THE FIXER

Maxim claims my father put him in charge to keep me safe. Well, I don’t mind letting him scramble a bit to make that happen, then.

Same thing I used to do to the guards my father assigned to protect us.

I get up and quietly put on a pair of yoga pants, a jogging bra, and sneakers. I pull my hair up into a high ponytail and smile to myself. Me going out in nothing but a jogging bra might give him a conniption alone.

No, that’s wrong. He told me yesterday I should flaunt it. That unfamiliar sense of warmth snakes through me again.

I quickly and silently pull on my sneakers and shoes and slip out the bedroom door.

There are guys in the living room, the same as last night.

Maxim hadn’t bothered to introduce me to everyone, but some I recognized. Ravil, obviously, their pakhan.

I didn’t get to meet his mistress, the pretty blonde who’d been curled up with him on the couch. She looked pregnant, which goes against bratva rules. Of course, my father had a child, too, but he kept us secreted away. We never lived with him. He never married my mother or officially claimed me as his daughter until he put me in his trust.

There’s no sign of Ravil and his pretty girlfriend this morning, but a young man in a Matrix t-shirt sits at a table in the living room, working at a computer. Another, who looks just like him-must be his twin-stands in the kitchen. The beefy guy who stands well over six and a half feet high and is almost as broad leans on the breakfast bar, eating scrambled eggs from a frying pan.

“Good morning,” I say brightly in English. It’s nice to practice my English again, and I noticed they all spoke it with each other last night.

“The princess emerges,” the twin in the kitchen says.

I flip him off.

He chuckles. “I’m Nikolai. We weren’t properly introduced last night.”

I pass him without offering my hand. “I’m going for a run,” I chirp.

“Maxim!” the other twin calls out. “Your bride is running away.” His tone of voice is more like the one you’d use when asking your roommate to bring a glass of water than a real alarm, and I find myself liking these guys, despite myself. They bear the same bratva tattoos but seem casual and friendly. Nothing like my father’s men back home.

At the same time, the giant guy moves faster than I could’ve predicted, getting up from the breakfast bar and blocking the doorway.

I expected as much. I’ve lived with overbearing security guards my whole life. I definitely know how to deal with them. I press my body up against the giant’s. “You must be the bodyguard,” I purr, trailing a finger across his meaty forearm, which is folded over his chest.

“Sasha,” Maxim growls a warning from the doorway to our bedroom suite. I hear his wet feet slap against the floor as he comes toward me.

I don’t look his way, but I answer him. “Oh, you don’t like it when I touch him, do you?” I purr and stroke up the enforcer’s biceps.

The giant snatches up my wrist to stop me at the same moment Maxim snaps, “Don’t touch her.”

Exactly as expected. As I said, I’ve been playing this game my whole life. Still, the jolt of pleasure at hearing Maxim claim me is infinitely more satisfying than when it was my father or one of his henchmen.

The giant immediately releases his hold on me as if scalded. Maxim’s men are as loyal as my father’s. I wasn’t sure, since he isn’t pakhan here. Good to know.

But then Maxim does something my father would never do.

“Please,” he tempers his previous sharp command to the brute, his voice more controlled now. He arrives by my side. “Thank you.” There’s an apology in his voice.

Not for me, though. He takes hold of my ponytail and uses it to tug my head backward. He’s in nothing but a peach towel wrapped around his waist. Water droplets still drip down his muscled and tattooed chest.

The giant slips away, leaving me with my wet and annoyed husband.

“I told you, caxapok. They can look, but not touch.” His growl is almost a purr, too, like he enjoys manhandling me. His brown eyes burn intensely, but he doesn’t seem angry. There’s a bruise on the eyebrow of his right eye, and I realize, with a shock, that I probably gave it to him.

I try not to show any intimidation. This part I’m not used to. My father used to slap and berate me, but dominance in the way Maxim wields it-sexual dominance-is something altogether different, and my body reacts accordingly. Embers spark and flame in my low belly.

I stretch my lips into a smile. “You didn’t say I couldn’t touch them.”

“New rule, then.” His eyes leave my face, dipping to my breasts, which are pushed up and pinned together by the jogging bra. His gaze returns, darker than before. “Don’t fuck with me on this, Sasha or things will get very messy.” He bites my earlobe. “But you like messy, don’t you?” He releases my ponytail but cages my throat with his tattooed fingers. He squeezes just enough for me to register his control but not enough to block my airflow. Then he lowers his lips to mine.

My feminine parts clench and flutter with excitement at his supple lips caressing mine. And it is a caress-totally at odds with his chokehold on me. It’s not a brutal, controlling kiss, not that I would’ve minded that, either.

When he pulls away, he rubs his lips together like he’s relishing the taste of my mouth. His hand still holds me captive.

I blink up at him, more disoriented by the kiss than all the rest of it. “D-did I give you that bruise?”

He takes a moment, just studying me, before he gives a barely perceptible nod.

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