Fractured Ties by Bethany-Kris Page 0,48

more than that.”

She laughed and patted his hand on her neck. “It’s okay to be scared, Kolya.”

“It isn’t, actually. Not in my business or family. I don’t expect you to understand, Maya, and I hope you don’t have to learn, either.”

He turned to head back inside through the sliding doors, but Maya grabbed tightly to Kolya’s hand still grazing her neck before he could stop touching her entirely. His next step hesitated, and he looked back at her. Maya was already staring up at him.

“Kolya?”

“Yes, dushka?”

He wasn’t going to let that go.

She didn’t mind so much.

“Spasibo,” she whispered.

“What are you thanking me for?”

Maya squeezed her smaller fingers around his much larger hand. “For letting me come to you, Kolya.”

He quirked one brow high.

She shrugged.

She pulled on his hand to urge him down, and he did just that. He bent down until the two of them were eye-level, and he was all she could see. The busy street down below no longer existed, and neither did the inky sky.

Just this man.

And the blues of his eyes.

There was really only one thing she wanted.

One thing to do.

Maya kissed him.

9.

KOLYA DIDN’T know how it happened—one second, Maya was in the wicker chair on the veranda pulling him in for a kiss, and in the next blink, she was stripped down nearly bare on the bed as he hovered above her.

Oh, sure, he remembered that kiss.

That fucking kiss and the way she tasted. Her sly little smile against his mouth like she was teasing him as her tongue flicked against his lips. Her sparkling blue eyes turned darker when he reached for her … and then this.

Maya on her back.

Legs spread.

Black hair spread wide on a pillow.

His fist was gripped tightly around the waistband of her cotton panties and he was seconds away from yanking them down her creamy, smooth legs. The girl was short as hell, and yet, her legs didn’t lack in expanse or shape.

Christ.

He liked that a lot.

“Kolya?” Maya asked.

She sounded fucking airless.

Soft.

Sweet.

Waiting.

Hot, too.

He blinked and his gaze drifted to hers. He was still trying to figure out how they had gone from the veranda with a kiss, to Maya on a bed with barely anything on at all. Just these goddamn cotton panties in his way—separating him from a pussy he’d been dreaming about for weeks.

He didn’t chase pussy.

Didn’t think about it.

Work for it.

Or need it.

Sex was just another irritation for Kolya—something that came up once in a blue fucking moon—and he took care of the urge when it happened. Nothing more, and nothing less. Maybe that’s why this woman had taken him entirely off balance in too many ways to name, because nothing was as it should be with her.

Not his feelings.

Not his needs.

Not his wants.

No, this wasn’t a position he found himself in very fucking often, and yet, more than anything in the world right then in that moment … he wanted her. Whatever she was going to give him, and anything she might offer, he was the starving man ready and willing to get on his knees and beg her for it.

Maybe that was why a kiss on the veranda turned into a blink, and Maya was suddenly nearly naked and on her back underneath him. Kolya very rarely found things he wanted, but when he did—and when he was given those things—he was lost to the baser nature he did well to keep hidden.

Except …

He didn’t want to do that right now.

He didn’t want to lose himself right now.

Not with her.

“Hey,” Maya whispered.

Soft fingertips grazed his jawline—a ghost of a touch, really. Like angel wings sweeping over his skin and touching every single one of his nerves all at once. His gaze cut to hers again, and he found that she was smiling at him.

“Don’t freeze up on me now,” Maya said.

She sounded so serious and so damn soft, too. And yet, at the same time, he heard the note of fear underlying her tone, too. Like she was scared she’d made a mistake, and he was second-guessing this.

Jesus.

Didn’t she know?

He wanted this.

So badly.

Too much, maybe.

The longer Kolya was quiet, the more Maya fidgeted. Her gaze darted away from his and he saw the way her throat constricted with a nervous swallow. That hand of hers that had touched him was quick to rest over her chest, and hide the swells of her small breasts at the same time.

Like she didn’t want him to look.

Like she didn’t want to be seen.

What was she doing that for?

Why?

“Maya,”