His woozy smile made her heart flutter. “I’m not that easy to get rid of,” he told her sleepily, his eyes already beginning to close.
Madison squeezed his hand. “If you’re up to it, maybe I will give you one of those awesome massages when you get out of here.”
“Promises, promises,” he squeezed her hand back as his eyes dropped closed and he drifted off to sleep.
She watched him sleep, tenderly brushing his hair back off of his forehead, marveling at all that had happened. Not only was she finally safe from Vincent’s obsession with her, but she had this amazing man who had guarded her life, who had ensured her safety, and who now held her heart…
Russian Heat
A thunderous explosion rocked the snow-dotted mountains, the blast jerking Jane Ransom’s head up from the hypodermic she held poised.
As the rumble echoed across the mountains and shook the dirt under her feet, shale and pebbles slid down the incline and cloven hooves scrabbled around her, raising a cloud of dust. Panicked fleeces flashed by, a blur in her peripheral vision as the ewe between her knees began to struggle, joining in the nervous bleat of the flock.
Tightening her aching legs around its girth, she locked the bicep turning its head at a thirty degree angle and held on long enough to finish swabbing the puncture site and collect her blood sample.
Her back twinged as she freed the ewe and straightened, the ripe smell of lanolin-rich wool fading from her nostrils.
Her hundredth customer done and dusted, despite the half-hearted shelling rattling the Vodsk Pass all day. Another hundred samples and she could confirm the epidemic pathogen type in these parts.
Adrenalin from her struggle with the ewe kept charging through her veins, addling her brain and making her slow to notice the way Vlad had raised his rifle and Slava was scoping the west ridge with binoculars. Hired guns they might be, but their training and instincts were excellent, and she’d learned to pay attention when they paid attention. And follow orders. Like the one Slava issued now. He eyed her and pointed at the all-terrain vehicle in a familiar grating gesture.
Muttering, she stashed her blood-filled vacutainer in her storage box, grabbed her sharps bucket and high-tailed it to the safety of the armour-plated Zhiguli.
Yuri sat behind the wheel, a battered, hand-rolled smoke dangling from his lower lip. His rollie filled the car with tobacco fumes pungent enough to make diving back out into the war zone a temptation. Barely eighteen, downy fluff coated his top lip and he swam inside his body armour, unlike the two men backing toward her with rifle points raised.
Viacheslav Alexandrovich Vlasov and Vladislav Ivanovich Markov. When she’d first heard their names she thought she’d have to call them V1 and V2, then she’d heard them call each other Slava and Vlad and had stuck with that. The two were military through and through, cocky from boot tip to brush cut, their good looks a warning shot to celibacy. She’d bet her last vacutainer that they’d left a trail of broken hearts all the way from Vladivostok to St. Petersburg. One look at her appointed hostile environment consultants and she’d realised that hob-nobbing through the Caucasus Mountains sampling animals for anthrax and other diseases would be the least dangerous part of her job.
As she shed her body armour and helmet behind the car door, Vlad sank to kneel beside her, rifle point angled at the west ridge. Her heart did a lazy flip-flop because she knew what he would say next--what he always said when it was time to get back in the car.
“ Sandwich time, Jane.”
Oh God.
Her treacherous nipples hardened and she wished she’d kept her body armour on in spite of the sweat trickling down her back.
It was that deep as sin voice with its edge of Russian accent that got to her, had her steeling her nerves to meet Vlad’s glinting grey eyes as coolly as possible just to show how not turned on she was.
“I stink of sheep, sure you don’t want to drive?’ she asked. To her surprise and gratitude, her voice emerged rock steady. She’d missed her calling as an actress.
“Nice try. In.”
Swallowing hard, she dropped her vest and helmet on the front seat and wriggled across the vinyl seat to the middle, clutching her samples and sharps bucket. She eyed the equipment piled up on the passenger seat next to Yuri with suspicion. Vlad said it was the safest place to load equipment in the car but a part of her suspected it was all part of a conspiracy to prevent her riding shotgun and spoiling their fun. As a joke, it was the sort of thing her brothers in Australia would do and it gave her a pang of homesickness.
