Stolen from the Hitman: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance (12 page)

I know she can feel my breath on her neck now, and my mind starts to work faster, wondering what she thinks of the appropriateness of all this. Maybe she’s truly asleep, and she will wake up with another shriek. Maybe she’s in the same half-conscious state as I, acting on the merest impulse and drive for human closeness.

I hardly realize what I’m doing as I lean forward to close the inch between us, my lips brushing against her neck as I plant a gentle kiss there, holding her tighter against me in a brief hug. My concerns melt for a moment as I hear a soft sigh from her, her legs squirming around as she adjusts herself to get more comfortable against me, and I can almost see the smile on her lips from behind.

“You’re a hero, Max,” she whispers, and her words almost make me jump, not realizing she was every bit as wide-awake as me. “You said you weren’t a good person, but I just want you to know that you are.”

With that, she slips her hand into mine, giving it a light squeeze as she gets comfortable against me, and I feel her breath go steady and slow again as she’s carried into a deep, comfortable sleep.

And now, I’m wide-awake, my mind racing in conflict as I fight to control the threateningly growing thing between my legs as she presses against me, my heartbeat quickening against what I realize is the first person in a very long time — probably ever — to see some good in the true side of who I am.

A
stream
of pale morning sunlight pricks at my eyes until they open. My whole body aches with exhaustion, as though I recently ran a marathon. There are soft gray sheets cocooning me, and a cushy pillow under my cheek. Am I at home? More importantly, where is home? My bedroom back in Toast… or my shared bedroom at my flat with Maggie? My heart sinks at the thought of her. Wherever she is, I hope she’s okay, at least alive. As I blink my eyes, the room around me comes into focus and it begins to dawn on me where exactly
I
am.

My mentor’s bedroom.

My stomach twists into anxious knots and I flip over, dreading what I will find. I can’t believe I’m doing this — sleeping in my instructor’s bed! What would my parents think of me? What would my friends back home say about me in their whispered conversations?

With mingled relief and disappointment I realize that the space beside me is empty. I’m all alone in the bed. I frown and start questioning what even happened last night. Maybe I did sleep here by myself all night. But then… I remember the faint sensation of Max’s strong body curled around me protectively. I recall with a shiver the feeling of his feather-light kiss on my neck. No, he was definitely here last night. Where is he now?

A surge of terror passes through my body. What if he left me here? What if I’m alone?

Will and those other guys could come back for me. They could find me here. Suddenly, it becomes absolutely imperative that I find Max and stay close to him, no matter what. I can’t stand to be alone right now. As I slip out of bed, I feel a twinge of self-loathing. I used to be so independent. I treasured my alone time. And now I’m proving everyone right — I
am
just as fragile as I look. I comb my fingers through my messy hair, wincing as I untangle the knots. I must have tossed and turned in my sleep a lot to make such a disaster of my hair. It was fine and soft, and usually didn’t tangle easily. But with the experiences I’ve had since coming to Paris, I suppose it makes sense that I would have difficulty sleeping peacefully.

Will’s cruel smirk flashes to the front of my mind and I feel my knees buckle beneath me. I have to find Max. I can’t be alone right now. I listen intently for any sounds — and notice the comforting pitter-patter of the shower running on the other side of the bathroom door. I stand in front of the door, conflicted.

We’ve already slept in the same bed together, and he’s stood guard over me while I bathed. He rescued me from almost certain death — or a fate possibly worse — and nursed me patiently back to some semblance of sanity. How much worse can it be for me to walk in on him in the shower? Never mind the fact that I’ve never actually seen any man naked, much less my instructor. But I’ll just go in but not look. I’ll give him the same privacy he gave me, while feeling that protected calm that only his presence can afford me.

There’s no one else I can trust in this city, no one else I know, and while that was isolating before, now it’s next to unbearable. I feel vulnerable, and knowing how capable Max is gives me comfort.

And I admit, that sweet, momentary lapse between us... The kiss...

That was the only thing that soothed me enough to get a truly good night sleep. The memory of his hard, masculine body wrapped into mine and keeping me safe.

I cautiously turn the knob and walk into the bathroom. A thick coating of steam embraces me as I shut the door behind me. It’s so warm, it’s comforting. Against the opposite wall is the fogged-up shower stall, with Max standing under the stream of hot water, his eyes shut. I bite my lip nervously, afraid that I may have overstepped my boundaries. I certainly don’t want to catch him off guard and freak him out. After all, even though we’ve skipped a lot of steps in our relationship with each other through the extenuating circumstances of the past couple of days, Max may not react very positively to my seeing him naked. Not that I can see him very clearly through the steamed-up glass panels of the shower stall, anyway.

