In the chilly shade at the back of the quayside development, my car is still alone in the parking lot. I breathe slow and as deep as I can. Keep my reactions to the minimum. I don’t want Igor Baryshnikov to know how afraid I am. I need to keep a clear head.
The firm pinch he has on my elbow makes me more afraid than if he was really hurting me.
Most of all, I need to keep away from thoughts that I should have run. Done what the man, my mystery man, told me to do. I know now that I should have got away. Left and gone when he said. But what good does that do me now? None.
The situation I’ve gotten myself into is serious and I have to deal with it the best I can. Waiting for a miracle rescue would be disastrous. I need to think clearly. But I can’t. My head is humming with panic.
He makes me drive. He sits in the passenger seat next to me. I’m sure he has a gun, but he hasn’t taken it out yet. Maybe he knows that the idea, the fear of it will be more effective on me.
The high, elegant iron gates to the quayside site swing open automatically to let me out. When I drove here, the wide open, flat space outside and around the gated lot seemed big and free. As the gates swing closed again behind me, I feel like I’m headed into a barren, hostile wilderness and my last chance of safety is disappearing in the rear-view.
I ask Igor where we’re going, but he won’t tell me anything. Nothing except that I’ve been a bad girl. And that nasty things happen to bad girls. My chest is tight, and my breath is tense. I’m breathing as slow and as deep as I can to try and hold the panic down but it's there, just below the surface.
My phone rings and I almost jump, but I have the presence of mind to slip it out and up to my left ear before Igor can object.
I know that it’s him. It has to be him. I need him so much right now. Even though I have no reason to trust him. No reason except that I have no-one else to trust.
His voice pours down, warming through me like melted chocolate, bathing me with a sense of strength and confidence and a hot, good feeling.
Quickly, he says, “The person you were talking to on the Quayside? Your friend you spoke to earlier? Say her name now. That’s who you’re talking to.”
Hearing his voice is enough to make me relax a little. Enough that I have to let the sigh out slow, under my breath. “Tania, I’m so glad you called back. I’m pretty much tied up right now, though.”
On the outside, I’m keeping the expression on my face the same, not reacting, holding it together. Inside, I spilled into a lava flow.
“I suppose you won’t be able to talk very long.”
“You can say that again.”
“Okay. I’m coming to get you.”
My heart races.
He says, “Be ready. There could be gunfire.”
“No!” I think I must be crazy. Why am I even thinking about it? “No, I mean, we can’t do it that way.” I’m fighting a rise of panic, a high-pitched buzz in my chest.
He says, “What?”
“I can’t have it that way. You understand?”
“I’m going to protect you. I’ll get you to safety.”
“How do I know that?”
“How else am I going to get you naked, kiss and bite all of your delicious curves, pull your hair and ram you full of me until you come and come and come?”
“Fair point.” I smile.
I’m sure he’s only saying all that to help me relax. All the same, I appreciate him doing it.
My voice scratches, hoarse as I tell him, “Okay, Tania. I’ll see you later.”
He says, “Hang on.” And I hang up.
Igor says, “Your friend from long ago?” his voice drips with sarcasm. “The housemate who still lives in the same house?” He’s reaching into his coat. My heart feels like it’s jamming my throat.
Out of nowhere in a cloud of dust, a black Range Rover shoots into in the rear-view. Igor is starting to turn as it blasts by, passing on the inside.
The Range Rover swerves in front of me and its brake lights come on. I jam the brakes as hard as I can. There’s no room for me to steer out of the way. The back of the Range Rover fills the windshield and there’s a deafening crack and an explosion as my little Honda slams into the black rear fender.
A sickening lurch feels like slow motion. The back of my car lifts in the air. Sickeningly slowly ,it falls back, then crashes to the ground with a spine-jacking crunch. The breath is knocked out of me and I’m stifled in a hard cloud of white.
For a moment I think I must have died. That the clouds in heaven come up awful fast, and they’re made of something brutally hard. Maybe this isn’t heaven.
Then I realize. It’s the airbag. A loud bang to my right is followed by a shushing sound.
The pressure to the side of me collapses. As I hear my man’s voice, I realize he’s slashed Igor’s airbag.