Vlad unclipped the web straps of his thigh-holster. After a day of wearing body armour, Jane understood the need for one. Body armour made reaching for anything around the waist difficult.
Placing his holster on the front seat, Vlad slid in next to her, forced to hunch and twist his tall frame to avoid hitting his head on the roof or digging the vest into his neck when he raised his knees. Of the two men, Vlad was the more relaxed, occasionally shouldering his weapon to help her pin a reluctant animal, claiming to be a sheep-whisperer and other such nonsense. Vlad’s presence was no joke now, though, as the heat of his hard thigh seared hers, and his bicep hovered a warm inch from her cheek, tying her stomach into a bundle of nervous lust.
Slava’s fatigue-clad rear appeared at the other door, tight and tempting, a black pistol holster cinched mid-thigh on one leg, a thigh rig on the other. Dropping both rig and holster to pass to Yuri, he ducked into the back seat with fluid grace, rifle barrel all the time pointed westwards. Bang up beside her, hemming her in without a pocket of air for escape, he adjusted his rifle. His elbow brushed her breast and she flinched. Where Vlad was tall and lean, Slava was a six-foot tank of muscle and shared none of his comrade’s easy-going nature or ready humour. He thumped the Zhiguli’s roof and they began to roll downhill, pebbles crunching under the tyres, doors still open. As they passed a bend in the road, each man pulled their rifle in and slammed the door shut.
And there they were, Vlad on her left, Slava on her right, hard bodies sandwiching hers in the Zhiguli. She felt her skin begin to slowly ignite.
Don’t fuck the security .
It had become a mantra, the subject of a complex catechism she rehearsed daily to fight the erotic by-product of hours spent pressed against hot Russian muscle while bumping along dirt roads from one oblast to the next. After a month she was worn but still hanging in there, gripping by her fingertips to good sense above the yawning chasm of libido below her dangling feet.
“Jane,” Slava’s English wasn’t as good as Vlad’s and his mouth softly twisted the initial consonant of her name. “Next time there’s shelling, leave the ovtsa and get in the car bistri.”
The mix of Russian and English told her Slava was pissed, as did the narrowing of his hazel eyes. An extra level of tension was moulded around his solid neck, and she wondered what change he sensed in the air.
“Something different about today’s shelling?” she asked. The rumble of shells and ping of bullets was ever-present, part of the scenery, not reason enough to keep her from stemming a livestock epidemic that could blight the region’s livelihood for years, starving civilians and soldiers alike.
The slight flare of Slava’s nostrils reminded her he was not a fan of being questioned. “No ask, just do.”
There it was, the obnoxious, chest-thumping attitude that stirred snakes in her breast and steeled her resolve not to succumb to temptation. She caught Vlad’s grin at the exchange, the lop-sided twist of his lips sweet enough to cajole a scud out of exploding, his smoky grey eyes filled with such sinful amusement her body clenched in need.
Damn them both to hell, and this stupid car. She’d ride on the roof rack before she’d do anything as stupid as get involved with two armed danger-addicts. At thirty-two, she was old enough to keep a lid on her hormones and her legs firmly closed. Still, it was good to have Yuri in the front as chaperone. Just in case.
~* * *~
Caged in the stuffy confines of the car, Yur
i’s noxious cigarette smoke embedded in the vinyl seats and the upholstery of his lungs, Slava could at least enjoy the way Jane’s back stiffened at his words. Like he’d goosed her, and since he could only fantasise what it would be like to get a hand on one of her pert round globes and gently pinch the firm flesh between finger and thumb, any strong reaction he wrung from her was profoundly satisfying.
Viacheslav “Slava” Vlasov had been prepared not to like the Australian Government veterinarian. He was not a bigot. His country’s mix of Russians, Germans, Ukrainians, Tatars, Chuvashi and other minorities was fine by him. But what limited interaction he’d had with westerners had not impressed him. Many of the men, including foreign aid workers, dripped with entitlement and a sense of superiority, despite being quick to succumb to the lure of bargain basement prostitutes.
He’d predicted the Australian woman vet would be the same minus, perhaps, the taste for prostitutes. Instead he’d met a five-foot-nothing unbreakable wisp, quietly wilful and unrelentingly dedicated to her work. For a month she’d let nothing keep her from grabbing this or that animal and extracting blood, strands of long blonde hair escaping her helmet while her face reddened with exertion despite the autumn air.
