Page 23

CHAPTER 22

EMERY

I wake up before Inessa, and there’s a bit of victory in starting the day with a minute to myself.

I slowly blink the sleep away, the ceiling coming into focus, as I listen for the usual rustling from her room. Nothing yet. No babbling. No footsteps.

Then I remember that we’ve been sleeping in Alexei’s bed and she should be right beside me, but when I look sideways, she’s not.

I jerk upright, then dash to the hallway, where I skid to a halt.

Alexei’s at the top of the stairs—barefoot, shirtless, and staring at me with an intensity that takes my breath away.

“You’re home,” I say inanely, because of course he is. I even knew that he would be, but I’d been so tired last night that I forgot. And it’s embarrassing how excited I sound, how relieved I am to see him.

His gaze flares. Too hot for this early in the morning.

Warning. Danger.

I break the invisible connection between us and look down, but that just lands my attention on where his sweatpants ride low on his hips, where shadows tease at the edge of hard, lean muscles I’ve never seen before, because when we?—

He never?—

I take a step back.

“You were dead to the world when I got in,” he says softly. “I moved Inessa, then crashed in my parents’ room.”

Because I was in his bed.

Heat swarms through me, and he notices.

His gaze drops to my chest, where I’m sure I’m turning red, then slides up my neck, lingering on my mouth, before finally meeting my eyes again. “She’s still sleeping. I was going to start coffee.”

“Good idea,” I whisper.

Neither of us moves.

And my fucking nipples tighten.

No, nipples. Don’t betray me now.

“I’ll just…” I cross my arms over my chest. “I need a sweater. I’ll, um…”

He watches as I slide past him.

The space between us feels charged with electricity. Like something could spark if either of us breathes too hard.

It’s so intense, so immediate, that I don’t know how I thought I could ever maintain an arms-length professional relationship with him.

What have I gotten myself into? And how many days until he leaves on the next road trip?

In my temporary room, I cross to the reading chair in the corner that has turned into my temporary clothes storage device and grab a Minnesota hoodie, one of my faves. Oversized, well-worn, and most importantly, not his .

I don’t look at the carefully folded stack of two Artyomov jerseys I’ve tucked onto a shelf.

All of this is temporary.

My hands are shaking.

I pull it over my head and try to ignore how my body reacted to the heat of his eyes on my skin. How quickly I can unravel, it turns out.

This is your job. This is not your fantasy. This is not your forever.

I drag in a tight breath.

In.

Out.

“Fuck,” I whisper.

Then I turn around and Alexei is there, in the doorway, watching me.

Fuuuuuck .

“Better?” His voice dips low, a little rough now.

I narrow my eyes at him. “Yep.”

He doesn’t move as I close the gap between us, not until the last second, when he steps into the room to let me past.

Except I don’t move past him.

I slow down, and my gaze rakes over his bare chest again, his chest and his abs and all that skin.

“Do you see something you like, solnishko?”

I suck in a breath.

Maybe I didn’t expect him to call me on my reaction. Maybe I thought he would let me hold on to the pretence of not being affected, when of course I’m affected by him.

He’s the only man who has ever undone me completely. The only man who I ever wanted to get under my skin and do some damage.

Doesn’t mean I’m going to let him do it again.

I step abreast of him, and I’d like to think I would have made it into the hallway, except he shudders. I’m weak, I guess, but knowing that he’s as affected as I am by whatever this moment is— an inevitable culmination of all the moments over the last week —is enough to make me turn. My back bumps up against one of the bookcases lining the wall.

There’s no retreat now. No way to hide from the burning need in his eyes.

I don’t know who moves first.

One second I’m standing still, and the next his hand is on my waist, pulling me in against him, and my arms are curling around his neck, holding on to him as if he’s a lifeline and not the churning storm.

And his mouth?—

God, his mouth is right there .

He searches my face as he cups the back of my neck with his other hand. There’s no space left between us now, only breathless need and pounding pulses.

His mouth finds mine, sure and soft.

If it was anything other than soft… maybe maybe maybe. So many maybes, but they’re all irrelevant, because the truth is I was never going to avoid this.

It’s still extra-devastating when he kisses me with a tenderness I didn’t know was possible. This definitely isn’t the kind of embrace that haunted me as I tried to move on. The feeling nobody could match, for two long years.

Of course Alexei Artyomov is the only person who kisses me better than Alexei Artyomov.

He tastes faintly of toothpaste but mostly of desire, sweet and warm and perfect, and when I lick at his lips, he growls and deepens the kiss.

I open for him and his tongue spears against mine. So, so good. I make a sound I don’t mean to. Something desperate and wanting.

He answers it with a groan so low it vibrates through my bones and makes my toes curl. Then he wraps his arm around my hips, a solid band holding me tight, and he feasts.

His hunger makes me whimper, a sound he devours. And he works me against his body, hitching me up, up, up, until one of my legs is wrapped around his thigh and the thick, hard press of his erection is slotted right against the soft, thin cotton of my sleep pants through which I can feel everything.

As we explore each other’s mouths, he slowly starts to rock against me.

This is so much more than a kiss .

