Page 12 of Broomsticks and Bloodstains
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her. The stubborn tilt of her chin. The tremor in her hands she tried to hide. The way she had cockily said “nothing that concerns me” when it was obvious that she and the fact that she’d heard things she shouldn’t have was the concern.
Over the past week, I’d avoided Konstantin’s pointed questions—and I’d stalked my pretty little k??? (kisa).
I saw the way she fearlessly walked most places. I watched the kindness she showed strangers. I studied her schedule—where she went and when, how long she spent there. Every little detail I filed away with the information I’d received from my informant. Her initial determination and desire to become a doctor. How she had dropped out to care for her mother after she had been out of work due to a severely broken arm after slipping and falling on ice.
When her breath clouded in front of her one late night as she walked home, I found myself wanting to swallow it. I’d growled out loud in the solitude of the SUV as I saw a couple of men call out to her as she passed.
So, yeah, I should have eliminated the risk and walked away. Instead, I walked straight into her fucking bar. The second I spotted her, I saw the recognition flash in her eyes.
As I closed in, the thrill of power coursed through me at the way she battled her fear. She nearly dropped the glass she was drying and a dark satisfaction bloomed in my chest.
Up close, without the mask and the ballroom between us, she was prettier than I remembered. Pretty, yes, but it was the fire she used to bury her fear that had burned into my memory. And I wanted it again.
So I leaned against her bar like I belonged there. “Vodka,” I replied, and when she reached for the good stuff, I was inordinately pleased. Like a hawk, I watched as she poured it, then I let my fingers hover just close enough to make her breath catch.
“Your name,” I softly demanded once again, as if a sleepless night hadn’t passed since the last time I’d asked.
I could practically see her thoughts as she considered lying to me.
Finally, she gave me a stiff smile and drawled, “Bartender.”
Unbelievably, I had to fight an actual grin. She thought she could brush me off with that “bartender” line, but I wasn’t actually interested in names I already knew tonight. Suddenly, I wanted something I shouldn’t. One corner of my mouth lifted as I upped the ante. “Not good enough, Sofia.”
I clocked every detail of her response. The catch in her breath, the slight widening of her pretty green eyes, and the way her pulse throbbed in the smooth column of her neck. My gaze trailed along her light golden skin from her visibly pounding heartbeat down to the impressive swell of her breasts exposed at the top of her tank top.
Oh yeah, tonight I wanted cracks. It was on the verge of insanity, but I wanted to see where she bent and where she broke.
So I did something I hadn’t done in longer than I remembered—I flirted.
And I smiled—a predator’s smile disguised in charm and cunning. For more years than I could count, I’d been a chameleon, able to blend into any scenario. I’d charmed women from all walks of life and that’s what I did with her.
Not the way men do when they want a woman to laugh. Instead, I let my eyes linger too long, my voice dip too low, my words coil just enough to make her wonder if she should step back—or lean closer.
Imagine my wicked pleasure when she leaned.
Shamelessly, I used the noise levels to my advantage as I met her over the bar to speak closer to her ear. My gaze wandered after the sway of her perfectly rounded ass as she skillfully moved from customer to customer throughout the night.
Several times, she and the man I knew was the owner were bouncing from customer to customer and filling the trays of the two waitresses that were doing their best to keep up. A foreign feeling spread through me each time she returned to visit with me as soon as everyone was served.
At one point, she rested on her elbows, bringing her face close to mine. “Your name,” she demanded playfully in a mock baritone.
An honest grin curved my lips. “Maksim.”
“Maksim,” she repeated, letting the syllables roll over her tongue.
She tried to hide it, tried to keep the banter light, but every time my hand brushed hers as she passed me a glass, every time I bent just close enough that my breath stirred the hair at her temple, her pulse jumped. She didn’t even know she was telling me everything I needed to know.
“What time do you get off tonight, kisa?” I asked her.
Her brows pinched in the center as she gave me a questioning smile, which I pretended not to notice.
“I close.”
Of course, I already knew that.
By the time her shift ended, the tension between us was practically thick enough to suffocate. I didn’t ask if she wanted company. Instead, I walked her out, matched her stride, let her think it was her choice when she didn’t stop me at her front door, under that damn flickering light.
“It’s not much,” she offered apologetically as we entered her home.
