by Kyra Davis
I opened the drawer of the nightstand and pulled out Anatoly’s iPhone. What kind of moron runs out of a room without his phone? No matter what the emergency you always grab you phone!
I glared at the screen. “Stupido,” I said in what I imagined was a fairly good Spanish accent. I liked the feel of the word. “Stupido,” I said again and this time I reached my arm back and hurled the phone at the door….
….and it was caught…by Anatoly.
CHAPTER 9
“My husband and I have a deal. The day he’s able to make me a multiorgasmic woman is the day I stop dragging him to Sandra Bullock movies.”
--Death Of The Party
He stood in the doorway, with that totally infuriating and totally sexy half smile on his face. He held up the phone I had just inadvertently hurled at him. “Just like old times.”
He let the door close behind him.
For a full minute the room was completely silent.
And then he took one step forward.
“I thought I’d stop by and say hello,” he said, his voice shaking ever so slightly.
And that was enough for me. I burst into tears and threw myself at him. He caught me in his arms and kissed my cheeks, my hair, my eyelids and finally my mouth. I held onto him so tightly he would have had to struggle to get away.
But he didn’t try.
His hands moved up my back and then down to my hips and then all the way back up to my hair. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“Shut up.” I pushed myself away from him and put my hands on my hips. “The Russians are out to get you and there’s literally a skeleton in your closet!”
“Tanya,” he said the name slowly, his face completely unreadable.
I stood a little straighter and tried to access the courage that was hiding somewhere underneath all my fear. “I need to know something...actually, two things.”
He nodded but his jaw seemed to tighten.
“One, Did you sleep with her and two, did you kill her?”
He took a deep breath but he didn’t avoid my gaze. “Which one is the worse offense?”
“Just…answer the questions.”
“I didn’t even consider sleeping with her. I didn’t kill her either but I wasn’t all that upset to see her die.”
“Wow.” I sat down on the bed and stared at the floor. Was that the answer I had wanted? “I have another question.”
He sat down on the bed next to me. “Go ahead.”
“Do I know who you are?” The question came out as little more than a whisper.
He grasped my chin and guided my face in his direction. In a voice that was rich with both pain and warmth he said, “Yes.”
With his free hand he pushed my hair from my face and for the first time I realized that he was fighting back tears. “I thought they had you,” he whispered. “When Tanya led me to that room and you weren’t there…just a man with a gun…I thought I was too late.”
“It wasn’t my room! I…wait, there was a man with a gun?”
“He showed up a few minutes after I got there…by then Tanya already had me at gunpoint.”
“She…” my voice faded off as I tried to make sense of what he was telling me. “The guy with the gun,” I said slowly, “is he the one who shot Tanya?”
“No, Natasha did that.”
“Your wife shot Tanya?”
Anatoly nodded. “She saved my life.”
And just like that he had killed the mood. Again I pulled away and stood up. “I have spent the last eighteen hours or so freaking out! “ I snapped. “First I see you with some playmate from hell then I go up to what I think is your room and find her dead in a closet filled with my stuff! Then I’m harassed by your wife and the GM of that stupid hotel—“
“Wait,” Anatoly reached out and grabbed my arm. “What GM?”
“That can not be the thing you’re focusing on!” I yanked my arm away. “Your wife shot your bimbo in the head in a room that was registered under your girlfriend’s name! Do you have any idea how fucked up that is? I mean even a US Congressman couldn’t come up with something this deranged! Do you get that? I mean for God’s sake, Anatoly, the only reason I came to this stupid city was to buy a vibrator!”
Anatoly cocked his head to the side. “Are you talking about that trade show? The minute we hit a bump in our relationship you go shopping for sex toys?”
“We didn’t hit a bump. I kicked you out of my life!”
“I was worried that you might find some guy to have rebound sex with. But instead you went shopping for a vibrator. That’s…” he paused as he searched for the appropriate word, “sweet.”
“Getting it on with a vibrator is sweet?”
“It means you’re still thinking of me and that another man can’t replace me.”
“What the fuck are you talking about? It means you can be replaced by a dildo.”
“No woman uses a vibrator without conjuring up an accompanying fantasy.” He stood up and brushed my cheek with the back of his hand. “What’s your fantasy?”
“It doesn’t involve you, that for sure. If anything it involves Ryan Gosling and an octopus-shaped bath toy with eight functioning tentacles.”
Anatoly laughed and I was immediately reminded of how much I loved that sound.
“I missed you,” he said quietly. “I really…I really thought I had lost you.”
I pressed my lips together as the tears broke free again. I wanted to kill him…but…but I was so incredibly relieved that no one else had. I reached out and pressed my palm against his chest. “This is real.” I looked up into his eyes and I could see that he was losing his battle against tears too. “I take it back,” I said, desperately trying to keep my voice steady. “I don’t want Ryan Gosling, or the dildo or even the octopus. I just want you.”