Vlad sometimes teased her that she was a blood-thieving vampire, but Slava pictured her a blue-eyed, flaxen-haired rusalka, at home in watery depths or combing her hair by a river as she waited to tempt men to their deaths. With his thigh and arm pressing her soft curves, his nose twitching inches away from her silky tumble of pale hair, he counted himself among the tempted.
He listened with half an ear as she parried Vlad’s suggestive comments using a laugh and a throw-away line or telling dirty jokes to deflect his attention. She maintained a well-fortified wall around herself, keeping the perimeter of her inner sanctum tightly guarded, but she didn’t fool Slava. Underneath her cool defences smouldered a passionate soul and each time she ignored shelling and storms to fill her vacutainers, she betrayed that hidden intensity, along with her courage.
It had been a long time since he’d respected a woman, but he respected this one. Respected her too much to casually tap her on the shoulder and ask for a fuck so that he could work off the desperate edge her mere presence sharpened in him.
Despite her brush-offs, Vlad continued to needle and dig at her, displaying a dedication he usually reserved for work. Four weeks of perseverance told him Vlad was smitten. As did the moments when Vlad dropped his seduction patter long enough to listen to her stories about working in Papua New Guinea . Conversation did not rate high on Vlad’s list of things to do with women he fancied.
They slowed to pass a flock of goats being herded by two shepherds with dogs, and a quiver at his side betrayed Jane’s eagerness to sample.
He shook his head. “Not here. Sniper paradise.”
“Bloody snipers,” she complained. She had not been a happy camper since Vlad had implemented his brilliant idea of stowing extra gear in the front seat next to Yuri and explaining that she should sit between them “for her safety.” Vlad’s playful duplicity coaxed a rare smile from him but it was Vlad’s self-imposed torture that threatened to tug a belly-laugh from him. When the little rusalka crept into bed at night he had no doubt she fell asleep immediately, whereas poor Vlad and he had to spar, work out, find some privacy and then wash with melted snow before they found any sleep—if they were lucky.
Vlad was his own worst enemy, spinning lurid fantasies of sharing Jane as they’d once shared a woman in Moscow . How would Jane react to that? Would she go off like a firecracker under their hands or surrender sweetly and beg for more? The relationship in Moscow felt a lifetime ago, and he and Vlad yearned to recapture that three-way heaven, felt the pain of knowing that while they were wired that way, they were unlikely to find a mate to meet their needs.
Vlad recounted one of his nonsense red army stories and Slava took a long pull from the water flask at his hip. Always this damn thirst at high altitude.
“Karpovskiy,” Yuri announced as they entered the township.
Slava eyed the scarred remains of rendered concrete, sagging cables, burnt-out high-rises and bullet-pocked walls. Against the grander scale of ugliness, little things like broken glass, rubbish and dog shit were hardly noticeable. They drove past a chemical factory oozing by-products over food shops. It reminded him a little of his own village, where his immediate family had met early, unnatural deaths.
Yuri braked at the front of an apartment block and Slava motioned for Jane to stay put, ensured Vlad was paying attention instead of flirting, and got out of the car. The instant burn in his eyes told him they were downwind from the chemical factory. Pretending to fuss with his jacket and hair, he quickly scanned the block.
Normal street activity, not too many people, not too few. No one paying too much attention and no military-aged men just standing around holding their dicks and waiting for trouble. He searched the rooftops. Nothing there.
He went over to the apartment and buzzed unit number eighteen. While he waited, he noted the missing fire extinguishers and empty light fittings sprouting wires.
“Anna zdyes.” The woman’s voice crackled through the intercom.
“You have two rooms for three people?” he asked in Russian. Yuri slept with the car and the rifles; otherwise, there would be no car and rifles in the morning.
“One room with one bed.”
Ah, fuck.
He looked over at the car.
~* * *~
Slava and Vlad, weapons concealed in their packs, both headed for the stairwell and stared at her when she pointed out the lift.
“Deathtrap,” Vlad said.
