Her Russian Beast: 50 Loving States, New Mexico Read Online Free PDF

said something to the huge hound in a strange language. She’d never heard it before, and was almost sure it wasn’t Russian. Whatever it was, it did the trick, because the growling stopped almost immediately. And it didn’t start up again when The Russian disappeared through the sliding doors, which apparently led into a bedroom.
    Still, Sascha continued to give her the evil eye until The Beast re-emerged a few moments later with a gray t-shirt bunched in his large fist.
    “Put this on,” he commanded, thrusting it at her. And to her surprise, he turned around to give her privacy.
    She did as instructed, and found that the t-shirt came all the way down to her knees without clinging to anything whatsoever. The night before, he’d all but ripped the ring girl outfit off of her, but tonight it seemed like he could barely look at her and wanted her completely covered.
    “I’m done,” she said.
    “What do you need to fix your face?” he asked, turning back around.
    Her face. She could feel it throbbing with the heat of damage done, and she wasn’t going to forget the way the other hotel guests had stared at her anytime soon. They’d probably thought he was the one who gave it to her.
    “I apologize if I embarrassed you down there,” she said, cringing at that thought.
    Something ticked in his jaw. “What do you need to fix your face?”
    “Um…just some ice and a towel,” she answered, pressing her fingertips into the large bruise. “Nothing feels broken.”
    He left the room without another word. Leaving her alone in the suite with a dog she wasn’t supposed to pet.
    “Are you really that dangerous?” she asked it.
    Sascha stared back at her. Eyes inscrutable.
    But she had a feeling about this one, so she sang to it. “Yellow,” by Coldplay. One of the songs she used to sing to Trevor to lull him to sleep. Sascha seemed like a Coldplay fan.
    As it turned out, she was right. By the time The Russian came back with the ice, she was sitting with her back to the sliding doors with Sascha’s head in her lap.
    However, both she and the dog stood up somewhat guiltily when he came back into the suite.
    “Hey,” she said.
    He just grunted and pushed the ice bucket into her hands. He pointed at the sliding door, “You can sleep in there. I am going out.”
    “Okay, thank you—”
    He headed back to the door before the words were even out of her mouth. And this time he slammed it behind him.
    So apparently he wasn’t completely unaffected by what had happened that night, she thought in the wake of his departure. He’d come to the basement, probably looking for another hook up, and had found her in need of saving instead. Total mood killer. And now not only did he not want a repeat of last night, he was also plainly struggling with the decision to let her stay here in his beyond-grand hotel room. She totally got that.
    But she must have had a little more pride left than originally thought, because for a moment she considered leaving. Disappearing back into one of the poorer parts of the city and getting out of his obviously annoyed hair.
    But it was four in the morning. All she had in the world now was the waist pack with the little money she’d made working for Cyrus. And her head was swimming—she could only hope not with a concussion. Sure there was her pride, but she was also the daughter of a nurse. She knew she needed to ice her face. And sleep.
    Deciding to at least do that for herself, she opened the sliding doors and entered a sophisticated bedroom done up in deep browns and fine white linens. Another entry in the “this is how you do rich-ass hotel rooms” catalog, and her heart nearly cried out a happy gospel song when she saw what looked like the softest bed ever. When she woke up, she’d figure out a new plan, she promised herself. Or just start wandering the streets of Greece again until she found another place to land.
    She found a hand towel in the small alcove that sat between the bedroom