by Serena Vale
It was primal, instinctive. And she had learned long ago to always listen to her instincts.
Chloe leaned close, flashing a view of the top of her breast that she knew he didn’t miss as she placed her martini glass on the small side table next to him.
“So, the question is,” she flicked a look up at him through a thick fringe of dark lashes. “Why are you following me?”
He sat for a moment, just staring at her, blinking as is seeing her for the first time, and she was struck again by the honest emotion shining in his eyes. Here was a man who wasn’t afraid of his feelings. He cleared his throat before slowly replying.
“Actually, I think the question is,” he paused, taking a sip of her drink, his lips laying over the exact spot where hers had just been. It made her whole body clench in need. “What is your name?”
Chloe was so distracted by the desire rampaging through her at the simple gesture, she missed his question. “I’m sorry…what?”
He grinned at her, that same devastatingly charming grin. He knew exactly what he was doing to her, and Chloe found, she didn’t care. Slowly, achingly slow, he reached for her dark fingered hand, encompassing it in his own pale, much larger one. That touch branded her, and she had to fight the urge to pull her hand away, or run it over his hard body.
“I said, what is your name, krasivyy.”
“Chloe, my name is Chloe Smithson.” She said on a trembling breath. “And you?”
He leaned even closer, until his lips touched the edge of her ear causing an eruption of shivers across her body. “My name is Alexei Dobrovski, krasivyy.”
“What do you keep saying? Is that Russian?’
He nodded, staring at her deeply before answering. “It means ‘beautiful one’.”
Chloe’s breath stalled again in her chest as she sat back, trying to see if he was just selling her a line, but again all she saw was honesty and sincerity shining back from the endless blue depths of his eyes.
“So, what do you do, Chloe Smithson?” He reclined, throwing one powerful arm over the back of the settee, and his spell was momentarily broken, and she could breathe again.
“I’m, um, I’m an investigative journalist. I cover the the politician’s here in D.C.”
“Well, I bet there’s a lot to keep you busy here, anything interesting you’re working on?” Chloe settled easily into the familiar, and safe, topic of work. Much safer than him calling her his ‘beautiful one’.
“Not much honestly. The same old thing as always, crooked senators, and politics as usual I’m afraid.”
“Crooked senators?” he said, and he reached to take another drink from her glass. She braced herself this time, ready for her intense reaction to him.
“Yeah, nothing major, just a normal day of work for senator Shields.” She mumbled as she watched, unable to look away as he took a deep pull of the liquor. He set the glass down, and her brain returned to normal. This man really was dangerous, she thought.
“Should I order us another?” she said with a slight smirk in Alexei’s direction. He returned her smile with one of his own, a new, deeper light shining in his dark blue eyes.
“How about we get out of here?”
Chloe was already shaking her head no when he stopped her with the lightest of touches, hand to hand. It was as intense as it was unexpected.
“Please, Chloe.”
It was the please that got her, the honest desire shining in her eyes and her own body’s reaction to him had her nodding in affirmation to him before her brain had even had a chance to catch up with the rest of her. Before she knew what she was doing, she was standing, her hand still tucked firmly in his, and he was leading her outside into the cold, December’s night.
Chapter 4
They had reached the front door of his penthouse hotel room before doubts started swirling through her lust and liquor befogged mind.
“Alexei, maybe…” Her words trailed off as he looked at her. Just looked at her.
“If you have any reservations, Chloe, krasivyy, tell me now.” He dropped the softest kiss she had ever felt on her right cheek, before whispering against her cold flushed skin. “If you want to leave, that’s no problem. I’ll be sad. Very sad,” he chuckled roughly, and his breath tickled her cheek, “just say the word, and I will take you home. I might hold your hand the whole way.” He added the last part with a playful grin that eradicated any last niggling doubts. She sighed into him, running her hands up the front of his chest, twining them around his neck.
“Alexei…” She whispered up at him, twirling the hair curling softly at the nape of his neck as he looked down at her.
“Yes, krasivyy.”
“Take me inside.”
She barely had the words out of her mouth before he had the door flinging open, and was dragging her inside. Gone was the suave charmer from the club, or even the playful man from moments ago. Suddenly, Chloe felt like the man in front of her was the real Alexei, the one that always shone from the depths of his eyes. The one that always seemed to take her breath away.
They barely made it through the large double doors before his lips were fiercely on hers. Chloe absorbed the luxurious, expensive penthouse suite adorned with priceless artifacts and original paintings, but it was all gone in a flash, drowned out by him. It was overwhelming.
“Wha…Alexei…” Her words, and breath, stalled as he crowded her back up against the heavy wooden door they had just walked through. His lips suddenly on hers drove away any other thoughts in her head, until all she could do was feel. Feel the way his lips moved over hers, so much softer than she thought, and so, so much more deadly. Feel the press of his hard body against her soft, luscious curves. His hand, still holding hers, pressed her wrist against the door over her head, making her arch her back, pressing their bodies even tighter together. Heat crashed into her like a molten wave.
