Stripped

by Tori St. Claire

  He was doing it again, taking her to that scary place where she couldn’t think, couldn’t do much of anything but yield to what he wanted, and that loss of power frightened her just like it had earlier. What would happen if she let go? If she let him creep beneath the pleasure?

  No, she couldn’t risk it. Not with Brandon—not with anyone. She couldn’t yield no matter how she wanted to. She needed to master him if she had any hope of surviving the sexual paradise he’d introduced her to in his office.

  Using all her strength, she pushed on his shoulders, dislodging his glorious mouth, and shoved him into the opposite wall. As his breath left his lungs with a grunt, Natalya hit the elevator’s stop button. A blaring alarm rang out. Ignoring the ear-splitting buzz, she jerked at his belt and pushed his pants down his hips. She sank to her knees at the same time she took his heavy cock into her hands.

  “Natalya,” he ground out as his hands slid into her hair.

  Merely lifting her lashes to meet his heated gaze, she licked the swollen head of his cock. The desire that flared in his eyes and the line of tension around his mouth pleased her. This was how she wanted him—on the edge, subject to her will, imprisoned by pleasure.

  Slowly, she closed her lips around his hard flesh and sucked as her tongue caressed the sensitive skin beneath. Brandon’s fingers fisted into her hair. His reaction, the sharp edge of arousal that shadowed his features, intensified the rising need inside her. Her clit was swollen, the rasp of her damp panties sheer agony.

  “Christ, Natalya…” Brandon guided her head, easing himself deeper into her mouth. When she used her teeth to scrape against his cock, an oath hissed between his teeth. She encouraged his pleasure, suckled harder on the tip, until his head fell against the wall and his hips began to move of their own volition.

  Yes, this was what she wanted. Control over Brandon. Control over the crazy desire that had sparked between them. Another thrill rocketed through her, and she let out a moan.

  With one hand she gave the base of his erection a firm squeeze. With the other, she cupped his balls, finding satisfaction in the way they pulled into his body. Take him all the way. Bring him to his knees.

  It was the only way she knew how to confront the all-consuming ache his simple touch ignited.

  “Shit, baby. If you don’t stop, I’m going to—”

  “Is everything okay in there?” a voice blasted through the intercom.

  Brandon’s body tightened like a ripcord. He pushed his hands into her scalp, urging her mouth away from his wide, thick cock. Desperate to bring him back to where he’d been seconds before, Natalya sucked harder. His groan tore through her, and she felt her own pleasure mounting. If she didn’t stop, not only would he come, she would as well.

  And Lord, how she wanted to.

  “Is everything okay in the elevator?” the voice repeated.

  “Yeah,” Brandon ground out hoarsely. He surged into the depths of her mouth again, almost touching the back of her throat. Natalya shuddered as a drop of salty flavor saturated her tongue.

  “Damn it, no!” Digging his hands into her shoulders, Brandon snatched her to his feet. His mouth crashed into hers, hungry and demanding. She felt his hand fumble at the wall, distantly recognized the sway of the elevator as it began to move once more. As despair launched through her, slowing the rapid beat of her heart, she choked back a whimper.

  The assault on her mouth eased, and Brandon broke the kiss. His breath rasped against her cheek as he pressed his forehead to hers. Between their bodies, he fumbled with his pants. “Not like this, baby. I don’t want to go off like a rocket. I want to fuck you long and slow. All damn night.”

  A foreign sensation filtered through her veins, lighting her up from the inside, telling her whatever he had in mind she could survive. Would. Unexplainably, Brandon’s insistence to hang on to his control strangely pleased her. Disappointment gave way to the slow burn of anticipation, of certain, absolute, pleasure.

  The low chime of a bell announced they’d reached the top floor, and Brandon disentangled his body. He held fast to her hand as he led her through the doors, giving her only a brief moment to straighten her jacket before he pulled her close and kissed her once more. This time slower. Sweeter. But beneath the languorous swirl, arousal lingered on his tongue.

  As it occurred to her they were necking in the hall with her door only four feet away, a giggle escaped. She edged out of the kiss and his wandering hands. “Let me get my keys.”

