“Will you hold my coat, then?” she asked.
He nodded, and she draped it over his forearm.
“Also, whatever you do, don’t tell Dominik I’m here.”
But also…tell him.
Pavel neither agreed nor disagreed.
Inside the pub, at the bar, she spotted a few familiar faces. The group waved, kissed her cheek, and hugged her like they’d known each other for years. A server announced their table was ready, and they headed over, chatter rising above low pop music.
Eija sipped on all virgin cocktails, having already explained that she watched a rich guy’s grandson for a living and had to remain clearheaded. The group was a lovely mix of backgrounds, cultures, and personalities, but someone was missing.
“E?”
He looked exactly like his photos—perfectly coiffed blond hair, warm brown eyes, and a clean-shaven face. Tonight, he wore a tailored designer suit.
“Wesley. Nice to meet in person.” She looked him over. “Very nice.”
His face flushed. “Thank you. And you are absolutely gorgeous. Your photos and our video chats didn’t do you justice.”
Wesley sat next to her in the seat the group had deliberately left vacant. They ordered burgers to keep it casual. She had another virgin cocktail, and he had red wine.
“E, you are…I don’t even have the words, love. I’m speechless.” He reached to tuck her hair behind her ear, but she moved out of the way and pointed to the dance floor.
“Want to dance or are you shy?”
“Not shy at all, gorgeous. Lead the way.”
He tipped back his glass, and she finished her drink.
They whittled out a spot beneath the lights, and he wrapped one arm around her waist. As the song selections changed, they progressed from dancing with a modest gap between them to grinding against each other. When her ass touched his pelvis and she felt the unmistakable bulge, she knew he was ready.
“Hey,” she leaned toward his ear, “you want to get out of here?”
He stared at her, blinking, like he hadn’t heard correctly.
“What’s that, love?”
“Sex, Wesley. Do you want to leave so we can have sex?”
His eyes bugged. “Yes.”
They used the crowd as cover to slip through the front door, him probably assuming she was hiding from the group instead of the behemoth’s eyes she felt tracking her every movement. She didn’t release Wesley until they reached the end of the block where she pushed him into an alcove between two buildings.
“Um, I have a place we can go instead,” he said.
“So Colin really thought I’d need you here with me?” She pushed him against the wall. “Did he think I wouldn’t make you?”
He dropped the accent and groaned, eyes squeezing shut. “Fuck.”
“Wesley Langstaff? Really? Could you have been more obvious? All of you male agents with your dick names. It’s like you’re obsessed.” She jabbed her hand in the direction of the pub. “I have security with me at all times. I’m an asset to the Sokolovs. So, the reason you’re here isn’t because Colin was concerned about my safety on a different continent. He’s concerned I might screw up again.”
“Langstaff” leaned his head back against the wall. “I see your point, but that’s not how he put it. He said you needed extra eyes. I’m a precaution.”
“What’s your name?”
“Dan.”
Her right brow shot up.
“Daniel Pembroke,” he clarified. “I’m new to the field. I used to be an analyst.”
“How much do you know about what’s going on?”
“Only as much as is necessary.”
She studied him. “And you’re supposed to watch out for me.”
“Yes. That’s it. I swear.”
“You still want to fuck?”
“What?” The word was airy, and even though she wasn’t pressed against him, she stepped back to give him more room to breathe. “Like…sex?”
“Yes, Daniel Pembroke. I’m still trying to fuck. Are you interested?”
His head nearly rocked off his shoulders. “Yes. One-hundred times, yes. Oh my God, you’re so hot, Eija. I can’t believe this is actually going to happen. I’m going to fuck Agent Barrett.”
He wasn’t, but he’d learn soon enough.
Hands once again tangled, she stepped from between the shadow of the buildings. Daniel suddenly tugged on her arm, and she turned around.
“What’s the proble—oh shit.”
Chapter 17
Dom dragged off his tie, unbuttoned his blazer, and fell backward on the hotel bed. This shit was exhausting. He’d thought all the crap he’d had to do and learn when he’d first arrived in Moscow was intense, but he couldn’t see himself going to this many meetings to talk about virtually nothing more than one week out of the year. According to Yuri, this high up, getting their hands dirty was a rarity. Yet, he would have preferred spending his time trying to make someone talk through various torture mechanisms than hear the words synergy, biz-ops, or strategic partnership.
Ever again.
It was a good thing he hadn’t made plans with Eija. The meeting had finished four hours later than originally expected. He’d wanted to eat dinner while looking at her, not a man forty years older than he was with a twenty-eight-year-old wife who sucked off the bellhop whenever her husband wasn’t looking.
Their conversation in the library had happened, and he understood why Eija wanted them to cool things off, but he wasn’t getting married—a wife was being tossed at him. Eija was who he wanted and who he thought about, all day and every day. Eija would find a way to make him laugh to ease the monotony that had imprisoned him for the last twelve hours.
His phone chimed, and it was late for Pavel to be calling him.
“What does Miss K mean to you?” Pavel asked, side-stepping a greeting.
Dom sat up. “I don’t understand the question.”
“Is she important?”
“We’re…friends.”
“Will it bother you if she spends the night with this man?”
