Chapter 11 That Smell
That Smell
Aleks
I hate this.
I hate the way she’s folded in on herself on our bench like the world finally found the one place to hit her where she couldn’t armor up. I hate the way her hands won’t stop shaking. I hate that I don’t know who did this to her.
I crouch in front of her again, slow, deliberate, like I’m approaching something skittish and wounded. Her eyes flick to mine, then away. She trusts me enough to be here, but not enough to look at me yet.
That does something to me.
I keep my voice steady, even though everything in me wants to tear the room apart.
I scrub my hand over my face and mumble, “Ya v zadnitse.” I clear my throat and decide, “Then it’s just me.”
She swallows. Nods once. Barely.
I sit back against the opposite bench, close enough that she knows I’m here, far enough that I’m not crowding her. My arms rest on my knees. I force my hands to stay open.
Who did this to you? The question is screaming in my head. So are a dozen others. Where were you? I know you weren’t at the game. I looked for you. Who scared you? Who made you feel like you couldn’t go home? Is home safe?
I don’t ask any of them. Because this isn’t about answers. It’s about containment.
And somehow, impossibly, she picked me.
The irony is brutal. She doesn’t trust her driver. Doesn’t trust her walls. Doesn’t trust the people who are paid to keep her safe. But she trusts the asshole hockey player who pisses her off so badly she doesn’t show at a game when she owns a fucking luxury box.
That realization hits me sideways. I feel it settle in my chest, heavy and unfamiliar. Not ownership. Not entitlement. Responsibility.
She draws in a ragged breath, then another. Still shallow. Still fighting it.
“Look at me,” I say quietly.
She doesn’t.
“That’s fine,” I add. “Then listen.”
I slow my breathing on purpose, exaggerate it just enough for her to hear. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Controlled. Measured. The same rhythm I use before a faceoff when I need my head clear and my body steady.
I watch her shoulders. Count the seconds. One breath. Then another. Her hands are still shaking, but less. Good.
Anger simmers underneath everything else, scorching hot. Whoever did this? Whoever made her feel hunted or exposed or unsafe, I don’t know their name, not yet, but when I do, I’ll deal with it.
For now, I stay exactly where I am. I don’t touch her. I don’t push. I don’t demand.
I just sit there, breathing steadily in a room that smells like her now, holding back every violent instinct I have because right now, the most important thing I can do is prove I’m not another threat.
She trusts me. That thought lands soft and dangerous all at once. And whatever this thing is that’s growing between us, whatever line we just crossed tonight, I know one thing for sure. I’m not walking away. Not from her. Not from this. Not until I know she’s safe.
She’s just starting to settle.
Not calm, not okay, but quieter. Breathing is finally slowing enough that it’s not a fight every second. Her shoulders drop a fraction. Her hands unclench, fingers still trembling but no longer locked tight like they’re bracing for impact.
I clock it immediately. The way you do when you’ve spent your whole life reading bodies for signs of damage.
Then headlights wash across the glass. A car door slams. Voices. Laughter.
I glance toward the window, already knowing what I’m going to see before I see it.
Faulker and Marshall.
I straighten slowly.
“They’re home,” I say, more to myself than to her.
She stiffens instantly, panic flaring back into her eyes.
“No,” she whispers. “I can’t—” Her breath hitches. “I don’t want them to see me like this.”
“They won’t,” I promise, and the certainty in my voice surprises even me. “Bathroom, or my room. Your choice.”
She shakes her head, eyes too wide. “Anywhere but where they can see… this.”
I nod once. Decision made. I cross the room, grab my coat off the chair, and drape it over her shoulders without touching skin. A barrier. Something solid.
“Head down,” I say quietly. “Stay close to me.”
She hesitates for half a second.
Then she stands.
I position myself between her and the door, blocking every angle without making it obvious. My hand stays just behind her back, not touching, just there in case she stumbles.
The laughter outside gets closer, and the locks beep as they punch the code.
I open the door at the exact second I need to.
“Killer!” Faulker calls out. “Thought you were still out.”
“Was,” I answer evenly. “I’m heading upstairs.”
Marshall squints at me. “You look like hell.”
“You brought someone here. I thought we weren’t doing that while Paul—”
“Long day. Won’t happen again.” I move without breaking stride, guiding her past them, my body doing what it’s trained to do, shield, redirect, control the space.
Up the stairs, down the hall, door closed, lock turned, the noise drops away.
I turn to her then, finally letting myself look. She’s pale, exhausted, still shaking, but not as bad.
Safe.
“For the record,” I say quietly, “you don’t owe anyone an explanation. Especially not tonight.”
