Dimitri Driven

by May Ball, Alice

  “It’s a traditional belief, a spirit from the old days. It’s the spirit of housekeeping.”

  “Sounds dull.”

  “A belief in the good order of things, it’s deep in the Russian soul. Keeping the chaos at bay. Keeping things straight. It’s important.”

  “So who is the Domovoy?”

  “In the Bratstvo, I believe he is the housekeeper. And I think he’s in charge of the money. He was my target. Only his details somehow got switched for yours.”

  That hit me in the chest. “Somebody wants to get rid of me?”

  His head shakes slowly. “I think it’s worse than that, Chrissy.”

  I’m putting it together. As much as I don’t want to, I’m seeing a picture. He’s almost whispering. “It looks to me like somebody wants to roll up this whole operation. I would guess that either someone did something really bad, or someone found the keys to the money. Either way, they’re scorching the earth in a wide circle to burn their tracks.” I still don’t want to see it. He says, “Chrissy, somebody set us up to get rid of each other. They want to get rid of both of us.”

  Chapter 12

  Him

  I’M TURNING IT ALL over in my head. We go back to dozing and I let my mind work in the dark. Letting the ‘basement boys’ do their work. Turning all the pieces around. Rearranging them. Looking at them in different combinations.

  It was a shock discovering that Chrissy isn’t who I thought she was. But she is the same beautiful, talented young woman, only she’s so much more.

  But she has deceived me once. I have to be careful and vigilant about trusting her. I keep reminding myself that she asked me, over and over, ‘Ask me. Tell me what you want to know.’ But still. She could have just said something. Had she been playing a game with me?

  If she had, I needed to know why.

  The Library Section going dark worries me. That’s the Bratstvo’s eyes and ears. I’ve had no response from Pipeline, though. That’s beyond serious.

  When she steps into the darkness, wearing nothing but that T-shirt, I pull her back.

  “Where are you going?”

  I hold her near. Leaning on my elbow, my nose is by her ear. The scent of her body in the middle of the night, in the middle of sleep, intoxicates me. I reach around her shoulders to stroke her face, pull her to me. Take a kiss.

  She’s hungry. Comes to life. Turns.

  She climbs on top of me, runs her hands down my sides and over my chest and abs. Grips and scrapes my skin.

  I slip my hand between her thighs. Feeling her heat, I love the feeling of her shudder as I find the spot above her clit. I press there, while I kiss her mouth. Deep. She twists, turns, sways against my hand. Stretches herself over me. As she’s leaning down, her breasts bounced through the T-shirt – through the cotton of the T-shirt. Her hard nipples poke through the fabric, grazing against my skin.

  I want her now in the worst way.

  “Where were you going, naughty little kitten? Kotyonok?”

  “What?” She squirms against me in a way that wakes up my cock.

  “It means ‘kitten.’

  “Nowhere,” she says. Her breath flutters as she twists and rubs herself against my fingers, “it can wait.”

  Her eyes shine and she smiles as her hands find my stiff cock, standing, ready for her. She gasps and breathes in. I love seeing her eyes roll as she feels the size of it. The hard thickness.

  I hold her shoulders, feeling the press of her breasts, as they billow, soft, heavy against my chest. I grip her hair. “Your mine,” I tell her, “Completely.”

  She nods as her lips makes their way, fluttering down to my navel. Then below. Her kisses patter all over my hips. Teasing, avoiding my cock, letting her warm breath flick and brush me.

  I want to fight her. I want my cock in her pussy. To pound her, fill her with seed again. To impregnate her. But if she’s determined to suck my cock, I can cope with that. This once maybe.

  I imagine the mischievous ideas she has, with her tongue stretched out. The hard wood of my cock, springs and pulses all the way to the end, as she licks around it. I’m twitching, hardening as I imagine and anticipate her taking me into her mouth.

  If she ever would. She’s driving me crazy, nibbling around my groin. Sucking my balls and flicking them with her tongue.

  The only part of her that I can reach is hair. So I grip it, tight. I love feeling her in my grasp. I’m going to let her do what she wants, though.

  At last, her flat, wet tongue slides up from my ball sack, up the underside of my cock. Her eyes gleam and widen and she grins, giggling as she kisses and sucks lightly on the head. Then she hauls the shaft upright, pointing straight up. Straight into her mouth as her lips open.

  She looks at me, grinning like a naughty girl. She blows and licks from side to side on the head.