He pulled me to him and his mouth crushed against mine. I felt his arms surround me and there was no space between us anymore. Every part of me was responding to him and I could feel his desire literally growing and pressing up against me. I felt a surge of power. He wanted me. He had risked his very life to be here with me. “Are we in danger?” I gasped.
“I’ll protect you.” His voice was slightly muffled by the shirt I was pulling off him. God, his abs were as perfectly sculpted as ever. Before I met Anatoly I hadn’t even known there were straight men who had abs like his!
“But aren’t you in danger too?” I breathed as his lips moved down my neck.
He pulled away slightly, pulled my shirt over my head and took my face in his hands. “You’re worth the risk.”
It was a stupid risk to take. We were waving a red flag in front of a bull; risking our very lives.
And I loved every second of it.
I sucked in a sharp breath as his fingers unclasped my bra.
He pulled the bra from me and gently ran his thumbs over my nipples. “I was so worried I would never feel you again,” he murmured. Without a word I slipped my hand down to the front of his pants.
My fingers fumbled with the button of his jeans and I felt him, hard and perfect, no batteries needed.
I let my fingers trace his ridges and tip and felt him harden more still. “I want to feel you too…inside me, Anatoly. Right now.”
And just like that, we were on the bed again. I could barely feel the sheets beneath me. All I could feel was him. He pulled my jeans off and my panties went off with them. I moaned as he touched me. His fingers toyed with me until I could barely contain myself.
“More,” I breathed. “I need all of you.”
He removed his hand and I gasped again as I felt his weight on top of me…
…and when he entered me my world exploded.
I dug my fingernails into his back. I didn’t care if Anatoly had five friggin’ wives. I didn’t care if he had a harem! I was never letting him go again!
“I love you.”
He breathed those words into my ear and I tried to respond in kind but I couldn’t speak. All I c
ould do was be here feeling this. I wrapped my legs around him as he moved over me and raised my hips to meet him. I scratched up his back as he sped up his rhythm. No one would be able to look at him shirtless without knowing he was mine. He continued to run his hands over my face, my breasts, the curve of my waist. He bit down gently on my lower lip all the while pushing further and further inside of me with increasing force until he finally pushed the words up through my throat and I was able to say, “I love you too.”
And that’s when I felt him come inside me, my body immediately reacting with an orgasm all its own.
We lay there, breathless and sweaty, too tired to move.
It was perfect.
CHAPTER 10
“I promised myself I wouldn’t sleep with more than ten people in my lifetime. It works for me because I keep going back and sleeping with my ex-boyfriends.”
--Death Of The Party
It took a few minutes before reality sneaked back into the room. I stared at the ceiling trying so hard to focus on nothing but the feeling of the man next to me. But the reality had a sense of urgency to it and it smelled of fear.
“They’re watching me.” I said quietly. “Natasha’s tracked me down twice and there are others…I don’t know who they are but I can sense them.”
“You don’t have to worry about Natasha and those others don’t know I’m here,” he said. He turned on his side and stared down at me. “But you’re right, they have been watching you. That’s why you have to go back to San Francisco.”
“They won’t watch me in San Francisco?” I asked incredulously. “You know, they were in my house. They took my computer…with my manuscript on it, Anatoly. I don’t know if I can really hide from these guys.”
Anatoly swore under his breath. “I was at your place several hours before I got on the plane to get here. They must have come in right after I left.”
I paused for a second. “You realize that you’re confessing to breaking into my house, right?”
“For over a year it’s been my home too,” he countered and then after a moment added, “You had already boxed up a bunch of my stuff. Clothes, books…”
“I did”
“There were some books I couldn’t find. Like my books on soccer--”
“That’s because I donated a lot of your books to the library the day after you left.”
Anatoly squeezed his eyes closed. “Did you? That’s great. What library?”
“The one by the Civic Center.”
I smiled to myself as he cursed in Russian. I hadn’t actually donated them although I had thought about it. I had even put them in a box marked, “library” and stored them in the garage. I knew how much Anatoly loved his books and I had wanted to hurt him…more to the point, I had wanted to get all the things that helped define him out of my line of sight. He had hurt me.
And now I had opened my arms to him again and made myself vulnerable despite the hell he had put me through.
The least I could do is let him stress about his books for a day or two.
“What else did they take?” He asked.
“Just my storage discs.”
“What about your MacBook?”
“I have it with me.”
“OK, you can leave it here for them to take. Then everything will be good.”
“Good? Then I won’t have any copies of my work! I’m two thirds through the book! That’s 280 pages of bad Anatoly!”
“Save it on Google Docs. If they know they have everything that you can store an electronic file on they probably won’t be back to your home.”
“What are they looking for?”
“Evidence,” he said with a sigh. He sat up and rested his back against the wooden headboard. “Working for the mafia…it’s not the kind of job you can just walk away from. I had to prove my loyalty and prove that I could keep my mouth shut.”
“And they weren’t convinced of that?”
“They were convinced. But for some reason they’ve changed their mind. All these years I’ve been silent. I have information that could be catastrophic for them if I shared it with the wrong people.”
