by Evelyn Glass
Good.
I open the door. I’m met with Barinov’s glistening forehead. He totters from foot to foot and waves a glass of champagne as he talks. “Alexander, my good friend!”
“Barinov!” I grin, wishing I could snap his neck.
“How goes the merchandise?”
“Good,” I say, hoping my anger doesn’t show in my voice.
“Good, good, good!” he sings, grinning like a jackal. “I am here at the request of Master Zherkov. He wishes to inform you that the men are doing a little display of their merchandise in the viewing room. Lap dances. And I’m sure you know, it’s poor manners to refuse such an offer, especially from the big man himself.”
“A lap dance?” I say. “In front of everybody?”
Baroniv squints at me. “Yes, I can assume there’s not a problem with that, yes?”
“Can you give me a second?”
“That shouldn’t be necessary,” Barinov mutters, but waves his hand.
I close the door and go to Felicity. “Did you hear?”
She nods, biting her lip.
“What will happen if we don’t do it?” she asks.
“They’ll get suspicious and start asking questions we can’t afford them to ask.”
“It’ll break our cover, in other words?”
“Exactly.”
“Then we have to do it.” Her eyebrows furrow. “Let’s just get it over with.”
I’m sorry, I think but do not say.
I return to the door and to an impatient Barinov. “We’ll be down in a moment,” I say.
He claps his hands together. Champagne swills over the side of his glass onto the floor. “Most fantastic!” he grins, and then waddles down the hallway.
I turn back into the room. Felicity stands tall, strong, holding her high heels in her hand with a determined expression on her face.
She’s unlike any woman I’ve ever met, I think.
Chapter Five
Felicity
Over the past few days, my hope has become stronger. I’ve gone from having to fight off a rapist with a kitchen knife to being rescued by one of my father’s men. But there’s something else, too, something that sits deep inside of me and that I’m finding more and more difficult to deny. It’s inappropriate, maybe even dangerous, but it calls out to me over and over and despite how many times I stifle it, it resurfaces.
It came out in full force one night when I was pretending to be asleep. I didn’t think; I just rolled over and placed my hand on his belly. It was rock-hard. A clearly outlined pack of muscle. I longed to trail my fingers over it, feel each individual bump, but that would’ve given the game away. Instead, I just lay my hand upon it and felt the power of him. He is handsome, and there’s a quiet intensity about him I find inexorably attractive. Despite the danger of our situation, I find myself thinking more and more frequently about Roma, about his muscles, about his capability, about his hard-set jaw and his dark, brooding eyes.
Stop it! I cry at myself. Get your head in the game, now!
I follow Roma down the hallway, past other cabins in which men hold women prisoner. Roma wears a tight grey suit and walks just in front of me. Sometimes, he won’t look at me. I’m not sure if that’s because he senses something between us, too, or that he feels nothing. I’m inclined to think the former. My little trick with this dress secured that. He can look away and mutter and grunt, but he can’t stop his breathing from getting quicker, can’t stop the heat emanating from him. The other night, I even dreamt about us. In the dream, I rolled over and sat atop him, grinding, and when I woke up I realized my hand was creeping down my body. I stopped it, but only with an effort.
Roma pushes open a door at the end of a long hallway, revealing a circular room with one chair in the middle. All around the room, men stand, fat Russian men with hungry eyes, rubbing their hands together as before a meal.
I swallow. No time for thought now. The show has begun.
“Here he is!” the man called Barinov grins. “Let the show commence.”
I hate Barinov, with his always-sweating skin and his beady eyes. He’s the man whose men kidnapped me. I heard them mention his name several times when the black bag was over my head and I was being carted across France like a prize horse on the way to a show. Not for the first time in the past few days, I’m glad Roma won me. Otherwise, I would be in one of these men’s dungeons. I shiver at the thought.
“Sit down, then!” Barinov grins, waving at Roma.
Roma looks at me. His eyes are hard and yet soft. A contradiction that suits him perfectly. Soft eyes staring out of a hard, brooding blue, as if all his emotion is constrained behind a stormy wave. He tells me I don’t know him well and that may be true. But I’ve spent enough time with him to know he doesn’t want to do this; he doesn’t want the men to watch. Neither do I, but I’d rather them watch than grow suspicious and pull out guns and knives or worse.
I skip over to him, plastering the fakest, sweetest smile onto my face. “Come on,” I sing, touching his arm. It’s an act—just an act—and yet when I feel his muscle, I can’t help but wonder at the strength of him. I lead him to the chair and shove him softly. He stares into my eyes. His message is clear: We don’t have to do this. Again, I’m sure he likes me, is just as intrigued by me as I am by him. He wouldn’t care how many people watched me otherwise, would he? I widen my eyes a fraction, hoping he gets my point: We do, and you know it.
The man called Zherkov steps forward and waves the crowd quiet. “You have all been kind enough to let your ladies put on a show for us. Now let’s be quiet and let our good friend Alexander do the same.” He steps back into the crowd, which to me looks like a sea of watching eyes. “Proceed.”
