Maggie #2
He laughs softly against my skin, then turns me in his arms until I’m facing him. The morning light falls across the dark hair hanging over his forehead and the faint scrape of stubble along his jaw. He looks different lying here in my bed, younger somehow and less untouchable.
His fingers glide slowly along my hip beneath the blankets while those icy-blue eyes study my face with far too much attention.
“You’re sore,” he says quietly.
I snort quietly. “You say that like you ain’t the reason.”
He smiles slowly. “I regret nothing.”
“That makes one of us.”
“You’re a terrible liar, kotyónok.”
He’s not wrong. I try to roll my eyes, but I can’t help smiling as I snuggle closer to him. The warmth of his chest surrounds me.
For a moment, neither of us speaks. His fingers move lazily through my hair while my thoughts drift back to yesterday. The shelter break-in. Mama’s car. The growing feeling that my life is getting tangled up in Alexei’s world, whether I want it to or not.
My muscles tense a bit, and Alexei notices right away. His fingers grip my chin, tipping my face upward gently. “What is it?”
“Nothin’ important.”
“Maggie.”
The warning in his voice makes me sigh slowly. “I’m thinkin’.”
“That usually leads to trouble.”
I laugh despite myself.
“I meant what I said last night,” he says. “I want you more careful at the shelter.”
There it is. That protective streak of his that somehow manages to be aggravating and comforting at the same time. I rest my hand against his chest, tracing my fingers lightly across skin.
“Alexei, somebody broke a door and vandalized a few things.”
“And your mother’s car?”
The question wipes the teasing right out of me. I stare down at the blankets between us.
“I don’t like it either,” I admit.
His mouth flattens into a thin line. “I don’t believe in coincidences, Maggie.”
The way he says it sends unease curling low in my stomach. Because Alexei lives in a world where people send warnings instead of words. A world where fear arrives in pieces before violence follows behind it. And it feels like that world is inching closer to mine every single day.
“You make it sound like I need armed security to buy dog food,” I murmur, trying to ease some of the heaviness between us.
His eyes never leave mine. “You might.”
I groan and let my forehead fall against his chest. “You know most women would probably find this overbearin’.”
“I am overbearing.”
“That’s true.”
“And you’re avoiding the point.”
I lift my head enough to glare at him. “You’re exhaustin’.”
He gives me a small smile. “Yet you keep inviting me back.”
Unfortunately, that makes heat pool between my legs.
I poke his chest lightly. “You know my mother likes you entirely too much.”
“I’m very charming.”
“You bribed her with compliments.”
“I complimented her peach pie because it deserved recognition.”
A laugh bursts out of me before I can stop it. “Alexei, you looked at that woman like she personally ended world hunger.”
“It was excellent pie.”
“You’re a ridiculous man.”
“I understood very quickly that refusing her pie would be a mistake.”
His smug sincerity makes me laugh even harder, and the sound fills the bedroom so naturally it almost scares me. This feels normal, like it could become part of my life if I let it.
Before my emotions spiral any further, I push myself upright and grab one of my oversized T-shirts from the floor. “I need coffee before this conversation becomes emotionally devastatin’.”
His eyes slide slowly down my bare legs while I tug the shirt over my head. “I can think of better distractions.”
Heat rushes to my face. “Sir, I can barely walk.”
“That sounds like appreciation.”
“You’re impossible.”
His low laugh follows me when I disappear into the bathroom long enough to splash water on my face and attempt to pull myself together. By the time I wander toward the kitchen, the smell of coffee fills the apartment.
I stop short in the doorway. Alexei stands barefoot at my stove, wearing gray sweatpants low on his hips, flipping pancakes with complete confidence, like Russian billionaires cooking breakfast in tiny Savannah apartments is a perfectly normal thing to witness before eight in the morning.
My kitchen barely fits two people without bumping elbows, but somehow, he fills the whole space with ease. For a moment, the scene feels painfully domestic.
“You’re awful bossy for a man holdin’ a spatula.”
A quiet smirk pulls at his mouth while he flips another pancake. “The spatula changes nothing.”
