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I started to heave a deep sigh of relief over the fact that Chad hadn’t taken his creepiness to the level of watching me sleep in the middle of the night. Then the reality of my situation hit me—there was a strange man in my room. My stepdad was the least of my concerns at the moment. At least with him, I knew I had a decent chance of fighting him off because he was a lazy slob. But if someone from the Ukrainian mob had grown tired of the endless negotiations and decided to just grab me, then I was in serious trouble.
I started to struggle, twisting my torso and trying to kick out with my legs. My hands gripped his forearm and pulled, but the guy was seriously strong. His lean frame was apparently all muscle, and I quickly regretted my lack of physical activity over the past year. If I’d still been in spots, maybe I would’ve been in better shape to escape his hold. But all I had managed to accomplish so far was for him to press me deeper into the mattress while I got distracted by the scrape of his jean-clad legs against my bare skin.
Holy crap. I went to bed last night in nothing but a T-shirt and panties.
“I need clothes,” I mumbled against his palm. The words came out garbled beyond recognition, but something in my tone caught his attention.
“I’m only gonna lift my hand if you promise to be good, angel. Can’t risk that drunk douchebag waking up and calling in the Ukrainians for reinforcement,” he warned in a barely-there thread of sound.
I stilled, the wheels in my brain starting to turn. The way this guy talked about my stepdad, it sounded as though he hated him almost as much as I did. And I could have sworn there was unbridled fury in his tone when he mentioned the mobsters Chad was trying to sell me to. I released his arm and felt for his chest. When my fingers encountered the unmistakable feel of a leather vest, a spark of hope started to grow in my chest. Arya had told me all about the cuts the guys in the motorcycle club wore when her now-husband gave my friend one of her own that announced to the world that she belonged to him.
It had taken me a couple of weeks to reach out to Arya for help. The night I’d overheard Chad arguing with my mom, he’d spotted me before I had the chance to call my friend. Then he’d dragged me inside and came up with a ridiculous excuse to ground me. No phone, no internet, no leaving the house. I’d basically been held prisoner in my own home since then. I’d gotten lucky a few days ago when my mom left her cell phone charging in the kitchen after she and Chad had gone up to bed. I used it to call Arya. There had been no way for her to let me know if the motorcycle club was willing to help me, and they couldn’t get a hold of me to confirm what I’d told her. Was it possible that they had sent this guy to rescue me?
I nodded my head jerkily.
“You gonna keep quiet?”
Another nod.
“Good girl.”
A totally inappropriate shiver raced up my spine at his low rasp of approval. “Who are you?”
“Shit. Sorry, angel. I forgot there had been no way to let you know that I was coming.” He shifted away from me, and I finally got a good look at his face.
“Oh, my gosh, Nova. You scared the crap out of me.” He’d been standing in the shadows when I first woke up, so I didn’t get a chance to take in his familiar handsome features. I’d obsessed more than a little bit over Arya’s bad boy of an older brother. With his dark hair and eyes, lean muscles, kissable lips, chiseled cheekbones and jawline, and tattoos, Nova was beyond hot. To the point where I’d seriously considered stealing one of his photos the last time Arya had come for a visit because I missed being able to gawk at them now that she didn’t live with her parents anymore.
But looking at a picture that couldn’t do anything back and being in bed half-naked with a living, breathing man who I really didn’t know were two totally different things. Not to mention that I’d learned a painful lesson about how important it was to be careful with which guy you let into your life because of the mess my mom’s less-than-stellar choice had landed me in. All I needed from Nova’s sexy body was the protection it could provide—and I’d remind my ovaries of that fact as often as it took to stop them from exploding just because he was near.
