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Once I was ready, I walked out to find out who got to come up to wait for me to wake up. When I walked down the hallway toward the kitchen, I could smell the floral scent. It reminded me of the gardens at the house. I’d been missing them lately. When I got closer to the living room, I could see six different large bouquets of flowers spread across the kitchen and living room. Misha and Andrei were on the couches talking quietly.
“You guys got me flowers?” I asked, smiling at them. They both gave me their best, most handsome smiles in return.
“There’s one from each of us, spider monkey. You have to figure out who sent which one,” he said, a mischievous grin on his face.
“Challenge accepted, Bubba,” I said, looking over the bouquets.
There was one bouquet with red, white, and black roses. Clearly, that one was from Ivan. One bouquet with roses that were a mixture of pink, orange, and yellow. Andrei. One bouquet with nothing but the deepest blue and purple violets I’d ever seen. Hmm, this feels like Viktor. One bouquet with bright yellow roses. Misha. One lone orchid. Yep, that’s Stephen. And finally, the largest bouquet of black and red roses. Each rose was both black and red. It was beautiful. Adrik.
I pointed to each bouquet as I said the name of who sent it and their mouths fell open. “How do you do that, gazelle?” Misha asked.
I laughed. “This one was actually pretty easy. Andrei’s bouquet, for example, are his favorite flower. Of course, he would send that because he’s trying to send a piece of himself to someone he cares about. Your bouquet, my adorable Russian guardian, signifies you take your responsibilities of annoying me as much as possible very seriously, as well as our friendship,” I said as I winked at him.
“What about the other ones?” Andrei asked, now curious.
“Ivan’s is the color scheme. Those three colors are very important to him and I’m the only one that knows why. I almost had Viktor and Stephen’s switched. The violets that Viktor sent are a sign of faithfulness. Of course, my security master would want me to know that. Stephen’s orchid is him. He’s the loner of the group, but orchids are also a symbol of good luck, which is also him, since he’s the one that saves the day from his sniper nest. And finally, the black and red roses are Adrik. He’s worried I will change my mind if he fully shows his dark side, but I told him I love him more because of it last night,” I said, as I sat on the couch next to Andrei.
Both Andrei and Misha were still surprised, but smiling at me. “You’re wicked smart, spider monkey,” Andrei said, pulling me into a hug.
“The other guys are going to be slightly disappointed it didn’t take you longer to figure it out,” Misha said, laughing.
“We can tell them they stumped me for at least five minutes. I mean, I don’t want to shatter anyone’s confidence here.” I smiled to myself, loving the thought that they put into such a sweet gesture for me. “And thank you, for making the place smell uh-mazing. It’s one of the things I miss about the house when we’re not there.”
“Once these flowers are gone, we’ll go back to the house so you can enjoy the gardens there,” Misha said, winking at me. I couldn’t help but smile at him and how much they catered to everything I loved and wanted.
“What’s Adrik’s schedule today? Is he super busy?” I asked.
“Not super busy. He should be finishing up the last meeting of the morning by now, but you know you can always interrupt his meetings if you want to, spider monkey,” Andrei said.
“Maybe I will. I am the goddamn princess after all,” I said as I stood up. I grabbed Andrei’s hand on the way up, pulling him up with me. “Come, my adorable Russian guardians. Let us be gone from this place.” I flipped my hair over my shoulder as I walked as aristocratically as I could toward the door. I stopped at the door, waiting for one of them to open the door for me, my nose obnoxiously high in the air. They both laughed. Misha grabbed the doorknob and opened the door, with a flamboyant bow. “Milady.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. I grabbed both of their arms as we walked toward the elevator. “You guys spoil me by playing along with my absurdity,” I said, as we stepped onto the elevator.
“We love it,” Misha said. “You make even the most horrific situations hilarious. I don’t know how you do it, but please never stop, gazelle.” I smiled widely at him.
As the doors of the elevator opened, both guys moved at the same time. “We’ll be around if you need anything, spider monkey,” Andrei said as he started to walk off the elevator.
I grabbed his arm, pulling him back for another hug. “Thank you. For always being so thoughtful and being so fucking awesome,” I said, squeezing him tightly. He picked me up, squeezing me, then set me back down.
I walked to Misha, wrapping my arms around his neck. “And thank you for annoying me as much as possible. I love it and I hope you never stop either,” I said. He laughed as he squeezed me tighter.
I walked quickly toward Adrik’s open office door. It felt like I couldn’t stop smiling, even if I wanted to. I was so anxious to see him that I had to stop myself from running to his office. Be cool, Sephie. I took a deep breath, as I walked into his office.
His eyes met mine almost immediately, like he had been waiting on me to walk in at that exact moment. He pushed his chair back from his desk, expecting me to climb into his lap. Instead, I stacked the few papers that were in front of him and moved them out of the way, sitting in their place. I pulled his chair back toward the desk, leaned down, and kissed him. Thoughts of last night were still running through my head. I was struggling to keep control of myself as I held his face in my hands, my lips on his. I felt his hands slide up my legs and that was all it took. I deepened the kiss. I used my feet to pull his chair as close to the desk as it would go. He grabbed my ass, pulling me toward him as he sat up straighter, matching my passion in his kiss.
I stopped the kiss, even though I didn’t want to. I looked at him, knowing he was also replaying the previous night in his head. I kissed him once more. “Hi,” I said, trying to catch my breath. I stared into his deep blue eyes. The fear that was there last night was completely gone, replaced by lust from my kiss.
“I’m very glad you’re awake now, solnishko,” he said, his wide smile spreading slowly across his face.
After they told me about the conversation with Trino, I had to admit to being shocked at myself. I had come up with the lighting Massimo on fire and throwing him off a cliff out of nowhere. At least, that’s what I thought at the time. I’d never been so spot-on with someone I didn’t really know. This was new.
“We got a giant white board too. It’ll be here later today,” Ivan added, grinning at me.
“You guys are kind of the best,” I said, thinking about how much I loved each of them in their own ways.
We spent more time in Adrik’s office that afternoon. They made plans for taking me to talk to Chen that evening. I wasn’t sure he was still in the same apartment, but I knew he used to be there late afternoon to start dividing up his latest shipment to sell over the weekend. He had streamlined his process and he had very regular customers. He was always sold out by Sunday, and we generally wouldn’t see him again until the following Friday. Every now and then, he would stick around for a day or two, but it was rare. You could just about set a clock to Chen’s movements on the weekend.
Ivan and Viktor got into an argument over whether Ivan should stay at the building or go with us. Viktor said he should stay, Ivan said there was no way he wasn’t going. They both had valid arguments, but neither was going to budge. Andrei was somewhat nervously watching the argument, as Viktor could also make him stay behind since he wasn’t technically completely healed yet either, although he was much closer than Ivan.