I roll my eyes while climbing onto one of the stools. Alexei slides a plate in front of me loaded with pancakes, eggs, and bacon.
“Where’d you learn to cook?” I ask, genuinely surprised.
He pours coffee into my mug before answering. “My grandmother refused to let Roman and me grow up useless.”
Something softer quickly moves through his expression before it disappears again.
I take a bite of the pancake and narrow my eyes immediately. “This is annoyingly good.”
He smiles smugly. “I excel at most things.”
“Humility included apparently.”
He sits next to me with his coffee, stretching one arm across the back of my chair while we eat together in comfortable silence. This feels even more intimate than last night.
His phone buzzing against the counter shatters the moment. The change in him is immediate. His expression sharpens while he glances down at the screen, typing out a quick response before setting the phone aside again.
“You have to go,” I say, my voice low.
“I need to get to the office.”
Something inside me sinks even though I expected it. Men like Alexei don’t stay still for long. His world keeps moving whether either of us wants it to or not.
He stands and carries our plates to the sink before walking back toward me. His fingers brush along my jaw before sliding into my hair at the nape of my neck, holding me still while his eyes pin me in place.
“I’ll have security outside the shelter today.”
I groan immediately. “Alexei.”
“You are not arguing me out of this.”
I stare at him while he calmly fastens his watch, as if that statement is perfectly reasonable.
“Do you hear yourself?”
“Yes.”
“And you still continue talking.”
“Yes.”
A reluctant laugh slips out of me before I shake my head. He’s hopeless. Completely hopeless. But beneath the exasperation, my chest warms anyway because I know where all this protectiveness comes from.
A few minutes later, he pulls me against him near the front door, kissing me slowly and deeply until my lungs burn and my fingers tighten in the front of his shirt.
“Lock the door after I leave,” he murmurs against my mouth.
“There he is again,” I whisper. “Bossy.”
“Always.”
Then he’s gone.
The apartment is quiet after the door closes behind him. I lean against it touching my swollen lips while my heart still beats too hard from the kiss he left me with. Everything feels different this morning. Softer somehow, but more dangerous too.
I try not to think too hard about that while I get dressed for the shelter, but the thoughts follow me anyway. They roll through my mind on a loop while I pull my hair into a messy ponytail, tug on my sneakers, and rinse out my coffee mug.
Twenty minutes later, I head downstairs with my travel mug in one hand and my shelter bag slung over my shoulder.
The lobby is mostly empty this early in the morning.
Mrs. Patterson from 2B stands near the elevator watering the sad little plant she insists is still alive despite every bit of evidence proving otherwise, while a television echoes faintly from the manager’s office down the hall.
Half distracted and still thinking about Alexei, I stop at the row of mailboxes near the front entrance and pull mine open. That’s when I notice the small, white envelope wedged between a grocery store flyer and my electric bill.
My name is written across the front in thick black ink.
A strange chill runs over my skin. Slowly, I pull the envelope from the mailbox and turn it over carefully in my hands.
There’s no stamp. No return address. Nothing except my name written in harsh block letters that make my pulse start beating faster.
I slide one finger beneath the flap and pull out the folded piece of paper hidden inside.
My jaw clenches the second I unfold it. It’s Ivy’s drawing.
The one she made at the shelter last week with bright crooked flowers, a giant yellow sun in the corner, and a lopsided dog she proudly insisted was Winston, even though it looked more like a potato with legs.
Only now thick black marker slashes across the page in uneven jagged letters.
SHE DOESN’T BELONG TO YOU.
I feel the color drain from my face. My fingers tighten around the paper as I stare at Ivy’s cheerful drawing, now ruined by those words, while my heartbeat pounds in my ears.
No. No, no, no.
I look over my shoulder instinctively, suddenly far too aware of how exposed the lobby feels. Mrs. Patterson still hums to herself near the elevator, completely oblivious, while traffic moves outside beyond the glass entrance doors. Everything looks normal, but my pulse won’t slow down.
This is personal, and it just became far more terrifying than the broken shelter door, the damage to Mama’s car, or my sweatshirt left folded on her front seat like some twisted warning. Because now they’re watching Ivy.