Free Alexandr's Cherished Submissive by Ann Mayburn

busy. In an effort to get his desires under control, he’d been to a local BDSM dungeon a couple times and had relieved himself with some willing and beautiful submissives, but none of them quenched the fire for Jessica that steadily grew inside of him.
    Though it shamed him to admit it, when he was in his apartment in Dublin, he’d listen for her door opening into the communal hallway and dash for his, pretending to be leaving at the same time. He’d forgotten his jacket a couple times, and she’d given him odd looks, but made small talk with him. Every time he did see her, his obsession with her grew. Her enchanting blue eyes held more depth and wisdom than most grown women, yet she wasn’t bitter. The world was a bright, exciting place for Jessica, an adventure, and he loved watching her experience it while he guarded her.
    To say she brought out his protective instincts was like saying water was wet. He was obsessed with keeping her safe, something that had proven difficult. Not because of any outright attacks on her, but because Jessica liked to wander and didn’t pay any attention to her surroundings, ignorant of the headaches she was creating for her bodyguards. A couple times, she’d been in real danger, but she never knew it. Luka, Oleg, and Maks were quick to neutralize any threat, but they’d told him Jessica seemed to attract trouble through no fault of her own because she believed the best in people. It never seemed to occur to her that someone would want to hurt her, and that made her very vulnerable to men who liked to prey on the innocent.
    Alex had been with her more than once when she walked blindly into situations and places she had no business being, like stopping in a bar owned by rival Irish mafia family, the O’Doyles, before he could stop her. The blood feud between Peter’s people and the O’Doyles went back centuries, but when Jessica walked up to the bar, fearless in her ignorance, and asked for directions, Alex had been a heartbeat away from reaching for his gun and shooting his way out.
    Oblivious of the tension her presence was causing in the pub, she’d complimented the bartender on the huge stained glass window behind him and had asked him about it. The young O’Doyle man working at the bar stared at her then answered her questions about the stained glass that used to be in a church. The bartender had given Alex a baffled look, plainly thrown off by Jessica’s friendliness, but Alex merely shrugged. By the time she left, the bartender was telling her about other spots in Dublin and where she could find more historical buildings that might interest her with a genuine smile.
    Things like that happened all the time around his girl. She needed someone to protect her, someone to fight off the wolves that would be drawn to her. More than one predator had tried to apprehend Jessica when Alex and his men trailed behind her, attempting to give her some semblance of privacy as she took in the world around her. It was not safe for a woman to walk alone in certain parts of Dublin, and poor Luka had come home repeatedly with scraped up knuckles, shaking his head and regaling Alex about another night spent guarding the fairy princess who seemed to float her way through the world in a fragile bubble of ignorant bliss.
    If she wasn’t so damn sweet and adorable, he’d have strangled her by now.
    When Alex mentioned his men didn’t speak English as well as she did, she immediately volunteered to tutor them any way she could. She’d embraced the role eagerly, spending a great deal of her free time with the men, talking and hanging out with them until she became a part of their lives. To Alex’s amusement, Oleg, his mentor and a man he thought of as a surrogate uncle, and Maks, Alex’s right-hand man and fellow assassin, had grown rather fond of Jessica during those talks. She was very open and told them much about her life, all of which they repeated to Alex. He was sure all of his men knew