“What man?”
Dom grabbed his tie, his brain processing only snatches of Pavel’s reply. Jealous rage had tossed a rope around his neck, dragging him out of his suite all the way down to the lobby. They had a few cars at their disposal at the hotel, and he crushed the ticket in the valet attendant’s palm, Pavel still on the phone.
“What’s she doing now?”
“Gyrating,” Pavel said. “They look stuck together, almost.”
He was going to kill her. First, whoever the asshole was, and then Eija. She had every right to go out and drink and dance and sleep with whoever she wanted to but, right now…fuck that. If she’d simply give in and fuck him like it was obvious they both wanted, maybe then she wouldn’t be a prisoner to that libido of hers. And he’d be able to take showers again that didn’t involve nursing hard-ons that could crack diamonds.
The valet attendant pulled up with a silver Mercedes AMG.
The pub wasn’t far from the hotel, but he drove like it was on the other side of town, and he only had five minutes to get to Eija before a bomb strapped to her chest went off.
He parked the car in front of the pub, the engine still growling as he hopped out. Pavel met him at the curb.
“Where is she?”
Pavel pointed down the sidewalk. “There, about twelve meters, on the left. Want me to wait?”
“Yes. For spinal fluid clean-up.”
He spotted her slipping from an alcove, holding some tall, blond fucker’s hand. He plucked the tie from his jacket, crept up behind the blond, and wrapped it around the man’s neck. A flick of his wrist yanked the blond backward, fingers scrambling in a futile attempt to dislodge the silk from his trachea.
Eija turned around. “What’s the proble—oh shit.”
“Oh shit is right,” Dom growled, forearm flexing. “Eija, what the fuck are you doing?”
She bi
t her lower lip. “Nothing.”
“Pull your lip out of your teeth.”
It popped out.
“I’m going to kill you. You know that, right?”
“Yes.” She nodded, and her eyes darted from him to the man whose windpipe he was still crushing. “But just me, okay?”
The blond tapped his forearm.
“Let him go, D—” She squeezed her eyelids. “Please let him go.”
Why couldn’t she say his name? Had she told this fucker about him? If so, who’d she say he was?
Women like Eija were dynamite. What else could explain why an otherwise levelheaded man, notwithstanding the whole mafia leader and killer bit, would chase a woman down in the middle of the night when she’d turned down every one of his advances since they’d run into each other again?
The blond’s taps turned into frantic tugs and scratches.
“Let him go,” Eija repeated. “I’m still fucking him tonight.”
Dom released. “What the fuck did you just say?”
“It got you to let him go, didn’t it?”
The blond stumbled forward, gasping and coughing, and situated himself behind Eija. One of his hands hovered near her elbow, and Dom watched closely to make sure it didn’t connect. If so much as a fraction of the man’s palm touched her skin, he’d shoot him. Consequences be damned. He was running on little to no sleep with too much shit on his plate and a desire for the woman standing across from him matched only by insanity.
“So you’re lying to me now?” he asked her. It was in the form of a question, but he wasn’t asking one. “You told me you were working on something for Yuri.”
“I was…not,” she confessed. “I lied.”
“Why?”
She gestured to the man quivering behind her.
“I suggest you get the fuck out of here,” Dom warned. “If you’re trying to get some pussy tonight, I’ll kill you before you get hers.”
Eija spoke over her shoulder. “Wesley…go.”
“Are you sure?” the blond had the nerve to ask.
Dom started forward, but she pushed the other man until he got the hint and scrambled off down the sidewalk. She then had the audacity to watch him go.
Dom grabbed her waist, hoisted her into the air upside down, and headed back to the car. Pavel, who’d been on his way over, pivoted and headed in the same direction.
“Bridge,” Dom said. He tossed Eija in the car and got in beside her. “If not Westminster, Lambeth or Vauxhall. Whichever one’s got the fewest witnesses.”
Pavel nodded, positioned himself behind the wheel, and drove off.
Eija, chest heaving, plastered herself to the seat. “Dom, why are we going to a bridge?”
“To throw you off it, sweetheart,” he said.
Her bottom lip snapped back between her teeth. Large pupils darkened her irises, her eyelids lower than usual. When Pavel stopped at Westminster, he pulled her out of the car and she lazily resisted, but he’d already known she would. He’d already figured out why that lip was back in her mouth.
“Eija.” He nudged her, backward and stumbling, to the side of the bridge. “This is a turn on for you, isn’t it? You’d like it if I fucked you against the side of this bridge, wouldn’t you?”
“No.” The word barely made it out of her mouth. “I would…not.”
“Why then,” he grabbed her shoulders and spun her so her stomach pressed against the stone, “are you at London pubs with motherfuckers who can’t fuck you like you want me to?”
“Dom, please. Use less aggressive words. I’m on the verge of…bursting.”
He reached around her and maneuvered through what felt like seventeen layers of clothing before the palm of his hand met the warmth of her skin. It was cold out, but she’d worn more than enough layers to battle the London weather. The blond would have found Atlantis before he found Eija’s pussy. This was what she’d been hoping for, him to show up in the middle of her date, guns blazing and psychotic.
