The Russian's Assertive Lover (The Tonov Triplets Series Book 2) (5 page)

“Thank you,” she replied, as she slipped it on, feeling much more protected now. She sipped her tea, keeping her eyes on the floor. She knew her cheeks were still pink from embarrassment.

“Why did you do it?” he asked.

“Do what?”

“Why did you leave work to go get Cindy? I know how much you want the money. Everybody does, and you work like a dog to get it but you're losing an entire shift tonight.”

“Bad things happen when a young woman is left alone with a bad man,” she said. “I didn't want something to happen to Cindy. That's all.” She smiled slightly. “I might be driven by money, but I'm not heartless. Same as you.”

“I know you're not heartless,” he said. “Otherwise you would never want to be a doctor.”

“That's one way of putting it,” she said. “But many people think that the best doctors are heartless, so they don't get too attached to their patients.”

“Some compassion is good and necessary,” he said. “Not all of it is bad.”

She smiled. “I know.”

He sat down in the chair across from her. “You could also go into acting,” he said. “I've seen you on the floor at the club. It looks like you are actually enjoying yourself out there even though I know differently.”

She laughed. “I could say the same about you. You might have had me fooled the first couple of nights, but now I know that you don't like most of your customers.”

“Most of them, no,” he said, flashing a grin. “But some of the sleaziest men there are the best tippers and buy the most drinks, so I'm not going to kick them out.”

“How is the club doing anyway?” Courtney asked. “Scarlett mentioned something about it being in debt...”

He shrugged and took a sip of his tea. “It is,” he said bluntly. “I still have to pay off the mortgage for the building as well as the business loan I had to take out to buy the place. But our revenue is greater than our everyday expenses so for right now it's okay.”

“Is it true that you're going to stop docking the tips when the debt it paid off?”

“Yes,” he said. “I wouldn't dock the tips at all, but I want the debt paid off as soon as possible. Otherwise...” he shrugged and then sighed. “Well, otherwise Dimitri will take it over and I don't want that.”

“Because he's a dick? Understandable.”

Smiling to himself, “No,” he said. “Well, only partially because he's a dick. Mostly it's because he would destroy any legitimacy the place has. He would start pimping out the girls, and he charges extra for physical abuse.”

“I don't understand,” Courtney said. “Why is Dimitri so much different than you and Valov?”

“He didn't used to be,” Nikolay replied as he sighed. “But he was closer to our father than Valov and me. He liked him much more, too. We left Russia as soon as we could to get away from our pasts, but he stayed until our father died. After that... he was changed. I don't know why, exactly, but something happened in Russia.” He shrugged. “Now he has a different set of ethics than we do.”

“I'm so sorry,” she said. “That must have been difficult, knowing he changed so much.”

“It was, but I can't say that I was surprised.” He smiled slightly. “Courtney,” he said. “Not only have you gotten me to tell you about myself, but you have been working for me for more than a week and I still know next to nothing about you.”

“I think you know a lot about me,” she said. “You know I want to be a doctor but I have a heart, you know I'm a good actor, I like tea, and that I don't drink.”

“I don't know anything about your family. If you have brothers or sisters. What town you grew up in, and where you went to college.”

“Well,” she said, finishing the rest of her tea. “I'm afraid all of that is very boring. I'm an only child, and I grew up right here in Bangor. I went to the local community college for two years, and then moved on to the state university to get my Bachelor's in Science.”

“If you put it like that, then yes, it is a very boring story,” he said. “Tell me about your parents.”

Courtney smiled, but sadness filled her as it always did at the thought of her parents. “They died,” she said simply. “When I was eighteen, they were killed in a house fire. I was staying at a friend’s…Janet’s…when it happened. I didn’t know until I got home the next day.”

“I'm so sorry,” he said, his eyes softening. “I had no idea.”

“I know,” she said. “I don’t talk about it.”

“What did you do after that?

She shrugged and fidgeted slightly, looking down at the ground. She hated talking about her past. Nothing good ever came out of it, and the last person she had ever told was, well, Gary.
And you saw how that turned out.

