Alexei walked me out of the room and into a hallway and it was only then, when we were leaning against a wall, that he released me. “There,” he said with satisfaction and a hint of lust. “Not so difficult.”
I opened my eyes and stared at him for a second, then grabbed his face between my hands and kissed him hard, venting all of the tension as violent, scalding lust. He returned the kiss just as hard, then looked at me with hooded eyes. “Let’s find Konstantin...” he said, his voice thick with need. He left the rest of the sentence unsaid: ...and then I’ll take you home and…
I nodded quickly.
We joined the flow of people passing through the hallway so that it didn’t look as if we were skulking around. I grabbed a couple of champagne flutes from a passing waiter and handed one to Alexei. We moved into the next room and I caught my breath.
The room must have been eighty feet long but the vaulted ceiling and the huge expanse of polished wooden floor made it seem even bigger. It was full of people dancing and talking: men in tuxedos and women in—
Alexei had been right about the dress. Mine was tame compared to some of what I saw. I heard some of the women chattering away in Russian while some had American accents, but all of them wore similar things—lots of leg, lots of cleavage or both. Clearly, rich Russian men had very specific ideas when it came to how they wanted their women dressed. And yet, at the same time, the huge room and the waiters with their trays of champagne gave the party a classy feel. Some of the couples were even dancing to music from a string quartet.
Alexei nudged me and pointed to the quartet. “Konstantin got the idea from Luka. They’re always trying to outdo each other.”
“So they’re enemies? Or just rivals?”
He thought about it for a second. “Just rivals. The families aren’t at war with each other. Konstantin keeps mostly to St. Petersburg and Luka keeps mostly to Moscow. But…”
“What?”
“This is the Bratva. Just rivals still means you have plans in place to kill each other. Should the need arise.”
I gave a little shudder. “Jesus.”
He jerked his head. “Come on. Let’s find Konstantin’s poker game.”
We threaded our way through the crowd, passing an elaborate ice sculpture and a cocktail bar. I was still trying to get used to the sheer amount of money that was evident. From what I could overhear of the conversations—at least, those few that were in English—there were CEOs and even politicians at the party. Anyone who could help Konstantin out with a favor, back home in St. Petersburg or here in New York.
We were heading towards a doorway. I could see a hallway beyond and, at the end, a door that led into a smaller, dimly-lit room. I glimpsed the circular green baize of a poker table, but most of the doorway was blocked by two guards. And these ones didn’t have their guns hidden under their jackets like the one we’d seen outside: the both had sub-machine guns across their chests.
“We need to get in there,” muttered Alexei. And he took a step towards the doorway.
“Are you nuts?” I squeaked. I grabbed his arm and steered him to the side. “They’ll recognize you—correct?”
“Probably,” he growled.
“And shoot you before you’re halfway down the hallway!”
He scowled at me, but nodded. I succeeded in towing him away from the doorway and over to a quiet corner where we were hidden by the crowd.
“Okay,” I said. “What was your plan when you were going to assassinate him?”
“Sniper rifle, from the bushes.”
I winced. “Not all that useful if we want to talk to him. Did you have a backup plan?”
He sounded almost offended. “Of course. Sneak in like this, with a woman—”
“Wait. What woman?”
He flushed. “A prostitute. I was going to hire one for the night.”
“Oh.” Now I flushed. And felt oddly, irrationally jealous. I didn’t want to think of him with someone else, even if it was just for show.
“Konstantin would leave the poker table to take a break and mingle. But the woman would meet him and tell him she was a gift, sent by Vadim. She’d tell him she was his, for the night.”
“Vadim does that? Sends call girls as...gifts?”
“Many men do. It’s well known that Konstantin has certain...tastes.” He looked embarrassed, as if those tastes weren’t suitable for my ears. “He only accepts a few of these women, though—he only wants the best. The others, he just sends away.”
“Arrogant bastard!”
“So I was going to hire the best call girl I could find and have her throw herself at him. If he liked her, he’d take her downstairs—”
“Downstairs?” Who had their bedroom in the basement?
“Yes. Downstairs, he has a—” Alexei wouldn’t meet my eyes again. “Anyway, upstairs is heavily patrolled by the guards but it’s easier to get downstairs. I’d sneak down there ahead of them and be waiting when they walked in. And then…”
I nodded quickly. I didn’t want to think too hard about what he’d planned to do then.
“Neither plan is any use tonight,” Alexei said. He looked towards the poker room. “Maybe rushing them is the best option.”
I felt my chest tighten. “There’s got to be a better way. We have all evening.”
Alexei looked around and I could see the worry on his face.
“Will the guests recognize you?” I asked.
“Probably not. The guards, yes, but not the guests. But if we start talking to them...”
I could see what he meant. Most of the guests seemed to know each other—everyone was kissing each other’s cheeks and swapping gossip. They were going to spot us as outsiders in about three seconds if we tried to mingle. The only people not talking were the ones—
“We have to dance,” I said.
Alexei went through a number of expressions very quickly. Bewilderment. Realization. Horror. “I don’t—” he started.