I hear him say, “I’ve got soft-nose, cross-point bullets, Igor. Emma doesn’t want to put one in your skull, but if I do, your brains will be a smoothie. Now get out. Slowly. With your hands in the air.”
I can’t move and I can’t see anything. I hear Igor drag himself out, but I can only see a sliver of movement. Then, sounds of violence. One thud. Then another. And a groan. Has my man killed Igor?
Or has Igor brought him down?
The wait is agony. Footsteps come around to my side of the car, but the airbag keeps me facing the wrong way. I can only see the open door where Igor got out.
There’s a loud crack and I fall forward as my airbag implodes with a long hiss.
I recognize the strong, dark voice, and my breath stops. What I can see from the corner of my eye tells me that he’s huge. I hardly dare to turn and look.
He’s older than I expected. I feel like that’s a bad thing and I’m immediately feeling guilty for the way I’m aching, burning for him. Everything about how he makes me feel is so wrong.
Chapter 7
Him
THE ADRENALINE, THE CHASE, the shock all left me in a heightened state of emotion and arousal. I’m prepared for that. My pulse races hard and fast. I’m used to that. All of my senses are hyper-alert. My muscles sing and buzz. It’s the adrenaline rush.
I even prepared myself for the excitement of seeing her up close, after all the thoughts and feelings that she set in motion inside me from a distance. The way that her voice fattened and hardened the length in my pants, I was ready for something to happen when I got near to her. I’m still not prepared for the flashbulb of dazzling emotion that goes off when her face turns to me. Sitting, vulnerable in the wreck of her car, mashed hard into the back of my Range Rover, she looks up and I’m washed over with a powerful need to scoop her into my arms. To hold her. To have her.
I’m shaken by the hammering of desire that she fires up in my blood.
Up close, her eyes sparkle with a bright intensity, a longing. I feel an answer rise in my body.
Her face shines. Her cheeks glow. Her soft, round body swells and her gorgeous breasts heave. I want to scoop her up. Take her. Make her mine.
I hold out a steady hand and tell her, “Come. Come with me. You’re not hurt, are you?”
She looks at me for a long moment. Her lips part, and she moistens them.
“I… I don’t know.”
She looks at my hand. I can’t believe such a perfect woman exists. Even more, I can’t believe that I found her. I see intelligence in her eyes, humor in her dimpled cheeks, a ‘fuck-you’ independence and courage in the set of her chin—she is everything that a Russian man desires in a woman—but more than all of that I see a warm, nurturing woman. The perfect woman. My perfect woman.
You spend all of your life looking for something, examining every opportunity in the finest detail. Assessing. Considering. Thinking, could this be what I need? Could this be her?
But now that I see her, I don’t have to think about anything. I know right away. The only question is, how am I going to get away with her? Now that I found her, I must make her come with me.
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She’s unsteady, opening the car door and turning to step out. My hand is still out but I can see that she doesn’t want help. I like that.
When she stands—she’s so close I catch the scent of her and I can faintly taste her breath—the top of her head rises up to the height of my chest. My Emma.
She’s angry. “You smashed my car.”
“It was the only way that I could be sure to save you.”
“What if I didn’t have an airbag? What if I hadn’t been wearing my seatbelt?”
Her words come in a rush, with force and angry passion. She’s shaken. Understandably.
“The Honda Civic is fitted as standard with driver and passenger airbags. Honda’s SRS is among the most reliable. And when I drove up behind you, I checked that you were wearing your seatbelt.”
“What about Igor?”
“I didn’t care whether he was wearing a belt. If he wasn’t, the airbag might well have killed him. It didn’t matter to me, one way or the other.”
Her face reddens, and her shoulders straighten and square. “I mean, where is he?”
“He’s in the footwell behind the front seats of the Range Rover. His wrists and ankles are secured with zip-ties. And he’s unconscious.”
Her eyes blaze. I could stand here, feeling her rage for hours. She is magnificent. But I have a schedule to keep. I need to move this along.
“We have to leave. Come with me.”
“I’m not…” she hesitates, shifting her weight. The heat of her soft body inflames me. She says, “Where to? Where are you taking me?”
“The airport. Come. Quickly.”
I put out my arm. I want to embrace her, but I content myself by stretching around her, behind her shoulders. Inches from touching her. Her eyes widen, and her lips tighten, but she turns to come with me to the car.
