by Harlem Dae
Oh, the fantasies I weaved.
A melody chirruped. The Albino reached into his pocket and produced a phone. He looked at the screen as he rose. “Stay.”
I would usually have retorted that I wasn’t a dog but refrained. My sarcasm seemed to have deserted me, and all that was left was the beginnings of the basic me. This episode was stripping me down to the bare bones, and I wasn’t sure I liked it. Hiding behind masks had been the basis of my whole adult life—removing them was hard going.
He vacated the room, returning with not only my handbag but an armful of my clothing. “Everything that is yours has been collected.” He dropped them onto the table, barely missing my cup, which threatened to topple over.
I reached out for my handbag, settling it on my lap. “Thank you.”
If Sutton realised what was going on, would he have put a tracker in here?
I could only hope so, yet at the same time I wanted him out of the picture. The Albino was the one I needed to be with in order to protect Guilia. Sutton had no such intent as far as I knew, and he didn’t even know she needed protection. Or maybe he did and didn’t care to tell me. Or just didn’t care full stop.
I didn’t like that thought.
To distract myself, I stared at my clothes, mentally counting each item. Yes, it was all there, so whoever had collected them had been thorough—and had had time to do so. Why hadn’t Sutton heard the Harley as we’d driven off? Was he still roaming about outside Father’s house, trying to complete his non-existent errand? Or was he inside, wondering where the hell I’d gone? Or, more disturbingly, was he…?
No, he’s not dead. He’s too clever. He’ll come and find me.
“Your man is all right,” the Albino said. “He was last seen outside the property, scratching his head.” A small smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “Probably wondering how you escaped when he had locked you inside.”
“Why didn’t he hear your bike? I heard it but thought it was lawn mower.”
“Perhaps he assumed it was another visitor.” He sipped his tea, boldly staring at me.
“You know about them?”
“Yes. Someone has been watching. Your father needs to scale back his…fingers in pies, isn’t that what you say?”
“Something like that.” I smiled.
“Too many fingers has resulted in this.” He gestured to me. “Us, here. I should be on a beach somewhere, but instead I have been called from my holidays to work. I do not mind helping you, but I do mind the fingers in pies. They disrupt things.”
“Yes, it seems they do. I’m not particularly fond of them at the moment, I can assure you. I also should be on a beach somewhere, or better still, sourcing product for my new business, not holed up inside a wooden cabin.”
“A metal cabin.”
“What?”
“The wood is just a façade. It is steel lined. This place is used by people who…really must not be harmed. It has to be safe.”
The idea that I was sitting in a steel box brought on the jitters. Who the hell needed to build such a property—and what kind of people were they?
“Your boss,” I said. “Does he help many people?”
“Yes, but only if he is paid a handsome price and he deems that they deserve it.”
“And who is paying this handsome price?”
“That is not for me to know.” He shrugged.
He didn’t have a clue and neither did he particularly care, I could see it in his strange eyes. “And I deserve it, do I? I’m considered worthy of protection?”
“Yes. You are an innocent woman. My boss is a man who makes things happen that are not always…within the law, but he is a good man. No women or children hurt, that is his rule, you understand?”
“I understand.” That was something in my favour, then.
“Unless, of course, the woman has fingers in pies.”
Chapter Eighteen
The steel-box cabin heated while the next hour passed; my clothes clung to my skin, and my hair to my nape.
“Is there no damn air conditioning in here?” I muttered, fanning my face with a copy of a Harley magazine that had been lying on the table.
“Probably.”
“Well, should we find it? Aren’t you boiling?”
“I do not like the sun, but I like the heat very much.”
“This isn’t heat, this is suffocation.” I stood and grimaced, my jeans sticking to the crease of my arse and the embedded glass nipping at my heel.
“I grew up in Siberia. Heat was expensive and rare. My mother used to say, ‘Kolya, when you find warmth take it right to your bones and keep it there for as long as you can’.” He nodded seriously.
“That’s your name? Kolya?”
He nodded.
“Well, Kolya, I’m sure that advice is all fine and dandy living in the tundra, but it doesn’t wash in Florida.” Moving carefully around the room, I scanned the wall for a control panel. Nothing, though there were a few vents low down which gave me hope. I headed into the hallway, exploring as I went. Ah, there was something promising.
Set flush from the sickly green painted wall was a white dial with a glass screen. I flicked it on, set the temperature at eighteen, and hit the small red button.
An ominous clanking sound came from a cupboard to my right, then a low hum. Within seconds, a cool breeze hit my bare feet. “Oh, thank God for that.” I pushed strands of hair from my face. The relief at knowing our oven-house would soon be bearable washed over me. “Have you got some tweezers?” I called.
“What?”
I started. Kolya was right next to me. I hadn’t heard him move—he was like some kind of ghost and not just because he was so pale. “Tweezers, you know.” I made a pincer movement with my fingers. “To get this bloody bit of glass out of my foot.”
“No tweezers, but I have this.” He produced a small chrome contraption from his pocket, flicked a switch on the side, and released a slim, shiny knife.
