“Oh!” My help startles her, and she lets out a breathy giggle. “Thanks.” She’s not usually wasted like this. She often nurses one drink the whole time while the rest of them get drunk. Tonight was a one-off.
I shut the door and close my eyes, willing my dick to calm the fuck down. To stop reacting like a teenage prick every time I got to touch her. She smells sweet, like margaritas and vanilla.
I know she’s not mine.
She’ll never be mine.
And yet some part of me refuses to understand that. Some part of me claimed her the first time I laid eyes on her.
I get in the van and start it up then look to her and shrug for directions. “Oh, um, here.” She pulls out her phone and opens the Google Maps app. She enters an address, and the automated voice starts giving directions. “That’s easier than me trying to tell you,” she slurs. She waves a hand erratically in the air. “I might mess up or something.”
I set the phone in the center console and follow the directions. Her apartment is a few miles from the bar, in a reasonable neighborhood. I find a place to park up the street, turn the van off and hand her the keys.
Now I know where she lives.
Which is a huge problem.
I purposely never followed her. That would definitely cross the line way into stalker territory. But now that I know? Fuck.
Will I be able to stay away? I’ll need to know she’s safe every time she leaves her apartment, not just the bar.
Goddammit.
Probably not.
This is going to be a problem for me. And her.
For both of us.
Story
I don’t know why it doesn’t occur to me until he hands me the keys that Oleg now has no way of getting home. He left his Denali at the bar!
Well, duh.
Looks like he’ll have to stay the night. Ummmm… weird.
I’m not sorry. I’ve considered taking him home before. I mean, I was one hundred and five percent sure he’d come if I asked. He is my most devoted fan, after all.
He watches me in a way that makes me feel warm and tingly. He protects me like he’s my own personal bodyguard, putting his body between me and any drunken audience members who get too close.
I get excited to play at Rue’s every week knowing the big tattooed guy will be there, that he’s in the audience for me. Knowing he won’t take his eyes off me.
I think the only reason I never pursued it before is because then what we have would be over. It would become another one of my short-lived relationships, and we’d never be able to go back to this. And I kind of love having a silent bodyguard-slash-fan who is always there.
What if we had sex and hated it?
Then he’d stop coming. That would make him an asshole, of course, but I’m in a bubble where I can fantasize still.
Or what if he got creepy? I don’t get that vibe from him, but I’m not stupid. It’s a possibility. Somehow, I feel safe with him. Somehow, I feel like he’d never hurt me.
But mostly I don’t want him to become like the other guys I hook up with—date for a few months and then ditch before things get serious. My little sister says it’s a safety mechanism. I leave them before they can leave me. She’s probably right.
Anyway, all I know is that Oleg’s different from those guys. Special.
I consider it now. Do I invite him in? Or tell him thanks for the ride and ask if he wants me to order him an Uber?
Somehow, I know if I chose the latter, he would walk away without trying anything. I mean all these months, and he’s never tried once to get me to go home with him or even to hang out. He hasn’t asked for my number or given me his.
He just shows up. Same time every week.
Dependable like no one else in my life has really been.
And yes, I know he can’t talk to ask me out. Annie, the cocktail waitress at Rue’s had told me that when he first started coming. She said he usually ordered by pointing at someone else’s beer. I didn’t even know he was Russian until his friends came in with him and introduced us.
And it’s that realization that makes me sure he’s safe. He’s not going to get weird. He’d leave if I told him to leave. He’d respect the hell out of me.
I already know that because I’ve climbed this guy like a tree during my performances. It’s one of my favorite things to do. I’ll crook my finger from the stage, and he’ll launch out of his seat and stand below, so I can pull a Dirty Dancing flying leap into his hands. Or crawl on his shoulders or fall into his arms in a honeymoon carry. I can count on the guy to catch me and carry me around while I sing. It’s become part of the performance. The band members and my fans expect it now. I know Oleg would never let me fall.
“Come on,” I tell him.
He hesitates, looking at me with so much suspicion it makes me laugh.
“You have to walk me to the door.” I sound drunker than I am.
I blink. One second he’s fifteen feet away on the other side of the van, the next he’s at my elbow, steadying me when I don’t walk a straight line up the sidewalk.
I unlock the door to the building.
Oleg doesn’t move.
“You have to walk me all the way to my place,” I tell him. “What if someone tried to mess with me in the stairwell?”
His brows slam down.
Okay, maybe I’m not as sober as I think. That sounded really stupid. “You’re my bodyguard,” I affirm.
It’s a fact he already knows since he’s self-appointed.
We walk the three flights up through the old Brownstone to my floor, and I shake out my keys to find the right one. When I get the door open, Oleg takes a step back. He’s huge—wide shoulders, barrel chest, arms like tree trunks. His dark brown hair is cropped close like his beard.
“Do you want to come in?”
His heated brown gaze rakes down my body, but he shakes his head. I’m surprised how much his refusal disappoints me. I mean, I guess I thought he was a sure thing. There’s no way I read this thing wrong, is there?
I face him and lean in, standing on tiptoe to throw an arm around his neck and tipping my face up to his. “Why not?”
He freezes, his big body going rigid.
If I didn’t feel his erection prodding my belly, I would think he wasn’t into it. But he is.
“Why are you holding back?” I whisper. I pull his head down and close my lips over his, tasting him.
He remains rigid for one second.
Two.
“Please,” I ask, needing him to know I want this.
And then he surges to life. My back slams against the wall beside my door as Oleg unleashes the months of pent-up attraction between us. One beefy hand cups my ass, the other captures my nape, and he claims my mouth like it’s his last chance at breathing.
My core instantly turns molten. I grind down on the leg he thrust between mine, kissing him back with as much frantic need as he’s giving. I don’t feel his tongue, but I use mine—probably too sloppily. He kneads my ass, helping me hump his leg.
I reach out to open my door then grab a fistful of Oleg’s black t-shirt—the one stretched taut over his broad shoulders and chiseled pecs and try to tug him into my apartment.
Try is the operative word here.
Because Oleg doesn’t move.
The pulse between my legs makes me antsy. “Come inside,” I encourage.