NIKOLAI (Her Russian Protector #4) Read Free Page A

the way, he'd fallen hopelessly in love with
her.
    Unlike Dimitri who swore that he'd fallen in
love with his wife, Benny, the very first time she'd laughed,
Nikolai couldn't pinpoint the exact moment he'd fallen for Vivian.
It had come upon him so slowly he hadn't even recognized he was in
danger of becoming impossibly entangled until it was too
late.
    But he couldn't love her. He shouldn't love her.
Vivian personified sweet, innocent beauty but him? Oh, Nikolai
personified the darkness and violence of the world. The stains of
his sins would never wash off—and he refused to taint her with his
transgressions.
    "Do you guys want some coffee or tea?" She toed
off her shoes. "Breakfast?"
    Eric holstered his weapon. "I'm not staying
that long."
    I am . "Tea,
please."
    Vivian returned to the kitchen but stayed
within earshot. Nikolai glanced at Santos' busted up mouth. "What
the hell happened to you?"
    He shot an annoyed look toward the kitchen and
self-consciously rubbed his jaw. "I think my cousin has been
sneaking into those bare-knuckle fights down at the old
meat-packing plant."
    Nikolai stiffened with surprise. "Vee hit
you?"
    "On accident," she called out, her back turned
to them as she filled a tea kettle.
    Nikolai considered the detective's busted
mouth, swollen nose and scratched up cheek. "That doesn’t look very
accidental."
    "I had my keys in my hand," she explained as
she returned to the living room. "He caught me by surprise and I
just sort of reacted."
    "With a punch to the face?" He closed the
distance between them and grasped her left hand. The slightest
touch of her warm skin against his caused an electric shiver to zip
along his arm and into his chest. Gently, he inspected her swollen
knuckles. Already her skin darkened with a bruise. "Why didn't you
ice this?"
    She bit her plump lower lip. "Well—Eric was
bleeding."
    "And after he stopped bleeding?"
    "You knocked on the door."
    Clutching her wrist, he tugged her into the
kitchen. He spotted the ice pack on the counter and deduced it had
been used by Santos. After trading out the blood-stained dishtowel
for a clean one, he pressed the cold pack against her swollen
knuckles. Though he generally tried not to touch her for very long,
this morning he allowed himself to enjoy the simple pleasure of
holding her hand and treating her injury.
    They were close enough that he could smell the
faint lavender of the shampoo she favored. Her body heat remained
high from her run and amplified the feminine scent. Only the sight
of Santos stepping into the kitchen stopped him from dipping his
head and inhaling the floral hints. He started to reach out to push
some of the sweat-dampened strands of her hair behind her ear but
he flexed his fingers at his side instead.
    "You shouldn't be punching your attackers. You
should make a hell of a lot of noise and run." He'd tried to give
her a concealed handgun course and a gun for her last birthday but
she didn't want a weapon. Instead, he'd finally convinced her to
carry pepper spray. "Were you carrying the pepper spray I gave
you?"
    She refused to meet his questioning gaze. "It's
too heavy and too big for my pocket."
    "Vee," he chastened softly. "If you insist on
running in the dark, you have to carry some kind of
protection."
    "Okay." Frustration edged into her voice.
Finally lifting her gaze, she asked, "You're here about my dad,
aren't you?"
    He confirmed her suspicion with a tight nod and
then glanced at Santos. "You've heard that he flipped on the
Calaveras?"
    "Yeah."
    "It may be worse than that. I've heard
rumblings that he may have gone so far as to finger the cartel for
some killings inside the prison."
    Vivian's sharp intake of breath pained him. As
if she hadn't survived enough in her young life, now her father had
put her in an impossible position. Nikolai didn’t believe for one
second that her rotten shit of a father cared one way or the other
about Vivian's life. He'd already used her as a drug mule and a
partner in