, that's dangerous." He used his warning tone with her. "Listen to me. It's one thing if I choose to tell you something. It's quite another for you to go snooping around where you don't belong."

  "Jeez!" She frowned at him. "You don't have to be so grumpy about it."

  "I'm not grumpy. I worry about you knowing too much. Until we're married, you can be forced to testify against me."

  Her lips parted in shock. "I didn't think about that."

  "I know you didn't. Forget about the Irishman."

  "I will." She pulled her feet off his lap and forced him to meet her questioning gaze. "Did you offer the importer guy the gun traffic for the cartel?"

  His lips settled into a grim line as he began to question even telling her that much. He tugged her tiny feet back into place. "Vivian, I agreed that there would be no secrets between us, but there are some details you simply cannot know. Leave it alone."

  She stayed quiet as he painted the nails on her right foot. When he switched to the left, she asked, "Do you think you'll ever find those girls who were with me in the warehouse?"

  "I don't know," he admitted reluctantly. "I wish I could promise you that I'll find them, but it's not that easy."

  He didn't tell her that those poor women were likely states away by now and in the hands of new pimps or owners. If the white supremacists holding them thought there was any chance they'd been tracked, they would kill and dispose of the women rather than risk it. To them, those girls were disposable and easily replaced.

  "I will keep looking, Vee."

  "I know you will." She reached out and gave his arm a squeeze. Sitting back against the arm of the couch, she laughed softly. "This is so…normal. You and me and the TV."

  Infected by her laugh, he smiled at her. "I like it."

  "Do you think we could maybe go on a real date sometime? Before we get married, I mean."

  She had a point. They were going about this whole thing rather backward. Most couples kissed, dated, made love and lived together before marrying. He'd brought her into his home and kissed her, but they'd skipped all the other steps.

  While he recognized that many people would assume they were rushing head first into a life-changing event, he felt their last year of friendship had simply been a gentler version of courting. They were like Dimitri and Benny who shared a five-year friendship before coming together in a night of wild passion. Without the wild night of passion, of course.

  "What would you like to do?" He closed the purple polish and switched to the pink bottle.

  "We could have dinner and see a movie."

  He made a face. "I don't do theaters. It's too dark. I can't see all the exits and entrances."

  "Oh."

  He hated to shoot down her idea, but he wasn't going to compromise their safety. Before she offered any other suggestions, he carefully added, "I don't do dancing either."

  She snorted. "I'm stunned. Really."

  He ignored her little barb. "I don't mind having a drink at Yuri's club while you dance with your friends."

  "Even my guy friends?"

  Surprised by the question, he slowly lifted his gaze to her face. Her pouty lips were curved in an impish, teasing smile. "I doubt many of them would be brave enough to try."

  "Kelly might be."

  Nikolai grunted at the thought of the younger Marine. Of all the men who had ever shown interest in Vivian, Kelly Connolly was the only one who had given him any concern. If ever there was a man who might have succeeded in drawing her away from him, it was Kelly.

  "I'm teasing." She rubbed his leg. "I've never been interested in Kelly in that way. We've only ever been friends. For what it's worth, I think he's got a complicated lust thing going on with his friend's sister."

  "If his situation is co
mplicated, how do you describe ours?" Nikolai took his time applying the hot pink color to her tiny pinkie toenail.

  "I'm not sure there is one word to describe our situation."

  "Not even in the three languages you speak?"

  She smiled at him. "Nope."

  Commenting on her language skills made him think of her schooling. "When does your final semester start?"

  "The thirteenth."

  It was the Monday before their wedding. "And you have the next Monday off?"

  She nodded. "It's a holiday."

  He felt guilty about the quickie wedding and the lack of a honeymoon. She deserved so much better. "In the summer, when you've graduated, we'll do a belated honeymoon."

  "I'd like that."

  He finished her nails and sat back. "What do you think?"

  She leaned forward to inspect them. "Pretty good for your first time."

  He found such happiness in her simple compliment. "Not as good as your paintings but maybe there's hope for me yet."

