Page 18 of Worshipped by the BRATVA Grump

For a moment, I imagine handing it to her when she comes back into the room.

Then I put it away.

I can wait.

Daisy

There is a toothbrush in Mechislav Federov’s bathroom with my name on it.

It doesn’t literally have my name on it. That would be insane, even for a man who asked me to marry him approximately twelve hours after we decided we might actually have a relationship. It’s still in its plastic wrapper when I find it in the cabinet, wedged between a packet of razor blades and a bottle of peroxide. I see myself in the mirror holding a perfectly ordinary blue toothbrush and trying to decide why it feels more intimate than most of the things we’ve already done together.

His apartment is quiet beyond the bathroom door. I can hear him moving around in the kitchen, the dull opening and closing of cupboards, the low mechanical sound of the coffee machine. The first time I slept here I woke up convinced I’d made the worst decision of my life. This morning I woke with one of his arms around my waist. Who knows what will happen tomorrow morning.

Apparently, I’m capable of considerable personal growth after a one-night stand.

I brush my teeth, pull my hair into something vaguely intentional and go into the kitchen. Mechislav has changed clothes and is standing at the counter in a pair of dark sweatpants and nothing else. Immediately, my ability to concentrate on anything beyond the line of muscle disappearing into his waistband is considerably more difficult than it needs to be.

He looks up from the coffee he’s pouring. “You find it okay?”

“Yes.” I smile.

My bag is still on his table exactly where I left it.

I walk over and sit at the table, tucking one bare foot under the opposite thigh. There’s already a mug waiting beside my bag. I take a sip and discover he has remembered exactly how I drink it despite the fact I don’t remember ever telling him.

“You’re staring again,” he says.

“Can you blame me?” I ask and he laughs.

He looks down at his body, then back at me with a smile. “Nobody has ever been so open about admiring my body before. It could certainly feed my ego.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Well, it’s not like you don’t feed mine.”

He picks up his own coffee and comes around the counter. There’s plenty of room at the table, but he pulls the chair beside mine rather than the one opposite and sits close enough that his knee presses against my thigh.

I look at him.

“What?” he asks, while my eyes wander over the tattoo on his chest.

I take a sip of coffee, then say, “You’re very clingy for a terrifying criminal.”

“I’m sitting in a chair.”

“There are four other chairs in this room alone.” I point to them, as if he isn’t aware.

“I like this one,” he offers with a shrug.

There’s absolutely nowhere to go with that, so I drink my coffee and try to stop smiling.

“We shouldn’t be drinking coffee this late,” I say.

“I need you energized,” he says, swinging his eyes to mine, “for that I have planned tonight.”

I put my coffee down, and he hooks one arm beneath my knees and one around my back, lifting me from the chair and carrying me through to his room.

“You said you bought a toy,” he says as he places me down on his bed. “What was it?”

“I’m not answering that,” I squeal. “That’s my private business. Besides, I told you. It wasn’t any good.”