Christof Brutal (Bad Russian Book 12)

by Alice May Ball

  I’m still thinking about his hand.

  The tiramisu he chose for me is wonderful. The sponge melts over my tongue and the cream is not too sweet and gorgeously thick. I forget about eating delicately and gobble it. When I look up, his eyes are smoldering, fixed on me.

  He swallows, watching me eat. I should feel shy, but what I feel is something more wanton.

  His voice is a low burr. “I’m going to take care of you.”

  “Thanks,” I gulp, “but you already have. I appreciate it. And you’ve bought me coffee and cake. Thank you.”

  “Permanently.”

  I almost splutter. “No… I… No. It’s out of the… you don’t even know me…”

  “I know the woman who stood up to Bear at Bosman’s house. I saw you stand up to Bosman himself straight afterward. Without missing a beat. You’re smart, you’re strong, and you have great instincts and intuition as well.” I’m hot. And wet. “But you need someone to take care of you. I’m going to do that.”

  I gulp. Before I can speak, he says, “You deserve a better man, and a younger man. But I want you.”

  “I don’t even know you. I know you’re strong and powerful, I know you can deal with a thug like Bear and a bully like Bosman. I know you have the most beautiful hands I ever saw,” my stomach and my thighs clench as I feel the last taste of the cream in my throat, “But I don’t even know who you are.”

  His eyebrows lift. “I’ll tell you. I was a bank robber.”

  “What?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “You gave up your evil ways? Turned to the good side?”

  “No. Not like that. I liked the work. Bank robbery, though. Now it’s all online. Wire fraud, identity theft. It’s boring. I missed the interaction.”

  My coffee cup rattles in the saucer as I lift it. “Interaction with the people you pointed guns at?”

  “Sure. I never hurt anybody. Don’t judge me,” his wry smile sets me buzzing, “Well, judge me if you want. I don’t fucking care, honestly.”

  “So you gave up bank robbery to do what?”

  “I was music promoter for a couple of years. Dance, rave. Big parties. Mega, as they say. Warehouse parties, beach parties, desert parties. Island parties, even.”

  “Like Fyre?”

  “No! Real parties. Good business. Everybody was happy, too. And I mean, really happy.” his eyes gleam with mischief, “I like that. Most of it.”

  “But?”

  “You’re perceptive. I think you listen very well. You have a musical ear, no?”

  I take a slow breath. He’s reading me like a book. “Yes. Yes, I do.”

  He says, “I listen well, too.” His blink is so slow, it makes my heart thump, “So, I liked everything about the parties except the drugs business. Music parties, big drugs business. I hate that.”

  “And so you got into selling art?”

  “Not at first. I have always loved art. I wanted to be a forger.”

  “Why not just be an artist?”

  He grins. “The game is rigged. Galleries, dealers. Agents. Shadowy investors and preferred collectors.”

  My breathing is erratic and I’m trying to keep it under control, “So how did the forgery work out for you?”

  “Not well. I don’t have the patience for it. Plus, again, working alone all the time. Long days of hard concentration in solitude. No contact with people. Doesn’t suit me. Makes me melancholy.”

  “So?”

  “So. Next best thing. I learned enough about the business to know how the game works, and that’s why I’m now an art dealer.” He takes a silver card case from his inside pocket and hands me a card. “Christof Petrovich representing the Nevsky Atelier Gallery.”

  “You like that line of work better?”

  “So far? Not much. I liked it better to rob people with a gun. It’s more honest. Robbing people with smooth lies, I don’t like it so much.”

  “You’re not a man to settle, are you. Don’t you think you should choose something and stick to it?”

  “Oh, like a job in a bank? Or work in a supermarket? Work for forty years and get a—what? What do people get for long service these days? I think probably nothing.”

  “So, what’s next?”

  “You. You are next.”

  I’m frozen for an instant. I know he means it. And I know it’s wrong. And I want it.

  Getting up, I almost knock the table over. “I have to go.”

  Chapter 5

  Her

  I run all the way through the restaurant and out to the parking lot.

  His voice is behind me.

  I shouldn’t have turned. I shouldn’t have looked back and into the fire of his eyes. He stands, almost crouching, like he’s ready to pounce. He’s at the door of the restaurant. I hold my hand up toward him. I can’t have him come near me. I won’t be able to control myself.

