Her Russian Beast: 50 Loving States, New Mexico (4 page)

Her eyes widened. Was that a private swimming pool? Yes, it was. And in the distance, the Acropolis shone like a nighttime portrait. Forget price range. This place was out of her imagination’s range.

A low growl interrupted her blatant gaping. She looked across the huge room to see an insanely large dog with white and black fur standing outside a closed set of sliding doors like a canine sentry. It stared at her with demonic blue eyes, as if it were trying to decide whether or not to kill her.

“That is Sascha. Siberian husky, wolf mix. Do not try to pet. Not safe.”

The Russian said something to the huge hound in a strange language. She’d never heard it before, and was almost sure it wasn’t Russian. Whatever it was, it did the trick, because the growling stopped almost immediately. And it didn’t start up again when The Russian disappeared through the sliding doors, which apparently led into a bedroom.

Still, Sascha continued to give her the evil eye until The Beast re-emerged a few moments later with a gray t-shirt bunched in his large fist.

“Put this on,” he commanded, thrusting it at her. And to her surprise, he turned around to give her privacy.

She did as instructed, and found that the t-shirt came all the way down to her knees without clinging to anything whatsoever. The night before, he’d all but ripped the ring girl outfit off of her, but tonight it seemed like he could barely look at her and wanted her completely covered.

“I’m done,” she said.

“What do you need to fix your face?” he asked, turning back around.

Her face. She could feel it throbbing with the heat of damage done, and she wasn’t going to forget the way the other hotel guests had stared at her anytime soon. They’d probably thought he was the one who gave it to her.

“I apologize if I embarrassed you down there,” she said, cringing at that thought.

Something ticked in his jaw. “What do you need to fix your face?”

“Um…just some ice and a towel,” she answered, pressing her fingertips into the large bruise. “Nothing feels broken.”

He left the room without another word. Leaving her alone in the suite with a dog she wasn’t supposed to pet.

“Are you really that dangerous?” she asked it.

Sascha stared back at her. Eyes inscrutable.

But she had a feeling about this one, so she sang to it. “Yellow,” by Coldplay. One of the songs she used to sing to Trevor to lull him to sleep. Sascha seemed like a Coldplay fan.

As it turned out, she was right. By the time The Russian came back with the ice, she was sitting with her back to the sliding doors with Sascha’s head in her lap.

However, both she and the dog stood up somewhat guiltily when he came back into the suite.

“Hey,” she said.

He just grunted and pushed the ice bucket into her hands. He pointed at the sliding door, “You can sleep in there. I am going out.”

“Okay, thank you—”

He headed back to the door before the words were even out of her mouth. And this time he slammed it behind him.

So apparently he wasn’t completely unaffected by what had happened that night, she thought in the wake of his departure. He’d come to the basement, probably looking for another hook up, and had found her in need of saving instead. Total mood killer. And now not only did he not want a repeat of last night, he was also plainly struggling with the decision to let her stay here in his beyond-grand hotel room. She totally got that.

But she must have had a little more pride left than originally thought, because for a moment she considered leaving. Disappearing back into one of the poorer parts of the city and getting out of his obviously annoyed hair.

But it was four in the morning. All she had in the world now was the waist pack with the little money she’d made working for Cyrus. And her head was swimming—she could only hope not with a concussion. Sure there was her pride, but she was also the daughter of a nurse. She knew she needed to ice her face. And sleep.

Deciding to at least do that for herself, she opened the sliding doors and entered a sophisticated bedroom done up in deep browns and fine white linens. Another entry in the “this is how you do rich-ass hotel rooms” catalog, and her heart nearly cried out a happy gospel song when she saw what looked like the softest bed ever. When she woke up, she’d figure out a new plan, she promised herself. Or just start wandering the streets of Greece again until she found another place to land.

She found a hand towel in the small alcove that sat between the bedroom and the bathroom, and made herself a decent enough ice pack. Then, pressing it to her face, she climbed into the huge bed and let herself sink into it with a sigh. Only to find she couldn’t sleep.

