Chapter 8
Alexei
It’s been twelve hours since I left Kelly’s apartment. Seven hundred and twenty fucking minutes since I’ve seen his face.
I haven’t slept because Calder kept calling, needing help with grabbing a Nozares rat for interrogation. I glance at my bloody jeans, then take in what’s left of the bastard tied to the chair. Can barely make out a person anymore.
“Fuck, Alexei,” Calder mutters, flicking blood off his fingers. “I told you to stop an hour ago. Look at him. He won’t be able to tell us anything now.”
“I don’t think this one had any information anyway.”
I took my frustration out on him. Kelly was in my head, and my patience was already gone before this started.
Calder sighs beside me. “I had plans for him.”
A wheezy yap comes from the floor. Calder’s face lights up, and he bends down to pick up Tank, his ancient pug. No idea how it’s still breathing. Pure spite, probably.
The thing is enormous, missing most of its teeth, and waddles instead of walks. I reach out and scratch behind his ears before he snaps at my fingers with his gums. Calder drags him everywhere. Every interrogation, every cleanup, all of it.
“Go clean this up and text me if you get anything useful.”
He stares at me with those unsettling black eyes, Tank tucked under one arm.
“Clean up your own goddamn mess. I didn’t turn this guy into hamburger, you did.
Whole night’s been a bust. The last guy didn’t know shit either.
Good thing Yulian dropped off some intel about their safe houses, or we’d have nothing. ”
My eyes narrow.
Yulian always gets the best information about the Nozares family from his girls at the escort service, though I wonder how exactly his operation keeps stumbling across cartel intel. Seems convenient that wealthy men spill family secrets to his expensive whores, but who am I to question results?
“What kind of intel?” I ask.
“Locations, mostly. A few names. Nothing we couldn’t have gotten elsewhere, but it saves time.” He gestures at the corpse with his free hand. “Speaking of hamburgers, I’m starving. Feel like getting some food?”
My eyes flick to the body, then back to him. Food sounds good, but what I have in mind is way more satisfying. “I have other things I have to do.”
“Like what?”
“Like something that’s none of your business.”
His eyes narrow. “You’ve been doing a lot of things that require you to be away from here. Very unlike you.”
I grunt and pick up the knife from the floor, cleaning it off with a torn piece of fabric. He’s not wrong. I used to practically live in this basement, only going home to sleep when Calder kicked me out. Now I can’t get out of here fast enough.
I glance over at him. “Since when do you keep track of my schedule?”
“You’ve followed the same routine since the day I met you. Sleep here, work here, eat here. Like clockwork. Now you’re vanishing for days at a time. Not exactly subtle.” He examines me. “What’s got you so distracted?”
I shrug at him. “Nothing.”
He stares at me for another beat, then lets it go. “Fine.”
“Clean this up for me.” I gesture at the mess on the floor. “I’ll be back later when we have new orders.”
He shifts Tank to his other arm and nods.
“By the way, we’ve got some new people joining the crew. They need to get familiar with our weapon and cargo operations. My father wants security tightened before the next shipment.” I wipe blood off my hands with a rag. “I vetted them myself. They’re solid.”
Calder grunts. “More babysitting. Great.”
“What do you mean?”
He shrugs. “Everyone’s a pain in the ass right now. You’re acting strange, Yulian’s snapping at people for no reason, Mikhail’s more out of control than usual. I’m stuck cleaning up after all of you like I’m running a daycare for psychopaths.”
What’s got me acting weird? Nothing. Everything.
Knowing Kelly’s bed is waiting for me. The fact that I’m standing here covered in someone else’s blood instead of in his apartment. I slide the clean blade back into its sheath.
“Handle it, Calder. I’m leaving.”
He smirks. “Alright. Go do whatever mysterious thing you’ve been doing.”
I head for the door without looking back. I need a shower, sleep, and Kelly. He told me I could come over again. It’s early so he’ll be leaving for work soon. Perfect timing.
By the time I get to his place, he’s already gone. Left at the same time like clockwork.
I pull my hoodie up, blood still drying under my sleeves. Brought clean clothes so I can swap out of these. I like the way he smells. Now I get to smell like him.
I take the stairs two at a time, bend at his door, and pull out my tools. Need to make a copy of his key; this is getting old.
The door clicks open. I walk in, lock it, then head straight for Clover.
