Russian Bad Boy's Untouched Love Read Free Page B

shoulder.
    It was as if everything was too much all at once. Mary burst into tears. She wrapped her arms around her midsection and sobbed in loud, heaving gusts. He was generally useless with a crying woman, but somehow Mary was different. There was no over dramatization here. She’s been through something very frightening and she was reacting the way any normal human being would.
    Without thinking, Vlad reached out and drew her into his arms. He held her close to his chest and rubbed her back, murmuring soothing phrases in Russian until he felt her begin to calm. She smelled like fresh vanilla. It felt shockingly natural to hold her in his arms.
    “Thank you,” Mary whispered. “I appreciate your help, and the insight you’ve given me on your brother. But I think I’d just like to drive home now if you don’t mind.”
    Vlad let her go, surprised at how bereft he felt without her warmth against his body. “Drive safely, and I’ll be in touch. I’d like to swing by and check on you later, if you don’t mind. I want to make sure you’re all right after this.”
    “I don’t think that would be a good idea,” she whispered.
    He rubbed her arms. “Well I do.”
    She didn’t answer, but Vlad could sense that something strange had happened between them tonight.

Chapter Three
    Mary filled her bathtub with shaking hands. She sprinkled some calming salts into the frothing hot water and choked back a sob as she thought of how close she had come to disaster less than an hour ago.
    Slipping out of her bathrobe, she put one toe in the water to test it. The warmth felt good. Right now she felt as though she were frozen with dread and horror. Getting into the tub, she sank beneath the comforting warm liquid embrace and tried to sort through all of her feelings from that evening.
    No sooner had she shut her eyes to try a few breathing exercises to help her relax, than the sound of scratching at her bedroom window made her freeze. She sucked in a deep breath and held it. There it was again. It sounded as if someone was deliberately tapping on the window. Never before had she so heartily regretted her choice to rent the ground floor unit. What if someone broke in?
    Mary stood up so quickly that the water sloshed out of the tub onto the floor. She gingerly stepped out onto the wet linoleum, not wanting to slip and fall and make things worse. She felt horrifyingly vulnerable. What if one of Sokolov’s men was trying to get her? What if he was making good on his threats about her treatment of Ioann?
    She grabbed her bath robe and pulled it on, belting it snug around her waist. She slipped from her bathroom into her bedroom. Groping around behind her nightstand, she came up with a baseball bat. It was her only mode of defending herself. Gripping it in one hand, she began creeping toward the window. Surely if there was someone knocking, they’d still be there peering inside right?
    The air was cold in front of the thin pane of glass. Mary squatted down beneath the window and then slowly raised herself up high enough to see. It was pitch dark outside with no moon to speak of. The streetlights cast an eerie orangish glow on the pavement. She couldn’t make out the shape of anything human out there. It was as if every living creature in the world had disappeared.
    A crash against her front door made Mary drop like a rock to her bedroom floor. She put her hands over her mouth to cover her ragged breathing. Her heart was running away with her and her lungs worked like a bellows in an attempt to keep oxygen going to her brain. She could hardly catch her breath at all.
    It was tempting to call out, maybe tell someone she’d already called the police. But she hadn’t and she wouldn’t. She could end up reporting nonexistent intruders because she was afraid of her own shadow after some thugs had tried to rob her. The police didn’t look with a friendly eye toward false alarms. And all of this had to be a false alarm. It had to