I don’t know if that’s a godsend or a pity.

What I can make out through the fog are his enormous muscular arms, reaching up to shampoo his thick dark hair. My own body tingles at the remembrance of those arms around me last night in bed, holding me close, sheltering me from the bad dreams that haunted my thoughts. It surprises me just how natural it felt, how much it doesn’t bother me. Of course, when I think about what other people would say, I feel ashamed. Weak. But if it were purely up to me and my own perception of the situation, it would be a different story.

Because as inappropriate as it may be, I can’t help but feel at home with him in a way I never expected to. I’m sure a lot of that has to do with the fact that he’s responsible for saving my life. That’s a bond most people will never feel with another. But even before that, when I first met him and he caught me staring at him, I certainly felt something. A girlish crush, maybe, that was quickly snuffed out by how formal he was with me. But now I understand why he had to push me away, and why he needed to distance himself from others.

He’s not who he says he is. More than that, I don’t think he’s who he believes he is either. I see the goodness in him, but when I told him that, I felt him tense, like he didn’t agree.

As I’m standing here pondering the unusual depth of our dynamic, Max suddenly looks over and does a double-take at the sight of me. His green eyes flash brightly through the fog and I can see just the slightest hint of embarrassment cross his features. Instantly I feel guilty for walking in on him. I should have stayed put. But I just can’t stand to be out of his sight. The feeling that I’m being stalked, being watched, is ever-present. And Max is my comfort, for better or for worse, and whatever it happens to mean for the both of us.

To his credit, he makes no attempt to shield his naked body from me. I don’t think I could stand it if he did. But instead he simply goes on about washing himself as though I’m not here at all, which I’m thankful for. After all, I didn’t sneak in here to gawk at him — although I can see now that there is a lot to gawk at. I recall something I heard years ago about people in Europe being more open about their bodies and sexualities. At the time I had just dismissed it as some stupid rumor Americans make up so foreigners sound more exotic, but now I’m wondering if that’s part of why Max doesn’t even seem bothered to have me as an audience.

His body is perfectly sculpted, his arm and leg muscles bulging just enough to hint at the immense strength he keeps tethered. My eyes follow the line of his broad shoulders and back, narrowing down to his waist and his taut ass. When he turns toward me, unabashedly, I see his flat stomach with his carved abdominal muscles and below that…

His cock.

I swallow hard, my eyes going wide at the sight of it. He’s massive, even limp. I have to force my jaw not to drop. I’ve never seen a man’s genitals before, but I had no idea they were this big. Or maybe it’s just him. I feel my face growing flushed and I delicately hoist myself up to sit on the counter, feeling a little weak again. Somewhere in the back of my muddled mind, I wonder what it would feel like to touch it. To brush my fingertips along the head of his shaft, to feel it harden beneath my light machinations.

I inwardly shake myself of these thoughts.
Get yourself together, Liv!
Romantic hero-savior or not, he’s still my teacher. And I am his student. There’s got to be at least ten years’ age difference between us. Though, looking at his body now, it’s impossible to reason that he wouldn’t be every bit as limber and powerful as a man my own age. Probably more so.

But I can’t let myself think like that. Not now. What has gotten into me?

I convince myself it’s just the trauma of what’s happened to me which is clouding my judgement, but I’m lying to myself. I thought he was hot the second I set eyes on him, and was curious about him ever since, even as I tried to push it from my mind. Now that I’m alone with him, though, I’m greedy for more.

My eyes begin to catch other details of Max’s physique — scars. I squint, straining to catalogue them as he rinses off his body. There are shiny, jagged lines marring his skin, some on his arms and legs, and one particularly nasty one on his upper chest, almost to his collarbone. I wonder what could have caused him such pain. What kind of life has he led? As a gymnast, I’ve had my own share of awful injuries, and there are battle scars I bear, as well. But nothing to this extent. Who hurt him? Who made him this way? One thing is for sure: he didn’t get those scars as a mere gymnastics instructor in Paris.

The water cuts off and Max steps out of the shower stall. For a glorious split second I take in his full, glistening frame before he wraps a towel around his body. He shakes his head vigorously to loosen the excess water from his hair, almost like a fluffy dog. The gesture is so cute and out of character it draws an unbidden smile to my face.