She nods, pressing her hand to her chest again, breathing slow but real.
She exhales a long breath.
“Sit,” I say, nodding toward the bed. “Or the chair. Your choice.”
She sits on the edge of the bed, hands clasped tight in her lap, eyes everywhere except me.
I kick off my shoes, shrug out of my jacket, then pause when she finally looks up at me.
“Don’t start your filthy talk, or try anything with me tonight,” she says.
The timing is so unexpected that it almost makes me laugh. Almost.
I lift my hands in surrender, a corner of my mouth twitching. “Relax. I wasn’t planning on seducing you while you’re actively having a crisis.”
She blinks. Then huffs a weak laugh despite herself. “I mean it,” she adds, still guarded.
“So do I,” I say easily. “I’m many things. Predatory in this scenario is not one of them.”
Her shoulders loosen a fraction.
I grab a blanket from the chair and toss it onto the bed beside her.
“Ground rules,” I add lightly. “No crying on my pillows. And I get the floor.”
She snorts. Actually snorts. It’s quiet, but it counts.
She studies me for a second, “You can’t sleep on the floor. When I know they’re in bed, I’ll leave.”
“Rest first.”
She stands, “My coat is wet,” shrugs it off. “It’s freezing in here.”
I head over to my closet and grab her a sweatshirt, and head back to hand it to her.
She holds it in her hands and looks at it, eyes stalling on my name, the number 21. “Me wearing your number better not be part of—”
“Gospodi,” I grumble as I snatch it out of her hand, scrunch the material up, and put it over her head, sputtering, “Tsarina.” I groan as I turn to give her privacy to fully put it on, or maybe give myself a moment to pull my shit together. “Ya v zadnitse.”
“Ya ponimayu.” I understand.
I go still. Slowly, I turn my head toward her. She’s sitting on the edge of my bed, wrapping herself in the blanket, eyes lifted to me like she hasn’t just kicked a hole through one of my walls.
“You know Russian?” I ask.
Careful now. Neutral. Like I’m not already recalculating everything. She hesitates, then answers in Russian again, softer this time. “Nemnogo.” A little.
I stare at her.
Not because she knows the language. Plenty of people do. That’s not the point.
It’s that she knew what I meant. That she didn’t translate it in her head first. That she answered instinctively, like the words already lived somewhere inside her.
I huff a quiet laugh before I can stop myself and shake my head. “Of course you do,” I mutter. “Figures.”
She doesn’t smile. Just watches me, steady, like she’s waiting to see if this changes anything.
It does. I don’t know how yet. I just felt the ground shift again.
And suddenly, I’m very aware that the woman sitting in my room, wearing my numbers, wrapped in my blanket, breaking quietly in my space, understands more than she’s letting on. Which means I’m in deeper than I thought.
Ya v zadnitse doesn’t even begin to cover it.
She moves to one side of my bed, puts a pillow in the middle, and says, “Don’t breach the wall, and if you sleep naked, you don’t tonight.”
Fuck it, I think as I step inside my closet, strip down, and pull on the thin pair of Yale-blue sleep pants from my college years, soft from overuse and too many washes, the fabric worn down enough to drape instead of hide, doing me no favors when I move and head to my bed.
“What temperature do you guys keep it at in here?”
“Fifteen.” I say sliding in, careful not to breach her wall.
She gasps and rolls facing me. “You’re kidding.”
“We’re hockey players.” I remind her. “We thrive in cold.”
“At fifteen you’ll freeze.” She gasps again. “You’ll kill Paul.”
“Gospodi, Tsarina,” I sigh. “He has a heater in his room and freezing is,” I stop and smile when I realize, “Celsius.”
I watch her mentally calculate, curious if she can, most Americans can not. “Sixty is too cold for him.”
“Thus, the heater,” I say.
She rolls to her side, “I can’t fall asleep.”
“I would suggest closing your eyes, perhaps counting sheep.”
“I mean, I can’t, I have to get back before… someone worries?” Her voice breaks, and with it mine.
“You live with your father and not your sisters, no?” She turns and looks at me, eyes narrowed. I shake my head. “You are what you smell like.”
“Excuse me?”
I sigh, “I saw your face glowing as I drove you to that tower of yours."
"Yet you didn’t try to stop me." She accuses?
"Why stop you?" She shrugs. "I returned the favor after Rockefeller Center, internet stalking your entourage because," I pause.
"Because why?"
“I cannot say.”
She huffs, "You wanted to bang one of them."
"Neyt." I snap. "The redhead is known by a friend. It concerns me that she would use the situation to honey-pot him."
“Honey pot him?" She laughs.