Sex, Lies & Nikolai Read Online Free PDF

of the store. His hands are wrapped around a bundle of cash. He seems relaxed, and I figure it’s because he’s about to pay Nikolai back.
    I can’t look away from the cash. Christ, there must be hundreds of dollars there. When was the last time I saw that sight? I don’t think I’ve held more than two hundred dollars at once in my entire life. My whole body itches for that bundle in his grip, and I’m having to suppress this animalistic urge to rip it from his hands and take off running.
    Honestly, I feel close to doing it. Sickeningly close.
    My mind is taking me down all sorts of avenues I’ve never been down before and it scares me.
    Take it.
    Take it.
    I won’t take it.
    I can’t.
    As if sensing me, the man catches me looking and his face twists with anger. “What the fuck are you looking at?” he rasps.
    My heart jumps in my chest at the gravelly sound of his voice. He’s missing teeth, and the ones that are left are black and rotted. He shoves the cash into his pocket and glares at me. I instantly look away, but I can feel his body shuffling inches closer to where I’m seated, and his face turns completely in my direction, continuing his sudden bizarre act of intimidation.
    His lips are moving, but no sound is coming out. I know without hearing him that he’s cursing at me and coming even closer, and I’m beginning to question his sanity when the solid man at the counter hisses, “Josef, you pig, get away from her.”
    The man stops moving his lips and settles back into his chair, but he’s still looking at me. His angry eyes burn holes down my body. He spreads his legs wider, brushing his knee against my chair. I can see the tiny bit of action, of him thrusting his hips up and down just barely. I grip my hands together tighter, ignoring his air humping movements. Most men will stare but not touch, but I seem to have attracted the attention of a man that seems likely to be part of the minority.
    This is just great. I’m seated next to a perv I was tempted to rob.
    I want to leave. I feel grossed out and violated. Like his air humping movements are physically touching me. I keep my face clean of emotion though, especially when I catch the solid man’s eyes on me, studying me deeply with pinched brows. He unnerves me.
    Finally, the latest man comes out and Josef is called through. He looks chuffed, forgetting all about me as he disappears from sight.
    It’s just the solid man by the counter and me left. He continues to stare at me, and I stare back. We don’t speak, but I’d rather the mind-numbing silence than the company of Josef the nutcase.
    He is out sooner than I expected, and there’s an oomph in his step. He pats the man by the counter on the back and exits the pawn shop, but not before looking at me and winking. I can’t resist glaring in return at the gross as shit creep.
    “Come on, lapochka,” pimply man says.
    I get up on tired legs and follow him, my anxiety that was at bay before now suddenly comes swooping in. I didn’t think this far. I don’t know what I’ll say, or what to expect. I’m going in completely blind.
    I’m afraid he’ll say no.
    I’m afraid of debt.
    I’m afraid of what tomorrow will bring and what desperation will do to me if I don’t find a way out of this mess.
    And last of all, I’m afraid of Nikolai.
    He will not be a distant man I admire from afar anymore.

Chapter Five.
     
    The black door opens and I walk in carefully. My eyes immediately look over the giant office. There are leather couches in the middle, a TV mounted in the corner, a large desk against the wall and shelves filled with files and paperwork.
    I follow a buzzing sound and voices speaking in Russian to the three seater leather couch. There’s an old man talking and leaning over a shirtless torso, a tattoo gun in hand, its needle piercing into the flesh of a man whose back is turned to me.
    It doesn’t take me long to realize Nikolai is the man he is tattooing, and that he hasn’t