“Why the fuck do you think she’s alive?” I snapped. “Look at this body! I’m having some fun with her, before I shoot her in the head.”
Gabriella
I panted for air as Alexei mauled my breasts, his huge hands just as warm and powerful as I’d imagined. I was reeling in shock from what he’d just said, but that didn’t change the effect: blazing ribbons of pleasure rippled out from my breasts, making my hips jerk and my groin ache.
The light that had been on Alexei switched back to me. This time, it didn’t stop on my face—it stroked lazily down my body, illuminating his hands as they fondled me, tracing over my waist and hips and then down my legs.
Then it switched off, as if a decision had been made. I heard boots on steel as Petrov climbed down off the shipping container. My eyes were still throbbing and burning from staring into the light so I couldn’t see him until he was right up close, pointing his gun at us.
His face was all hard lines with no hint of softness, as if his skin was slightly too tight on his skull. His lips were pressed together into a thin, straight line, as if he was permanently on the edge of rage. It made me shy away from him instinctively and he laughed when he saw that.
“So she’s your plaything?” he asked Alexei.
“She’s my plaything,” Alexei growled. His thumb found my nipple through my bra, stroking it to erectness. It didn’t matter that I was terrified—his touch was a direct hotline to my groin, a twisting, thrashing heat I couldn’t control. I’d been waiting so long for this….
And it wasn’t just his touch. To my horror, the words burrowed down inside me, right down to the secret places we never admit exist. I was his plaything.
“Does she do as she’s told?” asked Petrov. He still had his gun pointing at us, but it was wavering a little.
Alexei leaned in and licked my earlobe. I yelped and instinctively tried to pull away because, however much I loved it, doing it as a display for Petrov felt wrong. But Alexei held me tight against him and now I could feel the throbbing hardness of him against my ass.
“Mostly,” said Alexei. “I punish her when she doesn’t.” His hand captured my breast again and, this time, he pinched my nipple through my bra with his thumb and forefinger. I cried out, arching my back and squeezing my thighs together, silver pleasure and white-hot pain mingling together.
I knew it was a trick. I knew Alexei was just acting. I knew we were in a very, very dangerous situation. But none of that mattered to the dark places that had suddenly started glowing, deep down inside me. I’m his plaything. His captive, tied to the bed in some hotel room while he uses me however he wants…. I twisted and tried to pull away from him and it wasn’t acting—I was trying to fight against my own reaction.
Petrov chuckled and lowered his gun a little. He sounded considerably more relaxed, now. Relaxed and...something else my brain was too addled to decipher. “So you and Nikolai are okay?” he asked.
“Nikolai and I are just fine. The cheap bastard just didn’t pay me in full, so I yelled at him and he got mad and now he’s bad-mouthing me. I’ll finish the job once he pays up. But in the meantime, I’m going to fuck this one over and over and over.” He rolled his hips against my ass and I wailed...and went mushy inside. God, what’s wrong with me?!
I heard movement in the darkness off to our sides. Men lowering their guns.
“Fucking Nikolai,” said Petrov, lowering his gun completely. Alexei had him on his side, now—everyone understands getting stiffed for a fee and everyone understands sex. “So why are you here?” He sounded as casual as an old friend...but there was still that edge in his voice—excitement? “You said you had business. Or did you just come here to show off your sex toy?”
Alexei did something I’d never heard him do before: he chuckled. A dark, lusty sound that made me feel as if I was being wrapped up in dark smoke. I closed my eyes and shuddered, feeling the heat turn to slick moisture inside me. “She’s worth showing off, isn’t she? But I need to talk, too. Some things for Nikolai, for when he pays up.”
“Fine,” said Petrov after a moment. “Come inside. It’s too fucking cold out here.” He started towards the gangplank.
I went limp against Alexei. Thank God. Now we’d get the information we needed. And hopefully, I could make Alexei believe that my responses had just been play-acting. He grabbed my shoulders and steered me along behind Petrov so that I was sandwiched between the two big men.
