Close Up: Exposure Book Three

by Jocoby, Annie

  No, I couldn’t put her in danger like that. Not until I married her and she would be absolutely protected.

  Which brought me to my other option. I could tell my father the truth about Sophie’s child, and hope that my father believed me. If he believed me, then that still didn’t mean that he would approve of my marriage to CJ. What it did mean was that he wouldn’t pressure me into marrying Sophie. It also would mean that he would at least consider approving my marriage to CJ. As it stood right at the moment, my father refused to even consider it. He was absolutely adamant that I was going to marry Sophie.

  I felt like I was sinking in quicksand.

  CJ wasn’t saying anything. I could just imagine what was going through her mind. I felt awful for bringing her here. My father initially told me that he wanted to meet her, which is why I made the decision to bring her. Of course, once Sophie got ahold of him, it all changed, and it was now looking like this trip was going to be for naught.

  I took a deep breath. “CJ, let me work on my father.”

  “How are you going to work on him, Asher? How? You really messed things up when you slept with that skank.” Then she said something under her breath.

  “What was that you just said?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing.”

  “It wasn’t nothing. You said something just now. Out with it.”

  “I said that you’re a goddamned idiot. I was starting to get over this whole Sophie thing, and now, here it is, brought up into our face once again. Now what, Asher? What if I’m pregnant with your child? What then? You’re going to be married to Sophie, that’s what. You really didn’t think any of this through, did you, Asher? Did you?”

  I finally just took a breath and decided to take at least one risk. I was going to tell CJ the truth about Sophie and me. I had to trust that her knowing the truth would never get back to Sophie. I had to go on from there, and then, once CJ at least knew the truth, she could possibly help me find a solution out of this mess.

  I drove to a spot in the country where CJ and I could get out and take our clothes off. In this case, it was necessary, because I could never trust that Sophie didn’t plant one or both of us with some kind of listening device on our clothes. It was also necessary that we did this in a spot that wasn’t in the hotel room, for the same reason. I couldn’t be too careful.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “We’re going to a spot where nobody can see us. And then we’re going to get naked.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not in the mood for that right now, Asher, sorry.”

  I just looked at her. I didn’t want to say anything that might tip off Sophie if she was listening for some reason.

  “Asher, I said….”

  “I heard you.”

  “So? You’re still going to drive out to the country and get naked with me?”

  “Yes.”

  She crossed her arms and said nothing for the rest of the trip.

  We arrived at a spot that was way out of the way of anything and anyone. Then I said to CJ “get out of the car.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  I regretted telling her what I wanted to do. I should have just taken her out to the country, and then asked her to get naked. She was going to be a handful.

  “CJ, I’m not going to ask again. Get out of the car.”

  “Fuck off.”

  At that, I unbuckled her seat belt and picked her up. She was light as a feather, even though she was beating my back with her fists. “Put me down, Asher, right this very second. I don’t want to have sex with you right now.”

  I said nothing, but continued just to carry her out, further and further into the woods. She howled, screamed and cried the whole time, but I kept going.

  I got to a spot, and ordered her to take off her clothes.

  “No. What, are you just going to rape me, Asher? Is that what it’s come to? You disgust me.”

  I shook my head, and pulled off her shirt, pants and underwear while she kicked and fought like a wildcat. “Stop, Asher, just stop. Get off of me.”

  I wordlessly took off her shoes and socks, and then I rapidly took off my own clothes. It was difficult for me to undress, as I had to have at least one hand firmly on her wrist, and that was very hard for me to do, as she continued to desperately fight me. “Asher, I can’t believe this. I just can’t believe this. I told you no, and…” And then she started to hysterically cry.

  I eventually got all my clothes off, and I picked her up again and took her further into the woods. She kicked and fought the entire time, and I was happy that she was so small and I was able to overpower her so much. I had to get her about a mile away from the clothes, because I didn’t know of any device that would be able to detect conversations that were more than mile away. There were some very powerful devices that could detect conversation that was less than a mile, though.

  I laborously carried her for about a half hour, with her fighting me the entire way. “Stop, Asher, put me down. Put me down this very second. Stop.”

  Finally, I got to a point where I felt safe and put her down. She immediately started to scream in my ear. Her fists were clenched and her face was the color of a beet. Tears were rapidly streaming down her face, and she started to hit me over and over and over again.

  I stood there and took it, and then, when she finally collapsed in a pile of leaves, her face in her hands, I sat down next to her. “Are you calmed down, CJ?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, Asher. If I tell you that I’m not in the mood, then I’m not in the mood, goddammit.”

  “CJ, I don’t want to have sex with you. I mean, I do, but not right now. I have something very important I need to tell you.”

  She was breathing hard, but she gradually calmed down. “What? Why did you bring me clear out here, naked, to tell me something?”

  “Because I don’t trust Sophie. I don’t trust her to not have put a microscopic listening device in our clothes. I need to tell you the truth about Sophie’s child, and she can’t ever know that you know the truth. If she finds out, then you’re literally going to be dead. That’s why I didn’t want to tell you until now. But you need to know.”

