Page 5 of Nurse for the Russian Mafia

He’s about to tell my dad that he’s taking me as his …

As his what? As his queen?

Again, I feel like the silliest woman alive. I think I might be letting my imagination race ahead of me, pulling the cart of my reason far, far behind it. I decide to wait. I don’t want to embarrass myself. I’ve been embarrassed before, and I can still feel the harsh sting of that experience any time I want, just by remembering it.

“I can’t go on without a queen,” Alexander says.

Um, okay, this is starting to get surreal.

“A man like me …”

His eyes bore into me, creating holes inside of me that instantly fill with tingling lust and desire. I want it, too, whatever he is about to say. I want to be his queen. Now that he’s said it, I realize I’ll never want anything more. Screw the immature boys my own age. Screw their silly pranks and games. I want a real man.

“I need a real woman…”

It’s like he’s reading my mind.

“You’re confusing me, Alex,” Dad says. “Let’s all sit down, yeah?”

“I’ve chosen your—”

“No!” I cry.

Dad turns to me. “What’s wrong?”

“I …” Stumbling over to the couch, I try and make myself look sick, and then collapse down suddenly. I can’t let this happen, not like this. Dad has been through enough. It’s not fair that Alexander would just take this decision on himself. “I don’t feel good.”

“You’ve just worked a fourteen hours shift, sweetheart,” Dad says. “Let me get you some water.”

Dad rushes out of the room. As soon as the door closes behind him, I leap to my feet.

“Alexander!” I hiss. “What the hell were you about to say to him?”

He turns to me with uncompromising eyes. He stares at me steadily, the watchful gaze I can oh-so-easily imagine staring down over a crib, never letting anything happen to our child. My womb twitches as though screaming at me to make this vignette a reality.

“I’m telling him the truth,” he snarls. “You’re mine, Samantha. You were mine the moment I saw you in the hospital waiting room. Everything about you is perfect. Your body is like a landscape of delicious flesh, begging to be roamed over, by me, and only by me. The capability you displayed in the hospital, it showed me how incredible you are, so unlike those ditsy, silly girls who think a salad is the cure to all the problems in the world. You’re going to fulfill every one of my needs and I’m going to do the same for you, forever. You’re going to be the mother of my children.”

Every primed nerve in my body reacts to that by rioting in undisguised desire. My impulse is to throw myself at him, as though I’m a cavewoman and he’s just brought a fresh kill back to our temporary home. He stares at me like no one ever has before.

I thought I was imagining it. I thought I was crazy.

And maybe I am, because I can hear Dad returning, and even listening to his approaching footsteps, I still want to discover how those unflinching lips taste.

But there’re so many reasons this can’t work.

He and Dad have been friends for so long. And there’s the issue of Alexander’s involvement in the Bratva. I know a little about his work from growing up around him. Plus, you know, there’s also the fact that I’m just a silly virgin unschooled in the ways of love. How would he feel if he actually took me to bed and realized how little I know?

“Not here,” I snap quickly. “Please, Alexander. Just—please. My dad has been through a lot. You have to promise me. You’ll let me tell him. Please.”

Alexander grits his teeth. With the iron stubble covering his face, he looks every inch the wild man, and yet in his bright eyes I can see how cunning and intelligent he is. To get to his position, he can’t just be all muscle and brawn. He has a mind that the silly boys from my high school could only dream of.

“I don’t like lying to a man’s face,” he snaps.

“But for me?” I beg. Dad is so close now. “If you really feel how you say you feel, please, just do this one thing.”

Dad returns and I sit back down, because I need to keep pretending I’m lightheaded. I take the water from him with a shaky hand. I don’t have to pretend that part. My whole body is trembling as I wait to see what Alexander is going to do.

“So, Alex?” Dad says. “You wanted to tell me something?”

Please, please, please. That’s the message I try to send to Alexander with my eyes, screaming silently, begging without any words. If he truly is my forever man, and I just know he is, he’ll be able to read my expression.

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