Work Text:
Precautionary measures. Necessary assistance. Warranted discretion. A temporary solution to encourage improved behavior.
Reasons given to her via email, text, discussions, arguments—a laundry list she blearily agreed to, as long as it got Genya off her back and her social life wasn’t impeded. It wasn’t that she didn’t understand. She did. More than anyone else, more than passing third parties or people on her team or her fellow castmates. She knew.
Threats and warnings in the comments of her social media posts. DMs filled with screenshots of a red-pinned map denoting the gym she attends, the walk-up to her yoga studio, the license plate of her car. Emails in her management’s inbox of promises to hunt her down, pictures of dead animals, paragraphs of what they would do to her if they could.
After years of it, years of undue harassment, she learned to recognize what was baseless and what was concerning. A woman says something in an interview that rubs too many people the wrong way, once, because once is enough, so everyone believes how she’s treated next is justified. It makes sense. She just needs better media training, of course. Then the persecution will stop.
She learned to realize that’s bullshit, too.
The first time she met her theater-assigned bodyguard, he dragged a stern gaze from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. It was late, post-first preview, and her hair was damp from the shower, face scrubbed clean of stage makeup. She wore a pair of fuzzy slippers, red pedicure poking through. When his dark eyes returned to her face, it forced a swallow down her throat.
“Ms. Starkova,” he said, firm. Jaw locked. “I’m Aleksander Morozov.” Hand put forward, broad and large.
She had to unstick her tongue from the top of her mouth. “A—Alina.” Shook his awaiting palm.
He nodded. “I have two other bodies on your security detail. You’ll meet them tomorrow. Malyen and Tolya.”
“Oh, I—” Looked behind her to meet Genya’s eye, who gave her a winning smile. Encouraging. “I don’t need more than you.”
Aleksander blinked. “You may not think it necessary, but extra hands are helpful in a pinch.”
A pinch? “Okay.”
Then she was herded back to her dressing room to grab her things, duffel bag over her shoulder and day-outfit bundled in her arms. Aleksander trailed her downstairs and through the theater’s side door to her car at the curb. He opened the backseat door as she waved to a few lingering stragglers, calling her name and thrusting out their programs. If she were alone, she would pull out a pen and sign them as a final goodbye. With her new bodyguard towering at her back, she figured he would disapprove. So she slid onto the leather seats without complaint, ignoring the bubbling of her tummy.
She didn’t expect him to join her in the car.
“Oh, I—” The door closed and her driver yanked the car out of park. “I can make it home on my own. I have Nikolai with me.” She threw him a smile in the rearview mirror, catching the telltale blue twinkle of his gaze in return.
“I’ll take you home each night,” Aleksander said, tone brooking no room for rebuttal. “To ensure you make it inside and no one follows you.”
Thick syrup dripped down her legs, paralyzing her. “Isn’t this going a little overboard?”
“Do you consider your safety as a priority going overboard?”
In the dim lightning of the backseat, his face illuminated by passing shops and streetlamps, she painted his harsh expression to memory. Dark hair sifted off his forehead to dangle over his strong brow. Neat beard, bent nose. This was who he was, surely. Serious to a fault and looking at her existence as a singular thing. A job.
“Maybe,” was all she answered with, locking her voice into boring neutrality.
He grunted in response, eyes trained out the window.
She did the same on the opposite side, drawing in a shaky breath.
When he dropped her off, watching her disappear into her paid-for lodging, she felt the burn of his stare through too-tinted windows between her shoulder blades. It felt like a brand.
The folder was thick. Too thick.
He spent an entire night reading each piece of paper, tabs denoting repeated offenders, color-coded by severity of threat. By the time his clock read three a.m., he had faces imprinted into the space behind his eyelids and names and addresses marked along the veins of his wrists. The tumbler at his elbow was drained.
Flipping back to the front, he scanned her profile. The provided headshot, her full legal name, her stage name, her dietary restrictions.
Got up. Refilled his glass.
“Bitch!”
It ends with a cackle, Zoya’s head tossed back as her thrusted-out hand wobbles. Alina steadies her with a sparkly arm around her shoulders, pressing their faces close together. Jesper, at their side, takes over the toast, pronouncing the success of their three weeks of previews, the overwhelm of ticket sales, and Alina’s shining-star status as the lead. The clump of the gathered cast whistles into the following cheers, glistening orange wine winking under the ceiling light in their polished glasses. Everyone throws back a gulp, Alina too, and her drink clinks back to the table as her gaze wanders to the wall across from her group.
Aleksander’s eyes are elsewhere, scoping out the room. A constant, observable detail—how she’s under his protection but he never quite looks at her.
It’s been twenty days of his surveillance. A shadow she grew used to, despite the way it prickled her skin at first. He only ever trailed her at the theater, at first, leading her to and from her dressing room, posted outside of it in the hall, to the stage for sound checks, outside for stage door meet and greets. Then, routine, to her car every night to go home.
The first night she informed him she was going out, joining castmates for a drink, he stepped away and made some calls. Returned to her side to tell her he would be accompanying her for those things, too. She shut him out of her dressing room, brief, so she could scream into a pillow. Then opened the door with a smile and said okay.
Jesper picked the spot tonight. A sultry bar made of creams and wood, not a dance floor in sight, but a drag show happening on the other side. Alina had a feather boa tossed over her shoulders by a performer earlier and it still sits on her now, tickling the bare skin of her arms.
“Extended by a whole month, can you believe that?” Zoya shouts after pounding back her ordered shot, mouth hardly wrinkling. “Haven’t been a part of a show like that in a long time.”
“It’s the good press,” Marie tacks on from the end of the booth. “And Alina’s vocal prowess, of course.”
“I urge you to give me less credit.”
“Oh, come on, Leen, the show was almost dropped before they cast you. Botkin said as much—”
She rears to her feet. “Bathroom, anyone?”
They flap her off with lazy fingers, so she grabs her bag and squeezes past to exit. Aleksander glues to her back before she makes it two steps off their platform, eyes flicking to Tolya near the entrance to keep him in the loop of their whereabouts.
“Is it exhausting?” she asks, idle, as they make for the back hallway.
“Elaborate, Ms. Starkova.”
“Making a living stalking someone else?”
He hums as the atmosphere separates, music crawling to a low volume once they approach the restroom. “If I’m a stalker, I don’t know what we should call the men threatening your life.”
Her tongue curdles, neck fighting the urge to throw him a hot glare. She keeps her eyes pinned ahead. “Care to join me inside, stalker?”
“I’ll be out here.”
She doesn’t need to pee, just needed some distance, so she throws her purse on the sink’s counter and twists on the faucet. Water splashes onto her face. The mirror reveals how her mascara has started to melt from the surrounding body heat of the venue, her freshly-washed hair frizzing without product. She dabs under her lower lashes with a paper towel as she clicks open Instagram.
Hundreds of new notifications. She taps them open to immediately close them, eager for the red dot to disappear, but her eyes snag on the top comment of her most recent photo.
@iftheshoefits: Ever wondered what a bullet tastes like?
She’s used to the thrum of her pulse, the rocket of her heart rate. It’s the dizziness she can’t get a grasp on. How her head spins, how her stomach upturns. That her body can’t help but react this way to words on a screen, despite the probability of it ever coming to fruition.
Screenshots it, shoots it off to Genya to deal with. Has a whole IT team to block people in her stead. A burden she didn’t realize she was happy not to carry until it was taken off her shoulders.
Exiting the bathroom, she finds Aleksander waiting for her. Doesn’t manage a step before—
“Do we need to go over our rules again?”
A breath leaves her. “Jesus Christ. It’s been two minutes.”
“Genya is contractually obligated to inform me of digital threats—”
“Nice to know you have a group chat for going behind my back.”
“Alina.” He fills the hallway, lean arms covered in swirls of tattoos, crawling up beneath his clothing and along his neck. Dressed in his normal black t-shirt and black jeans, gun tucked in the back waistband. He showed it to her, once, so she would know where it is. In case she needed to pull it if he couldn’t. “You know that isn’t what it’s for.”
“It was a random comment,” she argued, staring at his collarbone. “Nothing to worry about. Harmless.”
“We have different definitions of—”
“It’s fine, let’s just go back—”
Fingers snatch her chin and jerk up, forcing her glare to slot against his. She inhales, startled, amber and vetiver. Under sunlight, it’s hard to discern his pupil from his cornea. In a backlit corridor, it’s impossible.
“What are the rules?” Gravel between his teeth, crunching.
Alina sharpens her jaw, wishing it could cut him. “No reading comments on social media. Have my location on at all times. Report threats to you immediately. Inform you of shady figures if I see them.”
“And?”
Exhale. “No phone after ten p.m.”
“What time is it?”
Her head gives a jolt. His fingers don’t loosen, but his lashes lower.
“Should I take your phone away, or will you be good?”
Be good, be good, be good—
Teeth grit, she says, “I’ll be good.”
Aleksander jostles her skull with his grip, and her stomach clenches. “You better be.”
Releasing her, she rocks back onto her heels. He steps aside to free her path, and she storms by him as red haze fills her vision. Her shadow trails her as she returns to her friends. She can’t remember what it was like to be alone.
Her three bodyguards had equal time with her, once.
The first week of her new detail, it went like this:
Malyen in the mornings, Tolya in the afternoons, Aleksander in the evenings. Mal would pick her up with Nikolai and they’d grab coffee before she ran errands or fulfilled appointments or met up with friends. Mal never felt like a bodyguard, but a guy who walked through Trader Joe’s with her and asked how she got into acting. It became obvious he was paid to be her companion when he traced a perimeter or delivered a clipped call. Then, once call time rolled around, he’d drop her at the theater and Tolya would deliver her inside. She’d run through hiccups from the prior night’s show sheet or inch through fight call before releasing to get into hair and makeup. Tolya was who she spent the least time with, as none of them were allowed to sit in her dressing room with her. A stipulation Genya insisted on. Once sound check was ready, she’d leave to find Aleksander waiting in his place.
Every night. Clockwork.
During the show, Aleksander had a stationed spot backstage. From hushed whispers Zoya and Wylan relayed to her, Tolya and Mal had designated areas in the audience itself. In act two, a climactic solo the show was known for, the production opted to have her sing it from the exterior balcony to the streets below. A way to give commentary on the current political climate without exacerbating the point. She questioned it at first, but Botkin walked her through the reasoning. The intention.
