Dimitri

by April Zyon

  I saw the fear in her eyes. “I didn’t want to let Miss Perfect think that you were available.” I heard the envy in her voice, the little cunt. She’d deliberately cut me off from that woman. I wanted to wring her neck.

  “Who is she?” I asked instead with cold and deadly intent. Susan had no idea just how fucked she truly was. I was cutting her off from everything. She just didn’t know it yet.

  “The rich bitch who walked past and gave everyone the cold shoulder?” Susan winced when I gave her a squeeze and simply lifted my eyebrow to her. “Scarlett Vanderwall. She’s part of one of the oldest families around.”

  Interesting. Vanderwall. I had never been able to buy off any Vanderwalls, no matter how many times I tried to get them. Hell, I couldn’t even get any dirt on them. They seemed to be the cleanest family I’d ever met and that was saying something. I’d never met a family that I couldn’t either own through buying or blackmailing before the Vanderwalls. “Interesting. And do you know their family well?” I asked Susan.

  “No, not really. I went to school with her older brother, Vincent, but I’ve always thought she was too prudish to ever outgrow the fat girl that she was,” Susan scoffed, turning her nose up at the woman when she came out of the bathroom.

  “I seriously doubt that woman was ever fat,” I said as I watched Scarlett glide across the room and back to her table. I knew the men she was seated with. Four were her brothers, and the other three men were deviants that I had in my back pocket. If one of them so much as breathed wrong in her direction, I would take great delight in ripping his fucking balls off. My eyes narrowed as I took in Joseph Hunter. That little fucker I was sure had made a move on the woman I intended to make mine, and he would hurt the next time I saw him if I knew that he even touched her.

  I looked over my shoulder and nodded to Ivan. It was time for us to leave. I wanted to gather as much information as possible about Scarlett Vanderwall. Also it was time to put Susan Malloy in her place. It was time to cut her ass off in the biggest ways possible. Yes, it was time for Ivan to bring the car around and to get the fuck out of this stuffy affair that I was required to come to once a year. Fucking society and their shitty rules that seem to dictate that I had to come to these sorts of functions because I had money.

  Then again, I was happy that I came tonight and didn’t skip out on it like I had planned on doing. I had met the woman I was certain would be my everything. I knew from just one look in her eyes that she would be mine. I was a firm believer in the old ways, that you could see a person’s soul in their eyes and I saw hers. It was pure, innocent, and it was going to be mine. She was going to be mine. I should protect her and distance myself from her, but I was a greedy bastard and there was no way in fuck I would ever let her go now that I’d seen her. I may not have talked to her or met her, but she was going to be mine.

  ****

  I took Susan out of the ballroom with a firm hand. At this point, I was so pissed off I didn’t give a shit if I bruised her or not. Typically, I tried not to bruise the socialites, but this whore that I was dragging out of here now was less than the bitches I paid to suck my dick, because at least with them, there was an unspoken agreement. They got paid and I got off. They didn’t try to get a ring on their fucking finger like it seemed this bitch was trying to do. No, someone like Susan Malloy was just a higher fucking priced whore, and I was just now seeing it. How the fuck I had been blind to it for so long I don’t know, but the blinds were lifted now, and I saw the bitch for what the fuck she was.

  “You’re hurting me,” she whined.

  “You should be fucking thankful that you haven’t done enough to warrant a fucking bullet.” I would never apologize for the man I was, and this woman had known who the fuck she was dealing with when she’d struck the agreement to come to these functions with me. She would fuck my enforcers and have the privilege of my money and protection, but all of that ended tonight. After she told me everything about the woman that I wanted to have as mine, as well as all of her family. Perhaps the cunt could tell me something about the family that I didn’t already know so that I could finally get an in with them.

  “I don’t know what I did to make you so angry, Dimitri.” She was crying, as if her tears would sway me. I would never be swayed by a woman’s goddamn tears. I had a heart of ice, and this woman certainly would never touch it. “Please, what did I do?” Goddamn, her whining, nasally voice was enough to make me want to push her in front of the limo that was now pulling around.

