Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 83221 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83221 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
“Why are you up?”
“I couldn’t sleep. I’m starving. Why are you up?”
“I don’t really sleep. Haven’t for years. Did I wake you?”
I shake my head. It’s almost sweet that he cares. “No, not at all. That was beautiful. Feinberg?”
His eyes widen and his brows rise. “You know Feinberg?”
“I do. I studied composers for a prereq in college.”
“You studied composers years ago in college and yet immediately identified an obscure Russian composer,” he concludes, disbelieving.
“I didn’t just identify the composer. That was Piano Sonata number twelve…Opus forty-eight, no?”
He blinks.
I shrug. “I’m not just good at coding. I have an excellent memory, which is partly what makes me so damn good at coding and hacking. I have perfect recall.”
“Really,” he says, a statement, not a question. He’s thinking this over.
“I told you I had skills you could use, and I wasn’t exaggerating,” I say with a not-so-modest shrug. It’s nice to actually be admired for something for once. “How do you know Feinberg?”
Holding my gaze, he seems to be mulling things over. With every question I ask about him, I’m delving deeper into his background — who he is, and how he became this person. Revealing personal details makes him vulnerable, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Mikhail Romanov is hardly someone who allows himself to become vulnerable very easily.
“When I was enlisted, I was under the command of an officer who was obsessed with Feinberg. Whenever we had the chance, he played the music over and over again. I became obsessed, too. It was my lullaby and my comfort. There’s something about Feinberg’s music that makes me…I don’t know how to describe it.”
“Feel emotion?” I whisper. Could it be that he understands this?
He stares at me for a long minute before he finally nods. “Yeah. You could say that.”
I swallow. “Me, too.”
He gives my hand a gentle squeeze. “Do you play?”
I don’t answer at first. Do I play? Well, yes, I do, but not well. I always wanted to, but my parents couldn’t afford classes.
“Why the hesitation, little hacker?” he asks softly, then holds my chin and brings my gaze back to his when I look away.
“Hesitation?”
A corner of his lips quirks up and he mutters something unintelligible in Russian.
“That isn’t really fair that you just randomly speak a language I don’t.”
“You’re brilliant. You could learn Russian if you want to.”
Maybe I like the sound of enigmatic words in his sometimes-harsh mother tongue.
I shrug. “Maybe I will. I don’t play much, no. My parents couldn’t afford piano lessons, so I used to sneak into the back of the school gymnasium so I could listen in on piano lessons some of the kids took after school. I did my best to listen and then practice when no one was there, but it’s a hard habit to hide, and the other kids eventually found out.” I want to change the subject. The memory of my shame when I was discovered still burns. “So you enlisted, then?”
“I did.”
No further elaboration. Interesting.
“How long?”
“Twelve years.”
Whoa. Twelve years. That’s a long time.
“Are any of the tattoos you have related to the army?”
His accent thickens. “None. These are all Bratva.”
Bratva.
The way he says it makes me shiver.
“Can you tell me what they mean?”
“Eventually, maybe.”
As he talks, I’m aware of his hardened length pressed up against my butt, and my own body tightly coiled with arousal that snakes around my belly and pulses between my thighs. Once wasn’t enough.
“I didn’t know you were in the military.”
A hint of ice flickers in his gaze. “There are many things you don’t know about me, little hacker.”
I do what I’ve longed to do — reach my hand to the stubble on his chin and cup his jaw. Though he stiffens, he allows it, and I don’t need him to tell me this is an allowance he likely affords no one else.
“There are many things I don’t know about you, yes. But there are many things I do.”
The roughness of the stubble on his chin bites into my palm, sending awareness and a pulse of need between my legs. I wonder what it would feel like if that stubble scratched my thighs…
“I know you can be ruthless. You have no qualms about violence and taking human life if you feel it’s justified. You’re skilled with weapons and not just the ones you hold – you’ve conditioned your body to be used as a weapon, too. You don’t like clutter, lies or disorder. You have routines and systems in place because you run your family like you’d run the military. You are direct with your words and instructions.”
I swallow. “You take care of what’s yours.” I look away, suddenly bashful. “I mean, your home is beautiful.”
“Thank you.”
I have the sudden desire to lay my head on his chest. For just a little while, to stop carrying the burden of my constantly churning mind, fear of what happens next, and the ever present need to be on high alert.