Page 13 of Only For Your Touch
She shook her head. “No, of course not. I just…” Dipping her chin, she inhaled, her shoulders rising and falling beneath the cover. When she lifted her head again, the vulnerability in her eyes, in the slight tremble of her parted lips, punched the breath from his lungs. He’d expected the emotion, but damn, seeing it on her face… “Would you mind holding me?” she whispered.
Instead of answering, he stretched an arm along the back of the couch and extended the other out to her. She scrambled across the small distance separating them and crawled onto his lap. Her ass settled on his thigh, her hip pressing against his dick. Pain that could only be assuaged between her thighs clawed at him, but he ignored it.
She curled into him, tucking her head under his chin. He closed his arms around her, and the sigh she released burrowed into his chest. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on willing his erection to subside, not dwelling on how natural—how perfect—she fit against him.
“Merchant isn’t very Russian,” she said after several minutes of silence. “Is that your real last name?”
He stilled at the personal question; he didn’t talk about his parents or his past. With anyone. Only Rion and Killian knew the particulars, and that’s because they’d been there. Too much lay back there… Some things he’d rather forget, and some things he was supposed to forget. Not want.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized, her voice soft. “I didn’t mean to pry.” She loosed a sound caught between a chuckle and a sigh. It ghosted over the skin of his collarbone. “I’m just being…sentimental. Silly. All I know is your name, and I guess since we just—kind of had sex, I wanted to know more about you. I’m being such a girl, I know. And besides, talking wasn’t part of our bargain. I…” She trailed off, and he didn’t need to see her face to discern that color probably painted her cheekbones a fire-engine red. Not when her shoulders damn near bracketed her ears, and she curled tighter into herself.
Shit. He squeezed his eyes shut. He was going to fucking share.
“It isn’t my real last name,” he ground out. “It’s Polzin. After my family came to the United States, my father Americanized it. Since Polzin actually refers to a merchant in Russia, he thought it was a way of fitting in here and still maintaining a bit of our home.”
“That’s a wonderful compromise. Your father sounds like a smart and proud man.”
“Yes, he was,” Sasha said, the familiar and hated stab of pain lighting up his chest at the mention of his father.
“Oh God, I’m sorry, Sasha.” She leaned back, placing a hand on his chest. Over his heart. “I didn’t know he died. God, I didn’t think. I wouldn’t have—”
He shook his head, cutting off her stammered apology. “He’s not dead,” he said, tone flat. And that story—of why Val Merchant might as well be dead since he considered Sasha six feet under—he refused to go into.
Thankfully, she let it go, but after silence fell between them, he almost opened back up just to keep her talking. He liked her voice, the light but husky quality that could’ve belonged to an elementary school teacher or a 1-800 sex operator. Other than doling out instructions to his female employees or issuing the “You down to fuck?” exchange to his partners, he didn’t have long conversations with many women. Since he’d abandoned his old life, his social circle consisted only of his friends. But with Corrine—a woman he hadn’t even had yet—he wanted to…talk.
“About three years ago, I tried to sneak into the Red Sox locker room after too many drinks and a stupid dare from Tara,” she said into the quiet. “I love my best friend, but I swear when I’m around her I revert to a twelve-year-old. Anyway, they caught me and almost arrested me for trespassing.”
He released a crack of laughter, disbelief and amusement rolling out of him. “What? And where did that come from?”
She shrugged. “You shared something with me, so I’m doing the same. And it’s true. I didn’t even make it near the locker-room door before security snatched me up.”
Still chuckling, he shook his head. “Seriously? You like baseball?”
She gasped, the sound full of outrage. Tipping her head back, she frowned up at him. “Of course. How can you call yourself a Bostonian and not love Red Sox baseball? And let’s not get on the Patriots. Bill Belichick should have a shrine immortalizing him in the Public Garden. Right next to George Washington.”
“O-kay,” he drawled, smiling. “Well, what happened? Did you flirt your way out of an arrest record?”
The mock anger faded from her expression, and the gleam in her emerald eyes dulled. “No,” she said, and he hated the monotone note that entered her voice. “Once they found out my last name and who my father was, they decided to let me go ‘that one time,’” she sneered, a humorless smile curling a corner of her mouth. “I should’ve guessed something was different about my father then, but stupid me just thought he was a respected businessman with clout.” Disgust coated her words, darkened her gaze.
