Conflicted (Undercover #2)

by Helena Newbury

  I suddenly knew what had been going on inside the house, and why Luka was so angry. I’d thought that nothing could justify murder, but this….

  Luka and Yuri burst out of the door, hauling a third man with them. He was bleeding from a split lip and his nose was broken. They wrestled him into the seat next to me and Yuri snapped handcuffs to his wrists, threading them through the grab-handle next to the door. Then Luka jumped into the passenger seat, Yuri got behind the wheel and we were screeching down the street.

  I turned and stared at the man next to me. Muscled, but smaller than Luka. Blond hair, carefully styled, and a wide face with small, piggish eyes. He was glaring at Luka defiantly, but his face was pale with fear.

  “You fuck!” Luka yelled in Russian, twisting around to glare at him. “Not women! Never women! Not like that!” He caught my eye for an instant and I saw something there that made me catch my breath. Fear.

  Fear of it happening to me.

  The man spat blood onto the spotless seatback in front of him and cursed Luka and his family. Then he turned to look at me.

  “Don’t look at her,” snarled Luka in Russian, grabbing the man’s chin. “Don’t even fucking think about her!” And he punched the man in the face.

  Yuri stopped the car and I saw we were in a back alley, out of view of the street. Luka came around to the rear of the car, unlocked the handcuffs and hauled the man out, handling his weight easily. He dragged him off down the alley.

  “What’s he going to do to him?” I asked in a small voice.

  Yuri turned around and just looked at me.

  My stomach lurched again. Killing the guard at the house to free the women...that was one thing. Horrifying, but maybe—I was shocked that I could even think it—maybe necessary. But this, what Luka was doing now...this was simple, brutal violence. Punishment.

  I climbed out of the car, my legs shaking.

  Yuri looked at me in amazement. “Better you stay here,” he warned.

  But I was already off and running down the alley after Luka. He’d dragged the guy to a lock-up garage, its door secured by a padlock and chain. Luka heaved on the chain, forearms bulging, until brute strength made one of the links give away. He swung open the door, pulled the man inside and threw him up against a wall.

  “You fuck!” Luka yelled, swinging his fist into the man’s gut. The man doubled over. Luka caught him with an uppercut under the chin, sending him tumbling backward. “You sick little bastard!” The guy was trying to get up, but Luka didn’t give him a chance. His fists smashed into the man’s chest and face, pummeling him, knocking him to his knees. I remembered the punching bag, aboard the yacht. I don’t box. I hit things.

  “Luka!” I screamed, grabbing his shoulder. “Enough!”

  Luka turned to me, his eyes savage. “Wait in the car!”

  “No!” I looked at the guy. Blood was pouring from his nose and lips, his face swollen with bruises. “You’ll kill him!”

  Luka looked at me. And nodded.

  “It’s enough! Let him go!”

  Luka stared into my eyes. “Do you know what they were doing in there? It wasn’t just a brothel. It was a rape club, for rich businessmen. Where they can do anything they like to the women, for money.” He kicked the man on the ground.

  I stared at the bleeding, broken man. I almost wanted to kill him myself. What harm would it do? He deserves it. Luka’s all ready to do it. Let him.

  “No,” I said, my eyes burning into Luka’s. “You can’t. I don’t want you to. Understand?”

  He glared at me. “He deserves it!”

  “I know! But I want you—I want you to be better than that! You are better than that, Luka!”

  The man on the floor laughed and coughed up blood. He croaked something about Luka being pussy-whipped. Luka kicked him in the chest and he went quiet.

  “Please, Luka,” I begged. “I—”

  Suddenly, I caught myself. What was I doing?! Was I really trying to change him? To reform a monster? Of course he wasn’t going to change!

  But I could see that momentary flicker in his eyes, the glimpse of something better inside. I wasn’t trying to change him. I was just trying to help him be the man he wanted to be. He’d called me his spaseniye. Well, this was where I got to choose whether to be his salvation or not.