“The insurance on the house was only enough to cover the bills. I lost everything that day. My parents. All our possessions. I had whatever was in my car at the time and that was it. So, I worked full time and lived with a friend,” she said. “I went to community college and stayed in the dorms during the school year and then in the summer I either lived in a shelter or in my car. I got by.” She shrugged. “I saved money whenever I could. I didn't go out except occasionally on the weekend, and I went to every event that had free food, whether I liked it or not.”

“You're not still living in a shelter, are you?” he asked, his brow furrowing.

“No,” she said. “I have my own apartment now, thank God. It took me forever to build up enough savings to put down the security deposit and have the first couple months’ worth of rent in my bank account, but I did it eventually.” She shrugged. “Anyway, there's not much more to tell.”

“Now, that is an interesting story,” he said. “And with a happy ending too.”

She smiled slightly. “Not yet.”

Courtney woke up the next morning to find Nikolay and Cindy talking over breakfast. The scent of fresh coffee was like heaven to her and she got up and walked into the kitchen to make herself a cup.

Cindy smiled at Courtney. “Nik said I could stay here until I could find a place of my own,” she said. “How exciting is that?”

“Very,” she said, looking at Nik who shrugged modestly and looked down at his food. “That's very generous.”

“It's nothing,” he said, with a wave of his hand.

His hands were so masculine and thick, Courtney could imagine them touching her.
No. Stop it.

And it was definitely not nothing. Courtney knew well of the difficulties of living in a shelter or finding a place to live, and she was glad Cindy didn't have to go through that. She poured herself a cup of coffee and then found a bag of bagels from the local bakery. She took one out, sliced it in two and put it in the toaster.

As it was toasting, she sat down at the table next to Nik, inhaling the scent of his body wash. It smelled like pine and it was incredibly sexy. She could imagine him completely lathering up with it in the morning...

She flushed when she realized where her thoughts were drifting.
He's my boss! I can hardly be having sex fantasies about him!
But it was so hard not to. He was incredibly attractive, and after last night, he was more irresistible than ever. But that didn't matter. He wasn't attracted to her and they couldn't date anyway. Drinking her coffee, she tried to think about anything other than Nikolay naked in the shower. Hard.

Luckily, neither Cindy nor Nik noticed her discomfort because they were chatting cordially about mundane things. She watched Nikolay's manner as he talked to her. There was a sincerity to his tone and expression that wasn't there when he was chatting with his customers. She had been telling the truth when she watched him before. When he was at work, he put up an almost perfect facade of congeniality but he always seemed tense around them. It was subtle, but it was there. Now, however, he was completely relaxed and she knew that if he had to choose a stripper's company or the company of one of his customers, he would choose the stripper.

After breakfast, Nikolay offered Courtney a ride to her car at Suds. “The club doesn't open for a few more hours, but I'll let you in to get your things, ” he told her. “I doubt you want to go home in only my t-shirt.”

She nodded. It was embarrassing enough that everyone was going to think she was doing the walk of shame when she left here, but it would be a thousand times more embarrassing if the people in her apartment building saw her. “Yes,” she said. “That would be appreciated. Thank you.”

“No problem at all.”

As they drove to the club, Nik said, “I'm glad things are all right between us, Courtney. Less... formal.”

“Yes, I believe it's okay to be on a first-name basis with someone you executed a rescue mission with,” she replied, grinning.

“Just not someone you kiss?”

“Just not
my boss
who I kissed.”

“Of course,” he said. “I'm glad you're not still upset about it. I never should have done it.”

Don't say that.
She was glad they did it. Even though nothing could ever come out of it, she was still happy they kissed. It was a damn good kiss, and she wasn’t upset about it. At least, not at him. She was only mad at herself for risking her job like that.

They pulled up into the strip club parking lot and Courtney got out. “Thanks for the ride.”

“It was the least I could do.” They walked to the door and Nikolay unlocked it allowing Courtney to walk in first. “I will see you tonight?”

She smiled. “Yes,” she said as she went in. “I'll be there.”
But hopefully it will be without this attraction I'm feeling for you at the moment.

Nikolay tried to work that day, but after the night he had with Courtney, it was hard. He couldn't help but admire the way she had gone in to get Cindy out, even though she lost a shift because of it. It didn't help that she did it while still in her uniform. It was enough to make him hard for the rest of the night.