The first time she did it, preview night one, it was the most daunting moment of her life. Strolling onto a balcony above the venue’s marquee, looking down at the faces of pedestrians observing a sought-after piece of theatre for free. As she finished the final note, she saw some onlookers crying. Wiping tears from their cheeks. Bursting into applause.
The second time she did it, preview night two, as she turned away to return inside, solo done, she noticed Aleksander at her right, yards away. Masked as if on a different balcony with a pillar between them, but on the same strip of concrete. Watching the crowd with her. Protecting her.
It was a routine she developed for a full five days. Mal, mornings; Tolya, afternoons; Aleksander, evenings. Until—
“You know,” Alina teased as they left Think, her already-sweating iced coffee dripping past her ringed fingers, “some might think you come on too strong with that.”
“Too strong?” Mal scoffed, clearing the sidewalk for her with careful steps. “How is asking if they want a family on the first date too strong? Shouldn’t I seek out people who want the same things as me?”
“Sure, but it’s also a way to scare them off.”
“And what data have you collected to back this up?” He glanced at her over the rim of his sunglasses.
“I went on three Hinge dates last year, thank you very much.”
“Three?”
“My career choice doesn’t breed a lot of opportunities.”
Mal pulled open the car door for her, releasing a playful noise. “Maybe you need to put yourself out there again.” His hand slid along her lower back to urge her inside before he followed.
The next day, pictures dropped on Deumoix of Alina Starkova being helped into an unmarked car by a mysterious man, a too-friendly touch of his palm at her tailbone as he dragged a gaze down her figure. Speculation blossomed, running wild, about who he was to her. Within two hours, his name had been revealed online, and Aleksander called a meeting in the theater’s office. Effective immediately, Mal was removed from detailing Alina in public. Instead, he took over Tolya’s afternoon duties, and Aleksander slotted himself into her mornings and evenings. Tolya was delegated to a distance guard.
“This is fucking bullshit,” she hissed to Genya in the privacy of her dressing room. “It was just some pictures, who fucking cares—”
“Mal didn’t notice the camera. Which means he would have missed it if it were a gun.”
Alina turned a sharp eye on her manager. “If I’m not mistaken, those are someone else's words in your mouth.”
“Aleksander explained the severity of the oversight to me, yes.”
“Gen. You can’t be serious.”
“Let me make your safety a priority, okay? That’s all I ask.”
“If one more fucking person says that to me—”
As she sang her solo that night, blanketed by stars above and the thick summer air, shining, hopeful faces gazing up at her from the street below, she peeked at Aleksander nearby.
He was the only one not looking at her.
Her code name: firecracker. A detail kept under wraps. Something told on a need-to-know basis.
Aleksander picked it himself, ignoring the look Tolya threw him as Genya cackled at the moniker.
“Okay, but would you fuck him?”
“Zo.”
“Come on-n-n-n, Leen! We all have eyes.”
Jesper hums from the coffee table, the soft thwacks of his shuffling cards matching how Alina rolls her eyes. “It is a little fishy how he took over all of your, uh, bodyguard times.”
“Trust me, I know it’s fishy.” Alina throws herself back on her couch, bouncing against the cushions. “And trust me, I don’t get a fucking say.”
“I can’t believe Gen has been going along with it. Like, where’s your agency? Autonomy? Hello?” Zoya plops on the opposite loveseat, ripping open a bag of pretzels.
“We’ve had six meetings where I’ve brought that up. How my own choices don’t seem to matter anymore. But no-o-o-o! Safety comes first. Even before my own fucking life.”
Jesper glimpses around, shoulders hunching. “Is he watching us right now, you think?”
“If I find out he bugged and camera-d my apartment, a lawsuit will be filed. He knows that. Gen knows that. They wouldn’t risk it.”
“He’s still hot,” Zoya shrugs, kicking her feet onto an armrest.
Alina makes a face. “He’s an asshole.”
“Assholes can be hot.”
“Not when they dictate my entire schedule and borderline stalk me.”
“Mal was cute,” Zoya pouts, teeth crunching. The sheen of her hair swishes as she spins onto her stomach. “I think he had a thing for you. Maybe that’s why Aleksander got all pissy and took him off rotation.”
Alina rolls her eyes again, punctuating it with a swirl of her head to stare at her friends. “Mal did not have a thing for me. We were friends. Maybe that’s why he got pissy. He wouldn’t know how to be friendly, even if it were required in his bodyguard… training or… certification. Or whatever.”
“I, too, touch my friends on their lower back. Such a casual body part.”
Jesper nods, flicking out cards for their game of blackjack. “Yes. And sometimes I even slide it lower to grab their ass. Very platonic.”
“God, both of you shut up—”
Nina said the dress complimented her figure. Created a silhouette revered by fashion designers worldwide. Genya said it was her best look yet. Zoya wolf-whistled.
Aleksander—
Gives a cursory glance, a short nod, and opens the car door.
A slow roll drips through her stomach, poisonous. As she slides onto the leather, the door closing behind her, she meets Nikolai’s eye through the rearview mirror. He wears a wide, broad smile, lighting up his tan-blonde face.
“Lookin’ good, Starkova. And you said red wasn’t your color.”
“I beg you to stop listening to my phone calls.”
“A tall order when you sit three feet behind me every day.”
“There’s a radio for a reason.”
The opposite door pulls open and Aleksander slips in. The heat of the car changes, atoms warping, and Alina ventures to look out the window in lieu of allowing him to take up more space. Nikolai throws the car in drive and peels away from the curb, wheel spinning in his hands.
“Forgive me, Alina,” her driver tries again, blue eyes sparkling. “You look beautiful.”
A light flush warms her cheeks, shoulder bouncing to hide it. At her side, her bodyguard shifts, legs widening. Her lips crinkle. “Thank you, Nik.” To aid her worrying hands, she pops open her clutch and removes her compact and lipstick, flipping it open to make sure the hue to match the color of her dress hasn’t smudged already.
Ruby, tapered at the waist and loose silk at the hips, a slit up to above mid-thigh on one side. With a plunging V at the front, Alina first rejected it with a contempuous blink, drafted tweets doomscrolling at the backs of her eyes: Alina Starkova *stuns* in revealing garb. What castmate is she looking to impress? Once a whore always a whore. God, she’s so annoying. Anyone else sick of her? Nina eventually coaxed her into it with a little help from Nadia and Genya. The other option, an emerald green gown with a higher neckline, never made it out of its garment bag.
As she puts the compact back, her gaze slants along Aleksander again. His eyes are trained forward, one hand on his leg and the other on the seat between them. Palm flat, fingers braced against the leather. As if holding himself from something. Or to something.
“What’s the plan for tonight?” Alina asks, deciding to initiate the brief to avoid slogging through it.
“I will be at your side. Tolya at perimeter, Malyen within the crowd. Once we’re done on the carpet, we’ll convene inside for you to prepare for the show. Genya will meet you in your dressing room.”
She’s never done an opening night like this before. Cameras, interviews, celebrity guest stars. Her biggest one to date had been for an off-Broadway production, which performed at a much smaller scale. There, she wore a purple matching set she thrifted from a local boutique and did her own makeup. Now, she felt like someone’s doll. Outfit chosen, painted face, coached answers.
“How many interviews am I allowed to do?”
“How many would you like?”
Alina blinks, mouth parted, and her pause stretches long enough for it to turn Aleksander’s head. Their eyes latch. Looking at each other. It burns, ruminating under his gaze. Being the subject of his attention.
“You—” She swallows and his pupils expand. “I get to choose?”
His jaw rolls. “Why wouldn’t you get to choose?”
Nikolai eases them into a turn, swaying her body. She grabs hold of the door handle to steady herself. “You’re kidding.”
When he reaches up to adjust the piece in his ear, a flash of dark ink winks at her from under his cuff. Another hint teases beneath his open shirt collar. “Have I ever…” Aleksander presses his lips together. “Kidded you before?”
She flits her eyes back to the front, cheeks warm. “I’ll keep it to two interviews.” An afterthought, once her hindbrain has glitched back into reality: “Thank you.”
His hand, no longer pressed flat, curls into a fist.
Cameras pop and flash as they roll up to the curb outside the theater. Nikolai throws her an encouraging thumbs-up as Aleksander exits his door, rounding the car to open hers. Her foot falls to the carpet, voices rise, and hands thrust forward, markers and glossy pictures of her on desperate display, questions about her castmates and selected dress rapping her temples, loud and intrusive. The car door shuts and they urge forward, Aleksander at her shoulder. Nikolai pulls off and away, leaving them.
“Breathe,” he murmurs and she does, sucking in.
She bypasses the crowd at the front, sending dutiful smiles instead and touching a few fans’ hands on the way. One girl screams and near-faints. Another has tears running down her face. Some interviewers rush forward with microscopic mics and iPhones to clamor for questions, but she heads for the branded backdrop instead, eager to get the photo op out of the way. Nina had angled her through how to pose in the dress only hours prior, and she realizes one thing was different, then.
“Will you hold this for me?”
Aleksander glances down, no hesitation, and takes the clutch from her outstretched hand. “Of course.”
How many would you like? Why wouldn’t you get to choose? Of course.
She sends what she hopes is a watery smile up at him, ears buzzing, surroundings blurry. Walking forward and settling into place for pictures, she eases onto one hip, leg cocked, arms behind her back, chin high. Lips falling into a coy smile, she sends a long gaze across each camera so not one goes without her making eye contact. Then she spins, one foot in front of the other, looking over her shoulder. The back of the dress cuts to the soft point of her back, just above her tailbone, and the shouts from the crowd ratchet upon reveal. After another drag of her eyes to ensure each photographer got what they needed, she walks off with a flitting wave.
Aleksander meets her by the line of interviewers, scanning. She remembers Mal is tucked nearby but can’t find the will to search for him.
“Okay?” he asks.
“Mhm.”
Her clutch falls back into her hands, and she grasps it like a lifeline. A current charges under her skin, tummy tightening. The echo of her name bursts as they wander closer, and Alina finds gratitude for her shadow beating alongside her nerves. Bloody and ripe. For the first time since he stalked into her life.