  “Shut the fuck up,” I told her and shoved her into the rear of the limo when Ivan opened the door. “Head to Susan’s home. No after dinner activities tonight,” I told Ivan, and when I got a simple nod, I realized that he understood just how pissed off I was. At least someone had half a goddamn brain around me right now.

  When I got into the back with her, she was sobbing, but I didn’t give a shit. She had cut her own throat when she’d spoken about the woman that I had shown interest in the way she had. “Tell me everything about Scarlett Vanderwall and her family, especially how to get close to her.”

  Susan’s eyes went wide and she gasped, but I simply arched a brow. “Talk. You know what it is that I want to know.” I was beginning to lose my cool with her. I needed to take a step back, figuratively speaking, of course, since we were now sitting inside of the limo. Ivan, the smart man, was getting into the back with us instead of the front with Devin as he typically would.

  “Susan, it would be best if you spoke now. Dimitri wants to know about the woman that piqued his interest. You need to tell him all that you can about this woman, a Ms. Vanderwall, so that he won’t hurt you. You don’t know him like I do. Woman or not, he will kill you to get what it is that he wants, and right now it’s information on that woman.”

  “Okay, okay. I will tell you anything you want to know,” Susan said finally. “Now that she’s been forced back home by her parents, she goes running every morning. She really was an overweight girl and teen. Before she left for school, she was still as short as she is now, but she was nearly as round as well. I’m not lying. Look her up online. She’s in the society pages even though she tried to hide. Be that as it may, the hiding thing, that’s something that she still does. From what I understand, she hates being out in public, so I was surprised when I saw her here tonight. I was even more amazed to see her looking as good as she did.”

  The woman was jealous of Scarlett Vanderwall. This made me even more curious how she’d looked before I saw her tonight. It wouldn’t change how I felt about her, of course, but I wanted to know even more now about this lovely woman and how she’d grown into the person she was.

  “Anyway,” Susan continued, “I guess that it had to have happened someday, with the genes she’s from. She had to have become active sometime. The brother older than her by four years spent the last twelve years as some sort of Special Forces guy. Not exactly sure what happened there, but when he left he was just a skinny, tall kid and now he’s still the same tall guy I remember, but he’s packed with muscles.” If I didn’t know better, I would swear Susan was carrying a torch for one of the Vanderwall brothers. It was little wonder that she disliked Scarlett so much, then. I listened to the woman prattle on about the family, only piping up when she said something that caught my interest, which wasn’t that often. Seemed as if Susan, like so many others I’d tried to get information from about the Vanderwalls, didn’t know them as well as she thought she did. I listened to her start to go back in again on Scarlett Vanderwall, and that’s when I stopped her with a glance to Ivan.

  I was thankful that my men knew me as well as they did, because it wouldn’t have been good for the image I was trying to build up if someone found the bitch dead after she left with me. As it was, though, we simply dropped Susan at her place, and I left her with parting words that I hoped would strike the fear into her that would have her never speaking to anyone about me or Scarlett Vanderwall.

  Chapter Four

  Scarlett
>
  The day after the ball, I was running with my music cranked up so that it was just me and the pathway through the park. This was my zen time, my alone time. Sadly it was also a time when I was now followed by guards. I didn’t know why Daddy and the brothers insisted that I was followed by them, but there it was. I was now guarded like a freaking trinket instead of being allowed to do what I wanted to do. So I ignored my guards—thankfully not the same two bulks from last night, or there would be trouble in the form of me tazing the assholes and leaving them somewhere for someone else to find. Today, however, I managed to sneak by them for a run, though I was sure they would find out soon enough when I didn’t come down to run. I switched it up this morning and left a half hour sooner. Lost in the music, I let my body enjoy the ride.

  There were no trees, nothing ominous, so when he came out behind me I didn’t notice him for a long while. At least that was what he told me. When I did notice him, it spooked me so badly I will admit that I screamed, not something I was proud of. It was his laughter, the teasing glint in his eyes, that made me realize exactly who he was. It was the man from the ball, and I still burned with just how pissed I was with him.

