I could see the vein in her throat and wanted to lean forward and nibble and bite along it until she moaned and writhed beside me.
A thump on the counter pulled us apart.
The bartender had dropped a shot of vodka beside me with a glare. Why was he all over us? Didn’t he have other patrons to take care of?
I turned over her hand and placed one last soft kiss right on top of her wrist. Her fragrance drew me in, and I wished we were alone. “I know what you’ve been through.”
“You do?” She turned her head so that her lips were mere inches from mine.
Fuck, I wanted a taste. Lightly, I gave her a soft peck right next to the lips I wanted so badly to kiss. Her eyes fluttered shut and her breath quickened.
“Yes, my brother has stabbed me in the back.”
With a gasp, she sat back. “Your own flesh and blood.”
I nodded gravely. “The very same. We didn’t have the same mothers, but he was still my family.”
“How did you deal with it?”
I frowned, not wanting to sound like a coward. “Let’s call it a calculated retreat.”
“That must’ve been hard.” She rubbed her soft hands up and down my arms.
“It was. He did not see me as a brother. I had an inkling that he was attempting to take my business away from me. I wanted to stop him, but I didn’t have a choice. It was…a hostile takeover. I left in the dead of night and came here.”
“You’re so brave,” she murmured.
If only she knew the half of it. “I should’ve done more to keep him away from my business.” He should not have won. I could’ve held my ground and fought, but the odds were stacked against me.
“You can’t think like that.”
Her words slurred, and I noticed her eyes were now glazed over.
“I feel like all my hard work is now down the drain,” I confessed. “There is nothing left for me. I can’t get it back—at least not at this time. Therefore, I can only move forward.”
She shook her head. “There’s got to be a way that you can force your brother out. You can go back to Russia and get your business out of his clutches. I believe in you.”
I held back a laugh. Who was this woman who had such faith in me—a stranger?
“There is no going back, at least not right now.”
“You’ve got to look on the bright side,” she sighed. “Be optimistic.”
I could tell those words were more for herself than they were for me. “There is no bright side. I’m alone in a new country with nothing to do, the usurper holds my position, which he underhandedly took from right underneath my nose.”
“You seem smart. I know that you’ll think of something. At least you don’t have an entire town against you,” she murmured, saluting me with her glass.
“Who could hate a beauty such as yourself?”
She flushed, her dark skin turning a warmer brown. “Women leave the same side of the sidewalk when I’m walking through town. I’m a fucking pariah.”
I would burn this town to the ground for her. Why not?
“What’s this town called?”
Clearly inebriated, she swayed back and forth on her stool. “Winchister Falls.”
Shitty name for an even shittier town. Anyone who treated my littlemalishkalike a social outcast deserved to be drawn and quartered. I’d be their executioner, if she’d let me.