Page 28 of Fractured Ties

“Don’t beg unless I ask you to,” Kolya murmured, his hand coming up a little higher on her throat to make her head tip back. Now, she was staring at him again, and she was surprised to see the man looking back had real, honest emotion in his gaze. Lost were the coldness and blank irises. Instead, she was staring at the same man who’d shown surprise when he’d turned to see her at the bar, and then rage later on when a man had made her cry. “And do not hide your eyes from me; I don’t like it.”

Maya swallowed hard. “O-okay.”

“Just okay?”

“Not really sure I get any other choice right now, Kolya.”

“You will always have a choice. This is how I’m making sure to give you one.”

What did that even mean?

“Now,” he added, a thickness coloring his tone, “answer my question.”

Yes, about her father.

She couldn’t look away now.

Couldn’t hide now.

“He did.” Her breath caught in her throat when she said, “Not often.”

“Enough, yes?”

Maya nodded. “Yeah, it was enough.”

Kolya’s expression hardened briefly before his fingers tapped a smooth, gentle beat against her throat. She swore she felt the pad of his thumb stroke her pulse point, too, but it was done quicker than it had even begun, and Kolya pushed away to start walking along the building once more.

She was left there with her back against the wall, staring at the black backdrop of an inky sky, and feeling a little too breathless. It was like he hadn’t been there at all.

Except … he had been.

Every part of her knew it. Like the way her heart raced, and her palms ached from being clenched into tight little balls to keep from reaching out to touch him. Or like the way her skin felt warm to the touch, and a little numb where his hand and fingers had been.

Oh, yeah.

She knew he’d been there.

“Are you trying to get left behind?” she heard him call.

He never even looked over his shoulder or anything. He was still walking away. Maybe, had Maya been a smarter woman, she might have taken the chance right then and there to turn her back on that strangely fascinating—and confusing—Russian, and run as fast as she could in the opposite direction.

Something told her that he would let her go.

And yet, she didn’t.

She raced to catch up.

Maya swore she saw a ghost of a smile on Kolya’s face as she moved into step beside him again. He said nothing, but his warm palm came to rest on her lower back again like it hadn’t moved from the spot in the first place. She realized in those seconds that maybe she liked it there a little more than she should, all things considered.

“Watch your step,” Kolya murmured.

She didn’t get a chance to look for what he was talking about because his hands simply slipped around her waist, grabbed tight to lift her from the ground, and then quickly set her back down two steps later. Glancing over her shoulder, she found a slight divot in the ground that didn’t look like much but probably would have rolled her ankle something awful, considering she hadn’t seen it in the first place.

“Spasibo,” Maya said.

“Never thank me—I’m not the type of man who deserves it, no?”

Maya peered up at him.