Page 11 of Trapped by the Bratva (The Valkov Bratva #5)

HANNAH

D mitri argued with me daily. He resisted taking my advice to slow down or to correct his stance. And he had a natural inclination to push back and nitpick every suggestion I made in terms of his therapy progress.

No wonder I’m the sixth one to try to stick around here.

But I had. He was the most stubborn, grumpiest, pain-in-the-ass man I’d ever tolerated for this long, but I stuck it out.

For ten days, I showed up and did my best.

“See. Your range of motion is already improving.”

He completed a circuit of exercises to strengthen his ankle. “No, it’s not.”

I bit my lip, used to his headstrong mannerisms.

“Oh. Sorry. Did I forget my turn at the reverse psychology spiel?”

He glowered at me. His gaze lingered for just an extra beat, and that was all it took for me to wonder—again—if he was still interested in me in a physical way.

If he wanted to kiss me. Or touch me. Or?—

“What are you thinking about?”

I flinched, unnerved by how observant he was. He couldn’t have been reading my mind, but I bet the slight flush on my cheeks gave away that I was letting my mind wander where it shouldn’t go.

“Your range of motion,” I answered breezily, determined to stick with a proper topic.

Despite his attitude and reluctance to just be a civil human, he was growing on me.

I’d picked up plenty about him. Little tidbits of details and discovering his tells.

It was easier to intuit when he was pushing too hard in an exercise.

I was getting better at reading him, knowing when he was straining to hold in a moan of pleasure when I kneaded around his healing injury sites.

Placing my hands on him was a trial. Half the time, I could stay in a clinical mode. More and more often, though, I was losing my edge. Feeling his taut, smooth skin taunted me. Encountering his hard, hot body was something I couldn’t ignore so well.

Which is why I’ll just keep my daydreams about you for myself. For when I’m lying in bed at night and wishing for something more than this arrangement. No one would ever know. But by day, I had to maintain this professionalism.

Not only did I need this job as a way to get away from my sister, but I also cared about Dmitri’s progress. I wanted to see him get better and stronger. His success in recovery felt like the ultimate award, the evidence of hard work done well.

“What are you thinking about?” I shot back when he didn’t speak for several minutes. Those mute spells gnawed on my nerves. He had a habit of simply watching me—or zoning out with an angry, pensive expression—and I wished he’d just open up and talk to me.

“Nothing you need to know about.”

And… I’m shut down. Well, I tried.

“Anything in particular you look forward to doing again?” I asked. We talked about fitness quite often, but that wasn’t so weird. His recovery was centered around rehabilitating his former physique.

“When?”

Oh, my God. I swore sometimes he just liked to be this annoying. “When you’re fully recovered.”

“I don’t care about being fully recovered.” He set the elastic band down and lowered his leg. “I only want to be recovered enough to see through some, uh, unfinished business.”

I nodded for the lack of knowing how else to reply.

This was bordering on dangerous territory.

In the almost two weeks that I’d been working here, I wouldn’t have known this was a Bratva residence and that Dmitri was one of the top men working in it.

I deliberately avoided asking anything about the Mafia life. The less I knew, the better.

“That's all that matters.”

“Unfinished business?” I shrugged. “If it’s in the past, let it stay there. Not if it’s not affecting you now.”

He shot me a droll look. “Oh. Today’s another one where you act all smart and spout bits of wisdom.”

“Motivation,” I corrected. “I offer you alternative ways to look at whatever situation you’re stuck on and?—”

“Who said I’m stuck on anything?”

“It’s a figure of speech.”

“Just like saying leave the past in the past is a figure of bullshit.”

I held my hands up, sighing and stepping back. “Whatever, Dmitri. Whatever. I’m not in the mood to argue.”

“Good.”

As we moved on to walking with emphasis on his posture, we fell back to the awkward silence that I hated so much.

Until I snapped again. He was still just as much of a mystery man, and now that I was so close, day in and day out, I was determined to get to know him. My curiosity wouldn’t fade.

“What do you?—”

“Enough, Hannah.” He spoke with such fatigue and frustration that I clamped my lips shut.

Shot down. Again.

He wasn’t a chatty guy, but it was becoming tense. I was too aware of him, especially when walking alongside him. His huge body was so much taller than mine. I felt small with him, and I liked it.

I’d like it more if this didn’t have to feel so damn lonely, though.

All I wanted was to belong. To be needed and wanted. Ever since my parents died, I was a workaholic. I never had the free time to make friends. My sister was awful and only used me. And Becca was the closest person I had to a true friend.

I was sick of being lonely and held at a distance. Dmitri and I were here, together, all the time, but he’d wedged such a thick wall between us.

Why?

Why can’t he lighten up and just let me in?

Why can’t we get along while we’re here like this?

