CHAPTER TEN
IRENA WATCHED MAYBE carefully as she put the supplies back into the bakery truck. The event had been well attended and the smile on Vic’s face told Maybe they had a very good day indeed.
“What else can I do for you?” Maybe asked once she’d finished.
“You and your sister are not lazy.” Irena nodded once and then waited for Vic to open her car door. “Also, it’s good to have you around.”
“That was a compliment. Just in case you were confused,” Vic told her quickly before he circled back to his side.
Maybe laughed, warmed by the words of praise Irena didn’t often use. “Good to know.”
Alexsei walked her way, all his attention on her. Awakening all her erogenous zones. Rada had left a few minutes before so, thankfully, Maybe’s annoyance had begun to fade enough to realize how freaking long it had been since she’d eaten, even though she’d been surrounded by food the whole day.
“I’m hungry,” he told her but she wasn’t sure if he meant food or sex because he looked like he wanted to fuck her right then and there.
“Is that a sex thing?” she asked.
“If I said it was, could we have some?” A flash of a sexy smile.
Utterly happy, she reached out, hugging him before she’d even had the time to second-guess it.
He hummed, wrapping his arms around her, tucking her against his body.
* * *
SHE TOLD HIM, “We can totally have some. Even if you didn’t mean it in a sex-type way at the time.”
“This is a very admirable quality, Maybe. I always mean it in a sex-type way when it comes to you. But first dinner.”
Maybe harrumphed but when her stomach growled she had to admit dinner sounded great.
“Do we at least have time for me to change clothes?” she asked as they continued the last bits of cleanup.
“You have ten minutes when we drop Rachel at home. I will keep strict time.” He even glanced at his watch to underline it.
He wasn’t entirely wrong to give her a time limit because there were moments Maybe would get caught up in something and forget herself and whatever tasks she had to finish.
“Bossy,” she muttered. Mainly for form. It was sort of cool he knew her so well.
He patted her ass quickly as she walked past. Because her face was turned away, she allowed a quick grin.
* * *
“TELL ME SOMETHING about yourself no one knows,” he said as he began to eat.
“You and your tell-me-something stuff. Like what?”
“This is why I ask, Maybe. If I knew, it wouldn’t be you telling me something I didn’t know.”
“You’re a smarty-pants.”
He laughed. “Of all the things you could say, I get smarty-pants?”
“Well, I’m not mad at you. At the moment anyway. Sassy. Saucy. Smirky. All those apply too.”
“You were mad at me before?” His tone said he couldn’t possibly imagine why, though he obviously knew.
“Really? You’re going to be coy? I should tell you I don’t like that.” Maybe frowned.
“Can I confess how beautiful you are when you frown?” he asked.
“What?” She laughed. “You’re so weird.”
He nodded slowly. “I might have heard this a few times before. But your mouth is particularly attractive when you make that face.”
“It’s a good thing I suppose. Since you do things to make me frown all the time now that we’re...whatever we are.”
He made a sound, caught between a growl and a snarl and it made her ladybits dance with joy.
“Is this about Rada?” he asked. “There’s nothing between us. I am with you.” He waved a casual hand before he attacked his burger once more.
“Is what about Rada?”
His gaze locked on her. “Now who’s being coy?”
“I’m not coy. I just don’t want to talk about her while I’m eating.” She grimaced. “I don’t get it. But I’m not a dude.”
“For that I’m grateful as I happen to prefer women.”
“Are you poking at me?” Maybe grinned. Damn it, she really liked him.
“I like poking at you. As you know.” He gave her the sex look. “I want to know you better.”
She thought a bit and then sighed. “Only if you do the same. Tell me something about you I mean.”
Alexsei agreed.
“I secretly love all the touristy stuff in Seattle,” she told him. “I’ve done the Underground Tour half a dozen times. In the summer I love to spend my off days taking the ferries all around Puget Sound.”
* * *
ALEXSEI WASN’T SURE what he’d been expecting, but this confession only made him want her more. That sweet side to her was a gift he planned to treasure.
“I’ve never gone on the Underground Tour. It’s enjoyable?”
Her grin came fast. “It’s silly, but yes, fun. I like that historical period.”
“When is your next day off? I want to go with you.”
She blinked at him, a blush pinkening her cheeks, charming him impossibly more. “Really? You don’t have to. I mean, it’s cheesy.”