Of course. Feeling an idiot, she trailed them up the steps. Vlad took the stairs two at a time, easier for his long legs than trying to mince up each one. Indoors she was conscious of the ripe odour of wool grease on her jeans and pullover. Yuri’s cigarettes cancelled out her stink in the car but now she reeked worse than a yak-herder. A change of clothing was imperative. She knew better than to expect a shower, running water or reliable electricity here, though. This was her least favourite time of day, when Vlad and Slava dragged her to some appalling new hole for the night, she did her best to look unfazed and they abandoned her to take up guard duty in the next room.
Despite her aching fatigue, sometimes it took hours to fall asleep in the unfamiliar bed, irrational dread and loneliness curdling in her stomach and amplifying unfamiliar noises and smells. Tonight would be no different.
Slava found number eighteen on the third floor and knocked. She looked up and down the landing. It wasn’t dirty and there was no smell of urine or cooked cabbage, no syringes or rubbish. Someone was working hard to keep it clean. A couple doors down, a door opened a crack and Slava snaked his head around to stare at it until it eased shut. Captain Friendly, winning hearts and minds wherever he goes.
A middle-aged woman opened the door, a scarf over her raven hair. Craning her neck to look at Slava, her brown eyes widened and she took an involuntary step backwards. Slava got that a lot. Jane stepped forward.
“Dobre Dyen,” she said smiling and the woman gave her a tight smile, eyes darting warily at Slava.
“May we come in?” she asked in Russian.
The woman hesitated and Jane could tell she didn’t want to let them in. She pictured the three of them through the woman’s eyes: a short woman in dirty clothes with two tall men built for menace wearing army fatigues. Vlad’s broken slab of a nose hinted at his taste for trouble and the scar on Slava’s cheek could edge brutishly handsome into just plain frightening unless you knew him. Most people saw low, dark brows slung over a flat hazel stare that promised violence. But Jane had seen the serial-killer eyes spark with humour and, on occasion, a heat that curled her toes.
Reluctantly the woman allowed them in. As they pulled their dirt-impregnated boots off at the door, Jane looked around. There wasn’t much to the apartment; it was cold and bare, the tile floor of the lounge picnic blanket-sized. A fe
w sticks of scarred furniture collecting dust. The woman was telling her something in rapid-fire Russian but Jane couldn’t decipher the Caucasus dialect and let Vlad answer. After a brief exchange, Vlad handed over some money and the woman left. A grin stretched itself across Vlad’s handsome face.
Jane raised a brow at him. “What was that about?”
Slava opened his mouth to speak but Vlad got in first. “She’s gone to sleep with relatives so we can use her room.”
“Oh.” Now she felt as rancid as she smelled for booting the poor woman out of her own home.
As the Russians executed a secret-service style sweep of the apartment looking for who-knew-what, she wondered how many family members the woman had lost. The war here had endured long enough to claim both the best people and the worst people and everyone in between.
She went to the back room to inspect her bed for the night and froze. Instead of two makeshift rooms divided by furniture, or three cots separated by screens, was one room with a single, purple king-sized bed. The memory of Vlad’s grinning face swam by like a shark.
“Vlad!”
~* * *~
Vlad grinned at Slava. Unlike his stern friend, he loved trouble, and there was no better kind of trouble than the type that involved a petite blonde with a lovely ass, sky-blue eyes and the nerves to keep a steady hand on a hypodermic while serenaded by mortars. Besides, the fantasy of unpeeling Jane Ransom’s winter layers down to her bare, rosy skin had plagued him with a hard-on for the past month. Wasn’t it time to share some of that pain?
There was no doubt in his mind she wanted what they wanted. Sweaty and stripped down to a tee after wrestling sheep, the nipples of her firm little breasts pebbled each time she sat in the car, sooner if he teased her before they got in.
And each time they left the car, he scented the sweet perfume of arousal wafting from her, a perfume sadly obscured during the drive by Yuri’s cigarettes. Judging by some of her jokes, she had a delightfully earthy outlook on sex which he hoped extended to practice as well as theory. Most of all, he hoped she was as game in the bedroom as she was on the mountainside, willing to try new things, such as taking on two men at once.
Dangerous Men, Dangerous Places Page 11
