Page 37 of Savage Hearts

“I’m not here for the money.”

Breathe. Don’t pass out. Lungs, if you fail me now, I’ll start smoking ten packs of cigarettes a day to get back at you.

“It’s a lot of money, though.”

“Not to me. But the amount doesn’t matter.”

We sit in another space of nerve-racking silence while my heartbeat crashes in my ears and the entire bed trembles underneath me until I gather enough courage to venture, “So if you’re not here to get back your money, and you’re not”—gulp—“going to hurt me… why are you here?”

He takes his time responding to that. I feel him thinking about it, mulling it over in his head.

Finally, he says, “I don’t know.”

He sounds bewildered. Not like he’s playing a game, but like he honestly has no idea why he suddenly found himself in my bedroom in the middle of the night.

His confusion makes me relax.

I mean, serial killers usually know why they broke into your bedroom, right?

I decide I’d like to see his expression and reach over to the nightstand for my glasses. But my sudden movement causes him to react. It happens so quickly, I don’t even have time to blink.

He grasps my wrist in his big hand and growls, “Don’t try to shoot me. A bullet in my gut will only make me mad.”

He towers over me, a force field of heat and tension beside the bed. He’s so close, his warm breath brushes my ear.

“I was reaching for my glasses!” I blurt, panicking. “I don’t have a gun!”

After a beat, his grip on my wrist softens. Then he releases me and steps away, standing close enough to the bed that I can still see his form.

I scramble for the glasses, shove them onto my face, and stare up at him in cold fear.

His height makes him even more terrifying. From this angle, I feel like I’m craning my neck to gaze up at a skyscraper. Only it’s so tall, I can’t see the top. His face is wreathed in darkness.

Then he bends his long legs and kneels beside the bed, bringing his face into view.

Even through the shadows, I see the intensity in those pale green eyes.

I see how they search. How they burn.

I make a bleating sound like a scared lamb. It’s involuntary, and I hate myself for being such a wuss. His reaction seems involuntary, too.

He shushes me softly. He reaches out and caresses my cheek, cooing a stream of gently spoken words.

“Ty v bezovasnoshti so mnoy, malyutka. Ya ne prichinu tebe vreda.”

Russian. It’s Russian he’s speaking.

I recognize it without knowing how and almost fall out of bed.

Recap: a huge, beautiful Russian man broke into my bedroom. Ten feet away from a row of toilets, he gave me one hundred thousand dollars and told me I had pretty eyes. He can appear and disappear like smoke, smells like an ancient forest, and has a voice, a body, and a face that make me want him to do bad things to me.

He thinks I’m a prisoner. And a prostitute.

He’s confused about pretty much everything else.

Also, he’s still caressing my face. I hope he’ll keep doing that forever.

My voice shaking, I say, “I feel like you should tell me your name now. I need to know what to call you.”