Chapter 20
A quickie a day keeps the attitude away.
— Brecken to Shasha
brECKEN
I got out, this time barefoot, and left my shoes in my car.
Once it was locked, I headed toward him, my gaze on his wet hair and the water dripping down his face.
“How did you get here so fast?” I asked.
“I don’t drive like a grandma.” He shrugged. “I passed you before you even got onto the freeway.”
I smiled. “Tickets are expensive, and I barely make fifty thousand dollars a year.”
His eye twitched. “Teachers are severely underpaid.”
“They are,” I confirmed, then hesitantly asked, “What next, Shasha?”
“Next.” He caught my hand. “We see where this goes.”
With that, he pulled me into his body and kissed me.
By the time we were in my apartment, I fully expected him to lose control once again, but this time he was careful.
So careful he even remembered a condom.
And I knew in that moment we’d have to figure something out, because I didn’t want anything else between us ever again.
He made sweet love to me.
So slow, yet so powerful.
When we were done, and I was a replete mess on the bed, he called in a Chinese food order and tugged me into his side.
“Since we’re doing this, I’m going to need to lay some ground rules,” he said after laying the phone down on the bed beside us. “You’re not allowed to be alone with that motherfucker ever again.”
I snorted and rolled, standing up beside the bed. “Which motherfucker? Because there are a lot of them.”
His eyes lazily took me in, and I felt like I was on top of the world.
“Your ex,” he grumbled darkly.
“Trust me when I say that’s the last thing I ever want to do,” answered Brecken.
“Now, let’s go over bodyguards.”
And we did.
I went to the bathroom and cleaned up before coming back out semi-dressed in a tee and sleep shorts, no bra or underwear.
He’d somehow miraculously produced a pair of sweatpants that I hadn’t seen before now, and I felt my heart do a somersault in my chest at the sight of him in that gray lingerie for men.
The Chinese food came.
We ate.
I, of course, ate normally. Because why would I tell him that I had a dairy intolerance that would make me projectile shit in about an hour when I was trying to seem normal?
As we ate, we talked about how, if things progressed further between us, I would be expected to have a bodyguard because his life was dangerous and dangerous people liked to lash out at the people that mattered to him the most.
He then told me the story of his young sister, and the way she held back the other day when I’d seen her at the coffee shop made sense.
Kidnapped.
Hell, that was awful.
I couldn’t imagine the pain and guilt their entire family felt over the years, wondering if their little sister was alive.
“I’ll concede to a guard if and when we take this to the next step,” I admitted. “Also, not at school. That won’t work.”
“Not at school.” He nodded. “The security there is pretty tight.” He studied me. “It’s an inevitability. You will get targeted. I need you to let your family know that you’re with me. I don’t want them thinking that I’m dragging you into my sin den when you’re very willingly wanting to be there.”
I grinned. “Sin den?”
“Whatever,” he sighed. “Dima said it earlier, and it fit.”
“Everyone knows about me?” I asked.
“If by everyone you mean my men and my family, yes.” He sighed again. “Are you interested in coming to family dinner on Sunday?”
I smiled at him. “As long as you’ll come to mine on Saturday.”
His left eye twitched. “I guess so.”
I snickered. “My brothers are great, you’re not going to have any issues, I promise.”
“I highly doubt that,” he said, then leaned back into the couch before saying, “Before you fully agree, you should know a few things.”
“Okay, hit me.” I clapped.
“I had some issues in Houston. That’s why I was there,” he started.
“I kind of figured that when you were asking all those questions,” I said. “Your friend, Cayden.”
“My friend Cayden went missing because of your friend, Viveka,” he said. “And partially because of me. See, Gabriel Stone, Viveka’s husband, put two and two together and realized that I was who had his child. He went to Cayden, in Houston and asked him for help with getting her, the baby, back from me. And possibly killing me while they were at it. When Cayden refused, he was taken prisoner and tortured on a cruise ship for days. That was what I was doing when you came in that day, getting information. We were able to rescue Cayden. Cayden informed me this morning that you are on Gabriel Stone’s suspect list. He thinks you might be able to tell him where the baby is.”
“Great,” I sighed. “And I’m guessing that means that I’m in danger.”
“Not if you stay with me,” he countered.
“I can’t stay with you twenty-four-seven,” I grumbled.
“Hence the bodyguard,” he said. “Until I can get rid of this Gabriel Stone, you’ll have twenty-four-hour protection.”
“How’s that going to work at school?” I asked. “They can stay outside.”
“We’ve already pointed out that the school is secure, so you’re good on that one. During the school day, he’ll sit in the car. When you leave, and if I’m not with you, he’ll be with you.”
“Fun.” I sighed. “But I’m not going to argue with you. I know who Gabriel Stone is.”
“What do you know about him?” he asked.
“Only what Viveka told me,” I said. “He was a really rich businessman turned federal prosecutor. He has his hands in many pies and was turning into a person she didn’t know day by day. She told me in the beginning that Gabriel was great. But she thinks that being a prosecutor changed him for the worse.”
“I don’t know if Viveka just didn’t know or didn’t want to know, but Gabriel Stone was never a federal prosecutor. He was a lawyer, yes, but he only worked for the criminal side of things,” he explained. “And only the big ones. He’s been representing all kinds of disgusting people.”
“Like what?” I asked curiously.