I take a step back and study Roma. His hands are gripping his knees and his jaws are clenched so hard they are well-defined in his face, two small bumps. Somebody presses a button in the wall and then the room is filled with music, soft, whimsical.
Okay, I think. I’ve played the game thus far.
I hone my sight, make it so I only see Roma. The rest of the room falls away and then it’s just me and Roma, standing alone in this room; the rest of them could’ve fallen into ocean for all I care.
Slowly, I begin to sway my hips, lifting my hands above my head and swinging my hips from side to side. I feel the fabric of the red dress around me, hear perverted men breathing quickly. I ignore them, blot them out, and focus on Roma’s face. His eyes are tugged down to my legs, my swaying body. The music gets faster and I get faster with it, still a few feet from him, letting him watch me. I feel a tingle down between my legs, a shocking tingle. A tingle that gets stronger as Roma’s eyes get more intense, watch me more closely. He loves it, I think, and that pushes me on. He really loves it.
I step forward so that I’m leaning over him. He looks up at me, his mouth twisted. I feel as though I am in the presence of a caged lion. If it were not for the cage, the lion would attack. Likewise, if it were not for the countless eyes and the heavy breathing, Roma would jump upon me. I shake my chest, my breasts wobbling, and when I look down at his crotch, I see that he’s hard for me. Hard, and huge. His cock presses urgently against his pants and his eyes are locked on me.
I turn around, getting into it now despite myself, and bend over and move my ass in his face. I look back. His hands are gripping his knees so hard his forearms are shaking. I know he wants to reach out and touch my ass. I know he wants to spank me. And I wish he could. God help me, I really do wish he could.
I do a one-eighty and then spread my legs and sit on his lap. I gasp. His cock presses firmly into my underwear, a stiff rod of pleasure, rubbing firmly against my clit. I move up and down, up and down, rubbing the flesh of my pussy against him, my lips, my clit. The lap dance is forgotten and I take pleasure from his cock; heat spreads up into my belly and my breasts. I reach forward and grab his shoulders, moving, twisting my hips.
The music is forgotten. Everything is forgotten. I look down into
his face and I can see it’s the same for him. All he knows, in this moment, is the pleasure of my body.
His cock is fit to burst, on the verge of exploding. It jolts, so hard it’s trying to escape his pants.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I lean down to his face. I want to taste his lips. I don’t care. I just want to feel the heat and the—
Suddenly, the song stops. Zherkov paces into the center of the room, clapping his hands. “Very good!” he laughs. “Excellent! Most excellent!”
Roma and I hold each other’s gazes for a moment, the unspent pleasure hovering between us, and then the room erupts into applause and cheers. I stand up, aware all over again of the watching eyes, the perverted men.
“Yes, most excellent,” a man says, his voice low, seedy.
I’m not sure, but I think it’s Barinov.
Roma glances across at me. Redness has spread up his neck onto his face, and he can’t seem to catch his breath.
Chapter Six
Felicity
As soon as we get back to the cabin, Roma goes into the shower. He doesn’t look at me. I sense he can’t look at me. Something happened in that room which wasn’t meant to happen. He felt something. I saw it in him. It almost overpowered us. Hell, it would’ve overpowered us had the music not ended. I lie on the bed, legs crossed, anticlimactic warmth roiling through me.
My hand moves down my body, almost to my pussy, but I stop it. It won’t be the same. It’s not my hand and my imagination I want. For better or worse, it’s Roma. His body. His hands. His cock. Most of all, his lips. During the dance, it was like a spell was cast on us. An atmosphere I’ve never experienced with a man enveloped us, an atmosphere I certainly never expected to experience here, of all places. I close my eyes and try to clear my mind, will the sensations from my body. But I can hear the blast of the shower in the next room, a constant tsssssssss, and with the noise comes thrusted images. Steam rising off muscles. Water trickling through hair, down his face, onto his chest. His cock, wet, hanging between his legs. Perhaps still hard . . .
Remember where you are, remember what situation you’re in.
Roma is here to rescue me, I remind myself. Falling for each other—even just giving in to animal urges—could jeopardize that. What if it distracts him from his job? What if he starts to care about me and then can’t bear to watch me play the role I have to play? What if he flies off the handle the next time Zherkov or Barinov make a crude comment? Then he’ll be thrown overboard and I’ll be stranded, alone, at the mercy of dozens of men who’ve just seen me give the lap dance of a lifetime. No, that wouldn’t be a good position to be in at all.
I promise myself that I won’t give in to these urges. I say it clearly in my mind: I will stay away from him. I will fight them. But they’re strong and I don’t know how long I can resist them. I’ve never been truly excited by a man. I’ve had boyfriends, of course, at college and high school, and one brief fling at the gym. But there’s never been that heat you sometimes read about in magazines. The chest-trembling heat which makes everything else seem unimportant, the heat that moves through you like something alive, calling out, howling. The animal heat. The heat of true lovers. I’ve never felt that. Sex with the exes was satisfying enough, but never explosive, never transformative. It always left me unsated, like a drowning woman having only half a cup of water. I always wanted more. And Roma could be that more. I can see it in him, strong, ripped . . .