“I don’t want my foot chopped off,” I said. “Just the glass out.”
“I will do it.”
“I don’t think so…not with that.”
His suggestion was very unappealing.
He shrugged. “It will only take a minute. This knife has dug out bullets in the past. It is an efficient tool. Very sharp, too.”
I accidently put pressure on my heel and winced. That damn bit of glass needed to come out, and soon. I couldn’t think straight with it nagging away in there.
“Here,” he said, pushing open a door on his right. “Lie down.”
I looked into the shadowed room. A double bed with plain white sheets was flush against the wall. The only other piece of furniture was a long dark dresser on the opposite side to the bed.
“I’m sure I can just sit on the chair out there.” And when had I agreed to him digging it out, anyway?
“No, face down is best for your heel. I can see it properly.” He pressed his hand into the small of my back and urged me into the room.
I glanced at the knife again then tiptoed along in a half hobble. “Were the bullets in you? You know, the ones that thing has dug out?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
He set the knife on the bed—it looked extra lethal on the virginal white sheet—and turned on a small spotlight. “Here.” He gripped the base of his top and dragged it up and off.
I stared at his colorless chest. He had a scribble of the palest blond sternal hair, and his nipples were such a delicate shade of pink they almost blended in with the rest of his skin. But his muscles, rippling beneath the surface… There was nothing insipid about them. Kolya was ripped, the kind of man who clearly had every inch of his body honed and toned to the best it could be.
A shiver of desire went through me, and heat that had nothing to do with the air around me slewed through my system.
“Got slugged in the arm,” he said, twisting a little and showing me a raised scar on his right biceps. “And here.”
He turned, indicating another dented welt on his back. “Missed my kidney, just.”
“Oh, that’s good then,” I said. “That it missed your kidney.” I’d never seen a bullet scar before.
“It would have been better not to get shot.” He huffed.
“Who shot you?”
“I do not know.”
“You don’t know. Damn, if I ever got shot I’d want to know who bloody well did it.”
“I was at work. Part of the job.”
God, I’ve heard that before.
“Treacherous job you do, Kolya. I hope they pay you danger money.”
He faced me again and inclined his head slightly. “It pays the bills.”
“And did you always want to have a job where getting shot, stealing rich girls, and worrying about fingers in pies filled your days? Was that your ambition as a child?”
“Let us just say I fell into it.”
“Fell into what exactly?”
He smiled. “You ask a lot of questions.”
“That’s because no one tells me anything.”
“I have told you what you need to know. Probably more than your man Sutton did.”
“He wouldn’t tell me anything.”
“So…” He nodded at the bed. “That proves that you are now in the right place, here with me.”
I wanted to believe him, really I did. And part of me was invested in his words. Sutton had hidden Guilia’s pictures from me, Kolya wanted to protect her. Sutton had clamped up when I’d asked him anything, Kolya’s tongue seemed looser.
But who was paying Kolya’s boss? And why? I was in no doubt that these services didn’t come cheap. What benefit to them was saving a little girl and a sex-crazed rich girl?
I turned and lay face down on the bed, my spine sagging on the soft mattress.
He seized my ankle, holding it steady, and I squeezed my eyes shut, preparing for the discomfort of having glass gouged from my foot.
He fiddled, the scratch of the knife an unrelenting sting.
I screwed the sheets into my fists and gritted my teeth.
His breath washed over my sole.
My pulse thudded against his hand as he gripped my lower leg. It seemed to flow upwards, that pulse, to the back of my knee, my thigh, then between my legs.
Need suddenly swarmed through my pelvis, and I surged my mound into the bed, gaining some stimulation on my clit.
“Keep still.”
I groaned, hoping he’d think it was pain and not the fact that I was turned on by his hold on me. It was ridiculous to be wanting sex right now, when a knife probed my flesh.
I froze, caught the air deep in my lungs. Fuck. That had hurt.
A tiny ting: metal blade on glass.
“Ah,” he said. “One…more…got it.”
“Ow, fuck.” It stung like buggery for a split second then it was suddenly gone. Just a bruised ache lingered.
“Nasty,” he said.
I twisted onto my front. He was holding the blade aloft as though examining the foreign object he’d just retrieved from my body.
“Here.” He pulled a tissue from his pocket and passed it to me. “Should not bleed much.”
“Good.” I crossed my ankle on my knee and examined the wound in my heel. It was only small and thankfully not gushing blood. I dabbed it then rested my foot on the floor, tissue beneath.
When I straightened, I realized my face was level with Kolya’s groin. A long wedge of flesh strained at the material of his trousers, the outline of an erection evident.
Bloody hell, is he turned on, too?
He set the knife on the dresser, not having to step away to do so.
I looked up at him.
This man before me could be my treasure chest. If I got close, would he reveal even more? I needed to know who his boss was. What pies my father was fiddling with. Where Guilia was, and what I needed to do to protect her.