  He flashed a grin that gave him a surprisingly youthful charm. She caught a fleeting image of what he’d looked like before twelve years as a cop hardened his eyes and etched wisdom beyond his years into his handsome features. Her heart clenched. Her belly fluttered. How many women had fallen victim to that young man? Did one of them have something to do with his insistence he wasn’t father material?

  She resisted the urge to reach out and trace the softened contours of his jaw and opened her purse. A brief rummage produced the simple keychain that held her condo key. Fastening her purse before he could observe the 9mm Sig inside, she beckoned him to follow with a tilt of her head.

  Intent on distracting her, Brandon nuzzled the back of her neck as she put her key to the lock. Laughing, she tried to brush him off, but he snagged her around the middle, holding her in place and making it damn near impossible to unlock her door.

  “Brandon,” she scolded with a laugh.

  His chuckle rustled her hair. But he let go, hands held up in mock surrender. His rueful smile played havoc on her senses.

  Natalya turned back to the door, touched her key to the lock, and froze. Her gaze riveted on the gap between the doorframe and the heavy metal door. Every bit of heat Brandon had stoked in her blood turned to ice. Someone had been here.

  Maybe still inside.

  Brandon noticed the breach at the same time. In a heartbeat, a streetwise cop replaced a simple man with one thing on his mind. As he stared at the opening, the playful light in his eyes died. From his shoulders to his toes, all the parts touching her went stiff. He wedged a shoulder between her and the door. “Let me go in, take a look around.”

  Natalya’s head spun. What if Iskatel´ had made contact and left something incriminating behind? Had they been seen together? Was one of Dmitri’s thugs waiting in her living room? She needed an excuse, but a housemom who’d taken a few self-defense classes had no reason to argue a perfectly capable man’s assistance.

  Shit!

  At a complete loss, she did the only thing she could think of—she threw herself between him and the entrance, braced her palms on both sides of the doorframe, and shook her head. “That’s not necessary.”

  The harsh line of his jaw revealed his own struggle between his cover and his instincts. He searched her face, as if questioning the very same thing that ran through her mind—confess. But nothing, and no one, would make her reveal her cover now. Or ever. She’d come too close to endangering Brandon. Taken one too many risks, and the reality of her position, the magnitude of subterfuge miring around her, demanded she walk away, no matter how painful.

  “Don’t be foolish, Natalya.” Brandon’s eyes turned cold and punishing. “There could be someone inside.”

  “I can take care of myself, Moretti.” She sucked in a deep breath as she slipped her hand to her purse and opened the magnetic flap. “You should go.”

  Their gazes clashed. At his thigh, he curled one hand into a fist. “You’re out of your mind if you think I’m letting you walk in there alone.” He lifted his other hand over her shoulder and shoved the unlocked door open. “Get out of the way.”

  “No.” She parted her feet, bracing them also against the doorframe in case he decided to try and physically remove her. As she slipped her hand inside her purse and curled her fingers around her gun, she turned her head toward the blackness at her back. “See. Empty. Now go.”

  Mentally, she counted off the seconds before she removed his options. One… Her eyes latched on to his,
full of unyielding insistence.

  Two… His jaw worked as his scowl deepened. Weight planted firmly on both feet, he told her in no uncertain terms he wasn’t going to leave.

  Three…

  When Brandon didn’t step backward, Natalya pulled out her pistol at the same time she spun into the doorway and kicked the door shut with her heel. It automatically locked behind her. She stared into the shadows, her heart thundering against her ribs.

  A heavy hammering rattled her door. “Natalya! God damn it!”

  “Sorry, Brandon,” she murmured beneath her breath. Ignoring his pounding, she flipped on the light switch. Sig held in front of her, finger on a ready trigger, she slowly turned. Her eyes touched each corner of her living room, then the attached kitchen.

  Two dozen red roses situated on her dining table brought her gun to her side. She let out the breath she’d been holding, crossed to the bouquet, and laid her pistol on the polished wood. Picking up the card her intruder had propped against the crystal vase, she scanned the handwriting that bore her name. Nothing she recognized.