“Alina! Evette with LADbible, how are you?”
She gives a shining smile, rehearsed, carving along her face on instinct. “Hi! Evette! I’m taking it all in, what about you?”
“It is overwhelming, isn’t it? Oh, and there’s Zoya behind you! She’s stunning!”
At the backdrop, Zoya twirls in a royal blue number, falling into a laugh that the photographers eat up. Alina smiles, nodding. “Classic Gemini, that Zoya.”
“And you’re a Virgo, right?”
“Proud of it, too.”
Evette giggles, pink blush thick and high on her cheekbones. “Speaking of proud, who’s on your arm tonight? Perhaps the guy we saw you with in those Deumoix photos?” Evette turns and wiggles her brows at the camera of her operator’s smartphone, leaving Alina to blink into the stuffy night air.
“No, no,” she chuckles it off, smoothing her forehead out of its wrinkle. “No arm candy tonight. And those photos were of me and my security detail. Nothing more.”
An answer she meant to run by Genya earlier but forgot. Years ago, when she first chose this industry as her prison, she decided nothing was better or worse than the truth. If fans or trolls online wanted to speculate on her candor, so be it. It was out of her control, anyway.
“Security detail?” Evette’s brows bobble again. Her apparent shtick. “My, my. What’s it like having beautiful men follow you everywhere?”
Alina stares, frozen into a PR smile. Before she can stop herself, “Yes. What woman wouldn’t want a man following her wherever she goes?” The sarcasm drops a second too late, widening the gap of the falling stones of their interview. Evette’s face falters. In a blinding moment, Alina knows she’ll pay for that comment later. Maybe she’ll let Aleksander actually take her phone away, as penance and in active avoidance.
“Have a great night!” she throws at Evette before fluttering away, deciding one interview was enough. Her heart’s pounding, face flushing, and she waves at every other person who tries to beckon her toward their microphone. Aleksander folds into the space at her back, the heat of him a welcome soothe, for once, and she doesn’t breathe until they’ve entered the theater, the rush of the crowd dulling behind closed doors. Distanced, she leans into a cold wall plastered with old show posters, willing away the ache in her head.
A beat warps. Then, “You did fine.”
Fine. Alina scoffs. “Shut up.”
“You were speaking your mind. It’s admirable.”
She peeks over at him, at his crossed arms and coiled bodyguard earpiece. “Why are you being so nice to me today?”
His stone-hewn face doesn’t move. “Am I not usually nice to you?”
“I thought you didn’t kid with me.”
That cracks a smile, a smile, onto his lips and her chest pinches tight. His phone dings, and he pulls it out of his pocket, rolling a cursory glance over the screen. “Dressing room,” he says. “Genya’s waiting.”
Her manager is a pacing mess outside her closed door, wearing a black jumpsuit to throw her red hair into stark tones. She hugs Alina tight and ushers her inside, yammering about the damage control she’s planning over her innocuous (“and totally called for”) interview comment. Alina plops into her vanity seat to stare at her reflection, internal strife growing in strength, and Genya waits at the open door to deliver information to Aleksander. Music clicks on on her bluetooth speaker, blessed reprieve, pop-synth filling the space.
Then, over the belt of her favorite singer’s voice, Genya says: “She looks amazing. These photos are killer.”
A pause, and before the door closes, Aleksander replies, low and warm, “She’s iridescent.”
Alina spins to find him but, too soon, she’s alone.
Zoya slathers both of them in glitter for the afterparty, giggling, show-drunk and eager for more, using the privacy of Alina’s dressing room to gossip about how delicious Aleksander looked in his tailored suit, a conversation topic Alina ducks out of at every turn.
And when they exit to head for the cars, Alina stumbles upon finding Mal instead of Aleksander.
“Mal.” Her head swivels. “Where’s—?”
“He took the rest of the night off,” he grins, spreading his arms wide. “You get me all to yourself again. You girls ready to go?”
Zoya twirls a dark strand, thick, around her finger, lashes fluttering at Alina’s secondary guard. “We are so-o-o-o ready.”
“Good. Alina?”
Alina blinks, stupid, confused by the war thrashing in her stomach. At each change, each shift, she has been informed. Tolya out sick? Email, preliminary meeting. Malyen traveling out of town? Text message. Security detail accompanying her to an audition? Genya calls her.
But Aleksander stepping away, no warning? Unprecedented.
“Uh, yes,” she blurts, mouth fuzzy. “Yeah.” They head down the hallway for the stage door, legs numb.
She has his phone number. Could pull her own out right now and text him. Something like: everything okay? A check-in. Or, maybe: i had fun tonight. As if he needs to know the spectrum of her emotions. What about: are you going to the afterparty? If she’s looking to humiliate herself.
Instead, she wades into the thrum of fans outside. Smiles, cheers alongside Zoya. Gets in her car, finding Nikolai, a reliable constant. And heads out, resolved to not think of a man who doesn’t think of her.
The dress was sin. Pure, filthy, fucking evil.
He did not save a copy of her red carpet photos to his phone. He did not look at them when he got home after opening night had ended, after watching and listening as his charge gave the performance of a lifetime to a raucous audience. He did not wonder if the dress was as soft as her skin. He did not pour four drinks too many and force himself to ignore his cock until the sun rose. He did not, he did not, he did not—
@katiehomies: a woman commenting on the irony of having a man follow her everywhere as protection because other men are TRYING to follow her everywhere and getting shamed for it is insane. it’s 2025 people
@getoveryourself666: Police reports are public information. Alina Starkova has never filed a single restraining order or incident report with any of the stations of the cities she’s resided in over her career. I checked. “But she’s being followed and stalked and harassed!” By who? Receipts, please. She’s a dramatic, egotistical diva star. What’s new?
@regeeeeenuh: she said what she said but also have you guys SEEN the pictures of her bodyguard with the tattoos??? HELLO????
@NowImpact: Alina Starkova’s recent red carpet comment has the internet in a blaze, with multiple voices chiming in to pick apart the implications of female stars needing security details due to overzealous fans. Find more at the link in our bio.
@yourmomsaidso: god she’s such a bitch why are all girls getting famous lately so fucking awful what happened to PR training
@iftheshoefits: Bought a new gun yesterday. Does that count as following?
It takes three meetings, ten phone calls, and one crying session for Genya to give in.
Most invites to other events this summer were turned down on her behalf without question, since her show was her current project, her baby, the place she wanted to be. Three months, her initial contract had pinned her with to perform as the lead, alongside an option to extend, and she had planned on being there for every evening and matinee possible.
That is, until her phone exploded post-opening night.
Eventually, she turned it off and shoved it in her bedside table, intent on pretending like the internet didn’t exist at all. That no one could perceive her outside the walls of her safe space.
It trailed her like a cloud anyway, bituminous and dark. And one night, four days after her red carpet hiccup, she tripped and stumbled to the ground of the balcony above the marquee, just before her pivotal solo, in front of every single street attendee. In front of hundreds of cameras, the live footage broadcasting inside the theater. In front of Aleksander.
An accident. Her heel snagging on her dress. But if she were honest with herself, it was because her heart was pounding, her head was heavy, and the world was a slim piece of film. She wasn’t there—she was far below, doomscrolling behind her eyelids, losing grasp on herself.
Later, after the curtains had fallen and Alina was sequestered in her dressing room with a box of tissues and gifted chocolates, she called Genya and insisted on taking a break. Going somewhere. Escaping.
And another four days later, after what she decided were mediocre performances, warbling vocals, and dead-eyed stares for five shows in a row, she packs a bag to go attend a gala for a charity she once donated to; some luncheon she received an invite for months prior and promptly forgot about during rehearsals. In Chicago, too, a good enough distance away. Hefty separation to help her breathe for a whole weekend.
Then, Aleksander meets her at the security line of her terminal and her whole body slouches into itself.
“Thanks, Tolya, I’ll take it from here.”
Her escort gives them both a gracious nod before disappearing. She feels childish for even entertaining the idea of having blissful time alone. Such a privilege is reserved for women not in worry of being harmed.
And her phone notifications prove she isn’t one of those women.
Her gaze skates over the black duffel slung over his shoulder. The backwards cap on his head. The sunglasses perched on his nose. His t-shirt exposes the swirl of his ink and she avoids glancing down.
“You’re kidding.”
He steps forward, urging them into the growing line. Her rolling suitcase squeaks on the dirty tile. “I thought we came to an agreement on that.”
“Aleksander.”
A turn of his head, mouth slack. As if she shocked him.
“I—” She looks away, eyes swimming. “This weekend is important to me. I need… time away.”
Something softens. It floods between them. “I know,” he says, low. Understanding. “And I wish—” He stops, teeth grinding. Then, “But one of us has to accompany you.” Everything hardens again. “It's protocol.”
Alina stares, watching it all drain, before jerking forward, placing her shadow behind her. Where he belongs. “Got it. Sir.”
The first day is sticky-warm and without an itinerary, so she delivers her intent with a swift upturn of her nose and slammed door that has an uninspired impact since their rooms are conjoined. When she’d balked at the state of their suite upon arrival, he said it was the best option unless she wanted them to move to a single instead, a challenge she ignored.
Her tote is stuffed with a book, sunscreen, oil, bucket hat, earbuds, and candy from the airport when she opens the door again, emerging from it in her clackiest flip-flops. Aleksander looks up from his laptop, lounging on the couch, and goes stiff at the sight of her.
“The pool,” he notes, shoulders tense. “On a Saturday.” Pause. “High chance of someone seeing you.”
“Genya pulled strings to get me a private cabana.”
“Ah, yes, so you promise not to leave the cabana, then?”
Her eyes roll and she cocks a hip. The steel of his gaze remains steadfast on her face despite her state of undress. White bikini and see-through shawl, scrubbed clean skin and shaved legs. She even tied her hair into two little braids to at least feel like this was a vacation, not a hideaway recouping mission.
“I can go by myself,” she suggests, shrugging and making for the exit. “You can stay here and watch your porn in peace—”
“Hold it.” Against her will, her body locks in place. Obedient. She doesn’t turn to catch the smug smile she hears in his voice next. “Let me change and I’ll join you.”
Embarrassing. Desperate. Eye-gouging.