Funny that unlike her reluctant host, she wasn’t remotely bothered that he’d so ruthlessly shot Cyrus and his goons. But the fact that he wasn’t sleeping beside her, making her feel the things he’d made her feel last night when he’d taken her again and again like he couldn’t get enough…that bothered her.

And though this was the most comfortable bed she’d lain in like, ever, it took her a long while to fall asleep.

W
hich was
why she was shocked to wake up to the sight of The Russian Beast. But not so beast-like anymore. He was clean-shaven now, and had replaced last night’s black track suit with a pair of gray wool trousers and a black sweater, which made his eyes appear even darker. And instead of a knot, his long hair fell in a silken, jet-black waterfall past his shoulders.

“Hi,” she said, sitting up on her forearm. She could only wonder what she looked liked. Dressed in his bulky t-shirt, likely black eye, wild curls in a frizzy tumble on top of her head—since she hadn’t tied it up last night.

“What’s up?” she asked, trying not to feel self-conscious.

“I come back to room last night. No Sascha. I look for him on balcony, in other bathroom, and then I find him in here. My guard dog curled up beside your bed.”

Oh, so Sascha was a boy. She hadn’t bothered to check last night.

“Sorry,” she said with a chagrined smile. “I kind of have a way with animals—especially if they’re male. My mom says my grandma on my father’s side was a siren.”

He stared at her for a long black-eyed second and then said, “Or maybe he recognizes kin. He is dog. You live like dog. He comes in here with you.”

She tilted her head. Okay, this guy… he had a way of insulting her so brazenly, it was hard for her to actually feel insulted. Just bewildered. “So you came in here to compare me to your dog?”

Another dark look, and despite the much more sophisticated clothes, he put her in mind of a frustrated beast. Nostrils flaring in and out as he glared at her.

“You are quarter siren, but you live like dog in that basement.” He sat forward, thick forearms settling on his thighs. “Tell me, do you know about men like Cyrus? What they do to siren girls like you?”

She shook her head with the feeling she didn’t really want to know the answer to that question. As it turned out she was right.

“They give you drugs,” he informed her. “Then they give you to somebody who breaks girls like you as job. Rape you over and over and keep you on drugs until you are addicted and will do whatever they say for next hit. What did you think happened to girls who came before you?”

“They quit because of the obviously shitty working conditions?” she answered, truthfully.

“No, they do not quit,” he answered, tone scathing as acid. “They were
broken
. Cyrus lets men use them after fighting is done. That way all money comes back to him, even if house loses on fights. He lets men use them until they are too old or too far gone. Then he gets new girl. You were new girl.”

She expelled a breath, strangely more upset for the women who’d come before her than herself. “Those poor girls. Is there any way to help them?” she asked him.

He flinched. Almost like her question had taken him by complete surprise. “No, there is no way to help them.”

“Oh,” her shoulders sank. More souls to add to the list of people she couldn’t help.

The memory of Trevor’s broken body lying in the road came back to her in a flash then. Along with the image of her sobbing. Begging him and anybody else who would listen not to go, to stay here with her, not to die—

She broke out of the memory, clinging to her numbness like a lifeline.

“Okay, well, thank you for the advice,” she said to the intense man sitting in front of her.

She swung her feet around so she could get out of the bed. “No more taking jobs at underground fighting rings. Message received. Thank you. Seriously, thank you for all you did. I’ll be getting out of your hair now.”

But as soon as she stood, so did he, effectively blocking her exit with one move of his giant body.

“You are scared of me now,” he said, bending his head to look down at her. “After you saw real me. Who I really am.”

It was a statement not a question, but her answer would have been the same either way. “No, I’m not scared,” she told him. “Just grateful. And sad for those other girls. And I don’t want to overstay my welcome here, so I’ll just be going.”

But instead of stepping out of the way to allow her to leave, he stepped even closer. Towering over her as he said, “You should be.”

“Sad?” she asked.

“Scared. You should be scared of me. After last night.”

She smiled then, broken and wry. Yeah, she supposed she should be. But…

“I’m not,” she said, looking up to meet his gaze. Bold as she used to be. Before Trevor. “I don’t care how many dudes you kill. I ain’t going to be scared of you.”