Protect her. That urge was stronger than anything I’d ever felt before. Even when in the past I’d been insane with the need to fuck, nothing had gripped me with such sure fastness as my desire to safeguard my child.
And nothing would prevent me doing so.
Nothing.
I stared up at Kolya.
He was staring down at me, his pale face set serious and his watery blue eyes burning into mine.
I swallowed and reached for the button on his trousers.
He remained utterly still as I released it then pushed them down to his thighs.
I took that as a good sign, his stillness.
Tugging at the waistband of his boxers, I wondered if his cock would be the same icy shade as the rest of him.
I soon discovered it was a fraction pinker, though his pubic hair was dusky cream.
Still he didn’t speak.
Neither did I.
I held him in my hand, a sense of power washing through me.
Sutton had rejected me, rejected everything I’d wanted both physically and emotionally, yet this big, unusual man, he stood before me, at my service, at my mercy.
I swiped my tongue over the tip, enjoying his snatched intake of breath.
Good, I had him.
But not quite where I wanted, not yet. And I wasn’t thinking about fucking, I was thinking about controlling him.
Opening my mouth, I let his smooth cock head travel across my tongue, all the time keeping steady eye contact. When I reached halfway down his shaft, I pressed my teeth into his flesh, gently clamping his dick between them.
“Blyad.” He gasped, spearing his fingers into my hair.
I didn’t move, kept him there, at my command, lodged between having a cock and not. I could bite, and in an instant, remove it. Harder to fix than a few bullets in his flesh.
“Oh, my God,” he said, fear flashing through his eyes and his fingers tightening on my scalp.
I stretched my lips into a grin, relaxed my jaw and sank deep, treating him to a slow glide to the back of my throat.
He relaxed a fraction, but tension still vibrated from him. As I drew back up, I was aware of his hands beneath my arms, tugging me.
Suddenly I was on the bed, face down. He was tearing at my jeans, yanking them down my legs.
I giggled into the covers. He’d lost it. He needed to bury deep, and for me, the sooner he did the better. Alberto had been fun on day two in St Lucia and so had Nathan on day nine but Sutton had created a frustrating friction inside me that needed hammering into oblivion.
I wriggled out of my T-shirt, tossed it aside, then quickly lost my bra. By the time I’d done that, Koyla had me naked.
“Like this.” He held my hips and dragged me to all fours.
In one sharp, violent plunge, he entered me.
“Ahh…” I yelped, loving the desperate, animalistic way he’d taken me. “Yes. More.”
He gave it, pulling away, thrusting in, his taut belly slapping into my buttocks.
My breasts swayed. He shunted me up the bed then dragged me back onto him with each lunge. I hugged him with my internal muscles, knowing a good, deep orgasm was building. Panting, I let bliss take hold, pour out of me, gushing through my veins and contracting my spine. He gripped my hair, wrapped an arm beneath my waist, and sank his teeth into my shoulder.
He came—three fierce shudders combined with powerful shoves.
I groaned, sensations a fire-storm over my nerves.
And then he flopped to the side, his chest rising and falling rapidly and sweat sparkling on his skin.
My limbs gave up, and I hit the bedcovers, my cheek against the ball of his shoulder.
“Do you always…fuck like that?” I asked breathlessly.
“Sounded that…you were happy…with how I fuck.”
“Yes, it was good.” Hell, my pussy was still trembling with the aftershocks of my climax.
“Do you always threaten to bite dicks off?”
“I was playing.” I shrugged.
“You were being a…how do they say…a bitch.
”
“No.” I was hurt by that. “I was teasing you, that’s all. Don’t Russians tease?”
“Tease is a joke?”
“Yes, sort of.”
“For a man, getting their dick bitten off is never a joke.”
I chuckled and rubbed my hand over the sore spot on my shoulder. “You bit me.”
“Revenge.” He swatted my arse.
“Ow.” I twitched.
“Behave, little one, we have work to do.”
“What do you mean ‘work’?”
He twisted and propped his cheek on his palm, still breathing fast. “We must go to Europe tomorrow.”
“Europe?” To Austria? To Guilia? “Why?”
“It is where we need to be.”
“Says who?”
“My boss deems it necessary.” His frown deepened.
“Who is your boss?”
“His name does not matter, but he can see the big picture so we must trust his wisdom.”
“Trust. That word gets banded about like it costs ten a penny.”
“I do not know what you mean.” Again he swatted my arse.
“Hey, you stop that.”
“Why? I like it.”
“Hitting women?”
“No, playing with you, it is a long time since…”
“You fucked?”
“Yes.”
“Why is that?”
“I don’t have time for a wife with this job.”
I hesitated. I needed to think carefully about my next question. Pillow talk was all well and good, but my story was moving along now, and I needed to keep it that way. “So these men who are putting me and Guilia in such grave danger, they are doing business with my father?”
“Yes, and if they have you, and your daughter, they have control over your father and that business.” He unfolded his long frame from the bed and stood. “They want control over that business very much, I believe.”
“What is this business exactly?”
“How would I know?”