The first time she notices a woman skitter and giggle at Aleksander, she plucks her oil out to slather herself, avoiding the wiggle and swish of their blonde hair. The second time, she spares him a look, hoping to catch him smiling, winking, anything to indicate he knows he’s a delicious eyesore. The third, she huffs and rolls over, exposing her back to the dripping rays of sun, languishing in how it makes her stretch like a cat.
“God,” she mutters, getting comfortable, inching her legs apart so the soft of her inner thighs don’t slick with sweat. “Just go flirt with them already.”
“Hm?” he hums from beside her, thumbing to the next page of his book. Some mystery thriller. A disgusting cliche. “What was that?”
“Nothing.”
After she moved her chair out from under the privacy of their cabana’s ceiling to catch some light, just past its opening perimeter, set on tanning, he yanked his to be near hers as well, still under the protection of the canopy. He was wearing his sunglasses again, no hat, but hair mussed and collarbone glistening with sunscreen. She didn’t see him apply it, must have done so when she had her back to him, removing her shawl and getting her items in order of usage earlier.
Blinking one eye open, she casts a glance down the cut of his arm. Brief. Enough time to decipher stark-soft lines of wind and dots of leaves on his forearm, part of his tattoos. She closes it again, exhaling.
“So, tomorrow.”
She groans. “Not a meeting while I’m half-naked.”
“More than that,” he grumbles, dog-earing his book and setting it aside. She crinkles her nose at the page abuse. “The gala starts at one p.m., yes?” She nods, cheek brushing the towel below her. “We will arrive at twelve forty-five. Per Genya’s instruction, you’ll do photos but no interviews.”
The order stings as it’s supposed to, a wrench in her chest and a twist behind her eyes. Her lashes clamp closer together, warring off the tears.
“Okay,” she says.
“I suggest we linger no longer than two hours.”
“Fine.”
She can’t see him, but she tastes the beat he leaves in the air. Then, fingers push hair out of her face. She startles, neck craning to stare up at him.
“If someone says anything to you tomorrow,” he mutters, pitched down, for her, “tell me right away. Understood?”
Someone says anything. About her. About her controversy. About what others are saying everywhere else. Her tummy clenches and her inner thighs brush, slick despite her efforts. The dark of his eyes reflect his warning. His honesty.
“Yes,” she confirms, a chirp of a reply.
Her timer goes off, but she chooses not to flip to her back. Lest Aleksander get an eyeful of how hard her nipples are.
He kept his gaze on his book. Ignored the curve of her backside in that debaucherous, tiny swimsuit, held up by scraps for strings. Noticed the group of women, a bachelorette party, waving and clamoring for his attention on the other side of the pool. Acknowledging, he glanced their way, reaching forward and brushing a touch down Alina’s calf.
“Yeah?” she asked, sleepy, heat-drunk.
“Sorry. Accident.”
The women settled, hushing into whispers and resigned stares. He returned to his book, pretending the tingle of his palm meant he needed more sunscreen.
The day in the sun proved exactly what she needed: reducing her skin to a bright sunburst and mixing her brain into soup. She feels like a picked-apart cotton ball the following morning, waking alongside her trilling alarm, eyes thick and head stuffed. When she rolls out of bed to order room service, she finds Aleksander awake, dressed, and in the suite’s common area on his laptop again.
Nina hired a local stylist and make-up artist to arrive in place of her absence, helping Alina into a glittery-blue tea dress with gold swirls and gold heels, hair brushed half-up and face demure. Once finished, going in search of Aleksander so they may depart, she finds him in a slick black suit and black turtleneck, an odd dichotomy given the sweltering humidity outside.
“No earpiece?” She can’t help but tease. He’s the only one in her vicinity.
“The only thing to distract me is you,” he says.
“Dangerous.”
“Treacherous, more like it.”
The gala is simple and polite, with a small crowd of photographers and hardly an interviewer in sight despite her team’s fear of one. She does her posing in front of a white trellis background, heels crossed and smiling with no teeth. When lunch is served, an event organizer asks if she would like her bodyguard to join her to eat instead of standing against the wall. Looking over her shoulder, their eyes clash. Aleksander’s brow pops. She turns back and declines the offer.
After another hour of practiced laughs and handshaking, a woman with dark lustrous hair and a curling lip saddles up to Alina’s standing table, carving into a wide grin.
“Ms. Starkova,” she greets, putting out a red-nailed hand. “So lovely to meet you. I’m Trinity Harbor. Executive at LADbible.”
Alina blinks, wrist limp, jaw aching. “Yes. Hi. Hello, Ms. Harbor.”
“I’m a missus, actually!” Head tossed back, open throat laugh.
“Yes, yes of course. So sorry!”
“I wanted to ask you,” Trinity continues, grabbing a champagne flute as a server stops by, “since we’re both here.” Flutters her other hand, as if the coincidence is too great to pass up. “Do you have anything else to say in regards to your…” Her teeth are white, so white. “...comment?”
“Comment,” Alina repeats, fingers twisting beneath Trinity’s eyeline.
“I’m sure you’ve received a lot of requests for statements,” the woman goes on, fingers pressing to her chest. Her lips thin into something resembling pity. “Let me spare you. We’d love to publish your follow-up on your behalf.”
“My behalf.” Is this what she becomes in the face of discomfort? An echo of her shame?
“Of course, take a few days to draft a response. Here’s my business card—”
A hand grasps the small, cream-colored rectangle before she can, and Alina follows the arm to find Aleksander behind her, sheltering her against the table. Deft, he rips the business card in two, letting each half flutter to the ground. Trinity halts in her sentence, jaw propped.
“Ms. Starkova thanks you for your time,” he says, tone rigid. Rocky. “We have to get going.”
Trinity is bereft, eyes souring. “If you think—”
“Alina?”
He’s holding out his hand. To her. A silent request, a loud command. She ignores the huff of the executive at her back, slipping her fingers against his palm. He tugs her and they leave, ignoring the way Trinity calls out for Alina to contact them whenever! We’re excited to hear from you!
Outside, as their car pulls around, he doesn’t let go of her. A detail she elects to go along with, even though he has to type into his phone with one hand. “Who are you texting?” she dares ask.
“Genya,” he confirms her suspicion. “To blacklist Trinity Harbor from contacting you.”
Alina’s heart lurches. “She was just—”
“Bothering you. Exploiting your distress.”
Thinking back, she tries to recall the threading of their companionship. Searching for the moment the colors changed, when he stopped being just a bodyguard in charge of her life. When he became someone not just protecting her, but looking out for her. Caring for her. Seeing her.
She hadn’t been paying attention. It’s suddenly here, now, in front of her face. An alive, visceral thing.
A whimper of her voice, but she speaks nonetheless. “She was.”
He looks to her, gazes clashing, the dark of his cornea a consuming force. She wants to move closer, usher into the storm waging in his brow, but the car rolls to the curb. He opens the door, breaking what links them, and she slides onto the leather seat. Their fingers untangle, leaving her cold.
She doesn't hear the knob turn. Doesn’t hear the door push open, the sift of air.
With the sheets tangled at her knees, eyes squeezed shut, all that’s in her ears is her breathing, the pounding of her heart, and the phantom growl of his voice. The callous of his skin against hers, rough palm and large thumb. As her hips rotate down, a shaky exhale passing her parted lips, what she does hear is—
A throat clearing.
Dread pierces her, heat demolishing the peak brewing below her tummy.
Alina’s eyes pop open.
No, no, no—
He doesn’t say anything. No mocking word, no self-righteous comment. And the silence is worse.
Her head turns, latching onto the lank of his form beside the door that connects their rooms. Eyes dark, hollowed stone.
A sick part of her wants him to rub it in her face that he found her like this: straddling a hotel pillow in the dark of her bed, humping it like a wanton thing. At least it would mean she affects him, a consolation for how he affects her. How he didn’t look at her when she wandered out to the suite to say goodnight earlier, hair washed and face moisturized. How it boiled her blood, burned her skin, and she couldn’t sleep because of it. Picturing his cut-glass face, so unbothered by her, when she’s this shaking, wet, desperate girl, clamoring for the shreds of affection he’s started to show.
He’s so fucking infuriating.
“Aleksander,” she says, hitched, an unintentional waver. If only she could appear as blithe as him, but sweat beads at her temples and her thighs ache from grinding. “Do you—” she shifts, seeking new purchase on the pillow pressed to her cunt, “—do you need something?”
His nostrils flare, jaw clenching. Brief insight. Her womb spasms. “Our flight’s been changed. I needed to make sure you knew.”
“Got it. Thank you.”
Ruinious, his glare dips. Past her camisole and panties to what’s buried between her legs. Up on her palms and knees, an angle to get a good downstroke as she rode.
Her skin is cooling, but the slots of her rib cage bubble with warmth under his scrutiny. For weeks, she’s despaired, wondering what it must be like to be watched by him. Searching for the eyes he so adamantly keeps away from her. Now, it peels her muscles from her bones. Invasive. Intrusive.
Her clit gives a heady pulse.
“Do you mind?” Alina tries to spit the words, but they come out on a mewling whine, as if begging him to leave her to it. Her cut-off orgasm must have stolen her tongue.
Aleksander blinks, brow lowering. His sweatpants are black and her room is dark, dangling the possibility of his hard cock out of reach. A tingle wracks her spine and her hips roll without thought, snaking a whimper up her throat. She swallows it back before it finds air, but he remains a witness to her desperation all the same. A slow exhale leaves his nose.
Then, “Don’t stop on my account.”
The whimper releases; attention. And she keeps humping.
It’s mindless. Messy. Chasing the peak she almost earned before he interrupted. Her hips pivot and glide, rubbing her too-slick cunt into the pillow with wild abandon. She realizes her eyes slipped closed again when she feels fingers at her chin, jolting her into startling awareness once more.
Aleksander. Standing at the side of her bed, staring, touching.
Tipping her head back, his gaze thrashes her. The length of her neck blossoms with red, a moan filtering past her lips as he watches. Watches her debase herself, morph into a fool for his entertainment. A playact of her role in the world, her chosen career. It simmers the lining of her pussy and she comes.
A shuddering grunt paints the air between them as she rolls through it, buzzing euphoria into the nape of her neck and the tips of her toes. Coming with his eyes on her is reminiscent of white noise, a lingering haze. And when she softens into a stop, shoulders shaking, he cocks his head. Studying her.
