by Cathryn Cade
His arms and shoulders looked even bigger when bare, and his chest was broad and smooth, small brown nipples. His torso was ripped, narrowing down to lean hips. And he had a gorgeous tattoo.
“You have wings,” she breathed. Well, inked ones, at least. They covered both sides of his chest, beautifully done in black ink with faint touches of red.
He smirked. “I do. If you’re a good girl, I’ll let you fly me.”
She promptly blushed, her cheeks, face and throat burning. “No thanks. I prefer to fly solo. I mean—I mean, be the only passenger.” Wait, that didn’t sound any better. “Oh, you know what I mean.”
Too late, he tipped his head down and laughed, a deep sound of unbound mirth. “Yeah, I do, Ms. Prissy. A woman with her nose in the air like you winds up with only her own fingers to ride.”
Then he dropped his jeans, leaving him wearing nothing but the gold chain around his neck.
Lesa stood frozen, her eyes wide, mouth open. Holy moly, his lower half was just as impressive as the top—maybe even more so. His penis was … really big, even dangling to one side against his scrotum, which was furred with dark gold curls that narrowed into a trail up his flat belly to his navel.
As she gaped at him, his cock twitched and began to stiffen. She looked away, her face burning. “Hey! Get some shorts on or—or something. I’m not sleeping with you naked.”
He chuckled. “Then leave your clothes on. I sleep in the raw.”
When she dared to look again, he was lying on the far side of the king bed, the covers up to his waist. He crooked one arm behind his head and beckoned her with the other hand. “C’mere, Lesa. You make me come get you, you won’t like it.”
Slowly, her head swimming with equal parts whiskey and Pete Vanko, Lesa shuffled to the bed. Giving him a dubious glower and trying to ignore the way he was grinning at her, she lifted one knee to slide under the covers.
He gave her a look of disgust. “Take your jeans off, for Chrissake. I’m over here, you’re over there—long as you stay on your side like a good girl, nothin’ will happen.”
She hesitated, and he rolled his eyes at her again, then twisted the other direction, reaching to turn off the bedside lamp. “Okay, now I can’t see you. Happy?
Lesa opened her mouth to thank him, and then snapped it shut, glowering in his direction. It wasn’t like she wanted to be here.
She wriggled out of her jeans and folded them over the arm of the chair next to the bedside table. Then she fumbled for the edge of the comforter and slipped cautiously under it, lying on her side on the very edge of the bed, her back to Pete and the comforter pulled up to her throat.
She stared at the moonlit landscape outside the window, the black sky and a rim of silvered hills below, framed by the black skeleton of a bare tree in his yard. She was never going to be able to sleep, not like this. Not with a naked Pete Vanko in the same bed. She closed her eyes, whisky, beer and the memory of him in the lamplight swirling through her mind.
She was asleep five minutes later.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
February 2nd
Lesa sighed. Mm-hmmm. She was dreaming, a lovely warm sensual dream. In her dream, Pete held her in his lap again, in the chair downstairs. But this time, although the Flyers were there, circling the big oak table, all talking and laughing … none of them were paying attention to her and Pete. And that was a very good thing, because Pete had his hands on her under her clothes, and he was touching her in the most intimate ways possible.
One of his big, hot, calloused hands cupped her breast, pinching her taut nipple and the other was between her legs. He was petting her, his fingertips delving between the lips of her labia and stroking her wetness up over her clit. And she was very, very wet, her pussy swollen and sleek with arousal. As his blunt fingertip grazed her clit again, she whimpered for more.
Her hand closed over his on her breast, urging him on. Arching her back, she squirmed against him … which was when she realized that her bikini panties had ridden up the cleft of her ass, baring her ass cheeks to his groin, and the back of her legs to the heat of his powerful, hair-dusted thighs.
He moved, his grip tightening as he flexed his lean hips against her bottom. His cock was a long, thick, brand of heated satin, the coarse curls on his groin tickling as he moved. He groaned, a deep sound in his chest, and muttered something in Russian.