“Like that huge case where the young teenage girl decided to spike her crush’s drink and get pregnant with his child,” he explained. “The girl did it seven times before it worked. When he refused to get with her, or pay child support, the girl’s parents took him to court.”
“Oh.” I remembered the case vividly because it’d happened at our school!
The kid had tried to fight the lawsuit, having explained that he was unaware of ever having sexual intercourse with the girl. When the girl all but admitted that she’d spiked his drinks, she’d had charges filed against her. And the bad thing was, she’d won in court. She got child support, full custody of their child, and the suit dropped against her sexual assault.
The kid had killed himself months later.
I hadn’t realized that the lawyer for the other side had been Viveka’s husband, though.
I also hadn’t thought my opinion of him could get any lower, yet here I was, thinking the man was less than dirt.
Gross.
“That girl needs to be castrated,” I grumbled.
His bark of laughter startled me, and I blinked at him in surprise.
If I thought Shasha Semyonov was beautiful before, him laughing? It was a work of art.
I wished I could put the feeling in my chest into the world for everyone to feel, because it felt like I was on Cloud Nine.
The muscles in his throat worked, his Adam’s apple bobbed, and the way his hair shifted…gah. It made me want to bury my fingers in it.
I was so entrenched in the feeling that at first I didn’t notice the telltale sign of my stomach beginning its thing.
That’s when I realized my mistake.
I’d fully expected him to be gone when this hit, which was why I ate as I did.
The smile that I’d been wearing slid off my face, and he tilted his head to study me.
“What?” he asked.
“Uh.” I paused. “If I ask you to leave, would you?”
His eyes narrowed. “Probably not. I hadn’t planned on going home tonight.”
I bit my lip as another familiar gurgle started to form in my belly.
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit.
“Uh,” I repeated. “What if I said pretty please?”
He pushed his trash aside and leaned forward, his eyes focused on me. “What is it?”
Like I would ever tell him what was actually wrong.
“Oh, nothing. Nothing,” I lied.
“Is this about the bodyguards?” he asked. “Was it too much for you?”
I was already shaking my head. “No, no. Not that. I just, uh, need a bit of privacy for about an hour. Maybe you can go get some dessert or something and then bring it back?”
That would certainly take him at least thirty minutes. Nothing was a two-minute drive here, thanks to traffic.
“No,” he answered honestly. “Tell me what’s going on.”
He’d put on his scary face.
I kind of liked it.
I would’ve thought it was hot if my stomach hadn’t decided now was the best time to remind me that it didn’t like eggs and I was stupid for eating them.
“I, uh…” I searched for a believable excuse and might’ve come up with one had my stomach not betrayed me and let out a loud, grumbling gurgle.
Which, of course, caught his attention.
His eyes went from my face to my stomach.
Then the frown lines disappeared from his face as he leaned back into the chair once again.
“You have lactose intolerance.”
I frowned as another gurgle swept over me. “How do you know that?”
He studied me for a long second before he rocked my world. “I know everything there is to know about you, right down to what bra size you order from Victoria’s Secret, and how many rolls of toilet paper you buy in a month.”
My mouth dropped open, and a vicious cramp stole my attention, making my eyes squeeze shut.
There was nothing else I could do.
I got up and hurried to the bathroom.
By the time I’d come out over an hour later—yes, lactose intolerance was the fucking devil—I fully expected the apartment to be empty.
I mean, what man in his right mind would stay in the home of a woman that couldn’t control her bowels?
But, surprising the hell out of me, the first thing I saw when I walked out of the bathroom was Shasha on my couch, covered in my ghost dog lap blanket I’d gotten from Target in October, watching a soccer match on television.
It was loud, too, so I’m unsure how I hadn’t heard it before.
My face flushed when I saw him there, and I wondered if I could toss my body down the garbage shoot in the hall and die on impact.
“Do you like football?” he asked curiously.
I was so surprised by his question that I didn’t think to curb my tongue.
“Uh, that’s not football. It’s soccer,” I pointed out.
“It’s football everywhere else but here, and when you have friends and family that refer to it as football and football only, you kind of adopt their language.” He paused, glancing over his shoulder at me, taking me in. “Everything come out all right?”
I opened my mouth and closed it, gasping in shock.
He’d gone there.
He’d really just gone there.
“Uh, yeah.” I hesitated. “Just great.”
He winked at me, then patted the couch. “Does that happen often?”
I reluctantly took up a seat next to him, but not completely going into his body because I was still stunned.
He pulled me into him, threw his arm around my shoulder, and I did a face dive into his hard abs.
If I had to die, this would be the best way to go.
“Does it happen often?” he repeated.
I sighed and closed my eyes, giving in. “Every time I eat dairy.”
“I felt like Chinese would be a good bet since it wasn’t cheesy, but didn’t think about the eggs,” he admitted.
“Eggs, milk, cream, butter…shit. Any dairy, really. And there’s no rhyme or reason to it. Some stuff I can stomach just fine. Others, not so much.” I sighed. “I literally had this same thing last week with no consequences. So I think that the world just wanted me to be embarrassed as fuck.”
“There’s nothing, absolutely nothing, to be embarrassed about,” he pointed out. “And I don’t want you to think you ever have to hide any part of you from me. Even the ones you deem embarrassing.”
I sighed, settling into his heat.
“I don’t feel like you’re real, Shasha.”
“I’m real, Kisa . I’m real.”
I fell asleep to his words replaying in my brain.
I’m real, Kisa. I’m real.