She stood behind Vlad. Close to Vlad. Feeling truly safe for the first time since she’d left the precinct.
“Inna needs her rest,” Mikhail said. “Come on, big guy. We should let the lady get her beauty sleep.”
“Right,” Vlad said. He motioned to the men in the hallway, and they backed off, moving toward opposite ends of the hall. He took a step and knocked Mikhail with his shoulder, giving him an ungentle shove toward the door.
Mikhail looked back at Inna. “Inna, princess, if you need anything—anything at all—call me.”
“She won’t.” Vlad pushed him again and then slammed the door in his face.
Inna could have applauded as Vlad locked the deadbolt and secured the chain. All the pent-up tension and fear from Mikhail’s visit rushed out of her on a noisy exhale.
Vlad spun around to face her. “Before you scold me for being rude, yes, that was absolutely necessary.”
“I wasn’t—” she started to protest.
“He’s not your bodyguard. I am.” Vlad crossed his arms and took a wide stance in a show of authority. She might have been intimidated were it not for the small wince he made.
Her gaze flitted to the hole in the fabric at the center of his chest, too near his heart.
“You’re in pain.” He wore a plain suit and tie—not cheap, but definitely not custom. It was a mark of difference among the men she’d seen working for her father, who either didn’t wear suits or, like Mikhail, wore the very best that money could buy.
What did Vlad do for her father?
“I’m fine,” he said. He held up his hand as if to ward her away.
“Suit yourself.” She wouldn’t argue with him or even vilify him, not with the poignant reminder that he had been shot in the chest while trying to rescue her.
She wondered what he looked like under his ruined shirt and bulletproof vest. Did he have a wound? A bruise? Certainly, he would have muscles. She’d had months of fantasies about that. And now they were alone.
She felt the heat of another kind of danger, the lick of a flame, so close it could burn her up if she drew closer. Her fingers seemed to have a mind of their own, wanting to reach out and touch him, to feel the dark stubble on his jaw under her fingertips, to run along the impressive width of his shoulders, to trail over the muscular hills and valleys that must be hiding under his layers of clothes.
She clasped her hands behind her back and stayed where she was. He had made it clear to her that he didn’t want her.
He gave her another look, one she couldn’t read, and then cleared his throat. “You were supposed to wait for me at the precinct,” he said. “You promised.”
“But Mikhail—” She began to tell him that Mikhail had come for her at the precinct and pretended her father had sent him, but Vlad didn’t give her the chance.
“Mikhail,” he repeated. He stalked toward her, closing the small distance between them. His gaze seemed to bore through her. She backed up one step and then another. She could feel the dark intensity of his anger.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
He glided his knuckles against her cheek in the softest of caresses. In that unexpected gentleness, she felt the echo of the boy she used to know. “Don’t be afraid of me. Never be afraid of me. I will never hurt you.”
“I know.” She couldn’t explain why she trusted him. She just knew that she did.
His eyes weren’t flinty and unreadable tonight. No. Instead of a lack of emotion, there seemed to be too much—a rising storm that could either savage her or wash her clean.
His voice shook with a barely contained threat. “Tell me you didn’t want him to stay.”
“You mean Mikhail?”
“You said you’d wait. You left me for him.” His eyes flashed with the lightning that heralded a storm. He took another step toward her, and she backed up until she hit the wall, bracing herself for the violent roll of thunder. Welcoming it.
He caged her with his hands, but didn’t touch her. She could feel his breath against her skin. He smelled of rain, and she felt as if the wind were picking up all around them.
She couldn’t look away. She was locked in his gaze, saw herself reflected in his pupils. Only her, as if she were the center of his world.
He lowered his head, and she hoped he would kiss her.
Yet, he paused, a hairsbreadth between them, as if he were giving her the chance to push him away, to stop him, as if she could snap her fingers and end the storm chasing her.
Or maybe he was having second thoughts. Maybe he still didn’t want her.
“Vlad,” she said. A whisper. A prayer. A plea.
His hand cupped her neck. His fingers massaged her collarbone, and the world shrank to his touches, to the lightning in his eyes, to the promise of the kiss she’d craved for months.
She wanted his kiss, like she’d never wanted anything before. She couldn’t remember any of the reasons this had been forbidden before, couldn’t comprehend why she hadn’t had a taste of what she wanted, couldn’t imagine any obstacles in her way or risks, couldn’t abide a moment’s more delay.
He could have been killed today. This moment could have been stolen from her forever.
“Tell me you want me,” he said. “Only me.”
She reached up and kissed him.
The kiss wasn’t gentle. It was a wild, untamed thing she unleashed on him, as powerful as the storm she glimpsed in his soul.
She threw herself deeper into their maelstrom of a kiss—climbing him, riding the storm, claiming everything he offered—and everything he didn’t. Everything that had ever been denied her. All of it. She wanted. She wanted everything. Not only a kiss, but more.
So much more.
VLAD
VLAD AWOKE IN a room he didn’t immediately recognize. Inna was tucked against him. A very naked Inna.