  Luka shook his head at me. “I can’t be weak,” he told me. He picked the man up by the collar and lifted him right off the ground, his feet kicking in the air. He drew back his fist for what I knew would be the killer blow.

  “If you want me,” I croaked, tears in my eyes, “you have to not do this.” The words were out before I knew I was going to say them.

  Luka turned to me, still gripping the man. His eyes were full of that conflict I’d seen before. He was begging me not to make him choose, because he wasn’t sure which life he’d pick.

  I felt the heat trickle down my cheeks. I took a deep breath and stared right back at him, willing him to make the right decision.

  Long seconds ticked by...and then Luka tossed the man to the floor like a sack of garbage. He grabbed my hand and towed me to the car, saying nothing. Behind us, I could hear the man groaning and cursing us.

  Yuri was standing by the car, looking worried. Luka towed me straight past him and almost threw me into the back seat, getting in beside me. Yuri quickly climbed in and we sped off.

  I could hear sirens in the distance. No more than five minutes had elapsed since we’d first pulled up outside the house. The adrenaline was sluicing out of my system, now, leaving me shaky and weak. I glanced across at Luka and saw the blood on his knuckles. I thought I was going to throw up again.

  “We should not have left him alive,” muttered Luka in English.

  Yuri craned his head around, his eyes wide. “You left him alive?!” he asked in Russian. Then a glare from Luka reminded him of his place and he turned back to the road.

  “There will be repercussions,” said Luka. “He will want revenge. It would have been better if we’d finished it cleanly. Then they would have been uncertain who was responsible.”

  “Who is they?” I asked.

  “The Ralavich family,” Luka said. “That was Olaf Ralavich’s son.” He drew in a deep breath. “You have made things much more complicated for me.”

  I shook my head. “I’m sorry.”

  He stared at me, then looked down at his blood-stained hands. “Did I please you?” he said, almost under his breath.

  I blinked. “I—Yes,”

  “Then it is worth it.”

  We stared at one another as my mind exploded in slow motion. I’d made the ultimatum, but it had been a last ditch, spur-of-the-moment thing. I hadn’t thought it would work. It shouldn’t have worked, unless….

  Unless I really was that important to him.

  He suddenly lunged at me across the car, crushing me against the door.

  His lips came down on mine and a little groan escaped me as I felt the need inside, the temptation to give into him. My mind was spinning. Everything was happening so fast! My mental picture of who he was, what he was, was constantly changing. I couldn’t make up my mind whether he was a monster or not, whether he could be saved or not. And whatever he was, he was my enemy, the man I was about to betray. Whatever he felt for me and whatever I felt for him, that didn’t change.

  And it was about to be over anyway...wasn’t it?

  I broke the kiss and stared at him, panting. “When we get back to Moscow,” I said, “what happens?”

  His eyes gleamed. “You will come back to my apartment.”

  He tried to kiss me again, but I dodged out of the way. “Your dad,” I blurted.

  He stopped and drew back a little, frowning at me. I knew why. I wasn’t supposed to know what his dad had said. But I couldn’t pretend to be oblivious any more.

  “He was polite to me,” I said. “But I know something’s wrong. He doesn’t like me. Does he?”

  At first, he looked as if he was going to
deny it. Then he looked guilty, then sad. At last, he said. “No. He doesn’t like you.”

  And there it was, out in the open. I waited for him to dump me.

  “But I don’t care,” he said.

  My eyes widened. “What?!”

  He shook his head and his hand cupped my cheek. “I’ve never met anyone like you, Arianna. My father rules our business. It’s time he stopped ruling my life.”

  We stared at each other for another second, his eyes burning into mine, and I knew he was serious. He was going to rebel against the only family he had left...for me.

  And in that second, I didn’t think about the mission being over or how I was still going to betray him. I just let out a little moan of need and, this time, I launched myself at him. I didn’t care that he was a monster. I didn’t care that he was the enemy. Our lips met and I wasn’t Arianna Scott or Arianna Ross or a fucking CIA agent. I was just Arianna and he was just Luka and nothing else mattered.