He put his fork down and reached for her hand, tangling their fingers together. “Of course I don’t have to. I want to. I’ve lived in Seattle since I was sixteen but I have to admit I’ve never done anything touristy. My business is here in Pioneer Square, naturally I see a lot of tourists. But I’ve never acted like one.”
“My next day off is Thanksgiving.” Her expression created a quick jerk of empathy. “So maybe in early December. My boss is pretty sweet on me.”
He was more than sweet on the woman across the table from him. “Your family is not good.”
Maybe shrugged. “Good is a relative term. I think my parents believe they’re doing the right thing for Rachel.”
Alexsei found himself rankled by the usually blunt Maybe being so careful about the words she chose. “Tell me about them. About you.”
“You’re supposed to tell me something first. Remember?”
Alexsei took a deep breath. “You know I came here at fourteen with my brother to live with my aunt and uncle. Part of the reason was our mother’s new husband and his lifestyle. My mother could see, to her credit, that my brother and I could get easily sucked into that way of living. There was so much money and power being tossed around. It would have been natural for me to start doing small jobs for him, working my way up. And one day Cris and I would have been his lieutenants or something equally dangerous and stupid. People judge her and think she’s a terrible parent. In some ways I’d agree. But in this? In this I feel like she’s underappreciated.”
The corner of Maybe’s mouth quirked up slightly. “I like to hear that. I’ll be honest when I tell you I’d wondered how someone could just walk away like that. Given my own parents that seems rather silly, right?”
“Why did they let you go? When you ran away.”
“I might need another glass of wine for this part.”
He poured her another and she lifted it in a self-mocking toast before she spoke once more.
“My dad and I were pretty much at odds my whole life, but especially in my teen years. He was a cop. Still thinks like one, I’m pretty sure that runs to the bone. Rachel has that too. Anyway, Rachel was the neat one. The one who obeyed and made good choices. I was the messy one who said all the wrong things, read all the wrong books, had all the wrong friends. By the time I was sixteen and he called me a stupid whore after discovering a hickey on my neck, I just left. I ran and headed to my aunt and uncle—funny how we’ve got that in common—and they took me in and gave me a home. He and my mom had me declared a runaway, and wanted me taken back to Southern California and placed in a juvenile facility. But with some pressure from my aunt—she’s a cop too, they run thick in my family—my parents signed papers to give custody to them and pretty much left me alone. I really think they were relieved to have me gone. Rachel was the one they focused on solely after that.”
She shrugged one shoulder as anger burned through Alexsei’s gut.
“And yet, they moved up here to be near you,” he said.
“They moved up here to be near Rachel. Big difference.”
He didn’t understand it. Certainly moving to be near an adult child who’d undergone a great deal of trauma was what he thought of as normal, caring behavior. But essentially pushing one of your children out of the house while putting all love and attention on the other didn’t make any sense at all. And it pissed him off because it was her and she didn’t deserve to be sad.
“I’m sorry to have stirred up bad memories.” He lifted her fingers to his lips to kiss them.
“You didn’t. It’s how things are. You can’t be sorry for something other people have done. Anyway, I have Rachel and my aunt and uncle and cousins. I’m loved and accepted. Which is a lot more than many other people so I consider that to all be in the win column. She needs our parents, so I put all my own junk aside to make sure she can see them but that they can’t bulldoze her.”
He frowned and she grinned in response.
“How do you make frowning so sexy? I suppose that’s a good thing, given how much you do it.”
“I don’t like people I care about carrying hurt.”
Her grin softened. “Well. Yeah.” A pretty pink blush bloomed over her cheeks.
The edges of her, that’s what’d called to him from the very start. Fierce. The set of her mouth drove him insane, so tough and sensual. Once she’d learned how hot it made him, she’d taken to little flicks of her tongue against whatever jewelry she chose that particular day.
But it wasn’t until that night in her bedroom several weeks before that he’d become just as enamored of her softness. That vulnerability she so rarely showed. The combination of it was so utterly bewitching he had no choice but to fall in love with her.
He wasn’t ready to speak that out loud. Not just yet. And he knew for certain Maybe wasn’t ready to hear it and let herself believe it. Alexsei had a lot to prove to her. Trust to grow between them still so she could accept the words and the promise between them.
The getting there would be fun, he had no doubt. She was unpredictable in all the best—unexpected—ways.