Sex, Lies & Nikolai by R.J. Lewis Page A

keeping your mouth shut. Your silence makes me look weak. How am I to be respected if I’m weak, Andrei?”
    It’s not like I’m part of the Sokolov anymore, and only they know what I’m capable of. If they knew of these rumours, they would be laughing at me. I’m trying to establish myself as a serious business man and secure myself a place among the feared. I’m doing things I don’t want to do for the purpose of climbing this piss stain ladder to the top. I’ve worked hard for this. Opening a store in a piece of shit part of town while others like me took the cream of the crop someplace else. Money lending to a bunch of nobodies with drug addictions all so I can break bones and give myself a hard reputation.
    It’s all for nothing if my own men won’t stand by me.
    I would be nothing.
    Two years out the window just like that.
    Andrei knows he’s fucked up. “Nikolai –”
    “Go find the owner,” I snap. “I want the payment now . This is strike number three.”
    “Gresham is a bull dog. What if he doesn’t have it?”
    I give him a cold stare. “He’ll have it. You’ll make sure of it.”
    He reluctantly nods and slides out of the seat. I look back at Valeria, conscious now of the bastards in the same room. I’m apparently gay if I act disinterested. I trail my eyes down her figure, but she’s so utterly lacking compared to that girl.
    The door to the room opens just then and one of the meaty bouncers comes through, staring right at me. “There’s someone here to see you,” he tells me.
    I raise a brow, waiting. His large frame is blocking someone from view, so he shifts to the side and I lock eyes with the woman that’s been plaguing my thoughts for eighteen months.
    Alina.
    My chest sinks slowly. Without keeping my eyes off her, I nod at the bouncer and he lets her through.
    The first thing I noticed about Alina the first time I saw her that morning eighteen months ago was her hair. Long, wavy, golden blonde and striking against her tan skin. She’d had her back turned to me, and the way that hair fell and framed her tiny waist, made me pause at the door.
    I was a man on a mission, but I had this sudden urge to see her turn. And when the chime sounded in the air as I walked in and she turned, I was astounded. Not just by her beauty – although that was a major factor – it was her eyes that made me tilt my head to the side in surprise.
    She has the softest face but the hardest eyes I’ve ever looked into. There is no softness in there, just two pools of hardness.
    With her hard eyes now, she glances at the people seated around the tables behind me, and then at Valeria with nothing but her thong on. I never know what to expect with Alina. A part of me waits for her face to flush, but it doesn’t. She’s not uncomfortable in the slightest as she walks to me, but her expression is guarded and wary.
    She should be after this morning. I made her an offer I didn’t think through entirely. Truth is, I can’t get her out of my head, and I’m tired of fighting it. I don’t have to court the girl. I just want to taste her more.
    I know she’s here to accept it. I’m impressed she’s tracked me down.
    Frustrations I’ve felt fade away, replaced by awe. She is beautiful, possibly the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, and I’ve seen my share of them. But there’s something else about her that intrigues me. There’s a story in Alina’s hard eyes, and I love the mystery. It’s one I don’t want to uncover in fear of it ruining the way my body responds to her.
    My fingers twitch to touch her. My lips ache to kiss hers again, with more intensity than last night. There is a naked girl merely feet from her, but it’s only Alina I have eyes for, and I can’t understand it.
    My mother used to say, “There’s always going to be that one girl, Niko. The one that defies all logic and cages your interest without explanation. You’ll do anything for her.”
    The girl with the x-factor.
    I