“I don’t either.” I put our champagne flutes down on a table and grabbed his arm. “But it’s better than nothing.” Better than him just storming into the poker room and getting shot. Maybe it would give us time to come up with a new plan.
I had to almost drag him onto the dance floor. That at least meant that I didn’t have time to get nervous. It was only when we reached the edge of the big, open space and everyone looked round at us that I stumbled to a stop. I have no idea what to do!
Everyone else was dancing as if they did this every day, twirling around the floor in couples. It seemed to involve a lot of sliding your feet around without stepping on each other’s toes. I had a suspicion it might be a waltz.
“This is not a good idea,” muttered Alexei.
“Just do it,” I whispered. “It’s not possible for you to be any worse than I am!” And I pulled him into a gap and—
Uh oh.
I’d massively underestimated how fast everything was moving. We were meant to be spinning around in a couple while also moving in a big circle, keeping pace with everyone else. That alone was difficult enough, never mind trying to actually do the footwork or fit it all to the music. I grabbed his hands and tried just spinning around and around, but that just looked stupid. Then I tripped over my own feet and would have fallen if he hadn’t grabbed me.
“I told you,” he growled. His whole body was tense with embarrassment—this was way, way outside his comfort zone.
He was right. It had been a terrible idea. Now everyone was looking at us, which was exactly what we didn’t want. “Umm...” I said, worried, and looked up at him.
And something happened. For some reason, me saying umm seemed to have an effect on him. His face softened.
He grabbed my hand, put his other hand on my back and started to—
I blinked and then gaped as he started to haul me into the right steps. “You can dance?!”
His cheeks reddened. “My grandmother made me learn,” he said. “When I was a child.”
&
nbsp; I still had no idea what I was doing, but he was big enough and strong enough that he carried me through it. With a lot of looking down at my feet, I eventually managed to figure out the footwork, and soon I was only stepping on his toes every other beat.
We meshed with the pace of the other dancers...and disappeared into the dance. The people who’d been looking at us turned away and we both relaxed.
The feel of it changed. I knew we were still in danger, knew we were just doing this to stay concealed, but...I was with Alexei. Dancing the waltz at a lavish party. It was the most romantic thing we’d done together and I was blown away by how right it felt. I’d missed all this, hiding in my apartment. I’d nearly missed him.
“You look...very beautiful, when you dance,” growled Alexei.
I flushed and smiled. I seemed to get lighter on my feet, the music carrying me. Soon, I was barely treading on his toes at all.
The music ended and the couples gently slowed to a halt. I was grinning and surprisingly out of breath—I hadn’t realized how tiring dancing was. I panted up at him and then, suddenly, he was kissing me. A soft, tender kiss on the lips that made me want to rise up on my tiptoes, it felt so good. We held the contact for a long time before finally breaking apart. And as we did, I caught Alexei smiling. Only for a second, before he remembered himself. But it happened.
He was changing. And he was doing it for me.
I really had fallen for this man. It felt so good it almost hurt. No way was I letting him run straight into that poker room and risk getting killed. No way.
“Let me find a bathroom,” I told him, “And then we can think again. Promise me you won’t do anything stupid until I come back?”
Alexei nodded reluctantly. I hurried out of the main room and through the ground floor, searching for a bathroom. When I eventually found one, there were smudges of white powder on the marble countertop. As I was washing my hands, my foot nudged something that had been left on the floor just beneath the counter—a black g-string. Alexei’s comment earlier about finding a bathroom had been dead-on: this was how these people partied.
I walked out of the bathroom and headed back to the party. I was just nearing the door when a group of guards appeared, two in front of their charge and two behind him.
I stumbled to a stop.
The man they were guarding was as big as Alexei, but his opposite in a thousand subtle ways. Where Alexei’s gorgeous looks came from brutish, brooding peasant stock, this man looked like a Roman emperor, with an elegant nose and soft, curling black hair. Where Alexei’s body was all about brute strength, this man’s was all about lean, coiled power. And where Alexei’s magnetism was in that combination of cold, remorseless purpose and the burning fire that lay beneath, this guy was all about leadership. You could almost see it emanating from him like an aura—people fell aside to make room for him and every head turned as he passed.
He was hot as all hell. I was already Alexei’s—that wasn’t even a question. But if I’d been any other woman...wow.
I suddenly realized I’d been standing there staring for way too long and the group had almost reached me. I stepped left, but the guard on that side was still heading for me. I stepped right and now I was in the way of that guard. And then it was too late, because the whole group stopped just a few feet from me.
The guy they were guarding tilted his head infinitesimally to one side, judging me. It wasn’t like the brutish stares the men had given me in the strip club, or on the ship. This was more like a connoisseur judging a fine wine. It was subtle at first, almost romantic, a look that took in my hair, my eyes, my mouth. And then, abruptly, it was so scorchingly sexual that it felt as though my dress had vanished. I swear his eyes never flicked down below my neck, but it felt as if he’d seen every part of me.
And approved.