“You’re doing it again,” I mutter.
He’s been in the shower now for what feels like hours. I sense he’s in there so that he can avoid me. When he looks at me, it’s like he’s fighting a war within himself. I see it in his face, one moment pained, one moment cold. Warring factions fighting for control of his heart. Ha, who am I kidding? Maybe not his heart, but something else, definitely. And the lap dance didn’t help.
I’m brought from my thoughts when the cabin door opens. I crane my neck up—I try to scream.
Barinov moves quicker than I would’ve dreamed. The fat man shoots across the room as though he is not covered in a thick layer of fat, but a quick, young man. He flies to the side of the bed and, as the noise is about to erupt from my lips, clamps his hand down on my mouth. I like to think I’m strong (and not for a woman, but just strong) but when I strain against him, he just lays his huge forearm across my chest and pins me to the bed.
I strain again, and with a grunting laugh he pushes me back down. His eyes are inches from my face, bloodshot and wide with . . . no, and it dawns on me. No, no, no. His eyes are wide with pleasure. He runs his tongue along his upper lip, grinning. I strain even harder; he pushes me down even harder.
When he brings his lips to my ear, his breath tickles along my skin. I flinch away. Try to, at least. But he wrenches my jaws with his hand and pulls me closer.
“I saw your man in there,” Barinov says, breathing so heavily I feel as though I am engulfed in the warm, reeking steam which comes from his lips. “He doesn’t look like much, no? Not much of a real man. He just sat there and he didn’t even touch you and he looked scared, poor silly little man. You see, shlyukha, I am not the man people think I am. I am not a weak and fat man. I am a strong proud Russian man and I have killed many men in my life. They call me the Bull and my father was an advisor to Stalin. Don’t make the mistake of fighting, shlyukha. Don’t even try.”
I ignore his words and thrash with my arms. I can feel what he wants to do. Feel it. It emanates from him in potent waves of testosterone and sweat.
Then his hand slides down my body. Thick sausage fingers paw at my skin and he groans as they toy with the hem of my dress.
“Such a pretty girly I have, eh?” he says, placing his hand on my leg.
Chapter Seven
Roma
What the hell happened in there? I ask myself, over and over, as the water drips down my naked body. I can’t help but wonder at it. I’m not a man to be captivated by a woman. I’ve seen men taken prisoner by women before. Bear was like that. He wore his heart on his sleeve and more than once his sleeve was grabbed and violently smashed against the wall. Bear, with his soft eyes and massive power and deadly efficiency, was a weakling when it came to women. Was, I think. He probably still is. That’s true. Just because he’s no longer part of the business doesn’t mean he’s gotten any better in that regard.
But not me, never. I don’t let women take control of me like that. I don’t sing them songs and I don’t bring them gifts and, most of all, I never let their claws wrap around my heart. I turn myself to ice and I don’t let myself feel. I’m a hitman, a working killer, a man whose emotions will be the death of me if I let them get out of hand. I rub shower gel into my body, thinking: I just have to see her for what she is. A means to an end. Get her back home safe and then her father will lower security and I can get at him. Once I get at him, it’s game over. Big pay check for me. Hell, maybe I’ll take Bear’s advice and cash out.
I wash the shower gel from my body and step from the shower, shaking my head. Water droplets fly onto the glass of the shower, onto the floor. Then—I stop.
My senses are honed and I can’t believe I haven’t heard it up until now. I tilt my head for a fraction of a second to make sure. Dammit. Somebody is in the next room, a heavy-breathing man, messing with Felicity.
In less than a moment, all my convictions about not letting this woman captivate me are thrown out of the porthole. My animal instincts kick in and I charge toward the door.
Chapter Eight
Felicity
When Barinov grabs my thigh, it feels as though five overweight eels are slithering against my skin. His hand is clamped so firmly over my mouth I feel the moisture of his palm squeezing between my lips. I kick out, try to wriggle out from beneath him, but he’s stronger than a fat man ought to be. Please, please, please, I scream. But no, I don’t. Not out loud. I scream but no words emerge from my lips. I scream in my head, willing myself on. But no matter how much I scream, I can’t wil
l myself stronger. I can’t make it so I have enough power to counter this hulking brute. I push harder, my tendons twisting, veins popping against my skin, but nothing happens.
Barinov, giggling like a kid out of a horror movie, slides his hand up my leg, into my dress.
Dimly, as if from a great distance, I hear the shower turn off in the next room. Then, less than second later, Roma charges into the bedroom. He’s completely naked and water flies from him. He looks down for a beat at Barinov and me squished beneath him, and then launches himself at Barinov.
Barinov lets me go in a blink and rises to meet Roma. He throws a backhand and Roma ducks it, aims a punch at Barinov’s gut. Barinov takes it like nothing has happened. Roma hits him twice more and Barinov just grunts.
“I have been beaten worse than that by little girls,” Barinov breathes.
I lean up, running my hands over my body. I feel tight. I can’t breathe. I suck in gasping, hollow breaths. Barinov’s weight has crushed something in me. Winded me. I hunch over and suck in and out, in and out, trying to steady my breathing.