Page 74 of Fractured Ties

She pulled on his hand to urge him down, and he did just that. He bent down until the two of them were eye-level, and he was all she could see. The busy street down below no longer existed, and neither did the inky sky.

Just this man.

And the blues of his eyes.

There was really only one thing she wanted.

One thing to do.

Maya kissed him.

9.

KOLYA DIDN’T know how it happened—one second, Maya was in the wicker chair on the veranda pulling him in for a kiss, and in the next blink, she was stripped down nearly bare on the bed as he hovered above her.

Oh, sure, he remembered that kiss.

That fucking kiss and the way she tasted. Her sly little smile against his mouth like she was teasing him as her tongue flicked against his lips. Her sparkling blue eyes turned darker when he reached for her … and then this.

Maya on her back.

Legs spread.

Black hair spread wide on a pillow.

His fist was gripped tightly around the waistband of her cotton panties and he was seconds away from yanking them down her creamy, smooth legs. The girl was short as hell, and yet, her legs didn’t lack in expanse or shape.

Christ.

He liked that a lot.

“Kolya?” Maya asked.

She sounded fucking airless.

Soft.

Sweet.

Waiting.

Hot, too.

He blinked and his gaze drifted to hers. He was still trying to figure out how they had gone from the veranda with a kiss, to Maya on a bed with barely anything on at all. Just these goddamn cotton panties in his way—separating him from a pussy he’d been dreaming about for weeks.

He didn’t chase pussy.

Didn’t think about it.

Work for it.

Or need it.

Sex was just another irritation for Kolya—something that came up once in a blue fucking moon—and he took care of the urge when it happened. Nothing more, and nothing less. Maybe that’s why this woman had taken him entirely off balance in too many ways to name, because nothing was as it should be with her.

Not his feelings.

Not his needs.