“So why do they think you’re going to start talking after all these years?”
“It might not be them…not entirely.”
“We’re dealing with the mafia and…and then some? Who else?”
Anatoly tightened his arm around me. “It doesn’t really matter. What matters is that there are people who know I have damning information. They know there’s a chance I’ve stored it in some kind of written or electronic medium. Once they have that all they have to do to suppress the information is kill me.”
I sat up next to him. His eyes wandered down to my bare breasts and I snatched up the sheet and used it to cover myself. “Stay focused! If these guys can assure themselves that you don’t have any files on them then they can kill you…and you want me to leave them my MacBook? Are you suffering from a head injury? Let them think there’s a file!”
“If they think there’s a file they will either come after you because they’ll suspect you can lead them to it, or they’ll come after you to make me tell them where it is.”
“Anatoly--“
“I’ll do what I can to get your stuff back…but Sophie you have to go back to San Francisco. They have to think we’re completely through with one another. Otherwise they’ll use you to get to me.”
I shook my head, refusing to accept that. “What was the deal with Tanya?”
Anatoly sighed and rested his hand on my thigh. Although the sheet kept our skin from actually touching I could still feel the warmth of his palm. Again I shook my head. I would stay focused even if it took every last bit of will power I possessed.
“Tanya had a crush on me while I was with Natasha,” Anatoly explained. “I thought I could get her to help me and lead me to you. But apparently she was still bitter that I rejected her back in the day.”
“So she tried to kill you.”
“She has a tendency to overreact.”
I glanced at the open door that connected my room to Dena or Marcus’. Either of them could walk in at any minute. “But was this all her plan?” I asked rushing my words together. “Is she the one who made the mob lose faith in you?”
“No, she just agreed to lead me into a trap. She was never a big planner.”
“Anatoly, we may not have much time,” I said. “Tell me now what the evidence is that they’re looking for.”
Anatoly hesitated. “I don’t want to lie to you any more.”
I smiled wryly. “It’s nice to know we can still agree on something.”
He nodded and pulled me back toward him so that my head was resting on his shoulder. I waited for him to say more. He didn’t.
“Wait a minute,” I said slowly, “you don’t want to lie to me so as an alternative you’re just going to stop talking?”
“If I tell you more it’ll put you in danger. Like I said, they know what they’re looking for isn’t in your house, so if they think I’m out of your life they’ll leave you alone.”
“Yeah but the problem is, you’re not out of my life. You’re not even out of my bed.”
Anatoly was quiet for a moment. He shifted his body toward mine and let his fingers run over my now tangled hair. “You’re beautiful.”
I liked that. It was so much better than, you look beautiful. No, with Anatoly my beauty was a state of being that couldn’t be disturbed by bloodshot eyes or a tangled nest of hair. I tilted my head toward him and smiled up into his eyes. “Tell me what you’re going to do. I promise not to get mad.”
He kissed me gently. “I’m going to have to be with Natasha for a while.”
I slapped him across his stupid face.
He rubbed his cheek which was now bright red. “I thought you weren’t going to get mad.”
“Well gee, I guess you’re not the only person who can break a promise! You can NOT go back to Natasha!”
“Sophie, if the mob thinks th
at torturing someone I love will get them what they want that’s what they’ll do.”
“Sooo....you’re going back to Natasha so they’ll torture her?” Suddenly his plan sounded a lot more appealing. I mean I didn’t want them pulling her fingernails out or anything but a little Chinese water torture never killed anyone.
“They won’t torture Natasha because of who she’s related to. But she might be able to help me convince some key players that I’m not as dangerous as they think I am. And if she can’t she might at least be able to help me kill the individuals leading the crusade against me.”
“You’re planning on a murder?”
“It’ll be self-defense.”
“And Tanya? Did Natasha kill her in self-defense too?”
“Tanya had a gun so yes, you could make a case for it.”
“You could make a case for it? The woman was stuffed in a closet with a bullet in her head! I’m not sure this is one of those times when we should be coloring things in shades of grey!”
“I don’t think Natasha needed to kill her.” Each of Anatoly’s words were carefully measured. “She could have shot her in the leg or the shoulder and Natasha’s a good enough marksman to have done that. But still, she saw the gun in Tanya’s hand and she had to make a snap decision. If she hadn’t of shot Tanya I might not have been able to get away.”
I hesitated a moment as I turned this over in my mind. The last thing I wanted was to be indebted to Natasha. “What happened after you left the hotel room?”
“The less you know the better.”
“Perfect,” I said flatly. “So you’re leaving?”
“For a while, yes.”
“And you want me to go back to San Francisco.”
“On the next plane.”
“And if I do you’ll be able to defeat the Russian mafia.”
He hesitated at that. “I might be able to get out of this without anyone important getting hurt.”
“And who are these important people? You’re an important person, right?”
“Sophie—”
“And what are you going to do with Natasha while you’re with her?”