The guttural, exotic words combined with his fingers rolling her sensitive nipple and thrumming her clit, sent Lesa up and over the edge into a powerful, quaking orgasm. She woke squeezing her thighs together as she rode his hand like a cowgirl.
One last pinch of her nipple prolonged the sweet implosion, or created another, she wasn’t sure.
“Fuck, yeah,” he groaned into her hair as he went rigid against her bottom. Heat spurted over the small of her back, and his thrusts between her ass cheeks grew slick until he stopped, and relaxed, his arms going slack.
Lesa lay there in his arms, panting, her pussy still squeezing in little aftershocks, her body slack with satisfaction. This lasted until he started to quiver against her back, and a deep huh-huh of sound vibrated through his chest. He was laughing!
Wait, what had just happened? They—they’d had grope sex. And the heat on her back was dribbling down sideways in a completely disgusting way.
“What the hell?” she demanded, shoving his hand from her breast. “You shot your—your cum all over me!”
Pete laughed even harder, and gave her pussy a last squeeze before letting her wriggle out of his grasp. “S-sorry,” he managed. “Fuck, babe, I was half-asleep.”
She stumbled out of the bed, yanking his tee down over herself and using it to wipe her back off at the same time.
He simply lay and watched her, not even troubling to cover up as he laughed at her efforts. “Told you to stay on your side of the bed.”
“What?” He was the one who’d moved across the bed into her space, not vice versa.
Lesa grabbed the pillow she’d slept on and threw it at his face. He fended it off with one hand and dropped it back in its place, then knifed up to a sitting position, swiping back his hair with both hands.
He looked lazy and satisfied and delicious, and she wanted to smack him over the head with something much harder than a pillow.
As she eyed the lamp on her side of the bed, he held up a warning hand, his eyes narrowing. “You toss that lamp at me, and you won’t sit down all day—guaranteed.”
“You are such a bully—ugh. I need a shower.” The digital clock on his side read seven-thirty and the sky was lightening over the hills outside.
Dog tags jingled, and Dima trotted into the room, whining expectantly. Pete sighed, swinging his legs to the floor. With his back to Lesa, he leaned over to grab his jeans. “All right, girl, I’m gettin’ up.”
He stood, and Lesa got one look at his tight, bare ass and powerful thighs before turning away to fish in her suitcase. She shivered as cold air swirled across the bare floor around her legs and feet. She grabbed a fresh pair of undies and bra, a long-sleeved brown tee, a brown-and-cream marled cardi and her jeans, and hurried into the bathroom, closing the door firmly behind her.
It immediately creaked open again, and she scowled at the broken latch. But Pete and Dima thumped down stairs, where she could hear the faint sounds of Pete letting the dog out, then moving around the kitchen. So she reached through the old curtain of the old shower, turned the hot water on, and wriggled out of the tee and her panties. She wrinkled her nose at the sticky sensation of drying cum on her back, and—double euww—in the ends of her hair as well.
She still couldn’t believe the sex had happened. It had been shocking and so delicious at the time, and then embarrassing times ten once it was over.
And okay, now she could admit that she’d been awake for far longer than she’d let on, but oh, God, his touch had been so … so knowing, as if he knew exactly how hard to pinch and stroke, and that voice of his pouring Russian words in her
ear—which she had no doubt were filthy sex words—well. It had all send her right over the edge.
She shivered anew as she washed herself, the touch of her own soap-slick hands echoing his. This was bad. This could never happen again, no sirree.
Drying off quickly, she dressed and then combed her hair out in front of the mirror. She eyed her reflection, flushed and rosy, her eyes sparkling with the remains of physical satisfaction, and shook her head at the woman in the mirror.
When she’d driven up to The Hangar—had it been only a month ago?—she would never have dreamed she’d end up here.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Lesa scowled at herself in Pete’s bathroom mirror. It was embarrassing enough that she had to face him again after their weird sleep-sex thing had happened. She was going to do it looking her best. Thus, she pulled out her cosmetic bag and applied mascara, shadow, eyeliner, a dusting of peach blush and lip-gloss.