“I’m taking a turn at her first, though,” said Petrov casually. “You don’t mind sharing your plaything, do you?”
And suddenly I understood that edge of excitement in his voice. I turned and tried to run, expecting Alexei to be doing the same.
But Alexei caught me and shoved me forward, sending me staggering into Petrov. “Of course not,” he said with a shrug.
Gabriella
My eyes went wide and I had time for a single scream of fear before Alexei clapped his hand over my mouth from behind, his huge palm killing all sound. His other arm wrapped around my waist and he began to walk me along behind Petrov, using his hips to swing mine and lifting my feet clear of the ground when I resisted. “She’s not used to others,” he explained. “Yet.”
My insides had turned to ice water. It had all just been an act...hadn’t it? Was this just part of it, or….
Or was this going to be the cost of getting out alive? To convince Petrov I was really just Alexei’s sex toy, was I going to have to….
I thrashed and twisted but Alexei held me easily while Petrov watched and chuckled. We entered the ship—metal bulkheads and harsh overhead lights. My desperate grunts and the kicking of my feet on the metal floor made men poke their heads out of doors. They laughed when they saw the scene. Everyone understood what was happening: a thrashing, kicking woman being force-walked towards their leader’s room.
Is it a trick, or is this really going to happen? All the dark arousal I’d been feeling at the idea of being Alexei’s plaything had evaporated. The idea of Petrov....I didn’t even want to think about it. I twisted around and looked at Alexei, but he was grinning at Petrov. How far is he going to let this go? All the way?
Petrov opened a heavy steel door and led us into a room. There was a desk covered in papers and a buzzing overhead strip light. Petrov waited until we were inside, then slammed the door. Once it was shut, the room was quiet as a tomb save for my desperate panting.
“Get her on the desk,” said Petrov.
No!
But Alexei lifted me like a doll and placed me on my back on Petrov’s desk, my legs hanging off the end. He kept his hand over my mouth the whole time.
Petrov grinned and reached down, undoing the button of my jeans. As I tried to kick at him, he began to peel them down my legs.
No!
Something red flashed across the room and Petrov sat down, hard, on the floor. An instant later, my brain registered a metal clang.
The hand lifted from my mouth. I sat up. Petrov was shaking his head, dazed. Next to him on the floor, still spinning, was the fire extinguisher Alexei had hurled.
Before Petrov could get to his feet, Alexei was on him, punching him once in the face and once in the guts, his face contorted with fury. Then he lifted Petrov off the floor, hurled him into an office chair and pulled out his gun, pointing it at Petrov’s head.
Petrov spat blood onto the floor and glared at Alexei, but he’d gone pale.
“You okay?” Alexei asked me without looking at me.
I shakily pulled my jeans up my legs and stood up. “Yes,” I said in a small voice.
Alexei still didn’t look at me, didn’t dare take his eyes off Petrov even for a second. “Sorry,” he said at last.
Petrov shook his head in disgust. “So the rumors were true. You have gone soft for a girl. We should have killed you on sight, and all of us fucked her.”
Alexei hit him across the face with his gun. I flinched at the violence, but a little part of me cheered.
“Sevente
en,” said Alexei. “He works for you. Who is he?”
“What the fuck do you want with Seventeen?”
Alexei moved the gun from Petrov’s forehead to his balls. “I’ll blow one off,” he told him coldly, “then the other. You’ll bleed to death before they can get you to a hospital.”
Petrov set his jaw and glared at Alexei. It turned into a battle of wills—which of them could be the most intimidating?
Petrov never even stood a chance. After just a few seconds, he wilted. “Slava,” he said. “Seventeen’s real name is Slava Federoff. But I don’t know where he is. He left a few days ago and I haven’t seen him since.”
Alexei cursed. We’d been right: Nikolai had secretly lured Seventeen away. Everyone thought he still worked for Petrov, who in turn worked for Konstantin. But really, Seventeen was now doing Nikolai’s bidding.