As soon as she climbs in and fastens her belt, I accelerate forward and make a fast J-turn and head back for the quayside development.
Her lovely eyes narrow. The deep frown only reveals a new and thrilling side to her beauty. “Where are we going?”
“The airport. I have to be there in eighteen minutes. And, thanks to you, I have to have Igor with me.”
“Why?”
“Because, thanks to you, Igor is not dead.”
“I’m…” her face clouds with thoughts and questions. I see her choosing the one that seems most immediate and demanding. We’re speeding straight at the high gates as she tells me, “You’ll never make it to the airport in eighteen minutes.”
“I think I might. You have a code or something to open the Quayside gates, yes?”
“I have a card that transmits. The gates will let us in. But we’re going the wrong way for the airport.”
“Not the way we’re going.”
Without slowing, we pass through the swinging gates. I swerve, driving for the space behind the development. To Igor’s helicopter.
Her mouth opens as she peers at it. “The pilot has gone.”
“I met him earlier. He left in a hurry.”
“Can you fly the helicopter?”
Slewing the Range Rover to a skidding halt by the chopper, I look over to her. “We’ll see.”
Igor still seems heavy, even though I disarmed him and removed all his phones, tablets and anything else that could be a weapon or communication device. I’ll need to check him again, but he’s securely tied and still unconscious as I lay him along the back of the helicopter cabin.
I offer Emma my hand to help her aboard. First she stands firm on the apron by the side of the aircraft. I think she’s considering refusing to come with me. But she doesn’t. Still refusing my aid, she climbs aboard. I get us airborne immediately and fly, low and fast, over the Sound, keeping inland.
Her voice is tight with excitement. “You’re still going the wrong way,” she tells me.
“We’re going to the freight airport.”
“Were you really going to kill him?”
“If you hadn’t said not to, yes. Certainly. It’s much more work hauling him back than it would have been dropping him in the Sound.” I watch her face, “I could still pitch him out now. It would save a lot of trouble.”
“No,” she tells me.
“You know he’s a total fucking bastard, okay? A complete, mega-sized turd.”
“I believe you. But still, if we killed everyone who was a shit, there wouldn’t be too many of us left. And who gets to decide?”
“Me.” I smile. “You, too, if you like.”
“Well, I’m deciding you don’t kill Igor. However much of a shit he may be, he’s still a person. Besides, I know him.”
“My aim was only to stop him signing the contract on that quayside property. Killing him was optional.”
“Then you’ve failed. He signed it.”
“What? The transaction has been made?” I’m furious. “It can’t have been.” Anger rises like a fire in my belly. A mist of red looms around the edge of my vision.
Emma says, “No, the transaction isn’t completed. He signed the form on my tablet, and I witnessed it, but there was no network connection, so I couldn’t send it. It’s not posted to the server.”
“Oh, shit. Thank fuck for that. You really had me worried there. Is it set to send, in an email or something?”
“Yes, it’s in an email.”
“Can you turn the tablet off without waking it up?”
“Um… I don’t know.” Her eyes crinkle as she thinks. “Yes. Yes, I can.”
“Do it.”
The fire of defiance in her eyes sets my nerves tingling. Her eyes and her face say, No, but she reaches into her pocket for the tablet and holds down the power button to kill it.
“Thank you.”
She slips that tablet away again, pointing her chin. I know she’s defying me to ask her for it. Just so she can tell me ‘no.’ I think I'm falling in love.
That’s going to complicate everything.
I say, “So I can’t kill anyone that you know?”
“No!” then, “Wait… no. This is all wrong. I don’t even know why I came with you.”
“Was it just because I told you to?”
She says, No, but she nods. My thighs tingle. and she tells me, “I won’t come with you.”
“Where?”
“Wherever it is you’re taking him.”
“You’ll have to.”
“Why?”
“I need you.”
“You need my tablet, you mean.”
“No. I need you. I told you. I’m going to have you out of your clothes, I’m going to put my mouth all over all of your delicious curves. I’ll grab your hair and hammer you full of me until you scream and cry and beg for more. Remember?”
“I remember. But it’s all talk,” her eyes sparkle and shine. “And anyway, I haven’t said that I want you to do any of that. Or that I’ll let you.”
Anatoly : Ruthless (Bad Russian Book 11) Page 3