  His feet move like a restless stallion, but he’s holding himself back, stopping himself from coming to me. Trying to give me what I ask him for.

  I’m confused and angry. And I couldn’t even say why. I feel like an idiot. And his eyes, the look on his face, I feel so rude. So ashamed.

  I move back toward him. Still holding my hand up. “I’m sorry…”

  His head is shaking. He looks sad I can see that he wants to speak. But if he says a word, if I hear his voice. I move nearer. To tell him, Please. Don’t speak. To put my fingers to his lips.

  And as soon as the tips of my fingers touch his mouth, my feet have sprung me at him. My legs stretch toward his body. My arms swing around him. I taste his lips.

  His hair feels strong and silky at the same time as my fingers rake and comb into it, as I pull his face to mine.

  My mouth fixes onto his. He takes me with his breath, the hard beat of his pulse against my chest, his dark scents of musk and sin. My breath escapes into his and we’re locked like two parts of a song, ripped apart, long ago. Only now finding our lost other halves now. Now.

  His arms engulf me. I melt into him as the soft skin of my palms scrape on the rasp of his chin.

  My hips rock and a buzzing charge rattles through me as the hot pulse of his thickening rod hardens against me. The world spins as I hold on to him and my breath draws his. His tongue and his breath pour life into me like I drowned and died and he’s a miracle cure.

  I have to go. If I don’t get away from him right now, I’ll come apart. I’ll be lost.

  Pushing his face with my hands, my mouth is still gripped on his lips.

  Finally, with a wrenching twist, I drag my body away. I run to the car and get in, not daring to turn. I don’t think I’m crying. I don’t think I have two waterfalls streaming down my face. But I want to get out of the parking lot as fast as I can. Just in case.

  Chapter 6

  Him

  I watch her face through the reflections in the window of her little Prius. I’m vibrating with sadness and rage. Nothing has made me feel this intensely. No-one touched me this deeply. No-one before Max.

  If it weren’t for the difference in our ages, I would believe she was the one.

  I felt like I waited. All my life. I didn’t, really. That makes it sound like I did nothing else but wait. Like, as if all that time I thought about nothing else. Which seems ridiculous. And I would have said so, up until this moment.

  Now, watching her drive away, a hollow, coppery echo deep in my gut feels like I’ve been doing exactly that. Waiting all my life for Max Carter. And she’s driving away.

  I’ll fix it. I’ll find her. I’ll make it all right. I’ll protect her. Whatever she needs.

  But for now, I have to let her go. She needs her space. There’s no doubt. I can’t crowd her.

  Glum, I get back in the patisserie and tell the girl at the counter what table I was at and can I pay the bill.

  “Oh, you’re the man on Bunny’s table. I’ll get her for you.”

  “I just want to pay.”

  She flashes a bright smile b
ack over her shoulder, “She’ll be right with you. Two seconds.”

  I’m fuming now that I didn’t get some cash. I could have just left it by the register. She hurries back with another girl.

  “Sorry to keep you,” the other girl says, while she’s pulling the check from the register. “I’m glad to have served you today,” handing me the slip of paper.

  “There was no need to come back, I would have tipped you. I don’t need that, I just need the card terminal.” She hands it over. “Sorry you’re in such a rush to leave,” she says, for some reason. I add a good-sized tip and she gets the card verified.

  As she hands me back the card, she says, “I’m Bunny,” and her shoulders shake, “but you know that. I hope you’ll come again.” and she giggles, oddly. When I take my card, before I turn to go, she leans close asks if there’s anything she can do for me. “Anything at all.”

  Which seems ridiculous. Her eyes gleam as I leave, shaking my head.

  Chapter 7

  Her

  I’m in the car, halfway back down the hill before I even know it. My phone rings. I want to ignore it. I want it to be him. I want a whole sorry mess of things. Lots of them in strict opposition. And a lot of them are very wrong. Those are the things I want the most.

  The road winds around the edge of the hill. I’m swinging too far in the turns. This high road isn’t so forgiving. The tops of conifers blur past off the side. They’re tall. They show how steep the drop is. I fish the phone out of my purse. It’s bound to be him. I know it’s him.

  I want it to be him.

  I look down at the screen and it’s Bosman.

  I reject the call again.

  By the time I’m off the hill, headed back to the Portland and the safety of the office, I’m trying to focus. Thinking what I’ll put in my report about the meeting. Bosman has sent me three texts. I check the phone each time. Every time my stomach sags when I see that it’s not from Christof.