“You’re not stupid,lisichka,” he murmured. “Not then, and not now.”
“You knew who Carmine Salvaggi was, didn’t you?” Reluctantly, he nodded, and she laughed, the sound as sharp as jagged glass. “See? Everyone knew but naïve, gullible me. That’s what the press calls me, you know. Naïve, blind, spoiled. Like I didn’t want to see. I never questioned why I had to attend private boarding schools outside of Boston while my brothers were allowed to stay home. I didn’t ask why my friends were carefully handpicked by my parents. There were even a few times when kids would call my father Don Corleone, but I chalked that up to the stereotype of Italians being members of the mob.” She chuckled, the sound dry and full of disgust. “So, yes, maybe…maybe a part of me didn’t want to know. That’s the only thing that explains how I didn’t know my father was the boss of one of the largest crime families in the city. A killer.”
How could she know how her words sliced him like a scalpel? Still, he hated the pain and bitterness weighing down her voice. Though his throat tightened around the words struggling to escape, he pushed forward, needing to give her at least a little something to help her understand the man who’d raised her.
“For the first couple of years after moving here, I was the awkward Russian kid with the weird eyes and the weirder accent. When I finally made friends, they were everything to me.” Finding out Rion’s father was a hitman for the Irish mob and Killian’s was a career criminal hadn’t changed his mind or made him love them any less, although Val Merchant had forbidden his son to have anything to do with the boys he’d calledgopniki—criminals or thugs.
“I ended up getting involved with what my friends were into. And that included fighting and petty theft. Especially from those people who called me a Russian rat or Drago, and who treated my parents like garbage. It felt good. Rebelling felt good. Standing up for myself, refusing to take their shit, earning money to help support my family felt good. Even if the means were less than legit.”
Why he was going into this, he didn’t know. Maybe he didn’t want her looking at him with the same disgust that had twisted her lovely face when she’d spoken about her father’s secret life. Maybe he wanted to give her a little insight…understanding of why people made the decisions they did. When Sasha’s father threw him out at sixteen, disowning him, he’d had the friends he considered brothers, but he’d still been alone. But he’d vowed then never to be at the mercy of anyone again. That kind of vow influenced a man’s life.
“I don’t know the circumstances of your father’s childhood, and I’m not making excuses for him or what he’s done. But when you’ve been poor, discriminated against, or powerless, it shapes the way you think, act, and make choices. And the motivation behind many of those choices is never to be in a position where someone can use, take advantage of, or abuse you again.”
She studied him, and fuck if he just managed not to fidget under her close scrutiny. Give him a safe to crack—no problem. A belligerent drunk to manhandle—he didn’t break a sweat. But make him share his past with a woman to offer her the most comfort he could? Kill him now.
“I get what you’re trying to tell me,” she finally murmured. “I…don’t know if I can…” She trailed off, briefly closing her eyes. “I’ll try to understand.”
He didn’t go into full detail about his association with the mob. Sasha might not have officially belonged to the O’Bannons because of his blood and heritage, but he’d been an associate. His relationship with Rion and Killian had provided acceptance. He’d stolen, hijacked trucks, doled out beatings…and worse…for the gang. For Rion and Killian.
His ultimate loyalty had been to his friends, but unlike them, who had been born into that world, Sasha had chosen it. He’d left, but because of promises to his dying mother and his best friends. Not because he’d hated it. Fuck, there were times when he still craved the adrenaline rush, the excitement.
But he couldn’t explain any of this to Corrine; she wouldn’t understand. Which made him sitting here, sharing confidences with her, foolish as hell.
Sex.
Their bargain and limited relationship was about sex. Not secrets. Not friendship. She was the slippery slope to his addiction. If he became involved with her, with the world her family existed in, how long before he dipped his toe in? How long before the lure proved to be too much temptation? No, as long as he remained at the top of that hill, his feet planted several inches away from that crumbling edge back into “the life,” he could have her until they had their fill of each other, then walk away, unscathed.
He could return to what he, Rion, and Killian had fought—literally—to build.
