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She looked down at herself, appalled that her nipples were clearly visible through her low-cut sleeping camisole which also left little to the imagination. She crossed her arms in front of her and warned, “Don’t break anything else.”
“Iz—”
“All right. I’m going.”
Actually, she was eager to get out of the kitchen. Let Viktor deal with the awkward questions she was sure Trent would be asking.
“So you and my sister?”Trent asked tentatively.
Viktor nodded, but kept his eyes on the three men who were slowly coming around from the systematic takedown he’d given them. They were lucky he’d quickly dispelled the thought that Marissa had replaced him with three whiskey-wasted fuckers. If they had been Reed’s thugs, they wouldn’t be spending their night drunk in their target’s living room. So when one of them ambled toward him, he quickly sidestepped him and sent him crashing—quite purposefully—on top of the ugly coffee table that he detested. The second man was more prepared and actually caught Viktor in the gut with his shoulder, sending him crashing against a wall. However, hequickly caught the second guy’s forehead on his knee and sent him tumbling on top of the first guy. A third man came at him with an iron poker and nearly took out his eye. That just pissed Viktor off, so he swiftly side-kicked him into Marissa’s glass dish cabinet. The man came at him again—quite unsteadily—so Viktor kneed him in the gut, sending the man to his knees. Viktor caught the scruff of his shirt and was ready to knock him out when the kitchen lights came on and Trent Cole appeared with a gun pointed at him.
Marissa appeared behind her brother, half-naked for Christ’s sake. How dare she go to bed in those clothes in a house full of men? Drunk fucking Army guys who probably hadn’t gotten laid in months. Didn’t she have any sense of self-preservation? Did she think her brother could fight off three men like he did? Didn’t she know how fuckable she looked, looking so disheveled with her breasts almost spilling out, her nipples taunting him to take a bite?
To take his mind off the tightening in his pants, he answered Trent. “Yes, your sister and I are together.”
“I find it hard to believe she’s dating you,” Trent said, oblivious to the way Viktor was now glaring at him. Or maybe Marissa’s brother was testing him.
“I wouldn’t call it dating,” Viktor said. And that was the truth. He was not one who went on dates.
It was her brother’s turn to scowl. “She deserves more than being a f— someone you sleep with.”
“You’re her dirty little secret,” Trent continued when Viktor didn’t correct him.
Now wait a minute. He definitely didn’t want to be her secret. He wanted every single male—attached or unattached—to know that she belonged to him. Besides, he and Marissa had grown into their relationship amidst danger and mayhem, which tested the mettle of what they shared more than any damned date. Before he could set her brother straight, theidiot added, “I knew she wouldn’t consciously be with someone like you—”
“You do realize you’re insulting me,” Viktor said, his voice had taken on an edge.
“Not at all,” Trent shrugged, but the smirk on her brother’s face belied his words. The three men on the floor started picking themselves up, moaning probably more from a hangover than the beating they had just received.
“Despite her kickass persona, Marissa’s a princess,” Trent said with fondness, Viktor grudgingly noted. “You’re kind of like these guys,” he nodded to his buddies. “Rough and probably exciting. But hate to tell you, man, she’s all Italian leather pumps, haute couture, and five-star restaurant dining.”
“You don’t know your sister very well,” Viktor replied, but a damned pain gripped his chest hinting that maybe it was he who didn’t know Marissa well. Without all this danger, would she still find him appealing? He knew she hated the sterile environment of his house. Knew she loved this prissy row house and everything classy that went with it. Hell, he’d been tempted to tell her to decorate his loft to her liking, but cringed at the idea of her moving her ugly antique table into his living room. Thank God, he took care of that problem, quite expeditiously in fact.
“Look around you,” Trent invited. “This,” he waved his hand over the French stove, to the silly matching rooster salt and pepper shakers, the wrought iron scroll work on the wall, and down to the expensive Persian rug along the hallway, “will always be her. And if you know her at all, the stuff she uses for personal care could cost a mint and probably your entire month’s salary.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Viktor gritted through his teeth. “Are you suggesting your sister is slumming? For all you know, I may want to be her kept man.”
Trent chuckled. “You don’t know my sister at all. She’s adamned strong woman. I doubt she’ll want a man who would allow himself to be kept. The man for her needs to be more than her equal. Look, man, you pulled off some serious shit here, but I doubt you could’ve taken my guys if they were sober.”
Bring it on, you prick, Viktor thought. He was angry. And he simmered with one emotion that was entirely foreign to him—insecurity. Just when he thought he was beyond his dockworker past, the insecure boy from the projects reared his ugly head. He knew Marissa’s family could trace its roots to American royalty and her father was American shipping magnate Trenton Cole III. But he had made something of himself, damn it. AGS was no small enterprise.
“You’re not intimidating Viktor, are you, Trent?” Marissa asked with a grin on her face. Oh, her brother already did, but not in the way she thought.
“Viktor?” Trent frowned.
Marissa rolled her eyes. “Men.” She turned to Viktor. “You guys didn’t introduce yourselves?”
“I know who your brother is, Marissa. I have a file on every single one of your family all the way to your second cousins,” Viktor drawled, noting with satisfaction the deepening lines on Trent’s face.
“Who exactly are you?” Trent asked warily.
“Viktor Baran.”
“Holy shit balls!” One of the drunken men exclaimed, coming forward to take a better look at him. “The Viktor Baran. Man, you’re a living legend.”
Viktor hated groupies. But this was one time he was thankful for his reputation, for it wiped the smirk off Trent Cole’s face.
“All right, no fan-girls in my kitchen,” Marissa said. “I’m making coffee, but you guys have to go somewhere else for breakfast. I have cereal, no milk. I haven’t done groceries yet.”