Her hair was drying in tousled curls around her face, but styling it would take another fifteen minutes, and she needed coffee—stat. She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and walked down the stairs. Grace and dignity would be her mantra.
As she rounded the corner into the kitchen, she heard a familiar sound, the intro guitar to her favorite Pink song. Someone was calling her. Perhaps someone who could come and get her out of here.
She dashed down the last few steps and around the corner of the stairwell into the kitchen. Where Pete Vanko leaned against his kitchen counter while he studied her phone.
She rushed at him, grabbing for the slim pink-and-black case. “Give me that!”
He raised his arm high, holding it out of reach, and eyed her. “You can jump for it if you want.”
For one wild, reckless second she considered doing so. “Right, so you can watch my boobs? I don’t think so. Just give it to me.”
“Nope. Who’s Phil?”
She glared at him, her hands fisting at her sides. “He’s a big, mean, dangerous … cop. An ex-Special Forces cop. And he’ll be here soon if you don’t let me answer that.”
He gave her a chiding look. “No, really, who is he? Boyfriend, ex, what?”
Her shoulders sagged. “My dad. And I always answer his calls, asshole, so he really will worry. Give. Me. My. Phone!”
Before I punch you in the balls, she added silently. Whoa, where had that come from? Maybe his biker bad-assery was wearing off on her. Good, ‘cause she needed it to deal with him.
Pete shook his head, and Lesa was forced to listen in silent fury until her phone went silent. Pete brought his arm down and let her grasp her phone, but held onto it, regarding her over it with a steely expression.
“All right. I’m gonna give it back, but here’s the deal. You don’t tell him, or anyone else anything. You don’t tell them I fired you, or that you’re here, or about the money—none of it. Are we clear?”
She blinked, then dropped her gaze to his broad, bare chest. “Okay. Right. I won’t tell anyone.”
Pete cupped her throat, using his thumb under her jaw to tip her face up. He gave her searching look, and his eyes narrowed, his jaw tightening. “Fuck. You already told someone,” he guessed. “Your dad?”
She glared at him. “Of course, I told him,” she hissed. “That’s what family is for. If someone treated you unfairly, tricked you out of a good job—you’d tell your scary brother. And good grief, you have kids of your own, you should understand! Even though they don’t live with you, you still worry about them, right?”
Unless he was completely heartless. Which she was beginning to believe he was.
He was looking at her as if she’d lost her mind. “I don’t have kids. Where the hell’d you come up with that?”
“Toys in the spare room upstairs?” she said, giving him the look back in spades.
He shook his head. “Not my kids, Ivan’s. They stay with me once a month.”
Oh. Well, that was a relief, because Pete did not deserve to have children of his own. Heartless ass-hat. Although she couldn’t really picture his fearsome older brother with little kids either.
Pete sighed deeply, his chest rising and falling, his breath puffing on her hair. Then he shook his head and let her go, shoving her phone into the pocket of his jeans. “Fuckin’ hell. All right, I gotta think about this.”
“Yeah, you do that. If I have to wait around for you, I need coffee.”
Lesa moved around him, and busied herself with a big mug of hot coffee, some creamer and a spoonful of brown sugar from the cupboard, then turned to lean on the counter and hold the mug in both hands as she sipped, sighing with pleasure.
Mmm, that made her troubles a tiny bit smaller.
* * *
Pete watched Lesa’s expression turn blissful as she drank her coffee, her long lashes feathering her cheeks, full lips damp and peachy-pink from the hot beverage. Fuck, was that the look she’d had on her face when she was coming on his hand earlier, all heated crevices and slick wetness?
She was freshly showered now, her chocolate hair rioting in big, loopy curls around her face and shoulders, just begging for a man’s hands to gather them up and tug her head where he wanted it, like with her face over his cock so she could suck him off.
He’d thought her hair was straight—why the hell did women always subdue their hair into the opposite of what they had naturally, spending hours curling it if it was straight, and vice versa? He fucking loved these wild curls. He wanted to get his hands in them, carryher back up to his bed and get her clothes off, bury his face in her most intimate places, smell and taste her this way, just to compare to the scent of her on his hand earlier.