  She slowly moved her feet to the coffee table. "Maybe."

  "Is everything set for the show?"

  "Gustavo called me earlier. He's sending a truck tomorrow to the warehouse to pick up those final paintings. Apparently, he couldn't get them when he sent the truck the first time because it was cordoned off as a crime scene. I told him I'd meet him there so he would know which paintings to take. I sort of assumed you'd want to go over first and tell me which ones are okay to show."

  Nikolai cringed at the memory of the way he'd behaved after discovering the subject of her latest show. He reached for her hand and brought it to his mouth. He kissed the talented fingers that created such hauntingly beautiful pieces. "You will show them all."

  She swallowed. "All of them? Even…?"

  He exhaled a steady breath. "Even that one."

  She didn't break their intense gaze. "Thank you."

  "Don't," he said, his voice cracking. "I should never have behaved that way. I panicked when I saw what you'd been painting and those awful, filthy things sprayed on the warehouse wall. I thought someone was trying to send you a message when in reality it was a setup to draw us there and make it possible for us to be hurt. I was angry but I took it out on the wrong person." He kissed her knuckles. "I’m sorry, Vee."

  "I know you are. That's why I'm not going to remind you what a massive dick you were." Some of the sting left her rebuke because she said it with that megawatt smile of hers.

  "Such a dirty word from such a pretty mouth," he chided softly while leaning in to claim her lips.

  She put her hands on his chest, stopping him mere inches from his final destination. "Wait."

  "For what?"

  She pointed to the television. "It's almost midnight."

  He didn't want to wait, not when her soft, sweet mouth was so close, but he did. When the massive crystal ball began to blink and lower, he moved in closer. As the crowd counted down each second, Nikolai scooted nearer and nearer until he was almost on top of her. As the crowd went wild on the television, he lost himself in her bright blue eyes. "Happy New Year, Vee."

  He didn't need to watch the dazzling display of fireworks upon the screen. When their lips touched, their own personal fireworks began. As their tongues danced erotically, Nikolai decided it was going to be a very good year indeed.

  Chapter Fourteen

  "It feels weird coming back here." I clenched my seatbelt tightly in my left hand as Nikolai drove down the same street where we'd been brutally attacked that awful night.

  He reached across the space between us and tugged my hand away from the belt. Interlacing our fingers, he rubbed soothing circles against my skin with his thumb. "It's better to face it now."

  I understood what he meant but that didn’t make it any easier. I was so glad he'd come with me to meet Gustavo at my studio.

  "Are you going to be able to work here?" Concern radiated from him. "If this place has been ruined for you, there are other properties I own that we could remodel for you. If you want to continue to work outside the home," he added.

  His remark made me frown. "Kolya, I don't intend to stop painting or selling my art just because we're getting married."

  He shot me a strange look. "I think we've crossed wires somewhere, Vee. I didn't mean to insinuate that I thought you should stop painting once we're married."

  "Oh." I considered what he'd said about working outside the home. He literally meant painting outside of his house instead of in it. "Oh."

  "What I meant was that we can always convert that sunroom off the back of the house into a painting space for you. If you would prefer not to drive to a studio every day…"

  "I thought you meant—"

  "Yes," he said with an amused chuckle. His smile faded. "You will have to stop working at Samovar."

  "Why?"

  "It's unseemly."

  "Unseemly?"

  "That my wife should be waiting tables," he explained.

  I started to argue with him but bit my tongue. I sensed this one of those issues for him. He seemed to have very traditional ideas when it came to marriage. While I shared some of those opinions, I wasn't simply going to bend just because he said so.

  As if sensing my discomfort, Nikolai asked, "Have I upset you?"

  "No."

  "Vee?" He wasn't buying it.

  "I'm just trying to figure out what your issue is. Do you not want me working at all?"

  "Vivian," he said with some disbelief, "I might be what you call old school but I’m not that backward. I want you to have a successful career as an artist. I want you to follow your dreams—but you don't have to wait tables to do that anymore. I'll support you while you find your way."