  She looked at me quizzically, but she nodded her head wordlessly.

  “Okay. Sophie was behind your abduction. You already know this. But what you don’t know is that she blackmailed me into agreeing to accept paternity for her child. She knew where you were, and I didn’t, and she told me that she would tell me where you were if I agreed to say that her unborn child is mine.”

  “I don’t understand. Why was that important?”

  “Two reasons. One, of course, is that she knew that if you thought I was having a baby with her that it would drive a huge wedge between us. Which it did, of course.”

  CJ nodded her head. Her breathing was now normal, and her face was no longer flushed. “Okay. Mission accomplished there. What other reason did she have for you doing that?”

  “The actual father is a man named Viktor Kazakov. He’s married to a woman named Oksana. Oksana’s father is a man by the name of Vasily Grinkov. Vasily is to the underworld in America what my father is to the underworld in Russia – extremely powerful. Oksana knows that Viktor and Sophie have been having an affair, and, thus far, she doesn’t seem to care. However, if Sophie has Viktor’s child…”

  “What would happen to Sophie if Oksana knew the truth?”

  “Vasily will have Sophie killed, plain and simple. It’s one thing to have an affair, it’s quite another to produce a child from that affair. So, I agreed to be Sophie’s alibi for her child. Sophie had me by the balls, so she told me that nobody is to ever know the truth about the child. And that would include you, of course. So, that’s why we’re out here in the woods. That was the only way that I could tell you the truth safely.”

  She nodded her head. “Wow. Okay.” Then she smiled. “Thanks for finally telling me that, Asher.”

>   “I felt it was time. But CJ, you can never, ever and I mean ever, tell anybody that you know this. But what I need for you to do would be to help me brainstorm this with my father. He needs to know the truth, but that’s a huge risk, too. One false move and you not only won’t be protected by my father, but you’re going to be in extreme danger.”

  She took a deep breath. “Well, then, let’s do this.” Then smiled shyly. “But Asher, we’re naked, so maybe we should take advantage of that.”

  I smiled back. “I thought you would never ask.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  CJ

  I thought I wanted to kill Asher at first. I should have known that he wasn’t going to force me into sex if I didn’t want it. But I couldn’t think of anything else.

  Then when he told me what he told me…it confirmed my suspicions that there was some explanation for his supposed paternity of Sophie’s child. And he did it to save me. He threw himself on the sword for my benefit, and I loved him more than ever for that.

  Now we were here in the woods, completely naked. And I had to admit that I wanted him more than I ever wanted him, right at that moment. I now knew that Asher loved me enough to do something like this for me.

  I laid down on the ground, and he laid down on top of me. There was something about the danger that we were in that made me even more turned on. His scent was driving me wild. I spread my legs, wanting to receive him as soon as possible.

  He kissed me slowly as he laid on top of me. I wrapped my legs around him tightly, and I took his manhood in my fist and stroked it up and down. His lips were on my breasts and then his fingers slowly made their way down my belly and onto my clit.

  “You’re so wet for me, CJ,” he said, in between kisses. “Goddamn, I want to fuck you so bad. I want to be inside of you for a long, long time.”

  “I want that too, Asher, so bad.” And I did. I knew that this moment was all we had. When we got back to reality, we were going to have to do something dangerous. We were going to have to try to outwit Sophie, somehow, someway, so that his father would approve of Asher and I getting married.

  Then he got between my legs, and I felt his tongue gently, yet forcefully, glide in and out of my pussy. I bucked up and my legs wrapped around his back even tighter.

  He kissed his way up my stomach and then wrapped his warm lips around my own as he entered me slowly. I felt him root inside of me, filling me up, and I gasped. I started to moan and scream, louder and louder, as he glided in and out of me.

  “Oh, Asher, I love this. I love this so much. But don’t come inside of me.” I was still scared that his father would be in our children’s lives. I needed to know that there wasn’t going to be a chance that our children could be corrupted by Sergei Pushkin.

  He shook his head. “I need this, CJ. I need this insurance. It’s the only way.”

  I felt severe misgivings about it, but I knew that he was right. I would have to worry about his father’s possible control over our family’s lives later. Right now, I knew that I had to try to get pregnant.

  As he came inside of me, I screamed out in ecstasy. I was also terrified of what was going to come next.

  After we were finished, we walked back to where our clothes were and we got dressed. Then we went to Asher’s car, which was parked on the grass.

  I tightly gripped Asher’s hand, as we drove along the road. We were going to have to go to the hotel, have it swept for bugs, and then we were going to have to talk, long and hard, about what we were going to do. We needed to outsmart Sophie, and we needed to get Sergei, Asher’s father, on board.

  It seemed impossible, but we were going to do it.

  We had to find a way.

  We just had to.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  After Asher and I made love in the woods, it was time to get to business. We both knew what we needed, and we both knew that there was little time to get it. Sophie had already done her damage with Asher’s father. She basically blocked me before I had ever gotten a chance to say word one to Sergei Pushkin. She was wily and cunning and, because she had apparent power in the underworld, she was also quite dangerous.

