Which was a total mistake. All the breath left her body. There was sexy, and then there was Nikolai Rustanov sitting on top of that big bed of his. His hair tousled on top of his head, his chiseled chest on full display, his legs spread apart so you’d have to be blind as Beau not to notice the large erection in between his legs. Standing at attention, and still glistening from having been inside her.
Despite the pounding it had already received that morning, her sex throbbed in response to the sight of him. She refocused on his overly handsome, but not nearly as discomfiting, face and waited for him to say whatever he wanted to say.
But he didn’t speak for a few long seconds, just stared, his eyelids so heavy they verged on dangerous, even though he was technically smiling. Technically. The sides of his mouth were quirked up, so she guessed that counted.
“I make you nervous,” he finally finished, scanning her body with smirking assessment.
“Ya think?” she answered in her best Captain Obvious voice. “I mean, you’ve got the muscles, the looks, and the, you know…” she circled her hand around her face. “The whole dead-eyed stare thing going. I think you make a lot of people nervous. On purpose.”
His gaze shifted to the side as if he was giving her words careful consideration. “Yes, I often make women nervous.” His eyes came back to her. “But I do not want to make you nervous, zhena. That is not what I want to do with you.”
More staring.
And Sam’s heart actually skipped a few beats, her own gaze hopelessly locked onto his. To the point that it felt like he was letting her go when he finally broke the stare off with a stretch of his heavily muscled arms.
“I will take my exercise, and you can take shower.” He smirked at her. “But zhena, do not fall like woman in rom com. This could hurt our baby.”
“I’ll try to stay upright,” was the best she could come up with under the him-very-naked-on-the-bed circumstances.
She disappeared into the bathroom for a long shower and pondered his parting words, “Do not fall...” Sam was fairly certain he meant it literally. But she chose to read between the lines. Do not fall… in love. Especially not with him.
And as she washed him off her body, she was haunted once again by a remembered conversation, this one much more recent, having only taken place less than two months ago.
“Love. Love is a silly custom you don’t believe in? You seriously just said that? How can you not believe in love?”
“Trust me, you do not have to believe in silly custom to give woman much pleasure. Come upstairs. I will show you.”
And show her, he had. Twice.
LUCKILY THERE WAS NOTHING like a hectic morning of getting a little boy through his yoga practice and off to school, followed by an oh-so-sexy bout of depositing the rich food she’d eaten at her wedding dinner into one of the downstairs toilets, to clear her mind. By the time she got over the dry heaves enough to drive herself to work, she was more than ready to think about anything other than Nikolai Rustanov and the morning sickness-inducing baby he’d put inside of her, courtesy of the last time she’d let a kiss with him go too far.
However, her Don’t Think About Nikolai plan hit a bump soon after she arrived at Ruth’s House. An Asian man was waiting on the front steps, a very handsome Asian man in an expensive-looking suit.
Sam was perplexed. He looked way too wealthy to be a social worker and way too classy to be a lawyer. And she seriously doubted he was the abusive husband or boyfriend of one of the women at the shelter. Not that Asians were immune to abusive relationships, but in her many years of working with abused women, she’d discovered some cultures were simply more private about their relationship troubles than others and, as a result, a lot less likely to call attention to themselves when the shit hit the fan.
“Hello?” It came out more a question than a greeting.
“Hello,” he replied, coming down the steps to meet her on the sidewalk. Upon closer inspection, she was pretty sure his suit had been hand tailored to his body’s specifications. And he walked with a slight limp. An old injury, she guessed, one that for whatever reason hadn’t set right.
“I’m Suro Nakamura,” he said with a bow. Unlike Nikolai, he spoke perfect English with only the slightest accent to indicate he wasn’t from the States. He came to a stop a few feet beside her, turning his body sideways between the house and the road so she was forced to do the same if she wanted to address him.
“Okay, Mr. Nakamura,” she said, feeling all sorts of unsettled as she noticed how his eyes did a continuous slow back and forth between the house and road, like a tracking light scanning the perimeter. “What can I help you with?”
Suro arched an eyebrow at her. “This is actually about how I can help you. I’m here in regards to your security needs.”
“Oh,” she said, her mouth falling open with surprise. “You’re here about the security guard position?”
She could hear the skepticism in her voice and she didn’t want to be rude, but this guy looked nothing like the usual rent-a-cops she’d met before. He didn’t have the build of an ex-high school football player whose muscle had turned mostly to fat. And he was simply too young to be a retired police officer like Danny had been.
An aura of cool remove surrounded him, one that put her in mind of—well, of Nikolai. Nikolai at his worst, when he was doing his “no feelings, no feelings at all” thing.
“I thought the agency wouldn’t be sending anyone over until tomorrow,” she said.
“I’m not here with an agency, but as a favor to Nikolai Rustanov.”
She cocked her head to the side. “Nikolai sent you?”
“Yes, he’s asked me to assess your security needs, so I’ll need to take a look around your shelter.”
“I don’t think so,” she said, her brain still trying to catch up with the fact that Nikolai had sent someone to her shelter to assess her security needs, like… like he had anything to say about it. “First of all men aren’t allowed in the shelter and second of all, I think your suit might cost more than we normally pay our guards in a year. As capable as I’m sure you are, we can’t afford you.”
A slight smile turned up the corners of his mouth as he conceded, “No, you probably cannot. But I won’t be the one serving your needs, only finding four men who can.”
She blinked. “Four men?” she repeated. Ruth’s House had never had more than one day or night guard on duty at any given time.