Fractured Ties by Bethany-Kris Page 0,26
on his fucking measurements for his suits. Even the clothes he wore right then—clean, as he’d gotten rid of the blood-stained shit from the day before—had been delivered to him by a soldier he’d relatively trusted to be inside his place.
But anything more and people were just asking too fucking much of Kolya.
“You did bring me here,” Maya whispered, “you know.”
Kolya glanced down at her, momentarily taking his scowl away from the wall he’d been leveling it on at the upscale mid-city boutique. The place was quaint—if that was even the right fucking word—and catered to those with deep enough pockets to afford the brand names hanging on the walls and racks. The place had everything a woman might need or want, it seemed.
A wall lined with designer heels, shoes, and boots in assorted colors, styles, and height. Another covered in leather bags with luxury labels he recognized on the spot. Upstairs in the loft section, he could see fur coats, and lingerie—the bottom floor housed everything in between.
In the back, he could see a sign for dressing rooms.
Modern, stylish, and comfortable. Neutral colors, and a woman who’d asked if they preferred wine or tea when they’d first come in the door. The hardwood floors clearly saw a lot of travel, but it was difficult to tell, with the way they shined under his leather loafers.
It was quite … quaint.
Yes, that was the right word.
And Kolya decided he hated that fucking word.
“I did bring you here,” he said to Maya, “because there are things you need here.”
She gave him a pointed look. “Then you could try to be a little happier about it, Kolya.”
He blinked.
Somehow, she kept managing to surprise him, although he wasn’t quite sure how or why. Despite her words, which suggested he should step in line, she’d delivered the statement with the same sort of bubbly tone she had first greeted him when she’d approached him at the bar.
Before Kolya could say something to Maya, the woman who had approached them shortly after they entered the store, came back down the aisle to greet them with a smile. First, to Maya, and then she lingered a little too long on Kolya for his liking.
“Ah, Viktoria said you were coming today, Kolya,” the woman—Trina, Tiffany or some shit like that—said with her same smile. “She said you might seem a little surly, but I promised we would make you feel right at home here.”
Kolya was not a stupid man—he may not have liked to be around people as a general rule of thumb, but he wasn’t so stuck in the recesses of society that he couldn’t recognize when a woman was hitting on him. Or … trying to.
He was regretting making that call to his sister to ask Vic about an appropriate place to take a woman for clothing and things.
Seriously fucking regretting it.
“We’re not shopping for me,” Kolya muttered, glancing down at Maya beside him. “Clearly.”
This place didn’t have anything a man would want.
Except for maybe the pussy inside it.
And he wasn’t interested in that, either.
At least not from this woman.
Maya gave him a small smile, and he tried to muster one back for her, although he wasn’t quite sure if he succeeded or not. Smiling felt strange and foreign to him—not something he liked or did often enough. Very little made him happy.
Her smile did, though.
Maya’s smile, that was.
It was just her happiness alone that made him want to give her whatever in the fuck he could to keep her looking like that for him. This whole goddamn store, and everything in it, should that be the case. The whole fucking block, even.
Did she want him to burn it down?
He would.
For her, Christ, he would.
All because she was smiling, and he wanted to keep her that way. She didn’t know that, though. She couldn’t possibly know it. Hell, even he didn’t understand why she made him feel like this. It shouldn’t be like this, should it? He’d taken a woman simply because he could, and she interested him.
She could have run from him—she hadn’t.
She could have fought him—she hadn’t.
She should be terrified of him—she wasn’t.
Kolya was borderline obsessed with these facts about Maya, and how much they pleased him. It was going to be a problem for him—he knew it already.
“Whatever you want in here,” Kolya told a still-smiling Maya, “and it’s yours. Point and say, I’m paying.”
“You don’t—”
“I do. Now.”
His unspoken words quieted her from saying anything else. She was his to do with as