  But the note inside told her no florist had written the message. Written in all caps, the words were in Russian.

  YA BOL’, CHTOBY BYT’ S VAMI. S LYUBOV’YU, DMITRI.

  I ache to be with you. All my love, Dmitri.

  As another heavy fist slammed into her door, Natalya crumpled the card. “No one’s here, Brandon. Go home!” she hollered, hating the words, knowing no other option. “Before I call security.”

  It’s his choice, not yours.

  Her hands trembled as she pressed them to her face to stop the sudden rush of tears. She’d ignored Sergei and heedlessly given in to selfish desire, never once stopping to consider what Brandon might want. He saw a housemom. A woman who knew how to dance a man into insanity. She could take off her clothes, but she had no right to strip his life away.

  God, Kate had been right when she’d called her a killer. Only a cold-blooded murderer could be so thoughtless.

  Distantly, she recognized Brandon had stopped pounding on her door. Silence engulfed her, oppressive and suffocating. The tears she tried to confine broke free. Devastated by the realization of the woman she’d become, Natalya dropped to her knees, curled into a ball, and let them fall.

  C

  lassical music intruded on blissful unfeeling. Natalya opened her eyes, confused at first as to why she was lying on the floor in front of her door. Bright sunlight streamed through her open blinds, and she blinked at the invading light. As her bleary vision cleared, the disastrous events that led her to her present position on the carpeting pummeled into her mind. Brandon. Dmitri. Flowers.

  Her phone was ringing.

  She dove sideways for her purse and yanked out her cell phone. A quick glance at the LCD told her only two hours had passed since she’d collapsed under the weight of her actions. But the increasing volume of Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet didn’t give her time to think about her breakdown. She punched the connect button. “Hello, darling.”

  “Did I wake you?”

  Pulling herself up off the floor, Natalya smoothly lied, “Yes, but I’m glad you did. I got your flowers.”

  “Ah, good.” Pleasure vibrated in Dmitri’s voice. “I wondered if they’d reached you yet. The house is empty without you.”

  She could picture him, sitting in the front room where they dined each evening before the wide windows that overlooked his beautiful lawns. He’d have his Armagnac beside his untouched plate. Leaning on the rear legs of his chair, one ankle would rest on one knee. His smile radiated through the line.

  He loved her. Maybe more than any woman had a right to be loved. If he hadn’t killed so many people, if he hadn’t spent millions arming terrorists, if he’d flinched once at the idea of shipping unwilling women to Dubai, she might have felt guilty. But he hadn’t. And his soullessness provoked the same lifeless feelings inside of her.

  “I miss you as well.” She picked up her gun and put it back into her purse. Then, craving the comfort of her bed, she wandered down the hall, undressing as she walked.

  “I’ve been thinking. There’s no reason for me to stay here another week.”

  Panic fingered at her spine. He couldn’t be planning to come earlier. She’d die, just die, if she had to face Brandon with Dmitri at her side. “What about the matter with Boris?”

  “It’s resolved. Boris agreed his nephew couldn’t be trusted. The man’s been disposed of. We’ll see no more trouble from that corner of Moscow.”

  Her skin crawled at his casual reference to killing a man whose only mistake had been following the law. She swallowed down a shudder. “I see.”

  “Yes, and since that went so smoothly, my schedule is free. I’ve decided to join you early. It will take a bit before I’m finished with the negotiations on Dubai, but I’ll arrive in three days. We can marry

  the next morning.”

  She almost dropped the phone, surprise hit her so hard. Dmitri rarely ever changed his schedules. He must be missing her a lot more than he let on.

  Shit! Three days. Oh, God, what the hell was she going to tell Brandon? She’d lied tonight, claiming she belonged to no one else. Now she’d be married, married, in a handful of days. Her heart tripped into triple time.

  “And,” pride blossomed in Dmitri’s warm tone, “I’ve even arranged it so we can leave that evening on our honeymoon.”

  That could only mean one thing—Kate. As Natalya’s stomach bottomed out, she groped for the bedpost. No…

  “Has Iskatel´ ruined my surprise?”

