Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“You said we would have the ‘bigger conversation’ after we’ve eaten,” Thea reminded, the two of them having remained seated at the breakfast bar after putting their used dinner plates in the dishwasher.
She hadn’t been able to eat all of the steak and jacket potato Fergus had cooked for her, and there was still some of the salad she had made left in the bowl, but she really couldn’t eat any more. Her stomach was still churning from the horrific events of the day.
It was also still very much a novelty to her to have a man cook a meal for her. She and Martin had dated for a few months, but he had never once offered to cook for her.
It had been nice puttering about in the kitchen together. Something that had felt normal and domesticated after the tension of the past few weeks.
Thea had still been too numb to notice when they arrived earlier, but her walk through the apartment on her way to the kitchen had shown her that Fergus’s London apartment was just as opulent as his Parisian home.
The shades of blue and gray decor throughout, along with the dark furnishings, were more modern than those in his house in Paris, but the overall effect was still one of wealth and comfort.
She’d also seen the spectacular view of London from the floor-to-ceiling windows in the main sitting room when she passed by.
Her breath had caught in her throat the moment she’d seen Fergus again. His dark hair was tousled and damp, probably from taking his own shower. He was now dressed as casually as she was, in a clean black T-shirt and dark jeans.
As Thea had thought earlier, he did keep more of his clothes here.
“You want the whole unvarnished truth, hm?” he teased her now.
“Yes,” she answered instantly.
He sobered. “Then last night, with you, was the singular most powerfully intimate experience of my life. I was thrown off-kilter by it. Then Declan arrived before I had a chance to come to terms with what the hell was going on.”
Thea swallowed. “Going on…?”
He nodded. “The two of us making love. Sleeping together. Waking up with you still in my arms, in the middle of the night, and then again this morning.”
Her frown was puzzled. “Isn’t that what usually happens when women stay the night with you?”
He shook his head. “I don’t invite women to my house, let alone ask them to spend the night in my bed with me there.”
“Okay,” she acknowledged slowly, not sure what that meant exactly.
But it sounded as if Fergus was still slightly surprised that he had allowed her to do all those things.
He nodded. “I want to spend as many more nights with you, sharing that same intimacy, as you’ll let me. I know I behaved like a complete dick this morning,” he continued when Thea would have spoken. “But could you try to maybe cut me a little slack? I might be forty-two years old, but I have absolutely no previous experience with what is currently happening between the two of us. None,” he repeated fiercely.
Thea grimaced. “Suave and sophisticated left the building?” she said, attempting to make light of the situation.
Fergus gave the hint of a smile at her reference to having overheard part of his conversation with his twin the previous evening. “Pretty much, yes. I know how to navigate a hookup or a date that I believe will result in the two of us having sex. But what’s happening between the two of us is completely new to me.”
She eyed him guardedly. “And exactly what do you think is happening between us?”
“An earthquake of momentous proportions. At least, that’s what it feels like. You, the two of us together last night especially, have shaken my world.” His voice had lowered huskily. “It’s still shaking.”
She looked at him searchingly for several long seconds, seeing only sincerity in his expression, along with the bewilderment he had spoken of feeling. “What happens when it stops shaking?”
“I have a feeling my world is going to be forever changed.”
“That sounds ominous.”
His lips curved into a rueful smile. “What I’m trying to explain, and maybe not succeeding, is that I was starting to accept those changes. But I wasn’t quite there yet when Declan arrived this morning, and you and I were no longer alone to talk about this in private.”
Thea eyed him warily, unsure what he meant by that, but she was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. “Okay. I get that. But it still hurt to have you be so distant toward me. Perhaps for the immediate future, you could maybe think about not behaving like a monumental dick again? It’s not very nice.”
He grinned at her description. “I can do that.”
“I hope so, because this morning was miserable.”
“For me too,” he agreed.
“Good!”
“Vicious. I like that,” he admired.
“You’ve really never had a woman spend the night at your house with you before last night?” she prompted curiously.
“Never.”
“Wow.”
Fergus nodded. “It’s a little disconcerting, to say the least,” he admitted. “I thought I had it all figured out, that living alone, with the occasional hookup at a hotel or going back to a woman’s apartment with her, was how my life was and always would be. Then bam, you suddenly appeared, and everything I thought I knew or wanted for my life just fell apart.”
It wasn’t a declaration of love, and it was far too soon for Thea to expect one from him, or for her to make one to him. But it was an admission that Fergus was just as deeply affected by whatever was growing between them as she was.
Thea decided that she would do what he asked and, for the moment, cut him some slack. Initially, by changing the subject. “Are you any further forward in knowing who the shooter was?”
“Not yet.” He shrugged. “I’m still waiting for my friend to get back to me on the distinctive tattoos Declan saw on the man’s neck.”
She raised her brows. “You have a friend who would know the significance of gang or organized-crime-related tattoos?”
“If they’re Russian ones. And yes,” he sighed, “I believe I do have to class Nikolai Volkov as a friend,” he added dryly.
“You don’t sound very sure…”
“I’m sure he considers me as his friend. I’m just not sure how I feel about classing the sovietnik to the pakhan of the London bratva as being my friend.”
“What is a sovietnik?”
“The second to the pakhan in the Russian bratva.”