  But I ran out on him. There’s no reason he would ever give me another thought. And if I’d let him, if I’d allowed myself, if we’d followed the moment? I know it would have been… okay, I can’t think about what it would have been, but he’d forget me ten minutes later. I know that.

  He can have any woman he wants and I’m sure he knows it.

  All I would do with him is to have my heart impaled and then ripped in two.

  I tell the whole story to my boss.

  Okay, not the whole story. Not the parts about Christof. Not about Bear, either. Reporting the meeting, everything I’m telling him is true. But it’s completely false, because I’m missing out everything that matters.

  No, I tell myself. None of that matters to the company. None of it. I just went for coffee. With an art dealer. Who used to be a forger.

  But not for long. It was just while he was finding his feet. After he gave up bank robbery. Anyway, there’s nothing to it.

  We had a kiss. Just one kiss, that’s all. Okay, I kissed him. But I had to. And he licked my soul clean out of me.

  But that’s all.

  Why would any of that matter?

  As I’m telling him, I know that I’ve never been deceptive or evasive with him before about anything. I’m sure he can sense it. In the office we’re very official and we deal purely with the driest of facts, but for all his firmness, Mr. Clarke is quite sensitive.

  “I met with the client as scheduled, but he wasn’t able to produce the COA’s,” I tell Mr. Clarke.

  “He knew that was the purpose of the meeting?”

  I nod. “He’s sent messages by text to tell me that he’ll have them and he’ll call to arrange another meeting,” I tell him. “He suggested it might be at his bank. His story, sorry, his explanation is that the COA’s are in a safe deposit box and he thought that scans or copies of the documents would be sufficient.”

  “You sound as though you don’t believe him, Max.”

  “It’s not our job to judge, though, is it, Mr. Clarke?”

  He smiles. Our mantra in the office is a line from an ancient cop drama, ‘only the facts.’

  I show Mr. Clarke my company phone so he can see the texts. As he’s looking at the screen, the phone beeps and a text comes in.

  I NEED TO SEE YOU.

  CHRISTOF.

  I feel like a mountain collapses inside me.

  Mr. Clarke frowns and looks at the screen. Then he turns it to face me and cocks his head to one side.

  “It’s an art dealer. Mr. Clarke. He was at the Bosman property. At the same time. He arrived at the same time I did. He was there to sell a picture to Bosman.”

  Mr. Clarke’s eyes cloud. Heat pricks my neck and my cheeks.

  “He didn’t bring the picture.”

  Mr. Clarke frowns. “Max, I’d better call Bosman. Get a few more details here.”

  “Of course, Mr. Clarke. There was another text I wanted you to see from Mr. Bosman, though.” I scroll to find it.

  I’LL GET YOU THE CERTS.

  DON’T SAY ANYTHING TO YOUR OFFICE.

  DON’T FUCKING CROSS ME.

  Mr. Clarke’s eyebrows rise and he looks back at me. “What kind of a man would you say Bosman is?”

  “You want a personal impression?” I ask him, “Not ‘just the facts’?” trying to lighten the mood. The air is still.

  Mr. Clarke says, “No. Between us. Not for the files. Just give me your reaction.”

  “I’d say that he seems like a gangster.”

  “Seriously?” He rubs his chin and his lips purse. “I guess gangsters might collect art.”

  “The dealer who was there told me that at least some of his pieces were fakes,” I tell him. I add, “He wasn’t referring to any of the pieces Bosman wants us to insure.”

  Mr. Clarke’s eyes narrow. “Is this the dealer who says he needs to see you?”

  Personal relationships are strictly forbidden, with anyone we encounter through the business.

  “I don’t know why he said that, sir.”

  The next few moments, Mr. Clarke watches me closely and I’m uncomfortable. It’s a simple technique. We employ it all the time, making our assessments of clients.

  If someone tells you something you doubt or disbelieve, you wait. Watch them. Just observe. Most people, if you leave a silence after they’ve told you a lie, they feel a need to fill it. Usually with an unnecessary explanation. I have a powerful urge to do exactly that, right now.

  I think I’ve already said too much. It takes all the discipline I can summon to stay relaxed. Not to fidget, not to look away, not to change the subject. Worst of all, not to offer more explanation.