  “No,” she answered, lowering herself to the mattress’s edge. “I haven’t been contacted by anyone.”

  “Good! I wanted to tell you myself. We’ve accelerated the exchange. Iskatel´ will contact you with the details I shared, but three nights from now you’ll deliver this Kate to Yakov at the warehouse on Nellis.”

  Three nights… Her stomach clamped down violently. She was going to be sick. She didn’t know any of the players yet, couldn’t pin down a name to save her life—and right now, her life was definitely in need of saving. She pressed a hand to her belly to stop the churning.

  In a last-ditch effort to make progress on the case, she took a risk she wouldn’t normally have attempted. “Darling, who is Yakov?”

  Something heavy hit the wood floor on the other end of the phone. Presumably, his front chair legs. “You don’t know?”

  Surprise was the last thing she’d expected. She blinked, then pulled her phone away from her ear to give it a frown. Of course, she didn’t know. He’d never told her. In fact, he’d done everything he could to seemingly keep her in the dark.

  Struggling for patience, she returned the phone to her ear. “No, darling, I’ve heard from no one since I arrived. I can’t very well take Kate to Yakov, if I don’t know it’s him. Or where to find him.”

  Gravelly laughter filtered through the receiver. “My love, you’re priceless. I’m sorry, I thought you already knew. Yakov is Nikolai—we visit his lake house each summer.”

  Nikolai Botkin. Damn! Now that he’d said it, she should have known. They’d openly talked about the project. But the two men did it so comfortably, using all the code words Dmitri insisted on to keep the household staff from overhearing, Natalya had even missed the conversation.

  “Nikolai is here?”

  “He’s been in the States since we returned to Moscow this

  summer.”

  “Oh.” She forced a light laugh. “Well, I feel silly.”

  “Don’t, my love. It’s my fault. I should’ve told you more.”

  Gingerly she tested the waters. “And… Iskatel´?”

  Another round of laughter reverberated in her ear. She sat silent, waiting for his amusement to fade, all the while wanting to reach through the line and choke him to death. When he finally managed to get his humor under control, he coughed.

  “It isn’t obvious?”

  “No,” she grumbled.

 
; In Dmitri’s classic, twisted sense of humor, he laughed again. She could feel his wide grin. Damn it, Dmitri, this isn’t funny!

  “I’m not going to tell you. The surprise is too good to be true. You’ll kick yourself when you make contact… and you’ll be quite pleased Nikolai chose someone so well.”

  The urge to scream possessed her. She gripped her phone so tight she feared the plastic casing would crack and bit down on her tongue to stop the belligerent sound.

  “Damn,” Dmitri muttered. “I’m sorry, my love, I must go. Someone’s ringing in. I’ll call you tonight, and I’ll see you in three days.”

  “But—”

  “I love you, Natalya.”

  He disconnected, relieving her from uttering the lie.

  Natalya stared at her phone, unable to believe the cruel twist of fate. Dmitri was coming to Vegas. She had three days to put the last piece of the puzzle together and stop his despicable human trafficking. Three nights before dawn gave her life or sealed her tomb.

  Three days.

  Twenty

  N

  ot wasting time with looking at the caller ID, Dmitri punched the connect key, switching to the incoming call. Whoever had interrupted the longest conversation he’d had with Natalya in too long, better have a damn good reason for it. He didn’t appreciate his plans for an appetizer of jacking off while Natalya purred in his ear being ruined. “What?” he snapped.

  “Sorry to bother you.” Iskatel´’s tone was suitably apologetic.

  A tiny bit of Dmitri’s frustration slipped off his shoulders. He huffed out a breath. Iskatel´ still had much to learn, but progress couldn’t be overlooked. Scolding overmuch would only reverse things. Still, the interruption warranted a correction. He tempered his tone, but left a deliberate edge in his voice. “I was talking with Natalya. What do you need?”

  “That’s what I was calling about.”

  “About Natalya, or about what you need?” Slowly, he sat forward, a frown gathering on his brow.