“You have no idea who you’re dealing with,” Petrov said. “That guy is insane!” He shook his head at our stupidity. “Do you even know why they call him Seventeen?”
“He’s killed seventeen people,” Alexei guessed. He sounded unimpressed at that number.
“He killed ten,” said Petrov. “By the time he was seventeen.” He let that sink in. “It’s not just work, to him. There’s something wrong with him.”
I felt the hairs on the back of my neck prickle, as if someone was standing right behind me.
“Seventeen will kill you,” Petrov told us. “Or the rest of the Bratva will find you first. They’ll hunt you down and shoot you. And she’ll end up on her back, with her legs—”
Alexei hit him with the gun again, this time hard enough to knock him out. He finally turned to me, the first time he’d been able to look at me since he’d put me on Petrov’s desk. His hand slid across my cheek, his fingertips burying themselves in my hair. “You okay?” he asked again. I could hear the pain in his voice, the fear that he’d hurt me.
I nodded. I was so overcome with relief, I thought my legs were going to collapse and dump me on the floor. And with the release of all the tension, something else came back to me—all those rogue thoughts I’d had about being his sex slave. I flushed. “Now what?” I asked.
“We walk out of here. But you need to look—” He stopped, embarrassed.
“Yes?”
“Like you’ve been...fucked.” He was trying to keep his voice neutral, but I didn’t miss the note of lust on that last word.
I looked down at myself. “How do we—”
He grabbed the front of my blouse with both hands and ripped it savagely apart. The sides gaped open almost to the waist, exposing my bra. But that wasn’t enough: he shoved the blouse and my bra strap down off one shoulder.
“Take off your jeans,” he said. His voice had grown thick and heavy, almost a growl.
I quickly stripped off my jeans. He took them from my hand and carried them, along with my sneakers. The hem of my blouse barely covered my panties.
“Now...” he said, and stepped closer. He put one hand behind my head to stop me moving. Then he rubbed his thumb roughly across my lips, smearing my lipstick. Despite everything, the feel of him doing it made me close my eyes. My groin tightened and my toes dug into the floor. I wanted so badly for him to just lean his face down to me and—
“There,” he said, stepping back.
I opened my eyes and my gaze locked with his.
“Now you look like you’ve been fucked,” he said. There was no mistaking the fire in his eyes and I remembered the feel of him, hard against me, as he’d pulled me onto the ship. This had all been an act, but part of him wanted it to be real. Part of him wanted me to be his plaything.
And part of me did, too.
He grabbed me by the wrist. “Act like you’re hurt,” he said, his mouth twisting a little in disgust at the idea. “Make me drag you. But hurry.”
He opened the door and walked out, pulling me behind him. I stumbled along, giving him what I hoped were sullen, hate-filled glares.
Men were lining the hallway, laughing and jeering. I felt their eyes on my bare shoulder, on the exposed skin of my upper breasts and on my legs. A lot of them made comments in Russian and I was glad I couldn’t understand them.
“Where’s Petrov?” asked one man.
“Recovering,” said Alexei. “He wore himself out.”
The men thought that was hilarious. A few of them started reaching for my blouse, trying to pluck it from me, and I pressed myself closer to Alexei. As if I had Stockholm Syndrome, as if this man who’d abducted me and made me his sex slave had become my protector. They thought that was even funnier.
Only I knew the truth. I pressed myself up against Alexei’s muscled body and I knew he’d get me out of there. I knew he’d never hurt me and I knew he’d die to protect me. The feel of him, the scent of him, was the only thing that let me make it through that hallway without breaking down completely.
I felt air on my face and then we were through the final door and making our way down the gangplank. The car was thirty feet away.
A shout went up from inside the ship.
“They found Petrov,” snapped Alexei. “Run!”
We sprinted for the car, but we had to keep slowing to pick our way around crates, ropes and other obstacles in the gloom. Twenty feet. I tripped on a chain and nearly went down. We could hear boots clattering on metal inside the ship and there were shouts all around us in the darkness. The guards on the dockside had been alerted.