A few dangerous seconds ticked by, and then he sneered, “You are stupid girl. But you make my dick hard.”

Her eyes widened. “Okay, well, I guess that’s supposed to be some kind of compliment.”

“I will make you offer,” he continued, still sneering. “Instead of dying like dog in some Greek’s basement, you will become my pet.”

“Your
pet
?” she repeated, looking down at Sascha.

“No, Sascha is guard dog. Not pet. The men in my family…” He sliced his eyes to the side as if trying to figure how to explain this to her, even though English wasn’t his first language. “The men in my family. We are known for keeping a certain type of woman. A woman we take care of, who in return takes care of the needs every man has. We give this woman many things, and she gives us whatever we want from her, anytime we want it. Do you understand my meaning, Siren?”

She nodded. “Yeah, I think I do. You all have a whore on the side,” she summarized, voice blunt. “It’s like a family tradition, and you want me to be your whore.”

“No, Siren, let me make this clear. Not my whore. My
pet
. If you are to sell yourself, I would have you sell yourself to me. But I do not pay for sex. I pay for ownership.”

“
W
ow
. Just…wow.” He watched the siren girl blink in surprise, his own body tight with tension, as he waited for her answer.

It scared him how much he wanted her to say yes. How much he wanted to own her, to take this woman into his bed, and know he could keep her there as long as he wanted.

But she didn’t answer. Just kept shaking her head and saying, “Wow” on long expulsions of breath.

His brother was the negotiator, not him. The only two options for the deals he ever entered into were “agree” or “fight.” But with this girl he found himself as close to negotiating as he had ever come.

“I know I am not easy to look at. Especially to pretty girl like you. But you have seen what I can do in dark. It does not have to be bad between us, Sirena.”

She stopped shaking her head and squinted up at him. “What?”

“I said it does not have to be bad—”

“No, not that part. Go back to the part where you claim not to be easy to look at.”

Now he squinted, once again confused by her response. “I know I am ugly, but in the dark it will not matter.”

She looked at him for a beat. And then she burst out laughing.

His stomach dropped. She was laughing at him. Like the boys in the Siberian coal town where he grew up used to laugh at him—well, at least they laughed until he became big enough to stop their laughter with his fists.

“I will not be laughed at,” he told her, voice low and dangerous.

“I’m sorry,” she answered, still laughing. “But what do you expect when you say crazy shit like that? If you tell a joke, I’m going to laugh. Okay, sure whatever. You’re ugly. And I’m like a blonde Barbie doll. Fine, whatever. I get it. Just stop. I can’t breathe!”

It took several mystified moments of watching her laugh so hard there were tears in her eyes before he realized, “You are being serious. You do not think I am ugly.”

“What? No! You’re like…the most beautiful. I can’t stop myself from looking at you. Are you kidding me?”

“No, I do not kid,” he answered quite seriously. “I am not…like you.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Like me how? You mean you don’t have small tits and a really nice ass? Well, no you don’t have the small tits. But man, you do have that banging body, them cheekbones, and those eyes.”

“But…but…I am only half.”

She shook her head. “What does that mean?”

“I am half my Buryat mother, and half my Russian father.”

Her eyebrows shot to the top of her head. “Wait, wait, wait! Are you trying to tell me you don’t think you’re fine because you’re bi-racial? Because as a half-and-half myself, I think you might have finally managed to insult me.”

“That is different. You know this. You are very beautiful girl and I am…” He didn’t know the right word in English. Could barely believe he was having to explain this to her. “…not.”

Another burst of laughter exploded out of her, her shoulders shaking with it. “Boy, if you stopped glaring at everybody like you was fixing to pull a gun on them, you’d have plenty of girls dropping their panties when you came around. No need for me!”

That supposition hardened his gaze. “It is not other girls panties I want.”

That finally brought her laughter to a stop. And he said into her silence. “You are maybe little serious about thinking me handsome, but I am more serious about wanting you as pet. How will you answer my offer, Siren?”