Not even having her wear his shirt helped. He could imagine her wearing it after spending the night with him, in his bed, with her hair tousled and her face relaxed in a satisfied smile after...

He shook his head and tried to focus on the inventory reports so he could figure out what he needed more of and how he should adjust his prices. He couldn't let Courtney cloud his mind and keep him from working. Even if everything she told him made him like her and want her even more.

She had even made him open up about Dimtri. He hadn't shared that or discussed his brother with anyone but Valov before. But he had felt so comfortable around her last night, and he had trusted her so much...

She was dangerous. That was for sure. He couldn't believe he had opened up to her like that. He needed to watch himself around her or she would have too much power over him.

“You look like shit,” Scarlett said from the doorway to his office. She put a steaming mug of tea down in front of him, right on the inventory report. “Does it have something to do with blondie coming in wearing nothing but your t-shirt, or with Cindy?”

He groaned and rubbed his face with his hands. “Both,” he said. “We were able to get Cindy out all right, though. She is now staying at my place and is safe.”

“That's good,” she said. “You must have had a late night.”

He did but it wasn't because of Cindy. It was because he couldn't stop thinking about Courtney, no matter how hard he tried. “I think I am forgetting myself,” he said. “I tend to do stupid things around Courtney and I know sooner or later it's going to get me in trouble.”

“It might not,” Scarlett replied. She sat down in a chair on the other side of Nik's desk. “Look, I know you’ve been burned in the past, but believe me, Courtney's not like that. She's not going to hurt you. Plus, you too are cute together.”

“I thought the same thing about Samantha, remember?” Nikolay asked. “And then she wrote a hit piece on me.”

That was through complete stupidity on his part; ranting to someone he had just met about his troubles. He had had a bad day and Samantha had been kind enough to listen. Or at least he had thought she was kind. He had no idea she was blogger trying to make it big. When she reported on him online, it quickly went viral and his life was ruined. He swore to himself that he would never make the same mistake again. With smart phones and eager people seeking an easy means to fame and fortune, anything he shared could easily end up online, again.

“Believe me, if Courtney was a reporter, she wouldn't be here. I haven't seen anyone with more integrity than she has, with the exception of you. You can trust her if you trust me.”

“Of course I trust you,” he replied. “But how can I trust her when all I can think about is fucking her and opening myself to her in a way that I’ve never done?” Shaking his head, “How do I balance my intense desire to protect her with this raging erection I get every time I think about her?”

“Well, first, that might have been TMI,” Scarlett replied as she chuckled. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this wound up about someone before. Maybe that's a sign that you
can
trust her,” she added.

“Maybe. All I know is that I can't stop thinking about her,” he whispered.

“Believe me, I know,” Scarlett said dryly. “You can hide it from most people, but you can't hide from me: you're a wreck.”

Nik nodded. “That I am.” He sighed, “I don't know what to do, Scarlett.”

“Well, to start off, you can stop trying to protect yourself from her because that ship has sailed. You can also talk about it with me, and you can try to feel out the situation. See if she likes you back. If she does, then you should ask her out. If she doesn't, then cut your losses and move on.”

“Why can't I cut my losses now?” Nik asked.

“Because if you do and you don't at least try, then you'll always be wondering, what if.”

Nikolay hated to admit that she was right, but he had to. “I can't stop thinking about her,” he repeated.

“I know. You're getting less and less work done each day. I should enforce a timer system: thirty minutes working, five minutes to daydream about Courtney.”

He smiled. He would need more time to daydream about Courtney that was for sure. He wanted all the time in the world but of course, he couldn't have that. “I'll get back to work, I promise.”

“Don't promise me. Promise yourself. Those are the only promises you ever really keep,” she said, standing up. “And remember that I will know if you don't.” She was about to walk out the door but she stopped herself. “For the record, I think you and Courtney would be great together, and I see the way the two of you look at each other when you think the other isn’t looking. I think that what you guys feel is a lot stronger than you think.” And with that, she was gone.

Nikolay leaned back in his chair. Stronger than what he thought? He doubted it. Because he was beginning to think that he was in love with her.