Not that he wanted her, in particular.
Nope, he just loved fucking, and it had been a few weeks. Plus, she was here in his house, available. He sure as hell hadn’t meant to wake up holding onto her like his personal sex toy, but however it had happened, she’d enjoyed it as much as he had, despite being pissed as hell at him afterward. He smiled to himself at the memory of her purring one minute, then hissing at him the next, like a cat who’d had her fur ruffled the wrong way.
Then he scowled, spearing his fingers through his hair and raking it back off his face. What was he doing, standing here mooning over a woman drinking coffee, for chrissake? She was annoying as hell, as troublesome as Dima when she was a puppy, and he had other much more important things to think about.
“I’m gonna go shower,” he said, already walking away. “And your car keys are in the safe, so don’t try to leave before we talk.”
She mumbled something into her coffee that he was sure was uncomplimentary, but he ignored her, taking the stairs two at a time.
Before dropping his jeans in his laundry basket, Pete pulled her phone out and checked the call history.
Sure enough, she’d made three calls yesterday, to a Traci, a Billie—sounded like a woman, probably—both only a few seconds long, which meant they’d probably gone to message, and one to ‘Dad’, which had lasted nearly thirty minutes, plenty of time for her to spill every detail of Pete’s accusation and firing her. Fuckin’ hell.
He turned toward the bathroom, then stopped and walked instead to the heavy gun safe in the back of his closet. He placed both her phone and his on one of the shelves, alongside her key ring, and his own. Then he slammed the heavy door shut. Even if she snuck up here and rummaged around while he was in the shower, she wasn’t getting what she wanted.
As he stepped under the spray of hot water in his shower, his brain was racing. Was her old man gonna show up here, gunning for Pete, maybe for Stick and the others as well? Had she been flat-out lying about him being an ex-soldier, or was there a core of truth in there?
Damage control—that'd be his focus going forward with this. Shit, now on top of worrying about Marta coming after Lesa, he needed to be ready for a pissed off father, possibly armed and dangerous, riding in with weapons cocked to save his little girl. He’d get the brothers to take shifts at The Hangar, make sure ther
e were always at least three or more of them around.
Meanwhile, they’d move forward with their plan for the Sokolovs.
And he had a brewery and a pub to run. Fuck, she was causing him this much trouble, he was gonna get it out of her in trade. She could damn well come in with him and work the floor, back in her old job as waitress.
He’d do the books himself … on top of every-fucking-thing else.
He slapped the shower off and yanked the curtain back, scowling as the clammy wet plastic clung to his legs when he stepped out. One of these days he was gonna get a crew in here and get some remodeling done, bring this bathroom into the new millennium. He’d had the antiquated kitchen redone when he moved out here, the bathrooms were next. He might not spend much time here, but he liked his comforts.
And waking up with his arms full of warm, curvy, sweet-smelling woman might just top that list. Although it was one he’d better not get used to anytime soon.
Oh, he was gonna fuck her, that was a given. She might hate him, but she wanted him, this morning had proven that, even if the hungry looks she’d been giving him since they met hadn’t done it.
At the least, before she drove away in that piece of shit car of hers, he deserved that much for the trouble she was causing him. And if that made him the selfish asshole she’d call him for saying so … fine with him. He’d never cared much what anyone other than his brothers thought of him, why start now?
Except he already had, he realized gloomily. Every time she looked at him like he was a piece of shit, that stung.
He dried off, eying himself cursorily in the foggy mirror. He’d stopped by the barber last week, so his facial hair was fine. At least it wasn’t the wild bush T-Bear called a beard.
He combed his hair back and tied it, then walked through to his closet to pull on a black Hangar tee, and the first shirt that came to hand, a red plaid western shirt, with jeans, his favorite boots, and the black leather belt Stick’s woman Sara had made him for Christmas. It was a nice piece, as Sara had a real eye for leather work.