I swallowed and actually swayed a little in my heels, a wave of heat washing down my body and ending in an ache between my thighs. I was horrified to feel I was getting wet, just from that look. That did not happen, I told myself firmly.
“Who are you?” His Russian accent was as strong as Alexei’s, but very different. Instead of steel and rock, this reminded me of a flashing, lightning-fast knife carving the syllables into shape. The edges could be satin-smooth...or dangerously sharp.
“Jessica.” Using my real name seemed like a bad idea and Jessica was the first thing I thought of.
He moved an inch closer. The air seemed to compress between us, growing thicker and hotter, until I could feel every inch of exposed skin throbbing. “Well, Jessica,” he said. “I am Konstantin Gulyev. And while it’s lovely to meet you…”—this time his eyes did skim down my body in a way that sent a fresh wave of heat rocketing down to my groin—”you should probably get back to your date.”
I realized I’d known who he was, on some level, before he even said it. With his presence, he couldn’t have been anyone else.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Alexei in the main party room, watching me with an expression between dread and fury. He was making get out of there gestures.
I thought of him storming into the poker room, when Konstantin came back. Of him being shot by the guards before he even got a chance to tell our story.
I swallowed.
“I don’t have a date,” I said. “Vadim Andreyev sent me.”
Gabriella
For a second, I thought he didn’t believe me. But then a strange smile touched his lips and he said, “Interesting.” He only had to glance at the four men around him and they dispersed instantly. I evidently presented no threat.
My heart started to thump against my ribcage as he walked closer. I could still see Alexei out of the corner of my eye, looking horrified, but I tried not to look in that direction because I didn’t want Konstantin to notice him.
Konstantin drew close enough to touch me. He reached out and took hold of the fabric of my dress, close to my hip, rubbing it between his finger and thumb as if testing its quality. “And what instructions did Vadim give you?” he asked. His voice had dropped to a low growl, almost a purr.
I tried to think of how a call girl at the classy end of the scale would phrase it. “That I was to do whatever it took to please you,” I said. I went for confident but my voice didn’t obey, coming out as a strained, tight whisper.
That didn’t seem to bother him. Maybe he liked it, which scared me even more.
“Will you?” he asked, his voice teasing. He bent down and put his mouth right to my ear. “Will you do anything I ask?”
There was something about the way he said it that made a chill go through me—but the fear was mixed with unexpected excitement, heat rising to flush my face and sinking to pool in my groin. I shifted my feet, my heels clacking against the hallway’s tiles. And nodded.
“Well,” Konstantin said. “I was about to take a break anyway.” He opened his jacket and showed me a bulging wad of cash—his poker winnings. “I think I need to give the other players a chance to recover. Why don’t we go downstairs?”
Downstairs. Why did he have a bedroom downstairs? Just so that he could take a woman to bed without bothering to walk upstairs? Was it really any quicker? The thought of what would happen down there sent cold currents of fear spiraling up from the pit of my stomach. What would he expect me to do?
I forced myself to stay calm. What he expected was irrelevant. Alexei would be down there waiting for us, so nothing would happen. All I had to do was walk slowly and—
And then it all went wrong.
Konstantin nodded to a door at the end of the hall—not as grand as any of the huge oak doors that led to the main rooms. The door to a set of stairs.
We were already closer to it than Alexei. We were going to get there first.
I suddenly realized that I’d missed a crucial part of Alexei’s plan—the woman had to intercept Konstantin well away from that door, so that Alexei had time to beat them to it.
Konstantin put a hand on the small of my back and turned
me, gently but firmly, towards the door. He started walking and I found myself pushed along—it wasn’t that he was forcing me, but I couldn’t resist without making a scene.
Maybe I should make a scene. Maybe it was better to tell the truth now.
But the four guards, while they seemed happy to let us go downstairs on our own, were still hanging around in the hallway. If Alexei tried to get to Konstantin now, he’d likely get shot.
I’d just have to go down there with Konstantin and then stall until Alexei got there. I can do that. I can get him talking. It’s just...feminine wiles.
Except I don’t have any feminine wiles.
We were at the door, now. Konstantin pulled it open, revealing a set of steps.
Not the polished wooden steps I’d envisaged. Cold stone ones. That’s just because it’s an old house. He’s just keeping it authentic. But I was starting to get a bad feeling.
I risked a glance over my shoulder as I stepped through the doorway. I could just see Alexei, still in the main party room, blocked from approaching by the four guards. He still looked angry at me, but the anger was subsumed by the fear, now.
Alexei was frightened for me.
Konstantin closed the door behind us and I was alone with him. He led me down the stone steps and I saw that they were lit not by electric lights but by candles on the walls. We seemed to descend forever.
At the bottom of the stairs were several doors, all ajar. These were as grand as the ones upstairs, but in a different way—dark oak banded with iron. They were built for strength. He opened one and gestured me inside.
The breath died in my chest.
It wasn’t a bedroom.
Gabriella
My mind rebelled against the word, because places like that didn’t really exist. But it was the only word that fitted.
Kissing My Killer Page 17