Mine. His arm curled possessively around her as the events of last night assaulted him in an erotic rush.
She had seemed afraid of him at first, and the fear had seriously pissed him off. He had gotten up in her space even though she’d flinched, or maybe because she had flinched—just so he could prove to both of them that he wasn’t a monster, not like Ivan.
That was the last semi-rational thought he’d had before she’d kissed him and turned his world upside down. Inna hadn’t been gentle or shy or any of the things he’d expected. Not fragile and vulnerable; not his woman.
Inna was a wild force of nature, and she had ripped him to bits, shredding his every last defense. He had fantasized about claiming her, but the reality was better than fantasy.
She had claimed him with more pent-up, desperate passion than he ever could have imagined.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. It put everything he and Svetlana had worked for in jeopardy. Yet he was unrepentant.
Whatever this was between them, he wasn’t going to give it up.
“You awake?” she murmured. She stroked his chest, touching the deep bruises from the impact of the bullets his vest had caught. The mark on his shoulder from the men in the alley and the one square in the chest, courtesy of her kidnappers.
“Does it hurt?” she asked.
“Not when you’re touching me.”
“Is that an invitation?”
“A little late for that,” he said. “You stormed in and took possession.”
“Oh.” Her face heated. She drew away. Sitting up, she took part of the sheet with her to cover up. “I’m so, so sorry.” She started to scoot off the bed.
“Sorry?” He didn’t like her withdrawal or the shame he sensed in her. Did she think this was a mistake? He wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anyone or anything in his life, and she was about to pull the plug and retreat.
“You didn’t want this.” Her slender fingers clutched the sheet around her, as if there could be any secrets after the night they’d shared.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
She flinched at his harsh tone. He tr
ied to soften his voice, to reach for the words that would entice her back to him. But damn it, soft words and flowery emotions weren’t his thing.
He had no practice. None. His whole life had been comprised of harsh truths and jagged edges.
“You were doing your job. And I…I crossed the line. I jumped you.”
Her words stunned him. “Is that what you think happened?”
She wouldn’t meet his eye.
He groped for the right words, but they were slow in coming. She started talking before he had the chance to set her straight.
“This is never going to work.” She took a deep breath and lifted her chin. “You’re fired.” The slight tremor in her fingers belied her air of command.
“You can’t fire me.”
“You’re fired,” she repeated. “I don’t want you as my bodyguard.”
“You’re firing me because we slept together?” Something dark and ugly rose up in him in response to her rejection. “I don’t accept that.”
He couldn’t abide the thought of anyone else this close to her, sharing her days and nights, sharing her bed. He lunged across the mattress and grabbed her wrist, making her tumble toward him.
She fought his grip and smacked him hard on the shoulder. “Tough. I refuse to be your job.”
“You’re more than a job to me, Inna.”
She tore out of his grasp. “You don’t understand.”
No, he didn’t understand. How could she boot him out? She grabbed up her clothes and stalked out of the room to her bathroom. He watched in bemusement. What had he said? What had he done? Why didn’t she want him?
He scrubbed his hands over his face and bounced out of the bed. This wasn’t over. He yanked on his boxers and suit pants and parked himself outside the bathroom door.
“No, I don’t understand. Who’s going to protect you?” His attempt to reason with her sounded more like shouting than a rational argument, especially when she shouted back, “Who’s going to protect you?”
“I don’t need anyone to protect me,” he said.
“Right. That’s why you keep getting shot.”
“You think I can’t do my job?”
“I don’t want you hurt. I don’t want you risking your life for me,” she said from the other side of the door—a near declaration of love or, at least, the closest thing to it he had ever received.
“Firing me won’t change anything,” he said. “I care about you too much to let anything happen to you. Even if that means risking my life.”
She opened the door then. “You’re insane.”
Maybe she was right. Love was its own kind of insanity.
He ended the whole ridiculous argument with a kiss. His lips moved feverishly on hers with the soul-bearing truth of his need and desire for her. She made a startled gasp, and then, miraculously, yielded and opened to him.
He clutched her to him. His whole life might be wrapped in deception, but this much—this passion, this intensity—was absolutely real and couldn’t be denied.
With his kiss, he told her everything she wasn’t ready to hear, all the true and loving words he couldn’t say when everything else about him was a carefully constructed lie.
THANK YOU
THANKS SO MUCH for reading. I hope you:
Leave a review. Let others know your opinion, and help them decide if they would like to read this episode. Your reviews help authors like me get discovered by readers. So please, spread the word.
Read the rest of the Kings of Brighton Beach Series. The gang will be back in Mobbed Up, to be released in 2017. Visit dbshuster.com for more information about the series and characters.
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Check out my humorous and sexy Neurotica Series for thrills of another kind. There’s an excerpt after this.
NEUROTICA SERIES
ACADEMIA HAS NEVER been so naughty.
The university men in Professor Melanie Stevenson’s life pressure her to take her proper place—under them. While the proper professor indulges in daring daydreams of … submitting to their will, her “evil” twin cracks the whip, so to speak, to work out the kinks in higher education.