“Eija, I can’t do this. I cannot stop thinking about you. When you’re happy, I’m on a fucking cloud. When you’re not, I do mental gymnastics trying to figure out how to make shit better for you.”
“Dom—”
“I’ll keep busting into pubs and strangling anybody who thinks they’re going to see even your naked upper arm. I swear to God, I won’t stop. I want you, Eija. I don’t know what that means, but I don’t really care either.”
“And I want you too,” she said, finding his unoccupied hand and braiding their fingers together.
“I’m not just talking about sex.” He extended his middle finger until it landed on her slit. “I want you. Only you.”
Now that some of his anger had dissolved, vulnerability returned. He’d never felt this way before, never considered compromising the integrity of an entire organization over a woman. Not a single one from his past had ever crept into his brain, a tapeworm sucking away all his logic and common sense. She was funny, sweet, beautiful…and there was something light about her. Something that told him, underneath all that sex appeal, she desired someone in her life who wouldn’t bobble her heart.
“Eija…” He spoke close to her ear, his finger still nowhere near where he knew she ached for it. “Tell me you can be without me.”
She turned her head to kiss him, but he pulled back each time she tried.
“Tell me you haven’t been thinking about me.” He pressed into her from behind, slid two fingers lower. “Tell me you don’t want me, and I’ll stop. I’ll never touch you again. I’ll stop daydreaming about,” he caught her earlobe between his teeth, licked the shell of her ear, “making you scream again.”
Which he did all the time.
All damn day.
“Why does it have to be this way?” she asked, shaking her head. “Honestly, I want to be with you too.”
“Then let’s be together.”
“For how long?”
“However long you want me.”
“That’s not realistic.” She angled her hips, and when the pads of his fingertips brushed her clit, she purred. “It would only be a couple of months with you as mine.”
“It can be longer if you want it to be.”
It was wishful thinking. He had his orders, so all they really had was the next two months. Two months that he would make count.
He spread her lips with his fingers and stroked her there, against the bridge, underneath the cover of darkness. Instead of moaning, she released a series of quiet gasps as if surprised each time a jolt of pleasure rushed through her. When she tried to rock her hips, to match his rhythm, he held her still. She’d made him lose control, and he wanted it back. This wasn’t a climax to share. He was going to be the one who sent her sailing.
She went stiff.
He held her in place.
Warmth became heat on his fingers, his hand. And, as she came back down, he kissed her cheek and temple.
“Dom, can I kiss you now? Please?”
She turned around, and he allowed their lips to connect. He swept his tongue inside her mouth, first reacquainting himself with the taste of her he’d gone without for too long. Then he kissed her fully. Hard. Until she twisted and squirmed and he could tell that she was floating as high as he was. She kissed him back, insistent tongue like she thought this was punishment for denying her earlier, and he tasted the words that, had she not said them earlier, he would still know.
“Are you still going to throw me over?” she asked.
He picked her up.
She shrieked, arms locking around him.
“Did you eat?” He lowered her back down to the ground.
“Half of an okay burger.”
“Have dinner with me.”
“Kiss me again.”
He pinched her bottom lip between his teeth and released. “Not until you agree to have dinner with me.”
“I agree to have dinner with you, Dominik Sokolov.”
They ate at a nearby Japanese
restaurant. Eija laughed and smiled more than he’d ever seen her. He ordered their entrees while she picked dessert—a fluffy cheesecake slice with powdered sugar and berries. And he only took his eyes off her every once in a while to lock gazes with the man in the back corner that, for right now, he wouldn’t give two shits about. Right now, Yuri Sokolov was nothing but a distraction.
Chapter 18
Eija leaned up on her elbow and looked down into Dom’s face. Before coming down to his suite, they’d stopped at hers so she could grab her headscarf and toothbrush. He’d let her walk for most of the way but scooped her up into his arms when they stepped off the elevators.
She’d changed into one of his work shirts, and he’d stripped down to nothing but his boxer briefs, the band lying flat on his stomach and highlighting the toned muscles in his thighs. Then they’d climbed into bed.
And promptly fell asleep.
His suite was on the other side of the hotel, so the Thames peeked through the large windows next to the bed. She’d asked him to leave the drapes open so she could watch him like she did now, moonlight streaming onto his profile and emphasizing the hard lines of his face in contrast with the soft hills of his lips. As the night had progressed, his eyes had gone from cold steel to stormy droplets humming on a galvanized roof. It was a shame they hid behind his eyelids while he slept, but with all the work he’d put in that week, she was grateful he had this chance to rest.
“You’re so beautiful, Dom. I hate that you’re so beautiful.”
They were getting closer.
He deserved to know the truth.
Telling him now could mean that the fallout later might not end in her death. Since she’d never compromised a mission to this magnitude, she wasn’t sure what the punishment on Randy’s end would be. He’d already threatened that if she didn’t execute this operation and stick to their objectives as previously agreed upon, he’d strip her of everything she’d ever attained or hoped to attain. With how hard she’d worked for her accolades, her respect, and even her pension…
Had it been even five years ago, the threat would have held less weight.
Prince of the Brotherhood: A Mafia Romance Page 15