Page 14 of Vasily the Hammer

It’s not what I want, but it’ll do.

For now.

Chapter 6

Vasily

I lean backagainst my bedroom door once I close it and give myself a moment to take a breath.

What the fuck am I doing here?

I don’t know how I expected this to go. I saw that picture of Ana at Consummate HQ, and reason popped right out of my brain, I swear. Ana fucking Lombardo is in my apartment. I ruined her once, and I’m going to ruin her again.

Maybe I didn’t, I tell myself. Maybe I opened her eyes to a whole new world, and she’s got her tits and ass plastered all over the internet now because it turns out the whole degradation porn really did it for her. She could be thankful I agreed to her little game the first time, the unwitting puppet in her show, thinking he was the one pulling the strings the whole time.

Could be she got reckless with her kink, and that’s why she ended up with sex traffickers. Some princesses only need to be saved from themselves.

The problem is someone does have the answers to my questions. Someone knows what Tony ultimately did with her once she was returned, what she’s been doing with her life. Someone knows how she ended up getting nabbed by those traffickers, and that same someone should have had the common goddamn sense to stop it from happening, even if Ididtell him not to interfere. I mean, fuck, what did he think I meant by keeping tabs on her?

And why isn’t he answering his goddamn phone?

I snap mine out of my pocket, checking one more time to see if Dima has responded. Sometimes my signal goes out in the elevator, even when I’m only going three floors from my office to my condo.

But there’s still nothing. A dozen times over today, I’ve thought I’m going to fucking kill him, and every time, I mean it a little more. I am going to fucking kill the guy who used to be my best friend.

And I’m a goddamn coward. Yeah, I’m hungry. Yeah, everything smelled delicious. Yeah, I heard the sizzle of the steak and thoughtman, I could fucking destroy that thing.But the stupidest part of all this is I know Ana is desperate to get her memories back, and all the while, I’m the one being assaulted by them.

She made me ravioli from scratch once. I walked into my shitty apartment in Flagstaff and found her there at my kitchen island, quietly considering the striped, rounded, uniform pasta pillows before her, and she looked up at me with a hesitant but joyful smile and said, “I made ravioli. I really think I can cook.”

That night, I told myself I couldn’t keep her and wouldn’t keep her, that the only reason settling her brother’s debt this way worked was because it wasn’t forever. I believed every lie I strung.

Seeing her standing in my kitchen once more? In my hoodie, swimming in it, so long it covers every curve of her thighs and leaves her with nothing but chicken legs? Not a stitch of makeup, splotchy cheeks, my kitchen a disaster?

Fuck if the sight of her didn’t worm right into my heart and fill it to bursting, no matter how much I fight it.

Fuck if seeing her in my kitchen yet again didn’t bring it all back, this time with the hindsight to know that, yes, I was fully in love with Ana and would be for the rest of my life.

I ate that fucking ravioli last time. Ate probably five servings of it because ravioli servings always seem child-sized. I showed her how to make garlic bread, although she took my jury-rigged recipe of hot dog buns, margarine, and garlic powder and turned it into garlic herb focaccia a few days later. I loved every goddamn bite.

This time, I ran from her.

I strip out of the suit I’ve worn too many hours straight, pop a couple Xanax, and hop in the shower for the fastest jerk-off known to man, punishing my dick with a grip too firm for the motions when there’s still a piercing left, but it deserves it.

It’s been like a fucking divining rod pointing to Ana all day, and seeing her in my hoodie again? Yeah, it’s all fucked up.

I scrub myself dry, throw on some pajama pants, check my phone again.

Nothing. Four minutes since I last checked, definitely a world record in the shower and probably why my balls are already aching again, and nothing from Dima.

I flop onto my bed, face first.

It smells like her.

Fuck.

With a frustrated groan, I hop out of bed, throw open the door, and storm into the kitchen, ready to chew Ana out about rolling around in my bed even though it was already obvious she’s been in my room. She pulled my hoodie out of the closet, after all.

But then I see her sitting at the dining room table, two small but perfectly shaped portions of the meal she cooked laid out in front of her, the veggies sitting on a smear of red paste, the risotto garnished with green flakes, the plate dry beneath the steak like she took the time to sop up juices.

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