Ten feet to the car. Five. The first gunshots rang out. Alexei got the door open and almost threw me into the passenger seat, then ran for the driver’s side. He was getting in when there was an echoing sound like the crack of a whip. A hole appeared in the driver-side window.
“Jesus!” I ducked down, trying to get my head below the level of the windows.
Alexei just sat there.
“Go!” I was panting with fear. “Drive!”
He looked down at himself, frowning. He put a hand to his chest and it came away dripping. Then a flashlight beam lit up the inside of the car and I saw the spreading red stain on his shirt.
Gabriella
We looked at each other. I opened my mouth—to scream, I think—but he cut me off, grabbing my arm. “Are you hit?”
I just stared at his chest.
He shook me. “Are you hit?”
He’d been shot and he was thinking of me. I shook my head dumbly.
Footsteps were approaching the car and more flashlights were lighting up the interior. Alexei pulled out his gun and fired through the driver-side window, shooting blindly towards the lights. The recoil of each shot made him grit his teeth, his other hand pressed to his chest. The rest of the glass shattered and fell and someone outside screamed. The footsteps stopped but more shots rang out. Holes appeared in the hood and in the windshield and I screamed and ducked down. They were going to make sure we were both dead before they came any closer.
Alexei lifted his hands to the wheel but winced and dropped them again, panting. Firing the gun had taken the last of his strength. “You have to drive,” he told me.
Oh shit. Not that. “I can’t!”
“Lean across. Take...wheel.” The red stain covered the whole front of his shirt, now, and his words were growing hoarse. “I’ll do pedals.”
He doesn’t understand! But I leaned over like he said. My nostrils filled with that Fourth of July smell: cordite, from the gunfire. I tried not to look at his chest. I gripped the wheel...but nothing happened.
“Put it...in ‘drive’,” panted Alexei. His eyes were half-closed.
I looked around at the levers sticking out of the steering wheel, even the buttons on the dash. I finally found the gear lever and just stared at it. “I don’t know how to drive! I never learned!” Oh Jesus Gabriella you fucking moron! There were tears in my eyes. More bullets hit the car and I heard one slam into the seat just above my head.
Alexei started to say something but then the pain overcame him and he closed his eyes completely. H
e reached out one hand towards me, pleading.
It’s just like figuring out a video game. I stared at the gear stick through a haze of tears. D. D for drive. I tugged it into position just as the rear window exploded and showered us with glass. Alexei stamped on the gas and we shot forward—
Straight for a shipping container.
I was almost hysterical, now, tears streaming down my face. The only thing that kept me going was the knowledge that he’d die, if I didn’t figure out how to do this. I turned the wheel hard and the car slewed wildly to one side. We missed the shipping container but now we were heading for the water.
I spun the wheel the other way and we swung back. Alexei kept his foot on the gas and I aimed for where I thought the ramp up to the street was, the car fishtailing wildly. We crashed through some piles of crates and at one point we came within an inch of hitting a concrete post, but then we were on the ramp.
As the gunfire fell away behind us, Alexei grunted, “Smaller movements.”
I tried moving the wheel less and that helped. My arms were aching from gripping the wheel so hard.
Alexei groaned, showing his teeth as he arched his back in pain. “How do you not know how to drive?” I got the impression he was trying to distract himself.
“It isn’t a skill you pick up in an apartment!” I stopped to concentrate as we went around a corner. Luckily, there was nothing coming the other way.
Alexei had both hands pressed to his chest, now, but I could see blood oozing between his fingers. “What about school? Driver-Z?”
I knew he was just talking to take his mind off the pain, but the questions were driving me crazy. “They home schooled me, after it happened!” I snapped.
And then realized I’d said too much.
“We have to get you to a hospital,” I said.
He shook his head. “No hospital. First place they’ll check.”
Kissing My Killer Page 11