Page 2 of Innocent Bratva Virgin

Wait for what? I wasn’t sure.

But then he pulled out his phone and started typing on the screen before flicking the thing around to face me.

“It’s loud as hell in here. So, phone. And I didn’t steal your beer. I saw someone put something in it. Scared the guy off, but I didn’t want you to drink it.”

My mouth fell open as I read the screen. When I flicked my eyes back to him, the man cocked his head, his brows raised in a silent expression of “that.” It took me two full seconds to snap into action again before I reached inside my purse for my cell.

As I typed up a message, impressed by the guy’s quick thinking considering it was damn near impossible to hear in here, he appeared to wait patiently. When I was finished, I turned over my phone, holding it out to him.

“Thank you. I’m so sorry that I snapped at you. I’m truly grateful that you stopped me from drinking it. And there’s no need to buy me another one. It was probably a sign that I should go home anyway. It was just supposed to be one drink and done.”

The guy returned my phone and shrugged. The bartender dropped off my new drink, and the man slid it toward me,holding up his own glass of what looked like whiskey, indicating a toast.

I rolled my eyes, waggling my head around before I grabbed the beer and clinked it against his glass.

“Oh, all right.”

We each took a sip, and when the guy finished, he set his glass down and pulled up his phone again. I waited while he typed another message, doing my best not to fidget.

“Well, you didn’t really have your one, did you? I’m happy to pay for it. It’s not a big deal. Consider it a tax for my gender being full of assholes. And it’s Nikolai.”

I laughed. Apparently, Nikolai had a good sense of humor, and it was nice of him to realize that many guys could be jerks. Lifting my drink, I clinked the tip of the bottle against his glass again and took another sip.

“Emory,” I offered, but Nikolai furrowed his brow, putting a hand to his ear.Shit, it really is too loud in here.

Snagging his phone this time because I’d already tucked mine away, I hit enter on the note app and started my response on the following line.

“Emory. And thank you. Again. I was here to settle my nerves, and I’ll admit that having my beer spiked was not very good for my stress levels.”

Nikolai tilted the phone toward himself and read over the message, his fingers quickly flying over the keyboard in response.

“Yeah, I get that. Why are you stressed?”

I read it and entered my answer on the line beneath his again.“Big day at work tomorrow. I can’t get into it because ofconfidentiality rules, but I’ll just say I need to be on my game. It’s a new job. I just want to do well.”

“Ooh, confidentiality reasons? Are you a spy? Lol. I’m sure you’ll do great. Especially now that you won’t be reeling from GHB poisoning.”

I’d waited for Nikolai’s response immediately after I left mine, and reading over it had made me laugh out loud. The guy really was funny, and I’d forgotten how much I like that in a man.

Hell, it had been ages since I’d even considered dating with my busy clinical schedule. Even if I wasn’t going into “real medicine,” psychiatry seemed as demanding and isolating as pursuing a career as a surgeon or ER doctor, despite what my parents wanted to believe.

Laughing, I shook the ever-present concerns over my parents’ opinions of me and typed up my reply.

“I am not nearly cool enough to be a spy, but I’m flattered. And thank you for the vote of confidence. I’m sure the GHB would have certainly made for an interesting first impression. I’m glad I won’t have to see that reality.”

Nikolai read over the text, and even though it was still ridiculously loud in here, all I could really hear was our conversation flowing easily back and forth. For as awkward as I thought the phone might be at first, it was nice getting to think about what I was going to say before I said it.

Or typed it.

“You’re very welcome. I couldn’t exactly sit by and let you get drugged, now could I?”

I scoffed, knowing that the reality of the situation was actually quite different for a lot of people. Women wereassaulted like this, “date raped,” far too often, and it was precisely people sitting by and doing nothing that made it hard to stop the perpetrators—who were literally the scum of the earth.

Taking his phone, I entered my reply.

“Actually, you could have. I didn’t see anyone else rushing up to keep me from drinking the beer. And a moral code didn’t stop the guy who was trying to drug me.”

Nikolai frowned as he read over the words, then quickly replied.“True. Which fucking sucks, really. I don’t like seeing people be messed with, especially when they can’t stick up for themselves.”

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