Kissing My Killer (34 page)

His body came to rest against mine, his balls nestled close to my clit. He covered me completely, his hands stroking my bound arms, his legs bracing mine apart and his torso pressed up against me all the way from ass to shoulder. “You are mine,” he whispered in my ear, and again there was that ferocious edge of lust, the parts of himself he’d been holding back all this time. “You are my
printsessa
and my
shlyukha,
my
boginya
and my
igrushka
.”

I squirmed under him. I had no idea what those things were—although one of them had sounded like
princess—
but I wanted to be all of them.

He started to thrust and, immediately, I felt myself rocketing towards my climax. The tight friction of it, the feel of his hard-as-rock body against mine—it was just too much for me to hold on for very long. Then he shoved his hands beneath me and cupped my breasts, rubbing my nipples with his thumbs, and the pleasure lashed at my brain. “Yes!” I called out.

His thrusts grew faster, harder, hammering into me, and I twisted and writhed under him, jerking on the belt that bound my wrists, utterly his, soaring upward and upward until—

I shook and pushed back against him, wanting every part of him inside me, and felt myself clench and tremble around him. My head went back, eyes searching the heavens, and then he was leaning over me and his mouth was coming down on mine, kissing me as I felt the sudden bloom of heat through the condom that told me he was coming, too. I could feel every contraction of his muscled ass as he pumped into me. At the same time, his tongue was sliding into my mouth, taking possession of me there, too, as I pressed my body to his and panted my way through my climax.

When we finished, he climbed off me with exaggerated care and turned me onto my back. His eyes were full of concern as he untied my wrists, the brutal lust gone...for now. “Did I hurt you?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Did I shock you?” I asked in a small voice.

He blinked at me.

“Wanting to be tied up. And the talking. I mean, I liked it when you called me those names.”

“Did you know what they meant?”

“No.”

“Would you like to?”

I squirmed. “Maybe. I sort of like the mystery. And I think I got the sentiment. And I liked it.”

He shook his head. “Why would I be shocked?” Then he frowned. “Most American women aren’t into that?”

“No.” Then I thought about it. I didn’t have many close friends I could talk to about sex. “Actually, I’m not sure.” Lilywhite
had
said some stuff about her cowboy and ropes….

Alexei shook his head. “I know one other American woman who’s with a Russian man. Luka’s Arianna. And
she
likes it rough.”

I gaped at him, horrified. “You can’t—don’t tell me that! I shouldn’t know that!”

He shook his head sadly. “It’s not like you’ll ever meet her, now. Or any of those people.”

I felt a pang of regret—God, I really had taken his whole life away from him. “How do you even know what she likes in bed? Did Luka say something?” I couldn’t imagine a Bratva boss discussing his sex life with anyone.

Alexei shook his head. “I’ve been one of Luka’s bodyguards a few times, when he’s visited the US and brought her with him. Sometimes, I have the room next to theirs.” He grinned. “I have a great story. Once, I heard them—”

I held up my hand. “Stop! Even if I never meet them. That’s private.”

He sighed good-naturedly. “As you wish.” Then he sobered up and rubbed my wrist. “So I didn’t hurt you?”

“No. And I didn’t shock you?”

“No.” He took my face between his hands. “Gabriella, you’re exactly what I dreamed you’d be. And all the things I didn’t dare to dream you’d be.”

A hot throb went through me and I reached for him. “Maybe you could tell me a
little
of that story,” I murmured.

He rolled over onto his back, pulling me on top of him, and we didn’t get to sleep until dawn. For those handful of hours, everything was perfect.

Neither of us even remotely suspected what the morning would bring.

Gabriella

We slept in and took a long, luxurious shower together before we even thought about getting dressed. But eventually, reluctantly, we decided it was time.

To my delight, I discovered that a hotel will move mountains to make you happy when you’re spending over a thousand dollars a night on a suite. When I asked if they could send someone to buy me some clothes, the response wasn’t a shocked, “
What?!”
but a courteous, “What sort of thing did you have in mind and will you require shoes?”

Yes, I told them, clutching Konstantin’s poker winnings. Yes, I would definitely require shoes.

We ordered a room service breakfast and fed each other bites of pancakes, maple syrup and strawberries while we waited. It was Alexei’s first experience of pancakes and it was a little like watching a bear taste honey. Before long, he dispensed with me feeding him and devoured the whole plateful, and we had to order more.

