Twilight Sins (Kulikov Bratva Book 1)

I wake up to a phone ringing.

“It’s for me.” Yakov kisses the back of my neck. “Go back to sleep.”

He wants to kiss my neck and then tell me to go back to sleep? He might as well hook me to an electric chair and tell me to relax. Fat chance of that.

Yakov is in my bed. Er, in his bed, I guess. Either way, we are both in the same bed and the sun is up. We slept together, which is somehow more surprising than the fact that we had sex twice last night.

I’ve never woken up next to Yakov and I don’t plan on wasting the opportunity on a REM cycle.

I roll onto my side and watch him check his phone. “Why aren’t you all puffy?”

“Excuse me?”

I circle a finger at his face. “You’re supposed to be puffy and have creases on your face. Maybe some dried drool in the corner of your mouth. You’re supposed to have eye boogers and look gross so I can feel better about myself.”

He looks over at me. “Did you not feel good last night?”

Oh, God. It’s too early for this. All the heat in my body is pooling in my cheeks and between my legs. I’m blushing and flustered and there isn’t enough blood flow left over for my brain.

Yakov leans over me again to place his phone on the nightstand. His weight presses me into the mattress, and I’ve never been so happy to be squished. He smells like warm spices and wood. I take a deep breath of him and feel zero shame about it.

“Do you always wake up at—” I peek at his alarm clock and almost choke. “It’s five in the morning! Please tell me you don’t wake up this early every day.”

“It was my mother. She forgets about the time difference sometimes.”

“Right. Moscow. What time is it there?”

“Ten hours ahead. It’s mid-afternoon for her. But it’s the middle of the night for you.” He pulls the comforter up under my chin.

I frown. “I don’t sleep in that late.”

“Later than I do. You’ve missed breakfast the last couple mornings.”

After he put his phone away, Yakov left his arm around my waist. I’m afraid to move in case he realizes and pulls it away, so I have to work hard to rein in my shock. “Excuse me? Are you telling me that you’ve been making me breakfast and I missed it?”

I’m not usually one to sleep in at all, but there hasn’t been much for me to do. Sleeping kills some time. When I do get up, Yakov is nowhere to be seen. No sign of him in the kitchen and no lingering scent of fried breakfast foods.

Now, I find out I could have been eating blinis and drinking white mochas every morning?

“I made myself breakfast, with enough leftovers in case anyone else wanted any,” he clarifies. “You never showed.”

“You should have woken me up! I would have gotten up for pancakes. Even if it meant you had to see me with sleepy face and crazy hair and bad breath.”

He nods. “Next time. Now, go back to sleep.”

“You promise?” I jab a finger in his rock solid chest. “If I fall asleep, you won’t sneak off and eat pancakes without me?”

“Scout’s honor.”

I snort. “You were never a boy scout.”

“No, I wasn’t. But you have my word.”

“Good,” I mumble, scooting ever-so-slightly closer to him and closing my eyes.

I try to go to sleep. I really do. But it doesn’t matter how long I lie here, my brain won’t turn off.

Yakov is in bed with me. My neck still tingles from where he kissed me. It’s all so domestic and weird and wonderful that I’m afraid to go to sleep. What if it really is all a dream?

I peek my eyes open and Yakov isn’t sleeping, either. He’s staring up at the ceiling.

“Are you close with your mother?” I whisper.

He doesn’t move except for a small smile that creeps across his lips. “I knew you weren’t asleep.”

“Blame your mom.”

He scratches his fingers through his hair. His bare arm flexes and reflects the light in a way that should be illegal. It’s mesmerizing and I’ve forgotten I even asked him a question until he starts answering it.

“We were close when I was growing up. It’s harder these days. She’s so far away.”

“Your sister is there, too, right?”

He nods. “That’s what she was texting me about this morning. Mariya is giving her trouble again.”

“How old is she?”

“Seventeen.”

I wince. “Teenage girls are a beast.”

“Which is why my mother wants me to bring Mariya here.”

“Like, for a visit?”

“To live,” he explains. “She thinks it would be good for her to be back in America and with me. Apparently, I have authoritarian tendencies.”

I gasp in obviously sarcastic shock. “You? No. Never.”

He smirks for a moment before it fades back into brooding. “Either way, it doesn’t matter. Mariya is allergic to authority. The last thing I want is for her to come here and break the rules I put in place for her protection and end up getting hurt. I also don’t want my mother to be alone.”

“She wouldn’t move back to America, too?”

“She feels safer there. After what happened to my father, she needed to get away. Now, she’s older and her health is starting to fail. I don’t think uprooting her life there would do her any favors.”

“But you miss her,” I guess.

His brow creases, but he keeps his eyes on the ceiling. “Missing them isn’t a good enough reason to put them in danger. They’re both better off there.”

He’s answered so many of my questions already that I can’t help myself. I can’t stop the words from tumbling out of my mouth. “Is it the same people who are after me? Are they after the rest of your family, too?”

He rolls onto his side. Awareness tingles through me. “If I could tell you what is going on and know that the information wouldn’t put you in danger, I’d tell you.”

I sigh. “Yeah, I know.”

“No, you don’t.” He presses his palm to my cheek. “I want to tell you. But my job is to keep you safe. No matter what it takes.”

I’ve never been more turned on by someone refusing to answer my questions than I am right now. I bite my lower lip. “You know, I’m starting to think that under these superhero movie muscles, you might actually be kind of a softy.”

“Not as soft as you.” His hand trails down my neck and beneath the comforter. I never put my pajamas back on last night, so it’s a very quick jump from touching to Yakov curling around me and entering me from behind.

When we both finish, he hauls me back against his chest. I fall asleep with his arm around my waist and his breath in my hair.

Three hours later, I wake up alone with a note on the bed next to me.

Something came up this morning. There are pancakes in the fridge for you. I never break a promise.