His lips moved incessantly over her rosy, kiss-swollen lips, over her cheek, across her jaw and latching onto her neck sending another dark wave of heat rolling threw her body, taking the last of her reservations with it. She felt like she was melting, suddenly glad for the support of the door at her back as Chloe was sure she would have been just a puddle on the floor otherwise.
Alexei inhaled deeply, taking in her scent where it was most potent, at that spot where the slope of her shoulder met the line of her delicate throat. He couldn’t contain the low growl that rumbled out of his chest at the delicious scent.
“You are so beautiful.” His rough growl whispered over her sensitive skin, making goose bumps rise where his hot breath landed just below her ear. His accent wrapped around her, sinking deep into her skin, making her squirm helplessly against his much larger body.
His shaking hands trailed fire as they swept down the outside of her still upraised arms, grazing the very edges of her breasts down the dip of her waist to settle, one on either hip. Her gripped tightly as he pulled her even closer, at the same time pressing all of himself flush against her. And it was that trembling that undid her completely.
Chloe heard his ragged, labored breath as he rested his forehead against the door beside her head, his hair tickling her cheek.
“Alexei..”
“Shhh”
“But Alexei…”
“Hush,” The word was soft, but she could sense his urgency, “just…give me a minute, krasivyy.”
But she didn’t want to give him a minute, not a single moment. She wanted him wild and out of control, thinking only of taking her, loving her, satisfying the ache that had grown to overtake every thought in her mind as she pressed impossibly close against him.
“Please, Alexei.” She pushed her hips roughly against his. “I need you.”
Her words were like a switch, and in the next instant, she was lifted in his powerful arms and being carried to another room in the maze that made up the expensive penthouse suite. The entire time he had been carrying her, his lips and hands hadn’t stopped moving, working her over until she fe
lt like a trembling mass of jelly in his strong arms.
He laid her gently in the center of the bed, standing back to look at her. But she didn’t want him to look. She needed him to act.
As seductively as she could, she bit into the soft, full bottom lip, already kiss-flushed and swollen. Thankful for the skimpy dress she was wearing, she easily found the two straps that were the only thing keeping it on her body, watching him watch her as she slowly unclasped them and slid the material apart, striping for him in the moon lit dimness of the bedroom.
It was more than he could stand, and he was on top of her the next instant, somehow shedding his shoes, pants, and shirt in the short trip from where he was standing to the bed.
“Ty moy.” he said roughly, incredibly softly against her neck. Chills rolled down her back past her spine around her hips. His hands were everywhere, touching her, feeling her, making her body erupt with a type of dark pleasure she never knew existed.
“Please, Alexei.”
He must have heard the hard urgency in her voice because the next thing she felt was his thick, hot erection pulsing against her thigh. It made her tense in pleasure, and she desperately needed him inside her. She couldn’t wait any longer.
Grabbing his strong hips with both hands, she pulled him closer to her, until he was just above her soaking entrance. But still, he waited.
“Alexei, I can’t…” She moaned, almost incoherently, “I need…”
“I know what you need, love.” He whispered roughly against her ear, and in one long thrust, seated his entire length all the way inside her.
Chloe couldn’t hold back the loud grown that was pulled out of her chest at the incredible sensations erupting inside her. It was so much. Almost too much as he pulled all the way out, and then all the way in again.
This time she screamed as pleasure tore through her, and didn’t even try to hold it it. It didn’t take long to have her hypersensitive body climaxing hard beneath his, the friction of her body bringing him soon after.
Chloe rolled over, her body deliciously sore in all the right places as she felt the bright morning light tickle the backs of her still closed eyelids.
“Alexei, do you have any coffee here?” She groaned sleepily, searching the massive bed for his now familiar warmth.
“Alexei?” She sat up, peeling her lids open as she looked around the empty room, and the empty suite. He was gone. Chloe sat back on the bed with a slump before glancing at the bedside clock. Almost eight o’clock. It had been a late night, but she was usually an early riser. Wrapping the sheet around her, she searched the penthouse again, calling his name. But she had been right the first time. He wasn’t there. In fact, there was nothing left to tell that he had been there all. No suitcase, no clothes, no toiletries.
Feeling dejected after last night’s bliss, she grabbed her purse as she threw the slinky black dress over her head. There was no way to avoid the walk of shame that morning, she thought. She searched through her purse, and then on the floor where she had thrown it the night before. Something was missing.
She dumped out the contents of the small bag on the bed, looking through it again as temper flared inside her. She couldn’t believe it! Her security pass was missing.
Chapter 5
Chloe waited patiently while they did yet another security check on the large private jet. Somewhat patiently, anyways. She had been waiting for several hours, and those three cups of coffee were starting to catch up with her. It had been surprisingly hard to track down Alexei, taking her almost three weeks to figure out where he had been going with her stolen security pass. The thought still infuriated her. In comparison, it had been relatively easy to find the private jet registered under his name that just happened to be parked at the small airstrip just outside of Washington D.C.
That’s what he gets for messing with an investigative journalist, Chloe thought to herself, trying to ignore the near constant ache that thoughts of him pulled up inside her. I knew he was dangerous, she told herself, trying to refocus on the self-imposed mission in front of her. I know he’s in there.
