The more that she proved she could handle the accounting, the further she was pulled in on more tasks. It seemed like instinct to involve her with additional complex aspects of the family’s bookkeeping, and she maintained a seemingly endless enthusiasm and energy to do whatever was expected of her. I recognized that I wanted to spend more time with her, not only under the guise of checking that she wasn’t fucking us or me over. But also because I was getting addicted to having her near, to learning about her tells and picking up on the quirks of her behavior.
Shewasa sweetheart.
She acted professionally and politely.
Not a single thing she did or said gave me a clue for why John Morovov would ever let her go.
And it’s insane how no one’s ever claimed her.
“Aha.”
I smiled at her little exclamation. Pushing off the wall, I strode through the otherwise empty room to see what she’d noticed.
“Aha, what?” I asked.
She jumped, startled, turning in her chair that quickly had her glasses falling all the way off her face and landing on the floor.
“Adrik!” She swallowed hard, pressing a hand to her chest. “I mean, Mr. Volkov. You scared me.”
I stifled the urge to laugh. I was scary likethis? Almost smiling and calm?
“So I’m Mr. Volkov again. Yet you call my youngest brother Nikolai?” I asked, trying not to sound like I was teasing her.
As I handed her the glasses, she smiled shyly and awkwardly and lowered her gaze. “Well, he warned me.”
“Warned you?”
“He warned me that if I didn’t call him Nikolai, it’d mean I was naughty.”
You fucking rabid animal.Nothing could stop him from hitting on anything that had a pussy and lived and breathed.
This spike of jealousy that my youngest brother could be aiming to fuck her was ridiculous, though. Istillwouldn’t have time for a woman in my life. That hadn’t changed.
Or has it?
“Never mind him,” I said dryly.
“What do you want me to call you?” she asked.
Oh, fuck, sweetheart. You can scream my name when I make you come. You can cry out any goddamn thing that comes to mind when I fuck you. You can beg me for more with formal titles out of your lips and you can whisper my given name like it’s a benediction when I order you to ride me.
I stared at her as the flashing images of all that I wanted to do to her—with her—raced in a hot, torrid, and forbidden loop in my mind.
“Mr. Volkov?” she prompted when I didn’t speak.
“What do you want to call me?” I replied.
“I, uh, well, umm… I should call you whatever is proper.” She turned more to face her computer again, flustered.
Fuck, how you tease me.Seeing her shy and flustered was the hottest part of her doe-eyed innocence.
“Proper?” I snorted.
“Because you’re the boss. And you’re in charge,” she said plainly. “But if it offends you, I’ll call you Adrik.” She lifted her blue gaze to me, and I sucked in a breath at the potent hit of desire that filled me.
“What did you find?” I asked, trying vainly to tamp down this need for her.
“Oh.” She smiled wider now, but still with that sweet-as-hell and sexy-as-fuck vulnerability. “Nothing. I was wondering why one column wasn’t adding up correctly, and I made the mistake of not scrolling down enough to see that Paul had added more numbers before he left earlier.” She blushed so prettily. “Sorry. It wasn’t a major mistake. And I caught it.”