  Asher and I said nothing on the way to the hotel room. We couldn’t talk about our plans, because neither of us were entirely sure that Sophie didn’t bug the car. Asher thought that she probably didn’t, as he knew the man who lent him the car, and he trusted him. “But you can’t be too careful,” he had told me in the woods.

  I didn’t feel like making small talk, at all, so I was silent in the car. Asher was squeezing my hand, and I smiled at him weakly. My insides were turning, inside and out, and I was screaming inside. I so wanted to talk to Asher about all of it. I wanted the two of us to really get together and brainstorm the whole sorry affair, so, hopefully, we could come up with a plan to combat the current situation. It was frustrating that I couldn’t even talk to him about it right at that moment.

  Finally, we got to the hotel room. Asher had told me earlier in the woods that the chances were slim that Sophie was able to bug the hotel room, just because she couldn’t have known where he was going to stay, let alone the room that he was going to be staying in, but, he also said that he didn’t trust her not to know. “Sophie has her ways,” he said to me.

  “What, is she psychic or something?”

  Asher had chuckled. “Sometimes I think that she is. At any rate, I’m going to have the hotel room swept. I’m going to use a security agency that has no allegiance to Sophie, and they’ll be able to tell me, after sweeping our clothes and the hotel room, that we’re safe.”

  Asher used the hotel phone and called somebody. I saw him talking, and then he nodded to me. “Okay, CJ, let’s go.”

  At that, we went up to the hotel suite, which was a beautiful space that was bigger than most apartments back home. Much bigger than most apartments. Asher ordered me to get undressed and to get dressed into something else in the closet. I went into the closet, which had a dresser in it, and I chose jeans and a top in the dresser. Asher also changed his clothes, and then he took both of our clothing and went downstairs.

  When he got back, he explained to me why we just did what we did. “The security team swept everything, including the clothes that are in this hotel room. They did a very thorough job, and they didn’t find anything. I really didn’t think that they would. But the clothes that we were just wearing haven’t yet been swept, which is why I needed you and I to change into something that has been examined.”

  “And the car?”

  “They’re coming back and they’re sweeping the car and the clothes that we were wearing.”

  I nodded. “Okay, then, I guess we’re safe to talk then. Thank god, because I felt like bursting in the car just now.”

  “I know, I felt the same way.” Then he went over to a couch, and patted the space next to him. I tentatively sat down and took a deep breath.

  “Okay,” I said. “Let’s talk.”

  He nodded. “Here’s what we know. After we talk that out again, we’ll have to brainstorm some solutions.” He paused. “Sophie is pregnant with Viktor Kazakov’s child, so she’s in danger if Viktor’s wife, Oksana, finds out. She has me by the balls, because she’s well-connected enough to put your life in danger if I ever breathe a word about the real paternity source for her child. She’s told my father about the baby, and now he’s determined that I’m going to marry Sophie.” He sighed. “Am I leaving anything out?”

  “No,” I said. “So, what can we do?”

  “I’ve thought about this and thought about it. Now, I’m just going to throw ideas out there, and maybe something I say might spark your interest.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Okay. Well, one obvious solution would be to take care of Sophie for good. I have some connections that could put a hit on her, and she’ll be gone for good.”

  I suppressed a smile. That sounded like a great idea, but I didn’t want to admit to that. I didn’t even know this woman, ye
t I wouldn’t shed a tear if she were somehow iced. Then I shook my head. She’s a human being, for the love of god. Why would Asher’s mind go there first?

  Then I looked at his face, and I knew that he wasn’t really serious about that option. “That sounds good, Asher, at first. But, come on, you left that kind of work behind when you left the mob. You doing that would mean that you’re back into getting blood on your hands, and I don’t think that you could live with yourself. Besides, there’s an innocent baby to think about, too. How far along is she by now?”

  “About four months,” he said. “And you’re right. You’re absolutely right. I couldn’t do that and look at myself in the mirror. I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night. Not to mention the fact that wiping her out might start something with some other families that I need to be prepared to finish. The biggest thing that my father warned me about when I came to America was starting a war with other families. If I start a war, he won’t be there to back me up. That’s another reason why putting a hit on Sophie wouldn’t be feasible. I just wanted to throw that out there so that we could knock it down.”

  “Well, good, then,” I said. Then I got up and got a piece of paper and a pen. I wrote down “Ice Sophie,” and then crossed it out. “There. That’s not an option.” Then I asked him the next question. “What about money? You have a lot of money to play with. Could you pay her off somehow to go away?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think so. She’s independently wealthy. Her job pays her very well, and she also gets a lot of underworld money for some of the things that she does for them. She’s worth millions, and she doesn’t need the money. And there’s not any amount of money that would make her give up on the idea of she and I together. She’s very persistent and determined that she’s going to do everything in her power to make sure that I one day become her husband.”