  His hands slid up the front of my dress and squeezed my breasts, making them bulge up out of the neckline. He growled in lust and released me for a second so that he could unfasten my seatbelt. I swayed in my seat, the sensation of being in a moving car making the fear bubble up inside me. Then he was touching me again and his hands melted all the fear away. His palms were sliding down my sides, down to the hem of my dress, tugging it up. At the same time, he pulled my legs towards him on the seat and I slid, flopping down onto my back.

  He pulled my dress up over my panties and I felt his gaze on them, blazing through the thin fabric. I’d worn the white ones. The innocent ones. From his expression, they’d been a good choice. I was the innocent and he was the criminal and he was about to corrupt me.

  I suddenly remembered there was a third person in the car. I came back to reality for a second, my head swiveling as if on a stick. Yep, there was Yuri in the driver’s seat. His eyes were fixed on the road, but we were clearly visible in the rear view mirror.

  Luka lowered his head and licked my inner thigh, his tongue quick and expert, drawing a blazing symbol there, and I stopped caring.

  His hands separated my thighs, pushing them up and back, folding me, and I yelped in surprise, the yell growing throaty when he started to rub me right where I needed it. He pressed close, our faces inches apart, my ankles over his shoulders. He began to stroke my lips through my panties, the fabric rapidly moistening. “You are an angel,” he muttered in Russian. “You don’t know what’s coming, but I’m going to fuck you like a cheap whore.”

  I had to fight very hard to look confused. I knew that I should be slapping his face, but the words only made me hotter.

  His fingers stretched my panties away from my body and I gasped as I felt the air-conditioned air of the car on my moist flesh. “Careful,” I muttered. “They’re new.”

  With a sudden jerk of his hand, he snapped the waistband and tossed them away. “I’ll buy you more,” he said. He was on his knees on the seat, now, my ankles in his hands. He pushed them even further back and then opened them a little. His head dipped and—

  I moaned as his mouth came down on my wet, ready flesh, a spasm rippling up from my groin and making me twist and thrash. His tongue covered me in quick, hard licks, dipping between my lips to taste me. I could feel the moisture flooding me there, my own helpless response to his touch.

  He pushed his head closer, forcing it between my thighs, the slight grizzle on his cheeks rasping against my sensitive skin. His tongue was tracing each lip in turn, switching between them, drawing the silken flesh with it and stretching it tight. My toes curled and strained in my shoes, somewhere up near the car’s ceiling. I remembered Yuri again and wondered how I looked, with my stockinged legs kicking in the air.

  The tip of his tongue found my clit, teasing the hidden bud, swirling around and around it and running up and down either side but never quite lashing it directly, as I craved. He kept me on the edge while he plunged two thick fingers into me, twisting them as they speared deep. I was gasping and panting, my ass grinding against the leather seat, my hips bucking.

  His fingers and tongue took me to the very edge and then, just as my climax was swollen and ready to explode, he drew his fingers from me and pushed them at my panting lips. I opened instinctively, staring up at him as he brushed them over my tongue. “I am going to do such things to you,” he whispered in Russian. “If you are my salvation, then I will be your corruptor.”

  I tried to remember to frown at him as if confused. Inside I could feel my coming orgasm expand and stretch at his words. Corrupted.

  I watched as he unfastened his belt and rammed down his pants. His cock sprang into view, hard and ready and intimidatingly thick.

  He used his elbows to spread my legs wide as he rolled on a condom. One foot almost brushed the passenger seat. You really do need a lot of leg room, I thought, dazedly. Then his hands were sliding under my ass, cupping my cheeks. He lifted me—

  I groaned as he sank into me in one long thrust, then groaned louder as he went deeper. I panted up at him in disbelief as he slid further—God! I hadn’t known he could go so deep! He was hunkering over me, his body almost covering mine, our faces close together. And then the tight curls at the base of his cock were caressing my lips and he was inside me completely.

  I stared up at him. He wasn’t even moving, yet, but the vibrations of the car were moving me minutely around him, and that was making me tighten and spasm around his hardness. The leather seat under me was firmer than a bed and that made it feel different, too. Everything seemed more intense—maybe it was the moving car, maybe it was the fact we were properly together for the first time, more than just lovers. But I could feel every millimeter of him, every throbbing vein.