  I can’t wait. But I won’t force her, even though I’m dying to do just that.

  I won’t. Not yet.

  She slips her tongue down the underside once more, but her mouth is wide, and her eyes are closing.

  Her lips slide over the bulb. The sensation of her hair drifting and cascading onto my hips and the tops of my thighs is driving me wild. All of my muscles are starting to thrum and sing. My ass wants to clench, my thighs want to rise.

  My fingers want to grip on her head and pull her down, all the way down the length of my fat shaft. Jam her on until her lips reach my groin. Until my cock is halfway down the throat.

  Then she plunges. Suddenly.

  Her hands hold the sides of my hips. Gripping on. Her sweet, soft, wet mouth takes me in, into the welcoming, eager darkness. Her tongue presses up as I slide all the way across to the back.

  The bulb of my cock, sensitive and hungry, meets the back of her throat. Her lips are wrapped around the shaft. Sucking, pulling, wet.

  Thin saliva coats my pole. Her little mouth gushes almost as much as her sweet, hungry pussy.

  She sucks, slides down, more, until I feel my cock slip over the back of her tongue. Into the grip of her throat.

  The throat muscles suckle and pull around my bulb, and I’m twitching all the way through my body.

  Then I grip her hair with both hands.

  I don’t know if I can do this for more than a few moments without coming.

  I pull her head down, onto me. Her face is wet, Feral. Angry.

  I growl. “If you do that anymore, I’m going to come in your mouth. I’m going to blast all the way down your throat.”

  She moves and pulls my thighs closer beside her, so that her tits spill onto the tops of my thighs. My legs tremble,

  “That’s the idea,” she says, lookin up, licking her lips, “That’s what I want. That’s what I’m sucking your cock, Boris.”

  “You fucking little minx,” I grab her hair. Tight. She pulls my cock forward.

  I push it in now. I let my hips tilt and push.

  Feeling her nod on my spike is almost enough to take me there. I close my eyes, attempt to relax. Think of daffodils. Segway scooters. Barnacles. Anything, while she sucks and takes me deeper and deeper into her throat.

  I watch my hard pole slide into her lips, all the way into her mouth. She nods, eagerly.

  I push again. She’s gripping the sides of my hips. Rows and sets of tingles flicker up the backs of my thighs. Her tits, softly spilling and crushing on my thighs, arouse me even more. I crane my neck, stretching to watch her. To see her mouth stretch around the base of my cock as she slides it all the way into her neck.

  She pulls all the way back up, then slams all the way down, licking and sucking all the way. I feel fireworks, sparkling through my nerves. The surge of a rocket, pushing up, those first few feet off a launchpad. Driving up against the pull of gravity.

  One more look at her, seeing her face as my cock fills her mouth, feel her grin.

  I can’t stop now. My hips rocking, my pole pivoting into her mouth, my knees are up and I’m pushing from my feet. Flexing my back, ho
lding her hair tight in one hand, holding her face tenderly with the other. Feeling her moan, more than hearing it.

  The vibrations of her breath on my cock as the pulses start. Rumbling at first, from my legs and my gut. Gathering from my chest and my arms. I’m charged up, locked and loaded, too full to hold, ready to explode. And then I do.

  I let out a growl, and curled around her, I come, hosing, splattering, blasting into her throat.

  Chapter 13

  Her

  I STILL CAN’T REST. I try to sleep, but I can’t and when I do drift off, all kinds of images loom up and frighten me awake. I get up to get some water.

  In the mirrors of the elevator, I see myself smiling, grinning like a fool. I step out, into the steel kitchen and I’m cold. I’m conscious of the smile spreading my cheeks, pulling my eyes open. At the same time I have a low, buzzing tingle deep down in my core. That buzz feels like fear.

  My emotions are a total mess now. Just walking across the cool tiles of the kitchen floor, I’m flip-flopping between joy and terror. He can’t mean the things he said. But my body heard them, and it’s feeling like it believed him. I know that’s dangerous, but I never could reason with my hormones. I think my hormones have arrested development.

  I get a glass of cool water from the faucet, and try to sip slowly. I’m thinking about what he said before. Maybe I shouldn’t have let myself go the way that I did. I still have no idea who he is. I know nothing about him. He’s hardly told me anything about himself, and how do I know if any of what he told me is true?

  I find things to fiddle with. Part of me, a big part, wants to just enjoy the good feelings. I never had anything like this before. I want to keep it. To stay with the feelings, wrapped in the fuzzy glow, the safe feeling of protection. Bathed in the warmth of love.