  “Shouldn’t you be sleeping in with Susan this morning?” Yes, I was rather snippy with the bastard, but he deserved it. No one should look that damn good at this hour. I looked like death warmed over, but this was my me time, and this asshole was interrupting it with his sensual lips that made me want to test for softness, with his hard body. Fucking hell again, no one should look as good as he did. No one. “Who are you?” This fucker should be giving Susan another fucking orgasm this morning, not running. Dammit to hell and back again.

  “Sound a little jealous, Ms. Vanderwall. Want to explain why?” Damn the man’s beautiful brown eyes. He wasn’t even out of breath as he kept pace with me. I was jealous, but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of knowing that. So what if Susan and her buddies always had a way of making me feel like less than dirt. That was then and this was now. I didn’t give a shit who this man was sleeping with. It wasn’t like he was my man.

  “I’m not jealous, just surprised that Susan let you out of her bed is all. She’s quite territorial when it comes to her men. She’s tried many times over the years to get my brothers, but thankfully they are smarter than that.” Ha, take that, you smug bastard, I thought to myself. He really was a condescending asshole, and my brothers were far better than he was. I needed to keep that in mind. Okay, so my brothers were asshats a lot of the time, but that was only to me and only because I was their sister, but still. Dammit, now I sounded winded, shit.

  “Ah yes, the paragons of virtue that are your brothers.” He sounded like he was laughing. Was he laughing at my brothers?

  I stopped on the path I was running on, and even though I was now panting, thank you for the fourth mile, I poked my finger in his chest. God, did it have to be so firm? So hot? Okay, what was I going to say? Why had I stopped? Right, my brothers, he was making fun of them. “Look here, you asshole. My brothers are amazing men. Just because you are a douche canoe to the nth degree doesn’t mean that you can take your insecurities out on my brothers.”

  He chuckled. What was up with this man? If he wasn’t so beautiful, I would think that he had some kind of tiny dick syndrome. But I had glanced down at the front of his jogging pants, and unless the man had a summer sausage down there, he wasn’t hurting in that department at all. No, he wasn’t compensating at all there. So instead what the hell was his issue? I couldn’t figure this man out. He was Russian, the accent was very hard to miss, but he wasn’t someone who lobbied on the Hill, so who was he? “Look, I don’t know you and you don’t know me or my family, so just shut up about them,” I said and put my ear buds back in, ignoring him and starting to run once more. It was all I could do, otherwise I would start to talk to him and that was just all around bad. I didn’t want to talk to him. I wanted to hate this man that was sleeping with my worst enemy—well, at least a woman that I hated.

  Again, the asshole surprised me when he caught up to me and his arm caught me around my middle. God, it felt good, too, the heat of his large hand, the feeling of his muscles as he pulled me against his massive body and picked me up from my feet. He unhooked my earbuds from my ears with one little tug and said, “There is nothing for you to ever be jealous of when it comes to Susan. The moment I saw you last night, I knew that my life was changing. She means nothing, never has meant anything. One day I hope you understand that, little moyna.”

  She just looked over her shoulder at him. Little sweetheart? Oh, he was smooth. But I wasn’t just some stupid American girl. I’m educated and I’ve been around the world a few times over to pick up a term here and there, but nothing to speak it fluently. Now this jackass trying to use sweetheart names on me only pissed me off. But why did he have to feel so damn good? No, I was smarter than this, and there was no way in hell that I was going to fall for some smooth-talking Russian so I could be some notch in his bed. God only knew how fucking many of those that he had.

  I wiggled out of his arms and glared at him. “Don’t ever come near me again, asshole, or I will press charges. This is America and what you are doing is stalking.”

  “I’m trying to win your affections, Scarlett Vanderwall,” he said easily. “I’m Dimitri, by the way. So that later, when I have you under me and you are screaming my name, you know just exactly who it is that’s fucking you.”