  Before I could say anything, he rushed on, "If you honestly wanted to keep working at Samovar, I'm happy to find a new position for you, but you can't wait tables. It would be an uncomfortable working environment for everyone."

  I thought of my coworkers. It would be strange to have the wife of the boss schlepping trays from the kitchen to the tables and pocketing tips.

  "Do you want to keep working at the restaurant?"

  Feeling a bit sheepish, I confessed, "I'd been planning to give my notice if this upcoming show did well enough to give me a cushion to just paint and create for a while."

  "And then what?" He pulled into one of the parking spots near the warehouse.

  "Well…I don't know."

  His mouth slanted with amusement. "You don't know? Vee, you have to have a plan."

  I picked at the oversized buttons of my pea coat. "I'm not like Lena and Benny. I don't do five-year plans."

  "Maybe you should think about it." He tapped my chin in a silent bid for my gaze. When I looked at him, my heart sped up at the love reflected in his eyes. "You are so incredible, Vee. There is so much talent inside you, but you have to be brave enough to take big chances and let it out."

  I bit my lower lip as anxiety flooded my core. "I'm not very good at taking chances."

  He grinned. "That's not true. You're marrying me, aren't you?"

  I rolled my eyes. "That's different."

  "Is it?"

  "Yes."

  "Why?"

  "Because I love you," I answered simply.

  He unlatched his seatbelt and leaned across the middle console. Threading his fingers through my loose hair, he clasped the back of my head and stared into my eyes. I lost myself in the greenish pools of his irises. "Because I love you, we're sitting down tonight and coming up with a plan for you. I love you too much to sit back and watch you waste your potential."

  As if sealing a vow, he pressed his mouth to mine in a tender kiss. Mindful of his injured shoulder, I let my hands fall to his upper arms. I didn't want the kiss to end but since that night in the library when things had gotten so dangerously heated between us, he'd been very careful with me.

  Even last night, as we'd kissed to celebrate the start of a new year, he'd only allowed the wicked mating of our mouths to p
rogress to a certain point before easing off. He was driving me crazy with these teasing kisses that promised so much more but I understood that he was only giving me what I wanted.

  Every time we touched, I started to doubt my decision to wait. I had discovered newfound respect for the couples I'd known who had made it a year or two between their first dates and marriage.

  "Let's get inside." He unlatched my seatbelt and sneaked in one more playful kiss before sliding out of his seat. By the time, he came around to open my door, Sergei and another couple of men had arrived. Two of them stayed in the SUV but Sergei came in with us, just in case we needed help moving around the bigger canvases. Though he wouldn't ever admit it, Nikolai's shoulder and ribs weren't in good enough shape for him to be dragging around heavy objects.

  I shivered as we stepped inside the chilly interior of the studio. As usual, I scanned the tables and walls to make sure everything was exactly as I'd left it. The memories of the last time I'd been here and of that terrible fight I'd had with Nikolai flashed before my eyes. My heart ached as I remembered the way he'd spoken to me and the way I'd shoved him.

  As if sharing that memory, Nikolai slid his arm around my waist and pressed a gentle kiss to my temple. I glanced up at him and saw the regret etched into his face. I'm sure he saw the same reflected in my eyes. I hated that we'd been so ugly with one another, but in some ways, I was glad it had happened. That fight had been like a thunderstorm. All those raging emotions we'd kept so tightly concealed had been forced into the open. Each angry thunderclap between us had cleared the air.

  Sergei started toward the back wall. "Which paintings are going in the truck?"

  I slipped out of Nikolai's embrace and trailed Sergei. When I reached the rack of canvases, I started pointing to the ones that would be going with Gustavo today. As I started ticking them off, I realized I was one painting short.

  My stomach clenched as I rushed to the rack and touched the empty space where the painting of the night I'd been shot normally sat. The cover was missing as well. "Kolya!"

  He appeared next to me and reached out to touch the same empty spot. Our fingers brushed together and our gazes clashed. I didn't want to think that he'd done something to it—but he had been so upset that night when I'd stormed out of the studio.