The fingers at her chin move, his thumb pulling her bottom lip down. “Were you going to do this all night with me in the other room?”
Her real answer doesn’t matter. What matters is this—what he decides to give her and when. So she nods, eyes glazed, wanting him to do with her as he pleases. And maybe he will. She can see the battle behind his lashes, the frontlines of his cheeks. The defense in his rigid jaw.
He wants her. A simple truth.
“Hm,” he intonates, arm flexing. Ink ripples and she whimpers again.
His hand lifts and falls, off her face and to her chest. Fingers hook into the neckline of her camisole, yanking to bare her tits to him. A beat, breathless, before he pinches one nipple and then the other. Alina can’t think, can’t move. Too taken by the rapture of his glare.
“I want you like this every day,” Aleksander mutters, and her thighs squeeze, clit searing. “Destroyed. Shameless.” She hiccups. “Looking to me for guidance.”
He cups her breast and her hips move again. Of their own volition.
“One more?” he hums.
Her tongue is goo. “P—please.”
His pupils blow. Fingers pinch her nipple a second time, harder. Meaner. “And what if I say no?”
Alina cries out, grinding down faster, a race she won’t win. He hunches over her, shrouding, other hand coming up to grab her chin once more. Sliding, the whole of his palm encases her jaw, a steel grip that mashes her lips together, teeth clanking. Her hands come up to curl around his arms, the most they’ve ever touched, and her clit burns as she rides. “Defiant little thing,” Aleksander snarls, nose bumping hers. Amber washes her, daylight in the moon of this moment. “You want to come again? So bad, huh? Fine. Fucking take it.”
His grip on her tit twists, and she wails, humping into a second orgasm. One that echoes the first, rough and unfeeling, body wringing out like a wet towel. It doesn’t satiate, it doesn’t satisfy. Instead, it leaves her aching, empty, as if two were not only not enough, but undeserved.
He releases her and she falls back to her mattress, weeping, sobs leaving her. Hair sticks to her neck, eyes sticky. Looking up, he’s panting, staring at her with contempt and reverence, a conflict she wants to lick.
“Get some sleep,” he says, hoarse, giving her his back. “We have an early flight.”
When the door that separates them closes, it sounds like a gunshot.
“—our best interest moving forward is to minimize public appearances—”
“And if said public appearances are necessary? Beneficial to her career?”
Mal interjects, “Tolya and I can increase our hours, if needed—”
“Speak for yourself.”
“Come on, mate, don’t play it like that—”
“—Ms. Starkova has received numerous threats that override her public image as of now. In my experience—”
Genya huffs. “I cannot in good conscience ask Alina not to go outside for an undetermined amount of time.”
“Do not put words in my mouth, Ms. Safin, you know she is permitted to go outside—”
“Could’ve fooled me,” Alina mutters into her own arms.
She learned of this security meeting on the drive from the airport, placed in her lap by an aloof Aleksander, who hadn’t spoken more than five words to her the whole day. His insistence on carrying her bags to check-in and making sure she ate something before the flight notwithstanding, as those were wordless exchanges. Expected responses, on her part. They headed straight for the theater after deboarding despite how every pulsing stitch of her body begged to go home and sleep off the rest of her supposed vacation. But no—
Her safety comes first.
Genya had been arguing with her three bodyguards for the better part of an hour, deciding what type of detail was needed in lieu of the most recent threat dealt her way, in tandem with the growing online discourse. She knows the internet will move on, eventually, to latch onto something else worth picking apart. Her fifteen minutes aren’t up quite yet, however.
“Enough,” Aleksander spits, and the room quiets. Alina picks her head up, searching for his eyes, finding them stuck on her manager. Of course. He hasn’t looked at her since last night. “Until these threats are no longer viable, I will not be challenged on the decisions made to keep her safe. If my suggested detail no longer works for you, that is a different discussion.” Genya goes rigid, mouth flat. “Are we in agreement?”
A long silence permeates the air, stuffy, before Genya gives a clipped nod.
“Good.” Aleksander shoves off the wall and heads for the door. “Have Ms. Starkova in her dressing room at call time.”
He disappears, Mal and Tolya trailing him, leaving the smoking wreckage of his irritation to plume in bursts. After a tense moment, Genya looks at Alina, and they crack awkward smiles. She wants to laugh, she just can’t find it in herself.
“How was Chicago?”
Alina groans and falls back into her arms.
She was incandescent, that first show upon their return.
When he first received the call, months prior, about working with a theater to guard an actress, he couldn’t believe the gall to regale him to such a baseline cliche. An insult, really, to see him as nothing more than a babysitter for a girl who couldn’t stop saying things that got her into trouble.
And then he heard her sing.
Watching her pour out weeks worth of frustration and anger and despondence into her solo, hands gripping the railing, fingers clutching her chest, lungs heaving—
His mind, fucking sick, clawed forward the image of her riding a fucking pillow, staring at him with dewy fucking doe eyes, coming like she was fucking owed it.
As the solo ended and she turned to walk back inside, he avoided her eye.
If he didn’t, he’d be blinded by the sun.
Zoya’s laugh tinkles as Jesper reveals her tarot spread, laid out on Alina’s coffee table in a pyramid stack. The deck he brought over was a new one, cards fresh and unbent, with painted images of nude figures, dark nipples, and unabashed pubic hair. Before doing pulls, they went through every card, giggling and gasping at each one, loving the big thighs and dimpled cheeks the artist included. Once they all had a gin and tonic in hand, Jesper got to shuffling, and Alina learned in her spread that she’s holding herself back and allowing others to dictate who she is.
Go figure.
Now, as Zoya listens to Jesper’s spiel about how she has good things on the way, that acting is important to her, she will get a lead role in the next three years, Alina lets her tongue roll loose.
“Something happened between Aleksander and I.”
Her friends snap their heads her way, jaws propped and eyes wide.
“You’re kidding.”
“Oh, spill.”
She tells them in hushed, breathless tones with pink cheeks, hiding her face and cackling when they do. And by the end, after she’s drained her drink, they berate her with questions of where this is going, what’s happening, does she want more, does he want more, and—
“I don’t know,” she says, pressing into her cushions, feeling lighter. “But at least I did it.”
Zoya grins, brushing hair from Alina’s glistening face. “And you did it without getting it approved by your team. A true star in the making.”
The tweet drops at 11:05 pm.
Alina is stretched out in bed, skin shiny with lotion, doomscrolling with too-awake eyes when the notification pops at the top of her screen. She clicks on it, mindless, and bolts upright once it loads.
@iftheshoefits:
Floor 4, right?
A picture. Of her apartment building. Of her window. Of the light that’s currently on, her lace curtains shut.
A picture—taken tonight.
Her brain is on autopilot as she calls Genya, voice a monotone whisper, who keeps her on speaker as she makes calls and sends emails on her other phone. The tweet is gone within five minutes. Sooner, had it’s validity not been questioned. Once it’s removed, Alina breathes heavy as Genya reports the account and gets it blocked in every way possible. Finally, after warring off panic for almost a half hour, Genya asks Alina if she needs anything.
“Nothing,” she replies, not there. “I’m fine.”
Hangs up, pulls up a number she’s never contacted before. Rings only twice, then—
“Ms. Starkova. The post was removed, Genya informed me—”
“Aleksander.”
A pause. Something slips between them, shortening the gap. His voice, black as a starry night, “What’s wrong?”
“I—I need—I can’t—”
“Give me five minutes.”
It ends up being seven, but when she opens her door, he’s panting. As if he ran. She wonders what sort of evening she invaded, finding him dressed in black sweats and a white t-shirt, such a simple outfit for a man who appears larger than life to her. Otherworldly. Ink stark at his skin, veins thick in his forearms. His hair’s wet. She must have called just after he finished showering.
“Alina,” he says, pushing her into her home, getting the door shut. Eyes on her, he shoves the deadbolt into place, twists the lock. “Are you all right?”
“I just—” Screws her lips, tongue jamming along her teeth. “What if—”
He comes closer, placing gentle hands on her shoulders. So big they swallow her, fingers dipping toward her shoulder blades, thumbs brushing the tops of her tank top. He’s so much, all the time, and her eyes water. “Hey,” he murmurs, head ducking. She can’t breathe. “Hey. Something’s going on. Have you had dinner?”
Blurry, she nods.
“Have you been drinking?
Head shake. No.
“I’m going to get you some water. Have you showered? Brushed your teeth?”
Nods again. When he leaves her to look for her kitchen, she follows, feeling like the sticky side of a piece of tape. He notices but says nothing. She watches him grab a glass and fill it, along with a half-eaten protein bar from her cupboard. Passing them off to her, she chugs back a third of the water and goes a little breathless as he grabs a chair from her dining table. Shadowing him back to her front door, he shoves it up under the knob.
“But,” she swallows, licking liquid from her lips, “what about when you need to leave?”
His eyes flicker. “I’m not going to.” A pause, and he must realize. “Is that okay?”
The world is tilting, but she tells him yes, somehow, impossibly. Because next thing she knows, he’s leading her back to her bedroom, flipping off lights as they go. In her space, white linen sheets and blue accents, a few stuffed animals lined up on a shelf, stacks of scripts on her cluttered desk, he feels monstrous. Something meant to destroy, not protect. It calms her.
She sits on the bed and eats chunks of her bar, staring at him as he checks the outskirts of her room, taking extra care at her window. Makes sure it’s locked, ensures the lack of a fire escape, presses his hands against the glass to see how sturdy it is. Once satisfied, he takes a seat at the foot of her bed, eyes sliding along her form to push her into finishing the items he gave her.
“Why the protein bar?” Alina asks, chest still hollow. Was she supposed to cry? Why hasn’t she cried?
“It helps keep your blood sugar up without raising it. You shouldn’t have candy or caffeine during or after a panic attack.” His arms cross over his chest, torso tense. On alert. “Finish your water, please.”
She does, gulping back the last of it. “Panic attack?”
“It’s what you were having, Alina.”
A rebuttal slips to the edge of her tongue, but it doesn’t find air. She focuses on finishing the bar, chewing the last bite and tossing the wrapper in her wastebasket. “More water?” he asks, getting to his feet.