She’s in her pen, blinking up at me. I pick her up, kiss the top of her head, then dig into my bag and pull out the carrot I bought at the store. Rabbits eat carrots, right? That’s what they do in cartoons. Should probably check what they actually eat so I don’t accidentally kill his rabbit.
That would be bad. He loves this thing.
I place her in her pen and head to his bathroom. Turn on the water and let it warm up.
This is crossing every normal boundary. That thought lasts two seconds before I remember I don’t give a fuck. I need his coconut-lime body wash saturating my skin. Want to smell exactly like him so when I leave, I carry a part of him with me. He’ll be on my skin all day, and he won’t even know.
I strip out of my bloody clothes and step into the shower. Water turns pink when it hits the bottom and swirls down the drain. I grab his soap and scrub everything twice. Hair, neck, hands, arms. Making sure his scent sticks.
I could live here. In his space, breathing his air, fitting myself into the shape he leaves behind when he’s gone. The idea of him walking in and finding me here does something to my chest. Would he be scared? He’d be smart to be.
Would he call the police? Doubtful. He didn’t call them when I pointed a gun at him. Didn’t call them after I drove him home the other night. He just keeps letting me in.
He trusts people he shouldn’t. That’s dangerous.
I feel myself getting hard just from picturing his face if he walked in right now. I press my forehead against the tile, cold against my skin. My hands drag down to my stomach, slow, almost annoyed at how easy this is, and wrap my fingers around my length.
I close my eyes.
Pulling the foreskin back sends this sharp little spark up my spine. Fuck.
Would that finally scare him off? Or would he stand there and stare at me like he does, all wide-eyed like he’s trying to figure me out.
The thought hits lower than it should.
I let out a rough sound. Barely a sound at all. More like air breaking in my throat.
I tighten my fist around my length and stroke again. Harder. My dick twitches.
Those sea-green eyes show up behind my eyelids. The way they lift when he’s confused. Those pink lips he keeps wet when he’s thinking; he has no idea what that does to me.
It hits so fast, my stomach tightens without warning.
I jerk myself quicker. My grip gets sloppy, water sliding everywhere, heat building right behind my balls.
My breath keeps snagging in my chest. I can’t stop thinking about him walking in, freezing in the doorway, seeing me like this. Seeing me lose it over him.
That pressure snaps hard. A hot pulse shoots out of me and hits the wall in messy streaks before the water drags it down. My knees nearly give out, forcing me to stay against the tile before I step out and dry off with his towel.
I wrap it around my waist. Clover’s still sitting where I left her, watching me. I sigh and pick her up again, carry her to the bed, and slide under the covers with her pulled against my chest, and give her a scratch behind the ear.
Turn my head and bury my face in his pillow to breathe in his scent. Would he notice if I took his pillowcase? The one that smells most like him, that his head rests on every night?
He might. But by then I’d already have what I need.
I shouldn’t have shown up at his apartment last night, but I needed to see him. Needed to be close. Got fucking pissed when we were interrupted and I had to leave.
Part of me wants to stay until he gets home, watch his face when he walks in and finds me in his bed. See the shock in his eyes when he realizes I’ve been here all along, that I’m always here whether he knows it or not. But I won’t. Not yet.
I set my alarm to leave before he comes home. Buy some food for us on the way back, surprise him with it after work.
I had the best fucking sleep of my life in his bed earlier. Wrapped in his sheets, breathing him in. Almost didn’t leave. Only did because showing him the real me too soon would scare him off.
Have to pace this.
Eventually he’ll figure it out. That I’ve already decided he’s mine. That there’s no version of this where he walks away. But by then, it won’t matter because he won’t want to leave.
I knock, holding a bag from that diner. The one I tailed him to last week where he sat alone in the corner booth eating pancakes.
I hate pancakes. Always have. But he seemed to enjoy them. So here we are.
The door opens.
Kelly blinks at me. Wet hair pushed back, skin flushed from a shower. Forest green shirt, gray sweats. Collarbone still damp.
We smell the same.
Satisfaction hits my chest knowing I was in his shower earlier, using that exact soap, that exact towel.
The one he just used. The one that touched his skin is the same one that touched mine.
I left it slightly damp on purpose. If he noticed, he’d assume he just didn’t dry it properly last time he used it.
He has no idea.
I lift the bag a little. “I brought food.”
He looks at it, then at me. Opens his mouth like he’s about to say something, doesn’t. Just pushes the door open wider and steps back to let me in.
I brush his shoulder as I pass him.
“It’s pancakes.”