“How did you sleep?” he asks simply, roughly combing back the hair from his face with deft fingers. It takes me a moment to rip myself out of the trancelike state I’m in, intrigued by every movement this beautiful, mysterious man makes.

“Just fine,” I lie. The truth is, I still dreamed of dark, dank places and cruelly handsome faces last night. But every time I awoke with a pained cry, I was lulled back to sleep by the comforting warmth of the man lying next to me.

“I apologize for the indecency,” he remarks, but there’s no hint of apology in his voice. I wonder if he’s only saying this out of obligation, because he doesn’t want to tread on my boundaries. But I’m relieved to hear his light, even tone. It means he’s not upset at me for barging in at him and staring at him like a horny school girl. Which, in fairness, is kind of what I feel like, so I don’t want his apologies. In my mind, there is nothing to apologize for. I needed a guardian to stay close. I asked him to come to bed with me.

He was only doing as I requested.

He was only protecting me. Again.

“It’s nothing,” I assure him, trying to strike a balance between dismissing his apology and not sounding too eager. In truth, I’d repeat my actions again, and even though he’s my instructor, I think he did the perfectly decent thing.

The strangest thing, though, that I don’t know how to deal with is my budding attraction to him. Or is it fully bloomed now? I’ve never really found myself attracted to anyone sexually before — not on this level. I’ve had silly, fleeting crushes in the past. I’ve even danced with boys at school formals. But nothing has ever stricken me so sharply as the proximity of Max’s strong, powerful body to mine.

And I know what those captors wanted to do to me. I bet they’d have even fetched a higher price on my body if they knew I was a virgin. The documentary I watched said that untouched girls were always more highly prized, and that was precisely why I kept it to myself.

So maybe it’s partly that fear bubbling over in me. I nearly had my virginity forced from me, and now I’m waking up to real, adult desires as a messed up way to deal with that. Or maybe it’s just one of those near death things where suddenly I have a new appreciation for life and experiencing all the things I never got to yet.

And sex is definitely one of those experiences.

I find myself longing to be nearer to him, constantly. Even now, as I sit perched on the bathroom counter, it’s difficult for me not to stare with desire. I can’t believe the urges coming over me. I decide to just chalk it up to my recent trauma and leave the moral questioning for another time.

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, Liv,” Max continues, standing there with his towel wrapped around his waist. His chest and stomach muscles gleam with the fairest sheen of moisture, catching every sculpted line. Those smoldering green eyes watch me intently, waiting for a response. Like he’s waiting for me to cry, to break down in front of him. It’s almost as though he expects me to be afraid of him — like it would be easier if I did.

But I don’t. I fear my confusing feelings toward him, but I don’t fear Max in the least.

“You’ve done nothing to make me feel uncomfortable. You saved my life. I will never be able to thank you for what you’ve done for me,” I explain to him, biting my lip.

Our eyes meet and I feel a tingling sensation travel down my spine. It’s this powerful, unexplainable electric current, the same one I felt when I first sat down across from him at the banquet table in North Carolina. Something feels so primal, so natural about our meeting. Like we were always going to find ourselves here somehow.

But then he drags his eyes away from me, looking into the mirror as the steam begins to clear and reveal his handsome, conflicted face. He falls silent, and I wonder what kinds of thoughts are surging through his mind right now. I can feel that barrier coming up again, the same one he put between us the moment he offered me the position as his student.

“Your scars… how did you get them?” I ask suddenly, unable to stop myself, unwilling to let him recoil from me.

He doesn’t look at me, keeping his gaze trained on his own reflection, and for a second, I wonder if I’ve instead pushed him away.

“I told you that I used to walk a darker path. I lived a very different life years ago. I ran with a crowd who would sneer at the way I live now, would call me a coward or a quitter. But I could not run alongside them forever. Olivia, I did terrible things, and terrible things happened to me, as well,” he says slowly.

“That mark on your chest,” I begin cautiously, “what is it?”

He sighs, staring down at his hands gripping the edge of the counter as though it physically pains him to look himself in the eye now. “You don’t want to know.”

“Please,” I press, moving closer along the counter so that my bare legs, poking out of the bottom of the oversized T-shirt he gave me, are almost touching his arm.

Finally, he looks at me, and I feel that electric shock once again.

“It is the result of trying to burn away my past. It was… it used to be a tattoo, marking me as a member of the brotherhood. The Bratva.”

My blood runs cold.