When she tries to stand as well, intent on following him back out to the kitchen, he presses a hand to her shoulder again, urging her to sit. “It’s okay.” His tone, so soft. So low. A way he’s never spoken to her before. “I’ll only be a room away. Nothing will—” He inhales, expansive. “Nothing will happen to you. Not while I’m here.” Exhale. “Okay?”
Shaky, she acquiesces. “Okay.”
She’s under the blankets when he returns, setting the full glass on her bedside table. Hesitation, as he asks for her phone, but she obeys and hands it over, allowing him to plug it in at her desk so it’s away, not in bed with her. A rule she broke, after all, being on it after ten p.m. She blinks, recalling the echo of his harsh should I take your phone away, or will you be good? A hazy memory from what feels like years ago, now.
“I’ll be on the couch,” he says, avoiding her eye as he turns for the door. “If you need anything.”
“Wait—”
He halts, fists curling.
He knows. She knows. They both know what she’s going to ask. A pin drops, vast yet microscopic. Instead of avoiding the sharp end, she lets it prick.
“Stay—” she gulps, tingles buzzing her fingers, “stay with me?”
A breath, then his arm reaches out and kills the overhead light in her room, leaving just the foggy glow of her lamp. Her whole body beats pink as he slides into bed next to her, on top of the blankets, eyes elsewhere. But once he’s settled, she rolls and fits into his side, easy, a groove meant for her. His arm winds around her back, hand folding at her waist.
“Thank you,” Alina says, delicate.
He grumbles. “You’re welcome.”
Her heart pounds. Easing her chin onto his chest, she gazes at the underside of his, the length of his too-long beard. The swirls on his neck. His molded jaw. She wants to trace it. All of it. Everything.
“How many tattoos do you have?” she asks, fingers tightening in his shirt.
“Depends,” he answers, clearly humoring her. His gaze is pointed at the ceiling. “If you count my sleeves as individual pieces making up a whole one, the number is bigger.”
“I’ve always wanted a tattoo.”
“You should get one, then.”
“My value as an actor would decrease.”
Aleksander huffs. “Your value?”
“Industry words, not mine.”
“Don’t they have makeup to cover them up nowadays?”
“Sure, but it’s a reason to overlook me for roles.”
His chin dips, eyes brushing hers. It skips a beat in her pulse. “Alina.” Each time he says her name, a flower unfurls in her abdomen. “Your worth as an actor should not be calculated by the appearance of your body.”
A shiver runs down the map of her spine. “I agree. But our opinions don’t matter.”
Chipped glass. That’s what his gaze reminds her of. Reflective, dark, splintering. It asks her to break, too.
She shifts up, collapsing atop him so their faces are close. His jaw clenches. Her fingers do what they begged to, rolling down his neck to chart his ink, drawing under the collar of his shirt to follow the lines onto his chest. “They’re beautiful,” she murmurs.
“You don’t even know what they are.”
“Do I have to?”
That rouses a smile out of him, and she mirrors it back at him. Outside, a car horn honks, startling her. She bounces against him, stilling as her face burns in shame.
“Fuck.” Her eyes squeeze shut. “Fuck this. Fucking assholes on the internet—”
His other hand comes up, slipping along her cheek. Her lids pop open, breath stalling, watching his mouth part. “What did I say?”
Alina shifts and his palm moves, fingers tangling in her hair to keep her there. “I don’t know.”
“Earlier.”
“Nothing—nothing will happen to me.” Aleksander tugs. “While you’re here.”
Another smile teases his lips and everything flutters. At once, they are different people in a different place at a different time. He is a boy she met and she is a girl he desired. “Should I make you recite our rules?” His arm around her back hooks tighter at her waist, an intimate freefall.
“I don’t know,” she says, finding her footing, courage a rippling force in her tummy. “Should I straddle a pillow for you?”
A groan leaves him and they clash, a kiss more insistent than wanting. He rolls them, coming over her, slotting his hips between hers, legs wrapping around him. Her fingers scrape at his scalp, twisting in his hair, and his tongue licks into her mouth. The car honks again, but it does not bruise. Aleksander’s beard is softer than she expected, his hands coarser than most. She wants to know where the tattoos end.
“This isn’t why I came over,” he says, pulling back, lathing kisses down her neck.
“I know.” She arches for him.
“Fuck.” He bites into the top swell of her breast, over her top. “I’d never seen anything like you before.” Bites again, eliciting a cry, leaving a mark. “What have you done to me?”
“Aleks—”
“I could ruin you.”
She laughs, a joyful thing, even as she admits to her greatest fear. “I could ruin myself.”
His gaze pierces her, altogether perceiving and open. Then they kiss again.
It’s raining when they wake up.
A drizzle, hushed and cloudy outside, but when Aleksander says good morning with an unhurried kiss and a question of grabbing coffee, normal routine still in place, colors bloom and time slows.
The edges of their day pulse into a gold halo despite the weather, as it goes like this:
A shower for Alina as Aleksander runs back to his place with the promise of keeping his phone on full volume if she needs to call for anything, anything at all, even though the worry and alarm of last night has waned due to the sneak of sunlight through a threatening storm. He’s back in less than an hour, showered himself and in full bodyguard garb. Gray suit but no tie, the top two buttons of his crisp white shirt undone. Once she’s dressed in her pre-show loungewear and her bag is packed, they meet Nikolai at the curb. Aleksander opens the door for her, usual, but when he slides in next to her, he places a hand on her thigh. Not usual. It brews a spot of excited nerves in her belly, legs nearly kicking. Nikolai says nothing but delivers a pointed stare, and they pull off to head for Think.
He doesn’t touch her outside the car, but the air that winds between their bodies as they walk, idle, pause, is warmer. Soaked. She asked him to fuck her last night, a heated request that was met with soft shakes of his head, too kind for his own good. When she demanded to know why, he reminded her she had just finished coming down from a threat on her life, the chemicals in her body were still righting themselves, so they finished their evening with her finally, finally crying into his shoulder, blubbering like a baby. She fell asleep on top of him, between his legs, and awoke with him curled around her. A soothing balm.
After coffee, it’s yoga. Then a bookstore where he trails her between rows of romance novels and mystery thrillers. She pushes him against a corner and he laughs, actually fucking laughs, before smothering her in a kiss that bends her back in half. They leave with a pile of new-reads, smelling of petrichor and dust and cardstock. For lunch, she makes him try her favorite ramen place, a to-go container packed in a bag for Nikolai. In the spaces of their day, she asks how he got into security detail. Something about the father he never met, how his mother always called him a caretaker. A person who looks out for others before anything else. He asks why she wanted to pursue acting, what about musical theatre was it that called to her specifically, and she answers with what truth she can conjure. How she loved singing, getting up in front of others, volunteering to do the vulnerable things, the cringey things. How she performed a drunk-character monologue from that one Shakespeare play for extra credit in her high school English class and people cheered and clapped afterward, rendering her speechless. How it always felt easy, putting on a face for others, morphing into what they needed her to be.
Her chest ruptures at the reminder from her phone that call time looms, the first time in a long time that she wishes the clock stood still so she could linger here. Forever. Not have to go perform in a show she adores at a job she loves. But Aleksander holds her hand on the drive to the theater, the water-slick roads not as traffic-cramped as she expected. Luck simmers along the lining of her throat, and she considers inviting Aleksander into her dressing room after sound check is finished.
But Genya meets her there, instead, so he waits outside in the hall. Dutiful. Usual.
The golden glow dims a bit.
“You’re in a good mood,” her manager points out, catching Alina’s eye in the mirror. “I love you, but I didn’t expect that after last night’s… incident.”
“I didn’t either.”
Genya’s gaze narrows. “Are we keeping secrets?”
Alina shrugs, cracking open her contour kit. “For now.”
Heading for the stage for places, there’s the ghost of a hand at her waist, curling around the small of her back when no one is there to see. She’s fuzzy as the lights lower in the house, the opening overture bursting into frequency. The skin of a peach, smothered whole by his mouth. That’s what she is. And before her grand entrance, the theater holding its breath, she throws Aleksander a glance over her shoulder, grinning. Floating. Then she steps onstage and her molecules scatter.
The show is alive, teeming with squirming flesh and rushing adrenaline. She and Zoya share a secretive look at the end of a scene, her hand bumping Jesper’s during a transition. Wylan smacks a kiss to her cheek. Marie squeals as an ensemble number ends. Something charges the air and they’re all drunk on it.
During intermission, she changes into her climactic dress with the help of Zoya’s deft hands, wishing Aleksander were there with her, giving her kisses between blinks, joining in on the high of today’s performance. But he’s there later, waiting for her, and her eyes brush his as they head for the balcony. The camera, broadcasting to the audience inside, starts rolling just as she peels her gaze off of him. Her face settles into character, and the doors open. She steps outside.
It’s still raining, the sky a gloomy gray, but it’s light, pattering the crowd below in gentle drops. As her body falls onto her marker, hands gripping the wet railing, music swelling, she takes a breath and sings.
His station, first designated months ago, required him to watch the crowd.
Look for abnormal activity amongst the onlookers. Communicate with Tolya down on the pavement. Point out potential threats.
But she was ethereal. Heaven-sent. Put on this earth to tempt him. A diametric force he fought each and every day since being assigned at her side.
Protect her. Ensure her safety. Covet her. Keep her.
In the dark of her apartment the previous night, as she dozed, tucked into him, he accepted the reality stretched before him. There was no going back.
And in the dusk of that evening, beside her as she threw her arms wide, belting the song that haunted his dreams, becoming the only thing he was put on this earth for, he turned and looked. Watched. Let himself drown in the way she suckled people in, bent them to be something else, something free, and threw it back. Giving them all hope that something could be so beautiful—so real.
Somehow, she had chosen him, before all others.
So, Aleksander watched. Stared. Stunned into raptured silence.
And bore witness as the seams of it all ripped in two.
Zzpp.
Past her ear. Metallic. It falters her note, her big one, the one to signal the climax of the song. She cracks, and a few people below gasp. Then, a second later, a ricocheting gunshot hits the sound barrier.
Alina’s stomach drops, spine locking.
“Alina!” On her left. Mal. “Get down!”