  He reached up and traced my lips with a finger, following their shape. Then he started to draw back, very slowly, and the feel of him leaving me made me quiver. Every inch that he moved was a silken caress that left me panting.

  I wanted it. But my hands reached for him anyway, gripping his shirt as if to slow him down.

  Immediately, he grabbed my wrists, trapping them, bearing them down onto the leather above my head. I started to pant faster, staring up at him with huge eyes, pushing upwards against him. My wrists didn’t budge. Neither did my hips, when I tried to lift them. He had me exactly where he wanted me, spread for him on a firm, leather seat. And now he was going to fuck me.

  I could have asked him to stop.

  I didn’t.

  He slammed back into me, his muscled body huge between my thighs, and I cried out—a high little moan that didn’t sound like me at all. He began to thrust, his biceps bunched and hard, his chest wide and magnificent as he bore down into me. In the window behind him, I saw the reflection of his ass tensing and hollowing as he drove into me, filling me, and I cried out anew. I could see my own legs, too, stockinged and spread beneath him. The maiden, ravaged by the monster. The heat boiled up inside me.

  His cock was like a silk-wrapped iron bar inside me, filling every millimeter of available space and then drawing out to leave a void that I immediately needed him to fill again. I began to push against his hands, trying to wriggle a wrist free. Each tiny battle resulted in him tightening his grip a little more, increasing my feeling of helplessness.

  I wanted to struggle. But I didn’t want to escape. God, this is so wrong….

  He stared down into my eyes and I knew that he knew. He understood. His eyes gleamed, his thrusts coming faster and harder, forcing me down into the soft leather of the seat and leaving me breathless and shuddering. My climax was twisting as it rose, tightening into a red-hot ball of energy, and I could feel him approaching his end, too, his thrusts growing savage even as I saw his jaw tense. He leaned even closer into me, his mouth beside my ear, and he whispered in English, “You like it like this, don’t you, Arianna? You like being helpless under me.”

  I let out a groan. The sound of that word, helpless, sent an earthquake through me, ripping my climax free from
its bindings and letting it soar up inside me. I thrashed frantically against him and he held me even tighter and that’s when it started. A choking, quaking orgasm unlike any I’d had before, one that started in my chest and rolled out to my toes, powerful and somehow cleansing. I exploded into white fire around him, my back arching and my head pushing hard back into the seat leather.

  I felt him jet and pulse inside me, that sudden blast of heat that extended my own moment. And then we were slumping together, muscles slack and exhausted. I wound my arms and legs around him and we lay entangled like that until we reached his apartment building.

  It was only when we got out of the car that I realized my fear had gone. The memories were still there, but simply being in a car didn’t seem to be a trigger, anymore. Somewhere in that sweating, grinding chaos, I’d managed to break that link. I wasn’t healed, but I was healing.

  After three years frozen, it couldn’t be that easy...could it?

  Maybe it could be. I felt a tiny flame flicker into life, deep within the ice. In some twisted way, Luka and his brand of rough, urgent sex was good for me. And he’d let Ralavich’s son live. In some way, I was good for him.

  Was it possible that there was hope for us?

  And then, as the afterglow faded and we ascended in the elevator, the realization hit me so hard that I stumbled and had to clutch at Luka’s hand for support. I was his girlfriend, now, closer to him than Elena or Natalia had ever been. He’d made sacrifices for me, put his faith in me. He’d chosen me over his father.

  And I was going to stab him in the back. I was going to send him to prison for the rest of his life.

  Luka wrapped his arms around me. His warmth felt good, but even it couldn’t banish the black despair that was spreading through my soul. I’d finally found a man I wanted to be with...maybe the one I was meant to be with. And I was going to destroy him.

  But it was much worse than I could have imagined. I didn’t know, then, just how dangerous being together was going to be, for both of us.

  Or just how completely I’d have to betray him.