  “Oh so you plan on raping me?” I saw it then. His eyes turned icy cold, like arctic-blast cold.

  “I would never rape you, and if anyone ever dared to touch you in such a way, I would personally kill them. You might not know it, Scarlett, but you have a personal protector in me, no matter what else happens from this moment out. You are mine to watch over and protect. I know that your family has kept you safe, but now you have me, and like it or not, you also have all of my vast resources. You are mine. You will be mine.”

  Why did his words have to affect me so much? They shouldn’t. I should have been screaming my head off. I should have been hitting the panic button Daddy had given me, the one that would call the guards he had assigned, but I was doing none of that. Instead I was listening to this man, watching him, and all because of everything that made the man what he was. Once more I sized him up. He was tall, six seven, six eight, with dark hair and an olive-skinned complexion.

  Again, I was faced with the beauty of the man and the sheer danger that all but poured off of him. I didn’t know anything about him, but I could bet that he didn’t serve in the armed forces like my brothers had, or if he did, he was Special Forces. The kind of Special Forces that had seen and done stuff they would rather never remember or think of. Kind of like the SEAL teams that my brother had served with. Now that I thought about it, my brother Vince got that look and vibe about him sometimes, too. Although, Vince was never as intense as Dimitri. No, my brother didn’t ooze quite the danger that Dimitri did. Then again, Vince didn’t make me think of things like getting naked. Neither had any of his friends, much to Vince’s very unhappy frustration. Yes, I was the daughter that my brothers and dad was trying to marry off, and I refused everyone that they all considered to be acceptable. None of the men seemed to ring my bell and get my engines running. No one had until I saw Dimitri in that ballroom last night, and now all I could think of was him, but he was a stalker and a pervert who was fucking a woman that I couldn’t stand, so he was totally unacceptable. Period, end of discussion.

  Pulling my ass out of my thoughts, realizing that I was staring into his deep brown eyes and wondering just how far his tattoos went, I finally spoke. “Nope. Not gonna happen. Never going to happen, so you need to get that through your head now. I don’t belong to anyone but myself. I will never belong to anyone but myself, and I sure as shit don’t need some deranged stalker thinking he can just waltz right into my life after banging the biggest whore in Arlington and assume he can pop right on into my bed. Dude, you are dreaming. I wouldn’t touch
you even if I had on a containment suit. I’m sure that Susan has had at least five STDs if not more.”

  “Oh, little one, that jealousy will get you spanked, but I will let it go and tell you once more, I have never and will never fuck that slut. My enforcers have, but they all use condoms because they are not stupid. Besides, she does tend to like sex with quite a few men, especially at once.”

  Well, hells bells. Color me shocked. That one was a surprise. “Excuse me?” I even stopped trying to get away from Dimitri, because I was so surprised. “Did I just hear you right?”

  “Now that I have your attention.” He lifted his massive hand, a hand I could easily see killing someone, or giving the most ultimate of pleasures, and brushed a stray hair that escaped my pony tail back behind my ear. He didn’t release me, however. His hand cupped my cheek, and he leaned in closer to my personal space. “I need you to listen and listen well, Scarlett. I’m a man that gets what he wants, and I’m letting you know now, that is you. I’m playing for keeps right now, darling, not for games or for jumping bed to bed, so don’t tempt me, don’t tease me, and don’t fuck around with another man if you want them to live. I am not a man to be trifled with.”

  Before I could stop him, before I could object, Dimitri leaned in and kissed me. Holy fucking mother of every god and goddess and—everything—he kissed me. I’ve been kissed in my life. I’ve been groped in my life, but what this man did to me? Holy balls, I’ve never had this sensation before in my lifetime. The kiss seemed to reach into my soul and pull out something from the depths which I had never known was there. His lips were whisper soft and they just barely moved across mine, requesting entrance, which I gave eagerly. When his tongue swiped against mine, I felt my knees go weak with his taste. That’s when Dimitri took control. His arms wrapped around me and he pulled me close, my chest to his, and I swear it was as if the very heavens began to sing.