He dives for her and she can’t see, brain shuttering, noise buzzing, but she hears a second gunshot. Wonders if it hit her, going numb, as Mal’s body collides with hers, splaying them to the ground of the balcony. Her eyes flutter and Aleksander is above them, gun drawn, shouting into his earpiece. She hears screaming, somewhere, farther down, and remembers the crowd. The crowd.
Who is getting hurt because of her?
“Grab his gun!”
Her eyes roll again, finding Aleksander once more, as he shouts down at her. He’s shouting. Why is he shouting?
“Alina, baby,” he despairs, gun pointed down past the railing of the balcony. “Grab his gun. Now!”
His gun. Whose gun? She looks across her body. Mal. Mal’s gun. Her hands pat his lower back, his hips, finding the bump of it. Draws it, feels the weight of it in her inexperienced palm. She is holding Mal’s gun. Why? Why can’t Mal—
Blood. She’s covered in blood.
This time, she’s the one who screams. The atmosphere shatters and awareness bruises her.
Aleksander’s telling her things again. “Don’t let it go until I tell you, okay? Okay, honey?”
She can’t breathe. “O—oka-ay—”
Mal is limp against her, the wound in his shoulder seeping onto her dress. Her costume. The thing she’s worn every night for the past month and a half. What everyone has seen her wear, countless pictures and videos of her spread across the internet. And, now, it’s covered in blood. The blood of a man who signed up to protect her. A man she got shot.
Her ears prick. Sirens, in the distance. The swelling noise of a displaced crowd, people running. Aleksander, speaking loud and firm to—Tolya? It has to be Tolya. Words that run past her like seawater. Something about a firecracker, unharmed. Her fingers curl tighter on the gun, other arm cradling the unconscious body of Mal.
She realizes: another shot was never fired. Two, then chaos.
Looking toward the sky, chest fractured, the rain begins to pour.
Stitched together moments, blurry and out of focus; nothing concrete as she’s urged back inside the theater, gun slipped from her hands, made to wait in someone’s office, police officers at the door. Aleksander, out of sight. Genya, somewhere. Tolya, still outside. Mal—
She tries to cry. Probably should cry, but her whole head feels numb. She wants to strip this godforsaken dress off, but has nothing to change into. She’d walk out of this room naked if her humiliation weren’t such a visceral, gory thing on display already. Her companions are a desk and a rolling chair and plaques she didn’t acquire, belonging to someone else. So she stares at the wall, wondering what life looks like on the other side of something like this.
Eventually, she’s ushered out of the office and downstairs, into the now-empty theater free of patrons. Genya meets her there with a crushing hug and low words, something about everyone being evacuated, reporters swarming the building, Mal taken to the hospital, but don’t worry they think he’ll be fine—
An EMT checks her for injuries, gloved hands swiping the skin of her arms, neck, upper back. Skewed wig pulled from her head to look for any wounds. Alina tells them she has a headache, nothing more, and the EMT turns to Genya to announce the possibility of her still being in shock. Then, a police officer approaches, ready with a notepad to take her statement. She doesn’t remember what she said the second it leaves her mouth, fog rolling behind her eyelids, hoping it at least helps.
Then, “We were informed of concerning… messages sent your way in the last few weeks. Do you believe they could be related to the incident?”
Alina stares at the man, disbelieving. “You’re kidding.”
He blinks, glancing past her shoulder to Genya.
Genya steps forward. “Let’s—”
“I was asked if I wonder what a bullet tastes like. They told me that they purchased a new gun. I was sent a picture of my own apartment window when I was home alone. Tell me, do you think it sounds like those things could be related to someone shooting at me?”
The cop’s mouth twists and Genya gets an arm around Alina’s shoulders. “How about we take a trip to the station later? Can I grab your card?”
Away, cleared by medical, released by law enforcement, Alina presses into a wall of the hallway that leads to the cast area, and she stalls, realizing. “Where is everyone? Zoya? Jesper? Are they—”
“Safe,” Genya assures, rubbing at her eyes. They’re red, mascara smeared. Alina deflates at the notion that she never bothered to ask Genya if she was all right. “Told to go home once the shooter had been detained. They weren’t considered witnesses so the police didn’t need anything from them.”
“Detained. The shooter was detained?”
“Tolya tracked him after Aleksander told him where the bullet had shot from. The shooter was in a building across the street but took off after the second shot once he spotted Tolya running for him.”
“Did he—” Alina’s mouth is sandpaper. “Did Tolya catch him?”
Genya gives a cruel smile. “Bashed his head into the alley wall, according to him.”
The most silent, most reserved of her guards did that. Under the pretense of protecting her. A shiver bolts down her spine.
After a pause, she can’t take it any longer. “Where’s Aleksander?”
Genya frowns. “I’m not sure. He was speaking with the police for a long time, and I’m certain I saw him get checked by an EMT. Let me give him a call—”
“No. No, it’s fine.” Alina swallows, hands buzzing. This was it: the thing that proved she was too much. A handful, a burden. She was his charge and the duty had been fulfilled. That’s it. “I’m—let me go change. I want to get out of here.”
Her flesh chills as she takes the usual stairs up to her dressing room. Haunting, the knowledge of her cast, her friends, leaving her here alone. Left to scrub through the debris and rubble she brought upon them. Her ears are ringing by the time she makes it to her door, shoving it open and scrambling for breath.
To find Aleksander, there, in front of her mirror.
Alina inhales, sharp.
She’s still covered in blood, hair shoved back from her face, wig in hand. His shoulders bunch at the sight of her, staring as he is through his reflection. Meeting his gaze, it rivals a black cave, carved and smooth.
Hollow.
“Aleksander,” she says, vibrating.
His jaw flexes. Leaning into his palms, fingers bracing against the wood of her vanity. Hair mussed, suit rumpled. There’s a swipe of red on his forehead, another smear on his collar. As the door shuts, what tightens soon snaps. And she notices, with the tension in his body and the violence in his glare—
He’s angry.
“Aleksander,” she says again, lower. The wig falls from her grip, landing on the carpet. The rug she chose for her own dressing room. Bought from the thrift store she visited only days after arriving to the city for rehearsals.
He huffs, looking away. He’s away, far, locked in some corner of his brain. Distant. Catatonic. Her heart thrums.
“I failed you.”
She flinches, as if he struck her. “You—you didn’t.”
“I—fuck.” Manic, teeth bared, head ducking. “I looked at you.”
Confusion throttles. “What?”
“I shouldn’t have. I usually—fuck, you distract me. You distract me and I—I almost got you fucking killed—”
A burst in her chest, red and pink and cartilage and muscle, everlasting yet terrifying. She thinks of when they first met, the no-nonsense dip of his face. When they were in Chicago, how he didn’t humor her. Then in her apartment last night, what feels like a million years ago, quelling her, insisting they do no more than kiss.
Here, now: the slip of his control. It’s melting.
The reins are falling from his grasp.
Alina burns bright.
“But I’m alive,” she says, voice quaking. “I’m—”
“You—you aren’t—not until that fucker’s dead in the ground—”
“Don’t say that, I’m fine—”
“Fine?” Aleksander spins, crosses to her, grabs her arms. A heaving beast. Fingers dig into her skin, pressing marks, blooming color. She goes breathless. It feels as if she ran a marathon, body loose and languid. She wants him to throw her across the room. “I let myself look, for a second, and someone shoots at you. You believe that to be fine?”
Alina tries to touch his face, but he rips away, off of her.
“You’re a fucking siren. Made to wreck me.” His voice cracks and does she. “You could have died, Alina, and I—”
Resolute, she closes the distance between them once more. He backs from her, eyes wide, scared, but she gets his cheeks under her palms, gritting her teeth. “But I didn’t. Okay?” His following exhale stutters. “I’m here. Don’t take that away from me.”
They breathe, chests pumping, as his eyes search hers. The heat of him thrashes her and she gulps back a whimper, desperate to feel. Slide a touch under his shirt, rake nails down his chest. They’re both alive, and her skin buzzes, atoms lifting toward him. And when his hands move over her waist, cupping, squeezing, a whimper passes her lips.
He curses, soft. “It—” Forehead falls to hers. “It should have been me.”
She hums, questioning.
“I should have been shot.”
An image of him, limp and pale, wound gushing from his chest under glinting rain. Her entire being rejects it before he’s finished speaking, head pulsing back and forth. “No, no. I couldn’t—” A sob near breaks past the tower of her throat. “I couldn’t bear it. I—I need you, Aleksander—”
His mouth captures hers, stifling, and she moans, opening for him. His hand curls into the back of her head, angling her, and past their breaths, their kisses, they’re greeted with silence. No earpiece, no crowds, no traffic signals, no cityscape noise. At once, she’s lightheaded. It’s them. It’s just them.
“You need me?” he grunts, and she’s pressed into her vanity, makeup scattering to the floor as they crash into it. “Huh? Need me, honey?”
Alina nods, babbling, and his teeth scrape along her cheekbone.
“Beautiful fucking girl—” Steals her mouth again, fingers fitting into the neckline of her bodice. “Wearing beautiful fucking things—around me—”
He yanks and the dress rips down the middle.
A gasp. “Aleksander—”
“You need a new one anyway.”
Stars align as he drops to his knees, tearing fabric until what she once wore is nothing but a heap on the ground. Ruined, like they feared she would be. Instead, he stares up at her with desperation. In reverence. As if she has ruined him, and he is a mere mortal at her feet. Asking for forgiveness.
“Come on,” Aleksander mutters, brutish, pulling down her panties. He doesn’t bother with her thigh-high sheer stockings, just draws her knees apart, spreading her. A cunt he’s watched grind but has not seen, blossoming for him. He sucks in an inale meant to taste. “Fuck. Alina—” Licks a strong stripe up her seam, shoulders fitting into her thighs, and she groans. “Fuck, fuck—”
She falls back onto her mirror, shiny surface cold on her skin. He does not relent, eating her like his last meal, ripe and for the taking. Presented to him on a platter. Her feet kick, hips stretching, and he settles her with an arm over her stomach, treating her clit as a plaything for his tongue. Shoved to an edge, dangling; a balcony.
"I thought—" A mewl, unbidden, "—I thought you-you said we shouldn't a-after a—a threat on my life—"
He grunts, sliding a finger past the sloppy split of her pussy. "I changed my mind."