Keep reading for an excerpt from the first short story in the series, Pleasing Professor.
EXCERPT FROM PLEASING PROFESSOR
HE WANTED THINGS his way, on his terms, and he would crush or damage anything that got in his way. Melanie would have been quaking in her sober pumps from fear … and lust.
Too bad for him she wasn’t Melanie. Or maybe that would be good for him… and for her. She would be more than happy to play professor and teach the haughty Hunter a thing or too.
“This is a bullshit course, and everyone knows it,” he said.
“Then why’d you take it?”
“Because it was supposed to be easy. I already know everything I need to know about sex.”
“Do you? Close the door.”
He glanced at her with surprise, perhaps because he expected Melanie’s Sesame Street voice and sweetness, or perhaps because he thought he was in charge and this interview was going better than he’d hoped.
He pulled the door shut. “I’m willing to show you—in exchange for a better grade.”
“Oooh. The ultimate sacrifice,” she said.
He stalked toward her and pulled her out of her chair. “I know you want me. I’ve seen how you look at me. I’m willing to give you what you want.”
“I bet that’s what you tell all the girls.”
“Only the hot ones,” he said.
“I bet they line up for the honor.”
“They do,” he said, with the confidence of someone surrounded at all times by sycophantic admirers. “I’m a sex expert.”
“Who told you that? The inexperienced college girls you fumble in the dark? Forgive me if I’m unimpressed.”
“I’ll make it good for you,” he said.
She didn’t need a doctorate to read the raw desire in his eyes. What would he do if his professor gave him exactly what he wanted?
“How’s this supposed to go?” she asked. “Am I supposed to say, ‘Oh, yes, Hunter, I want you’?” She mimicked Melanie’s sweetest, squeakiest muppet voice. She slipped out of his hold and perched on her desk. “Take me, Hunter. Right here. Right now. Brighten my miserable life with your godlike touch. Oh, oh, Hunter, I crave you. I’m incomplete without your golden hands kneading my skin.” She leaned back on her elbows, spread out on the desk, her legs falling open. “Take me. Take me now. Give me the orgasm I’ve never had, and I’ll give you the A you want.”
He moved toward her as if her invitation were real. Seriously?
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I have been the fortunate recipient of a number of blessings in the process of creating this series.
Dina Fishbein and Lisa Shiroff, comrades in the writing trenches, critique partners, and most importantly friends—these incomparable women push me to bring out the best in myself and my writing. My life and my work are both infinitely better as a result. I trust we will celebrate many books, theirs and mine, together.
Producing these first episodes has been a team effort. I am immensely grateful for the beautiful work of editors Denise Vitola and Lynne Cannon Menges and of cover designer Asha Hossain. I also thank the brave beta readers who shared their impressions and critiques of early drafts.
Steve Bennett appeared in my life at exactly the right moment with his wisdom and enthusiasm, joining me on this adventure and convincing me to follow my vision for publishing this series in episodes instead of novels. I am ever so grateful that he has taken me under his wing. I also thank him and his talented team at AuthorBytes for creating a website home for my series and opening the world of social media to me.
Joseph Pascarella, retired Captain of the Brooklyn Police Department, has been another unexpected and wonderful blessing. His guidance on police procedure, jargon, and “mobbed up” crime scenes has been i
nvaluable. Any mistakes are, of course, my own.
Thank you to my friends and family for believing in me and loving me, my neurotic obsession with my fictional characters notwithstanding. I gratefully acknowledge the first readers of this work, especially those at my day job, who didn’t laugh when I told them what I was doing and eagerly demanded to see more. Thank you for being my first fans. I especially thank my mother, who taught me that every blade of grass has its own angel telling it to grow and that I should listen to that special voice.
Finally, I thank my husband and children—for your love and support, for the beauty and meaning you bring to my life, and for your humor and caution in entering my dangerous writing lair where I am prone to bite your heads off.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
D. B. Shuster is married to a Russian man, who regularly assures her he is not a member of the mob. By day, she is a professor of Sociology, and her research keeps her busy with facts and numbers. By night, she lets her imagination run free with dark and twisted tales of crime and intrigue. Sometimes she sleeps. She lives in New York with her family.
I love to hear from readers. Here are some ways to connect with me:
Email: [email protected]
Website: dbshuster.com
Twitter: @DBShuster
Facebook: facebook.com/dbshuster/
CHARACTER LIST
Aleksei. Aleksei Koslovsky. Katya's husband. Son of Artur and Maya. Inna's brother.
Anya. Young waitress at Troika.
Artur. Artur Koslovsky. Maya's husband. Father of Inna and Aleksei. Ivan's former partner. A powerful figure in the Russian mob.
Dato. Dato Dzhugashvili. Head of Georgian crew.
Dr. Kasporov. Psychiatrist on Artur's payroll who used to treat Inna.
Kings of Brighton Beach Bundle Page 29