  But lower down, I’m so afraid. I can’t easily sort out whether I’m more afraid of him, or of my own feelings. Or of the small fact that we’re in hiding from a shadowy group of international killers, intent on eliminating us both. Are they, though? Or are they just after him?

  Or, as he said, are they only after me? I can’t believe that. But now I don’t know what to believe. Maybe he was right; that I wasn’t ready.

  As I’m fiddling with things on the counter, I remember my phone. Which he took from me. Now all my feelings are mixed up again. He had to take my phone and my bag in the first place. I get that. But he could have given them back to me.

  I remember sitting on the bus yesterday morning when the PM beeped on my phone. Yesterday morning! It feels like an age since I was gazing innocently out of the bus window, hearing the message beep. When I looked down at the screen and saw the PM, I watched the people, bustling on the streets in the morning light, rather than launch the app to decode it.

  I figured if I did it then, it would take too long, and it could still be processing when the bus got to my stop. I would do it later.

  And I forgot all about it when I skipped happy and carefree off the bus to the café window to check my makeup, thinking about nothing but a morning of life-drawing and the afternoon lecture on Bridget Riley that made me late for work. Again.

  How can that all have been only yesterday?

  The phone is in his rucksack. Just there on the other counter. I should check the PM.

  The PM has to be run through an app to decode it. One of the director’s secret squirrel tricks. I was so charmed by him. I’m wondering now if he completely fooled me. Telling me I was doing important work for my country.

  When the message is finally decoded, I fall back against the side of the counter. I run to the elevator. Mashing the buttons, I’m in full-on panic trying to get to the top.

  Finally, I run over to his groggy, dozing body. I shake him. Show him the phone.

  He’s awake and on his feet instantly, raging. He seizes the phone and growls as he switches it off. “You turned it on!” He grabs his pants and shoes and shirt and runs for the elevator. I follow him, close to tears.

  “Dimitri, didn’t you see the message?”

  “Yes. It was a picture of me. You were given a target.”

  “But…”

  “I knew that already. But turning the phone on, you’ve told them where we are.”

  “Them…?”

  “How long ago?”

  I don’t know. I tell him, “No more than a couple of minutes. Fifteen or twenty minutes at most.”

  Now I remember what I was fiddling with in the kitchen when I read the PM.

  Chapter 14

  Him

  WE EMERGE FROM THE elevator and I have to blink. I don’t believe my eyes.

  “You took all the weapons apart. Even the Tavor.”

  “I’m sorry. I wanted to practice.”

  “Don’t worry now. Take a few bottles of water and a couple of pizzas out to the car. Please. Wait there. I’ll be a couple of minutes at most.”

  I start to reassemble the pistols. Takes seven seconds each. The Walther takes about twice as long—I’m impressed that she knew how the trick with pulling the trigger guard to field strip it in the first place—and the Glock will be back together in about another twelve seconds.

  Was Chrissy so addled she didn’t think about the phone being trackable? Was it a coincidence that she took all the guns apart? Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

  The Tavor is a problem. I can’t put that together in less than four and a half minutes and I can’t risk us waiting here that long.

  While I assemble the pistols I try to think through. Could she have done this on purpose?

  After I’ve assembled the pistols, I have no choice but to wrap the parts of the Tavor in a cloth and then a towel. Something is likely to get scuffed or marked, but it’s better to risk the weapon system than to stay in a compromised location.

  Wait – it’s quiet outside.

  Chapter 15

  Her

  A NARROW WEDGE OF light on the garage floor closes to a thin strip as the door from the kitchen swings nearly shut behind me. The garage is dark and I don’t know where the light switches are.

  Fuck it, I’m not going to blunder around, poking switches at random. Hitting the wrong switches in here will probably blast floodlights on the grounds outside. I feel like I’ve made enough of a blunder already.

  I can make out the shape of the SUV in the gloom. I’ll open a car door and use the light from inside.

  With pizza boxes in one hand and water bottles in the other, I step slowly and carefully, putting a foot out and feeling for obstacles.

  I put down the water bottles by the back wheel of the SUV and I’m feeling for the handle to open the back door.

  A hand clasps on my shoulder. My blood runs cold.

  His voice is low and quiet. Soft as silk. A whisper. From the length of his fingers I know him immediately.

  “I don’t think you carried out your mission yet, have you.”

  It’s not a question.