"How—how diplomatic—"
"Shut up and show me—"
He rips the orgasm out of her, a fiery thing that blazes before snuffing, as if her body wanted to prove to him it could. She hardly feels it herself, abdomen clenching, vision going white, before the comedown hits and she has to blink her eyes back open. A spun, fresh piece of taffy is what she is, all warm and soft for him as he climbs to his feet to arrange her to his liking.
There’s kissing, as he hooks her leg over his elbow. Biting, as he uses his other hand to free his cock from his pants. Mumbled praises about how good she is, so pliant, there for him to lead. An echo of his words from the hotel room in Chicago, blinding her, and then he’s pushing into her cunt for the first time.
Together, they moan at strain of her walls, how he splits her wide. He starts a shallow thrust to work her open, keeping his head speared within so she has something to clamp down on, whining if he retreats too far. Her arms wind around his neck, searching for his mouth, panting.
“Have you—” He slots in another inch, cutting her off. “H-have you thought about this?”
“Thought about this?” Aleksander huffs, bouncing her in his grip to steady her on her vanity, knocking more to the floor. She is the entire length of an exposed nerve, red-hot and wired. “It’s all I think about, Alina. You—you have no fucking idea.”
“I—I thought you hated me,” she bares herself, quivering beneath him. He goes still, drawing his nightshade gaze back to her face. “At the beginning. You were so—”
On a steaming breath, he yanks her down onto the rest of his cock, and she yelps.
“Hated you?” He finds it funny, forcing a mirthless laugh. He snatches her other knee onto his second elbow, flaying her apart, before pressing his hands down next to her waist. Alina cries out, spread and smothered, crushed into what he wants of her. “I was responsible for you. I was doing my job.”
“But—”
“Oh.” His pupils roll flat, head cocking. A beat passes, thick, before he rears back and shoves into her cunt until their hips bump, the tip of him kissing her cervix. The noise that leaves her is without name, a shredding of her sternum. “I see. Did I not give you enough attention?” Her jaw drops as he starts a brutal pace, a sticky-tight glide to disregard the ache of her hole. “Baby needed me to give her exactly what she wanted every day, is that it?”
Razor-sharp, the edge of his voice. It brands her, scorching. “No, I—”
“Poor little Alina,” he grits, running a line with his nose up the sweat-slick side of her face. “No one telling her how good she is. How worthy—”
“Shut the fuck up—”
“It’s okay.” He’s relentless, hips beating into hers, cock carving new space in her womb. She’s going to come again, but with a diffusion in her stomach. Sure to overtake her on a wave of too much too fast, and she readies to have none of it. As if her orgasms are for his pleasure, not hers. For his entertainment. It boils her blood, sensation unfelt. “You are those things, hm? For me. Let me have it.”
The skin of her clit sparks as he rolls a lazy thumb over it, rib cage shrinking, and the orgasm bursts.
When she comes to he’s flipped them, her breasts pressed to the soaked wood of her vanity, hands splayed to keep herself upright. His fingers tangle in her hair, yanking back her head, forcing her gaze to the mirror so she can watch as he sheathes into her cunt from behind, making himself fit. He snaps her back onto his cock with a hand at her hip and a leash at her crown, fucking into her with furious, fizzling thrusts. The ink at his neck stands out in stark contrast, cut through with the pulse of his veins, the blood on his collar.
On a sickening thought, she wants him to kill for her.
“I’ll give you what you want,” he snarls as her form goes limp, arms lax and brain cotton. “Stuff you full when you’re mouthy, tie you down if—” He groans, and his rhythm goes sloppy. She whimpers, eager for what’s next. “Needy—fucking brat—”
One push, two, and he empties inside of her.
And a knock falls on her door.
“Alina?” Genya calls, and her eyes blow wide. “Are you in there?”
Aleksander pulls a hand back through his hair, watching her twitching face as he rotates his cock in her cunt, something wet pulsing past the edges of him to drip onto her thigh. Her mouth opens in a soundless moan, reaching back to pinch his arm, but he swats at it, trapping her hand at the small of her back.
“Where is she?” Genya mutters, voice farther away. “She said…”
It trails until it’s gone, and Alina tilts her hips to ask him to retreat. He doesn’t, brushing a touch between her thighs to slip along her clit.
“No, we should—”
“Shh.” He presses deeper and her head falls forward, spine locking. “One more.”
She can’t help it. “And what if I say no?”
That earns her a smack on the ass and a messy last orgasm, clumsy but earned. He kisses her after it drains from her system, a convincing argument.
NEW! Pictures of Alina Starkova drawing gun amidst shooting at Friday night performance. See now (warning: blood)
@regeeeeenuh: this will go down in history like holy shit what a picture to have as your legacy
@yeahimthatguy: A woman who cowered as men took care of everything. Yeah, what a legacy.
@olive6969: And who was it that shot at her?? Oh yeah, a man. Goes both ways buddy
Exclusive: …one civilian was hospitalized after a shooting that occurred at a recent performance of… no other pedestrians were injured… Sources say the civilian in question was one of Alina Starkova’s security guards… Starkova, delivering her climactic solo of the show, was not reported to be shot despite being assessed as the potential target… no other victims found… another guard was who tackled the alleged shooter, who ran out of a building across the street and attempted to jump a fence. Ammo and assault rifles were found, all purchased within the past month… performances have been postponed until further notice…
@enews
In a shocking statement from Alina Starkova, she reveals there were concerns of stalking and threats of violence for weeks leading up to the shooting that 1/3
injured a guard on her security detail. Leaked documents indicate she covered the hospital expenses of the victim, and paparazzi photos show she visited him in 2/3
hospital every two days. Additionally, she requests privacy and time to regroup in the aftermath of the tragedy. 3/3
@unifiedpeople90177: People who block me for my critique of Alina Starkova are proving my point. Fucking misandrists.
@h8yleyyyy: she literally got shot at????? have some fucking empathy???? respect even?????
ALINA STARKOVA AND COMPANY RETURN TO THUNDEROUS AUDIENCE AND RAVE REVIEWS
...two weeks of no shows, and the spark appears to be alive and well. Second Opening Night guests left with nothing but praises to sing, especially when it came to Starkova’s penultimate solo. Due to ongoing safety concerns, Botkin Yul-Erdene reworked the performance to have her return to the stage, with a live projected screen above the theater’s marquee so crowds who once gathered for an in-person show may still watch. Click the link below to read our initial review from First Opening Night…
@regeeeeenuh: HAVE YALL SEEN THE NEW HOTTIE WITH A BODY ON ALINAS SECURITY TEAM???????
@ladbible
BREAKING - photos of Alina Starkova running errands with new bodyguard in tow. Internet sleuths are calling him the “strawberry blonde slut.” See more at our Instagram page!
@00_florals: what happened to the tattooed guy :( he was cuter :( and they looked cute TOGETHER :( :( :(
@deuxmoi
EXCLUSIVE!
ALINA STARKOVA and security guard, alleged to be ALEKSANDER MOROZOV, were seen getting into a car together after a quiet dinner downtown.MOROZOV hasn’t been spotted on STARKOVA’S team for weeks, but this sighting has fans speculating! Swipe to see photos of them kissing!!!!!
@sunlightstarkova: hey guys! wanted to hop on to let you all know I’m taking a break from social media as I finish out the last month of my run. thank you for your continued support and can’t wait to see where we all go next :)
@yourmomsaidso: she gets a boyfriend and disappears off the face of the earth god fucking typical she’s so fucking annoying
@olive6969: Maybe if people weren’t so obsessed with following her, taking pictures of her private life, and being weird she wouldn’t feel the need to…
MEDIUM
Suggested article: The Politics & Propaganda of Publicity Stunts
What kind of actress and actress’ team would willingly build the farce that she was being stalked and harassed, all to let it culminate in a staged shooting that benefited exactly no one? In this essay, we will discuss the implications and reasoning for crafting such a ruse, and pick it apart in order to restructure for tangible purposes. Alina Starkova is a B-list celebrity with credits in… [click to keep reading] (23 minute read)
He wrapped a hand around her arm to ease her back onto the cobblestone, a puddle too close to her shoe for his liking. She sent him a warm smile in gratitude, thanking him further with a tip-toed kiss as they came to a stop at a streetlight.
It had been gray every day since they arrived in London last week, a constant she promised would wear off. She was in rehearsals all morning and afternoon, inside, so her words of assurance did little to soothe. Yesterday she asked him what it was he did while she was working, and he shrugged, telling her about the book he read in six hours. It was true: he was reading a lot. More than he used to. More than he ever he thought he’d enjoy.
A man could change, after all.
Over their shoulder, he spotted Matthias trailing them at a distance, his routine for the days when Aleksander accompanied Alina, too. She teased him for weeks about how he was sooooo jealous, Sasha, are you afraid another man might sweep me off my feet? He had her sobbing into her pillow an hour later, ignoring her apologies as she blubbered them. She only got what she wanted when she behaved.
One of their rules.
“Oh, Mal said eight works tonight,” she said as he pulled open the shop door for her. “If that’s okay.”
Aleksander wrinkled his nose. “It’s fine.”
Her eyes rolled as he followed her in and they slipped to the end of the coffee line. “Aleksander.”
“Alina.”
“He and Zoya have been together for three months.”
“And?”
“And,” she echoed, lowering her voice and forcing it to scruff. Mimicking him. “You know he feels nothing for me, now. Nothing a little bullet hole couldn't fix.”
He wanted to argue, but kept quiet at her attempt to joke. Something she refused to do, adamant, for a while after the shooting. Even discussing it would put her in a panic. Reaching the point where she was jesting was huge. Significant.
He folded a hand along her back. Behind them, he knew Matthias had stepped inside as well. “I know. How long are they in town?”
“A few days. They have to leave on Friday so Zo can make an audition.”
As they stepped closer to the counter, the cashier at the till went wide-eyed, blinking them into focus. Aleksander tightened his fingers at the base of her spine, willing her to not react. But Alina beat him to the punch, throwing on a smile and ordering their drinks, as well as a tea for Matthias.
“Are you—” The cashier stammered, fingers shaking. Head whipping between Alina and then Aleksander. “You look just like—”
“Sorry,” Alina said, shaking her head, passing off her credit card. “You must have me confused with someone else.”