Something had to be wrong with me for him to be this standoffish, and it pained me deep in my heart to wonder how I was faulty. He was a hard man to crack, but I started to lose hope.

Knocks sounded on the door, and Ivan entered after calling out that it was him. “Am I interrupting?” he asked.

Yes.

“No,” Dmitri answered.

I held back a smirk, hating how possessive I wanted to be of this man who gave me no encouragement to want to be closer.

“How’s it going in here?” he asked as he stuck his hands in his pockets.

“Slow,” Dmitri replied at the same time I said, “Great!”

Ivan chuckled, glancing between us. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you two not bickering to some degree.”

“Oh, no. I’m not bickering.”

Dmitri sighed. “That is bickering.”

“No. It’s disagreeing. There’s a difference.”

He smirked, looking down his nose at me as we stopped walking with Ivan’s entrance. “Oh? What’s the difference, then?”

“Enough.” Ivan lifted his hands and laughed more.

“What do you want?” Dmitri asked gruffly.

“Jeez.” Ivan rolled his eyes at me. “You see how he talks to me?”

I smiled, joining in on the teasing. “Oh, it’s how he talks to me, too.”

“I don’t talk to you,” Dmitri said.

But I really wish you would.

“ You talk. And try to tell me what to do,” he explained.

“Well, she’s supposed to, isn’t she?” Ivan joked. “In terms of your therapy efforts?”

I lifted my face high and smiled brightly. “Ha. That is what I’m here for.” Not lusting after you or wishing this one-sided desire for a connection could turn into something more.

“You’re here to annoy me, nag me, and generally piss me off on most days,” Dmitri growled. “But you”—he scowled at his brother—“are going to join the club in that regard.”

He slipped a bit, and I frowned, ready to brace him if he was putting too much weight on that leg.

“Easy,” I reminded him as I led him back toward the chair to sit.

“I’m sick of fucking easy ,” he snapped.

“You’re an angel, putting up with him like this,” Ivan said, following us across the huge room as Dmitri hurried to take a seat.

“And I’m getting sick of explaining that you can’t overdo it or rush things,” I retorted.

“Any. Way,” Ivan said louder, emphasizing that he came here to say something. “Becca and I were talking about the wedding planning, and it hit me that I need to focus on having the bachelor party, too.”

Dmitri grunted as he sat. “Seriously?”

Ivan shrugged and smiled. “Why not? And I realize we’ll need to wait for you. Until you’re ready to go out and party like that.”

“Don’t make plans around me. Do what you want,” Dmitri said as I brought over an ice pack for his ankle. I lifted his leg, aiding him in bringing it to the mattress.

“Or maybe I could share the fun. We could have a few dancers and strippers come here to entertain you.”

In here ? In his room? I furrowed my brow, dropping the ice pack too quickly on Dmitri’s ankle.

“Ow,” he said, hissing.

“Sorry.” I couldn’t look him in the eye. Heat rose up to my cheeks, and I couldn’t help the blush. I envisioned it so easily, women dancing and entertaining him. One giving him a private lap dance. Maybe others servicing him in other ways…

“That should improve your mood, right, jackass?” Ivan chuckled. “Get some loving and be happy?—”

I stepped back and knocked into the rolling cart that Dmitri pulled close to his bed at night.

“Whoa.” Ivan put his hands out to help prevent me from bashing into something.

“I, uh…” My cheeks were so hot. My heart thundered so quickly.

Too many thoughts crowded my mind. My imagination ran away, concocting visions of Dmitri with other women.

Sexier, more seductive women who knew how to approach men.

Women who wouldn’t be too timid to reach out for the simple concept of any form of companionship.

“Hannah?” Ivan frowned at me as I set the cups and things upright on the portable table.

I couldn’t look him in the eye. I couldn’t face Dmitri, either. After acknowledging the utter loneliness I seemed doomed to be stuck in, I felt personally attacked somehow.

I was… jealous. And how stupid was that?

Of course, Dmitri had been with other women before me. He was fifteen years older than me. He was skilled at pleasuring me, and he no doubt had obtained that mastery with lots of practice.

On other women.

This is stupid, Hannah. Stupid.

I had no right to be this bothered about another woman near my patient.

“Hannah?” Ivan asked again as I backpedaled for the door, eager to get out of there. I was flustered, embarrassed when I shouldn’t have been.

Dmitri had made it crystal clear that he didn’t want me. He didn’t even like me. Since that confusing, impulsive episode of his making me come—which had been nothing but a mockery—Dmitri put a wall up to keep me at arm’s length, figuratively speaking.

I only annoyed him. Nagged him. And pissed him off.

It wasn’t fair that another woman could really see the man he was hiding from me.

Life isn’t fair. You know that.

As I turned to leave his room, not uttering another word or glancing at him, I hated how true that fact was. Life was unfair, but I had really clung to the idea that Dmitri could be the one to make me feel less alone in it.