I moan again, louder this time, as his fingertips work their way under the hem of my sweatshirt, searing my bare skin. A secret, forbidden touch that sets my already heated flesh on fire.

I’m trembling against him, rubbing my needy sex on his cock like I’ve completely given up on the whole off-limits pretence, when there’s a tiny two-year-old cry from the next room.

He immediately goes still, but he doesn’t let me go.

“She’s awake,” I whisper against his mouth, my voice catching.

He rests his forehead against mine. He’s breathing hard, and his gaze is possessive.

As my pulse pounds, I wriggle out of his tight grasp. He lets me down, but doesn’t let me go.

I lean back against the bookcase, trying to create some space between us within the caged confines of his body. “We shouldn’t have done that.”

He pretends to agree with me, nodding, but the look on his face says otherwise.

“Alexei!”

“What? No, it was so bad. Especially when you moaned into my mouth. That was the worst.”

Oh my God.

“No, you can’t say that,” I protest weakly. “I work for you.”

He smiles slowly, confusion still tugging his brow a little. He looks confounded. “Do you? I don’t think you’ve sent me a contract yet, solnishko.”

A startled sob bursts out of me, and I turn it into a laugh because I have no other choice.

His gaze feels like a caress as he searches my face. “Do you need a minute?”

“I need more than a minute.” I close my eyes and press my head back against the bookcase behind me. “This really is a bad idea. We can’t do that again.”

He kisses my throat. “Okay.”

“I mean it.” I don’t sound like I do, though. I sound weak and needy and very persuadable.

He groans and steps back. “Coffee, then?”

My pulse hammers in my ears. “Yeah.”

“I’ll—”

He’s interrupted by a now indignant call from the next room. “Papa?”

He groans and squeezes my hips one last time before stepping back.

“I’ll make the coffee,” I whisper before darting past him and down the stairs, as if I’m being chased. By him. By the kiss. By the stupid sounds I made while he kissed me.

I fire up the espresso machine and pretend that my lips aren’t still swollen and my panties aren’t probably soaked.

If he’d wanted to have sex, I’d have gone along with it, I’m sure.

I will not think about how his bare skin felt under my fingers.

Nope.

As I finish making the second cup of espresso, Alexei strides in holding Inessa. I slide it to him, then grab her a sippy cup of milk and a muffin.

She sits in her highchair without argument, and if I hadn’t made out with her father to start the day, I’d think that was another win.

“Do you like eggs?” he asks, as if this we’re having a normal post-road trip morning.

“I can make them,” I mumble, not looking at him.

“I’m offering.” And there’s an edge to his voice now, that says maybe it’s not a completely normal morning for him.

He leans against the counter beside me, arms folded over that broad, bare chest. He makes the kitchen feel way too cozy, makes it feel as small and intimate as the library upstairs.

“Actually,” I say, my voice pitching a little high, “since it’s your day off, I thought I’d go out for a bit.”

“This early?”

“Yeah.” I force a shrug. “Becca said something about a Pilates class. And I need to do some shopping.”

Although instead of going to buy more clothes, I should be buying a plane ticket straight back to Minneapolis.

No, I don’t need to run away. I simply need to get away from his bare chest for a few hours.

His brow lifts, but he just nods slowly. “Okay.”

“Cool,” I say, not sounding cool at all. “Great. What time do you need me back?”

“Take all the time you want. We’ll be fine all day. We’ll go to the hospital, won’t we, little one? Shall we visit Baba?”

“Emmy too,” Inessa said solemnly.

I shake my head. “I gotta run some errands, baby girl. You know how you don’t like to go to six different places? That’s what I’m going to do this morning. Go to all the places in one morning so I don’t have to do that with you tomorrow and the next day!”

She laughs, like I’m being silly, but five days into knowing her, I’m completely serious. Our days just go better when we have one thing to do in the morning, one thing to do after a nap, and that’s it.

I shoot back my own espresso and then hightail it back upstairs, to the scene of the kissing crime.

The first thing I do is text the WAG chat to see if Becca really is going to a Pilates class this morning. The next thing I do is search for a walk-in clinic that is open this morning, because the way that Alexei looks at me isn't safe, and I’m not the innocent girl from two years ago.

I don't think that accepting this job was a mistake. He needs my help right now, and Inessa needs me right now.

But it's getting harder and harder to separate the professional from the personal.

Maybe there’s another reason that I’m here right now, something private and intimate. Maybe we have unfinished business to deal with, Alexei and me.

I know that he’s not the person for me.

He's too worldly and I'm too much of a Midwest college girl. Deep down, I will always be that person when it comes to him. My heart is too soft, too innocent despite my effort to change, for me to enter into what I'm sure would be an incredibly hot fling with my boss.

So I’m going to resist the pull between us.

But I'm not stupid. I can feel myself reacting to him, and so I need to take some precautions just in case I make a terrible mistake and let Alexei act on the promise in his eyes.

If we kiss like that again, it might go further than we expect, and I’m not going to be showing up on his doorstep nine months later with another baby surprise.

Your girl needs birth control pills, and she needs them stat.