She waited, timing it perfectly as she hastily skittered up the rolling staircase and through the door, just as the security guard stepped aside to have a quick, and illegal, cigarette. Chloe was pretty sure there was some sort of regulation about smoking around airplanes. There were regulations about everything else, she knew.
It took only a few seconds to creep the already open hatch and into the large, luxury airliner. And a few seconds after that to realize that it was completely empty. She sighed harshly in the empty cabin. She had been so sure he would be there. And a part of her admitted she had wanted to see the look in eyes when she confronted him.
Her eyes swept over the lush, deep red upholstery, and what looked to be authentic crystal decanters with matching tumblers glinting prettily next to it. She had found out quite a few things about Alexei on her search to find him and recover her stolen property. That he was one of the richest men in the world, for starters. Owning more business than she could count with assets totaling over a billion dollars. The idea still boggled her mind, but looking around the expensively decorated private jet, she could see the truth of those statements.
Chloe had also found out that a lot of the money he had made had been due to the Russian mafia, in one form another. It had broken her heart to read that, although she wasn’t sure why. She had known him for only a single night. Chloe wrapped a protective arm around her middle, and her insides lurched. Well, perhaps he had given her more than one night, she thought to herself. A lot more.
She knew she should have gotten her period two weeks before, and she was never late. It was the kind of thing she would never had thought would happen to her, but the suspicion invaded her thoughts daily. She glanced around the plane again. And then there where the other rumors she had dug up. Rumors that said he had gone straight and narrow. Was trying to the right thing with his life, and break all ties with the mafia.
But she wasn’t sure she believed it. Why else would he steal her security pass? Why else would he need access to senator Shields, and crooked politician that she herself had exposed? She moved to take a closer look at a shelf of photographs, but the insistent urge to use the bathroom inconveniently returned just then. There was still so much she could learn there. She knew she had at least twenty minutes before the guard returned from his clandestine smoke break.
Chloe peeked behind her, seeing the bright green sign for the lavatory, and took a chance. Hastily, she crept back through the massive cabin and into the most spacious, well adorned airplane lavatory she had ever seen. She was used to flying business class, but still. She swept a hand over the giant marble countertop and gold fixtures. Hurriedly, she shut the door, berating herself for getting distracted.
Chloe was just finishing up washing her hands when she heard the noise. It had her heart racing with panic in her fluttering chest. It was not a noise she wanted to hear. Several rough, male voices speaking in Russian suddenly filled the cabin of the plane. Her mind brought up all the things she had read about the Russian mafia, their cruelty, the viciousness. There was no way she should get out of the bathroom with out immediately being seen. She was trapped.
Cramped in the dark space, Chloe shifted, trying to get more comfortable as she finally realized this might be the most dangerous situation she had ever gotten herself into. She cursed herself firmly before taking a deep, calming breath. After she had first heard the group of men board, things had gone from bad to worse in a hurry.
She had been forced to cram herself in dark space under the cabinet. Luckily it was empty, and big enough for her, folded in on herself as she was. Shortly after, the worst thing that could have possibly happened, did. The roar of the jet engines bubbled to life, rattling her. And a few minutes later, they were taking off. She had braced herself against the small interior of the cabinet, trying to support herself as the plane threw itself into the air.
Chloe had spent muc
h of the trip swearing at herself, making promises that she would never do something so foolish again. At least the space under the cabinets were large enough to hide her. But after several hours her legs and back were starting to scream at her in discomfort.
The flight seemed to last forever, and after the immediate threat of discovery passed, after seven hours still no one had discovered her, and she began to dose despite herself in her cramped hidey hole.
She wasn’t sure when it was, she had lost all track of time, but the hushed voices had her ears pricking up sharply, mostly because it was one of the first conversations she had overheard in English.
“…We have to do it now, Sergio. We have to get rid of him.”
“But, sir, surely his still has some use–.”
“You said he wants out?” This voice belonged to someone older, his voice roughened by years of cigarette smoke and age, although they both were thick with a Russian accent. “You know there is only one way out of the Bratva.”
Chloe’s stomach dropped at the hidden meaning of his words. Who were they talking about?
“Sir, it won’t be easy. He’s rich, you know that, and is always surrounded by a security detail. It will be almost impossible to get him alone.”
“Just do it, Sergio. He holds some delusion that you are friends. Figure out a way to Alexei alone, and give him what he wants. He wants to cut ties with the Bratva? Then the Bratva will cut him, do you understand?”
Chloe couldn’t hear anything else after that, as the men walked back into the cabin. They were talking about Alexei! Instinctively, she placed a hand over her stomach, right over the spot where she suspected their child was growing inside of her.
So, the rumors she had dug up were true after all. He was trying to go clean, trying to be a better man. And they were trying to stop him, for good. The thought of anyone harming Alexei had tears burning unexpectedly in her amber colored eyes. Hastily she swiped them away. She had no time for that, not when Alexei’s life was on the line. And probably her own, if she couldn’t figure out a way to get off of this plane alive. Chloe sat in the dark, and began to plan.