The concierge sent up a selection of clothes for me to pick from. I went with a pair of black jeans—that fit me so perfectly I wanted to know where they’d been all my life— and a red angora sweater that was high-necked, but clingy enough that Alexei immediately declared I had to keep it. They sent up a couple of pairs of heels, but I ignored them as soon as I saw the black calfskin knee boots.

When I was all shopped out, we flopped down on the bed to think. Our situation was worse than ever: now Konstantin’s people were after us as well as Nikolai’s, and we knew that Nikolai had the Russian security forces on his side. Clearly, he was planning something big, but we had no idea what and no clue how to find his hired killer, the mysterious Seventeen.

“I’m going upstairs,” said Alexei eventually. “There’s a roof terrace.”

I thought of all that open space and my stomach twisted. The Dread had receded a lot since the junkyard, but the idea of the whole city laid out around me like a toy town was too much. “Go ahead,” I told him weakly. “I’ll stay here.”

When he’d gone, I put on the jeans, sweater and knee boots. The boots, in particular, made me feel better—for all their soft leather and expensive price tag, they looked like badass boots: boots you could kick ass in. If only I had some idea of
how
to kick ass.

I sighed. I needed to do something to help. I didn’t want to be dead weight. Maybe I could figure out what Nikolai was planning. I still had the new laptop and my phone—I could do some careful hacking, maybe talk to Lilywhite and Yolanda...and maybe it was time for some baby steps, now that the Dread was less of a problem. I might not be able to handle the roof terrace with Alexei, but the hotel had a coffee shop in the lobby, not so very different to the one back at my old apartment block. With the help of the kick-ass boots, I figured I could just about brave that.

I shoved my phone into the back pocket of my jeans and was just looking for something to write a note to Alexei on when there was a knock at the door.

Shit.

I’d learned enough, by now, not to open it. I flattened myself against the wall and closed my eyes, waiting for bullets to tear through the wood—

But nothing happened.

I gingerly checked the spyhole. One of the hotel’s waiters, standing behind an empty room service trolley. I let out my breath and unlocked the door. My time with Alexei had left me a paranoid wreck.

The waiter quietly closed the door behind him and began to collect the breakfast plates, while I dug in my purse for some bills to tip him with. “Thank you,” I said, as he passed behind me. “Hey, do you have a pen? I need to write a note.”

“Yes, of course.”

His accent took me by surprise. Russian. I spun around just in time to see him take something from his pocket. Something cylindrical, but not a pen.

“We’ll talk soon,” said Seventeen. And pushed the needle into my neck.

Alexei

I wanted to worry. I wanted to be angry. I even wanted to be afraid, and fear is usually a killer’s enemy.

I wanted to feel any of those things, because I understood them. I didn’t understand this.

I’d thought that, when I woke up, all of our problems would be back and everything we’d done the night before would seem like a mistake—that one of us would have regrets and that there’d be a fight or another attempt by one of us to push the other away. But it hadn’t happened. I’d woken having slept better than I ever had in my life and then there’d been another of those fantastic, luxurious showers, elevated to pure heaven by having Gabriella’s naked body rubbing up against me. And pancakes. And the sight of Gabriella, happy as a child on Christmas morning, trying on her new clothes, and
that
sweater—

I was....
happy.

And it felt too good to let anyone take it away from me, ever.

Could I really have this life?
Gabriella had started to make me believe I could be something more than a killer. I wanted it to be true....

But it didn’t change our situation. I sighed, my breath coming out as long wisps of white vapor in the freezing air. All around me, New York was laid out like a map. Somewhere down here, Konstantin’s people and Nikolai’s people were hunting us, drawing quietly closer....

And then another solution swam into my head, dark and seductive.

Maybe we didn’t have to figure out what Nikolai was up to. I’d thought all along that that was our only chance, that unless we could catch him in the act and restore my reputation, we’d never get out alive. But I hadn’t known how smart and resourceful Gabriella was. She’d saved my life. Working together, maybe we
could
disappear. South America, maybe, somewhere like Colombia or Venezuela.

But doing that would mean turning my back on everything I’d ever known—Luka, the Bratva, even Russia itself. I’d never be able to go back there, nor even back to New York.

But it would be worth it. For her.

I marched back inside and down the stairs, heading for our room. We’d leave today. By that evening, we could be somewhere far away. We’d change our names and hunker down in some jungle hideaway where no one would ever find us—

I unlocked the door and pushed it open, already excitedly saying her name.

But Gabriella was gone.