Page 50 of A Vegas Crush Collection #3

walk of shame

Reagan

The movie ends, and I’ve been yawning for the back half of it.

Mikhail gets up and tells me to make myself at home in his guest room, assuring me he’s changed the bedding since Aiden used it last summer.

“I keep hoping one of my sisters or my parents will come to Vegas, so I’ll be motivated to fix this space for guests.

It’s kind of a bare-bones-bachelor-pad look at the moment. ”

“Oh my gosh, don’t apologize for the décor, please. I’m the one intruding here. Bringing my drama.”

“Yeah, well, we all have stuff sometimes.” Lifting one muscled arm to drag his hand artfully through his hair, he makes a very pretty picture towering over me. “Let me know if you need anything. I’ll just be…in my room across the hall. Obviously.”

He blushes in a way I find incredibly endearing. For a guy as hot as he is, as alpha as he looks, he sure is a shy boy.

“Thanks, Mikhail.” I pull him impulsively into an awkward hug. “For everything.”

For saving me, again.

For being my hero.

For becoming a new friend.

For being someone I can trust.

He returns my hug, his big body surprisingly hard and soft at the same time. But then I feel him tensing, as if catching himself. There’s a quick moment when I think he might kiss me, but it’s gone as quickly as it came. He pulls away and takes a step back before saying, “Good night, Reagan.”

I get settled for sleep in the guest room, ditching my sweatpants before sliding under soft sheets that smell clean, while reminding me I’m alone in a strange bed.

But sleep feels far away for me. Despite yawning for the last forty-five minutes, I can’t make my mind slow down enough to lull myself into sleep.

I toss and turn, my thoughts a torrent, an emotional storm keeping me from the rest my body so badly needs.

At first, it’s just the whole night replaying itself. The fear of being followed. The panic. The shock of seeing my apartment upended. The reality of what that means. I do not feel safe. Because I am not safe. Anywhere.

But it’s not just those thoughts that replay over and over. It’s the shy smile of a man who, I’m guessing, doesn’t share said smile all that often. Mikhail, who showed up when I needed someone to show up, to save me. Who didn’t send me away, didn’t run for the hills when a stranger needed help.

And he doesn’t feel like such a stranger, now, does he?

And I’m a fraud. He’s good and talented and successful. And I’m well, I’m nobody. And while I did not steal from Sodorov, there are things I haven’t had the courage to tell Mikhail yet. There are reasons Sodorov might think it was me.

I feel badly about this sin of omission. I’m not lying, not really, but I’m also not telling the whole truth. And he deserves the truth, but I’m just not ready to share it yet. Still, I feel like I’m putting him in danger, taking advantage of him. I hate myself for it.

Shaking the thoughts away, I find myself just thinking about his dimpled cheek. The lopsided smile he breaks out only occasionally. The amazing head of hair that he swipes his hands through when he’s nervous.

This guy is something else, for sure.

He keeps a clean apartment. For a single athlete, I’d expect a straight-up bachelor pad, but this place is well-kept and very tidy. Mikhail takes care of his personal space as well as he obviously takes care of his body.

Oh yeah, Mikhail Zelenka is quite the male specimen. Incredibly sexy in a tall, dark, and handsome, seriously mysterious kind of way.

Just to push away all the random voices in my head, I keep thinking of Mikhail, especially the way his T-shirts cling to his tattooed pecs and biceps, showcasing his muscular body.

Yep, guilty as charged with the crime of checking him out, for sure. I may be in crisis mode, but my eyes still work just fine.

My fingers snake their way down beneath my underwear.

I touch myself in the darkness of a bed that is not my own.

I do it gently at first, building up some pressure before slipping two fingers inside to drag back and forth across my clit.

Despite the ache that grows, I can’t get myself there. My mind is too jumbled and stressed.

Without really thinking, I throw the covers aside, my feet hitting the floor. His room is only steps away, and his door is slightly ajar. When I peek in and see that he is also awake, I can make out his eyes staring back at me in the dark.

Is it possible he was thinking of me just now in the way I was thinking of him?

Before I lose my nerve, I pull my T-shirt over my head and take the last few steps to stand beside his bed. Except for the soft boy shorts I wore as pajamas, I’m as good as naked.

His mouth opens slightly, like he might say something, but his eyes are wide, hungry. I take his hand and place it on my breast. He touches me, his fingertips graze across my nipple, hardening it and giving me goosebumps.

I push his hand down into my panties, letting him feel how wet I am already.

“Fuck, you’re wet,” he growls.

“Mmm.” That’s all I can say. His fingers feel amazing.

He drags them along my clit and presses two inside me. His strokes are firm as he moves his fingers slowly in and out of me. It’s so, so much better than I could ever do for myself.

“Fuuuck…Reagan.”

“Yes. Please…” Sighing, I push my hips toward him, wanting him to touch me all over, to make me come so I can forget all this noise and fear and chaos screaming in my head for just a moment. Lose myself in more of what he’s doing right now—

But he doesn’t.

He takes his fingers away first, and then his hand is gone altogether. “I’m not going to take advantage of you here like this.”

“You wouldn’t be—”

“I would,” he says quickly. “You’re scared and alone and you think you owe me something for helping you. But you don’t. I’m helping you, no strings attached.”

“I know that. You’ve been nothing but kind but—” My voice is raspy, thick with need. “I just…couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

“Reagan,” he groans. And then a heartbeat of a pause widens the distance between us to at least a hundred miles. “I’m not going to be one more random guy trying to use you…or whatever. You’re beautiful and I’m attracted to you, okay? But this—this does not feel right to me right now…tonight.”

I wish a hole would appear so I could gladly jump in and disappear, erasing the last few minutes from the history of time. I back away, my cheeks heating with embarrassment and humiliation. I grab my shirt from the floor and slip it over my head as I flee his room, shutting the door behind me.

For the third time in twenty-four hours, tears are burning in my eyes.

This is so not like me. I grab the few things I brought from my apartment and bundle them back into the duffel.

I can’t stay here now after what I just did.

I don’t know how I’ll ever face him again without bursting into flames on the spot. What the hell is wrong with me?

I slip out of Mikhail’s apartment, making the lonely walk of shame to the elevator that will morph into fear when I get to my apartment.

Have Sodorov’s men come back? Will they before this night is over?

Tomorrow or the next day after that? I know the building super hasn’t changed my locks yet because he said he couldn’t do it until tomorrow at the earliest, so I don’t have a choice.

I guess I can barricade the door with furniture for the night.

I step inside my trashed apartment, walking past the disarray to get the baseball bat I keep in my room.

I return to wedge it against the doorknob at an angle and slide the chain lock into place.

I drag over my coffee table and turn it on its side as an extra barrier.

I’ll deal with sorting out the mess and putting things back in order tomorrow.

When I slip into bed, my head is aching.

I’m so angry…and mortified. Angry about Sodorov.

About what just happened with Mikhail. I just made an absolute ass out of myself by flashing my tits and initiating a finger bang with a guy who only sees me as a needy obligation.

Why is this my fucking life? Being rejected by a nice guy.

If I’m honest, my misery is also about feeling so stuck. I cannot move forward. And I hate it.

I feel trapped.

I am trapped.