“Oh.”
He gave a derisive huff. “Nikolai’s surname of Volkov means wolf in Russian, and believe me, he more than lives up to his name,” he stated dryly.
She frowned. “I’m sure you told me you didn’t associate with Russian gangsters.”
He smiled ruefully. “I very much doubt Nikolai would call himself a Russian gangster. We met through a third party, and now none of us can shake him. Nikolai is a powerful and complicated man,” Fergus added when Thea just stared at him. “But once he considers you his friend, it seems you become so for life.”
“How did you even meet a member of the bratva?” Thea had heard of the Russian bratva, along with the London and Irish mobs and the Italian Mafia. More recently, the Albanian mafia and the Romanian one had come to London too. But she didn’t personally know anyone who belonged to those organizations, nor did she know anyone else who did.
It seemed she did now!
“We met after Nikolai did something amazing for my cousin Rufus,” Fergus explained.
“That sounds interesting,” Thea prompted when he added nothing further.
“It is.” Fergus nodded. “But it’s Rufus’s story to tell, not mine.”
She nodded, totally respecting the other man’s privacy. “But, despite your previous comment on the subject, you’re actually buddies with the second to the pakhan of the London Russian bratva?” she mused.
He winced. “I appear to be.”
“And he’s going to be able to tell you whether the man who was waiting at my apartment building?—”
“Declan said there were two men, but only one shot him.”
She nodded. “But you think Nikolai Volkov can tell you whether those men are associates, or possibly family, to Lev Yegorov, just from the tattoos on their neck?”
“I believe he can.” He nodded. “I very much doubt that Nikolai likes or approves of Yegorov, anyway. He doesn’t have a lot of respect for the oligarchs who stripped the wealth out of his country and then fled Russia to live in luxury in the West.”
“Nikolai didn’t do that himself?”
“Absolutely not.” Fergus chuckled. “I don’t know anything about Nikolai’s background, but he’s too much of a fighter to have grown up in luxury. He’s also been in the Russian bratva all his adult life and is definitely not an oligarch. I’m pretty sure Lev has been on Nikolai’s radar since the other man moved permanently to London, and that he’s just waiting for Yegorov to step out of line so he can do something about it.” He shrugged. “I think he’ll definitely consider Lev’s unwanted and persistent pursuit of you, then trying to have you shot?—”
“If he did,” Thea put in quickly, still having a little trouble accepting that someone had wanted to kill her.
“If he did, Nikolai will definitely consider it stepping out of line. Nikolai is married, with children, and he’s very protective when it comes to all women and children.”
Thea swallowed. “What will he do to Lev if it was him?”
“I have no intention of ever asking him that, and if you ever meet him, I advise you not to do so either,” Fergus stated.
Thea gave a dismissive snort. “I can’t think of any circumstances under which I would ever meet Nikolai Volkov.”
“Maybe not,” Fergus conceded. “But I have a feeling Lev Yegorov might cease to be any sort of a problem for you, or anyone else, if Nikolai discovers he ordered men to carry out a shooting in a public place with a woman as the target.”
She swallowed. “He sounds…scary.”
“If Nikolai considers someone an enemy, then he can be scary,” Fergus acknowledged. “Very much so.”
Thea felt as if she had somehow entered a parallel universe.
One in which conversations about Russian oligarchs and the Russian bratva now seemed to feature strongly.
* * *
“Have I groveled enough for you to now forgive me for this morning?” Fergus teased when Thea fell silent, obviously lost in her own thoughts. Unsurprisingly. This was a lot to take on board.
She drew back to give him an incredulous look. “You think this conversation was you groveling?”
He eyed her warily. “It wasn’t?”
“Definitely not,” she assured him with a chuckle. “You really need to get up to speed on dating a woman if you don’t want to find yourself groveling every other minute of the day.”
He eyed her curiously. “Is that what we’re doing, dating?”
Thea returned his gaze with uncertainty in her golden eyes. “Is it?”
“Hell, yes,” Fergus instantly assured. “Exclusively,” he added as he reached out to take one of her hands into his.
“Does that work both ways?”
“Also hell, yes.”
A blush now colored Thea’s cheeks. “Okay, then.”
“Can I kiss you now?”
“Have I ever said you couldn’t?”
No, she hadn’t, but Fergus hadn’t been sure that was still the case after the way he had behaved earlier today.
He might not completely understand what was happening to him, but one thing he knew for certain was that he wanted Thea to remain in his life for the foreseeable future. Even the thought of not being with her was enough to cause his chest to tighten in a painful way.
He lifted his hand to curl his fingers about her chin to hold her gently in place as he leaned forward to place his lips against hers. Softly at first, then harder and deeper, after her lips had parted and she began to kiss him back.
Fergus immediately deepened the kiss, thoroughly exploring the heat of her mouth.
Kissing Thea was like losing himself in a cloud of heat and sensation, making Fergus aware of everything. The softness of her lips. Her taste. The unique perfume that was so completely Thea. The heat of her body as she pressed against his chest.
Fergus had no idea how long they kissed. Nor did he care, too lost in those sensations and the swirl of emotions that were quickly taking over his soul.
Thea was becoming his soul.
His heart.
And he couldn’t live without his heart and soul.
Nor did he want to.