Page 95 of Fractured Ties

Her head jerked up at the same time Kolya darted away from his brother’s side. Sumerki was at her feet barking as loudly as his little snout could yap for a pup his size. He’d put his paws onto her shoes and kept making noise until someone heard.

She only glanced down at Sumerki briefly, and then by the time she looked back up at Kolya’s oncoming form, he was already there. One hand reaching around her waist and the other one landing firmly on the back of her neck, right over those newly tattooed stars.

She might have flinched any other time.

Except it didn’t hurt.

It just … grounded her.

Every towering six feet, six inches of Kolya pulled her in close, and then swept away the fear coloring her mind with a soft kiss against her forehead, and then a searing brush of his lips along the seam of her own.

“It’s fine,” he said.

She didn’t think it was.

It was better with him, though.

“It’s probably not,” she whispered.

Kolya’s hold on her became impossibly tighter. “We don’t know that.”

“Well, it sounds to me like two men—but if we add in your father, that makes three—want to either get ahold of me or get rid of me.”

“Four,” Kolya muttered. “I’m the fourth, but I have you. And besides, let’s look at it like this. It makes for an interesting woman when she keeps things entertaining like this. That’s all.”

Maya couldn’t help but laugh, and even felt Kolya’s smile curve against her forehead. His shitty attempt at dry humor was really the last thing they needed, but it did make her concentrate on something else for the moment. Like the fact he’d even tried to be funny.

“Cute.”

In the background, Konstantin chuckled. “Oh, he has jokes. When do you ever have fucking jokes?”

Maya found Konstantin’s stare as she peeked around the side of Kolya’s form even as he ignored his brother.

When he’s with me, she thought. He jokes with me.

Konstantin tipped his head to the side as though he were studying her and then he nodded.

“It’s fine,” Kolya said again.

She still didn’t think it was.

• • •

“You’re being unusually quiet,” Kolya said from the driver’s seat.

Maya peered over at him, and though he pretended like his attention was only on the road ahead of him, she knew better. It seemed like this man always had at least one eye on her … or a portion of his attention in one way or another. Like now. Sure, he was focused on driving, but every so often, his gaze slid in her direction like he just wanted to check on her or something.

“Am I?”

“Hmm?”

“Being unusually quiet,” she said.

Kolya nodded, and his grip on the steering wheel tightened. “I think so, yes.”

“And that bothers you?”

“A lot of things bother me, dushka.”