Rough: A Hitman Romance

by Chambers, V. J.

  Nikolai wasn’t here. He was in his office, and we’d picked this time of day because he would be alone in that building. When we blew it up, he would be the only one who died.

  Kiera was not going to die.

  I was going to find her, and I was going to protect her. I just needed to concentrate. To think, and then…

  I stopped at the end of the hallway, clutching my forehead.

  And then it came to me. I knew where she was. I knew where she’d go to try to reset the system.

  * * *

  Kiera

  The main control room was really a closet. It housed all of the fuse boxes and the big panel that controlled all the electronics in the entire building. So, all I had to do now was figure out which buttons would control the elevator system.

  Shouldn’t be too hard.

  I pressed one of the buttons.

  Nothing happened.

  A message on a small screen running above the panel flashed, Enter passcode.

  Seriously?

  I so did not have the passcode, but that was all right, because I had a program that could probably crack it on a thumb drive that I’d brought with me.

  I reached into my pocket. I had brought it with me, hadn’t I?

  And then the door opened behind me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Demetrius

  “I knew you’d be in here,” I said, throwing open the door. Kiera was standing in front of a mass of blinking lights and switches. They lit up her face, her wide eyes. Barging in on her like this had scared her.

  “What are you doing here?” she said. “How is Blaze supposed to know when to blow Nikolai’s office without you?”

  “He’ll figure it out,” I said. “You go back. I’m here. I’ve got this.” But even as I said that, I realized it made no sense. Her going back out into the building on her own would just be doubly dangerous.

  “Shut up,” she said, holding up a USB drive. “I’ve got to plug in this thing, run a program, break the passcode, and then take down the elevators. And I’ve got…” She tugged her phone from her pocket to check the time. “Exactly two minutes before that elevator comes back online. So, just let me think this through.”

  “How about this?” I said, heading over to the far wall, where a refrigerator-sized plug was stuck into the wall. I yanked it out of its socket.

  The room plunged into darkness.

  “Jesus, Demetrius,” she said. “What the hell was that?”

  “Did that work?”

  “Well, kind of,” she said. “Except that now the building has gone into emergency lockdown mode, and we’re stuck in this room for probably twenty minutes.”

  “Is the elevator running?”

  “Nothing’s running.”

  “Well, then good.” I folded my arms over my chest, not that she could see me. “I told you I could handle this myself. You didn’t need to come down here. You should have stayed up with your computers.”

  “You knocked out the Wi-Fi,” she said. “The earpieces were connected to that so that we could communicate. Now we can’t get in touch with anyone on the team at all. Everyone’s cut off from each other.”

  “Look, I’ll plug it back in.” I stuck the plug back in the wall.

  “It doesn’t matter if you plug it back in. We’re in emergency lockdown mode. Until the system reboots, we can’t leave this room, and nothing’s going to work.”

  Had I screwed up? I still wasn’t seeing how this was that bad of a thing. “Can Blaze still remotely detonate the charges on Nikolai’s office?”

  “Yeah, that shouldn’t be affected.”

  “All right, then. Everything’s good then. We’ll get Natasha out. We’ll get the girls out. We’ll blow Nikolai sky high. I’d say we’re in the clear.”

  It was quiet.

  “You don’t agree?” I asked.

  “It’s just… why did you have to barge in here? I had this under control.”

  “You didn’t need to have it under control. It was dangerous for you to leave your post, and you should have listened to me, because I’m in charge of running this job, and—”

  “You can’t treat me like glass.”

  “I don’t think you’re glass.”

  “I think you do. We keep hooking up, and I think you look at it as if you’re just dashing me against the ground over and over again, and then you run away, because you’re sure the next time I’m going to break.”

  I sighed. “This has nothing to do with us physically. Because that’s over.”

  “Right, because you’re afraid of breaking me. You think I’m fragile or something.”

  “I don’t think that, and there’s no reason to talk about this shit.”

  “Well, we’re trapped here, in the dark, for the next twenty minutes, so, um, what else are we going to do?”

  I didn’t want to talk at all. I knew that I had promised myself that the night in the hotel was the last time, that I would never touch her again, but… Twenty minutes locked up here in the dark? What were we going to do?

  Not seeing her made everything seem unreal. And I wanted her. I didn’t think I could stand being this close…

  I swallowed. I reached for her in the blackness, and I caught her right away. The room wasn’t that big. I grabbed onto her shoulders and I propelled her three feet backwards, into the wall.

  “Demetrius, what are you doing?”

  I crushed my body against hers, pressing my lips into hers. I cut off her words, thrusting my tongue into her mouth.

  She pushed at me, resisting me, struggling against me.

  I ripped my lips away. “I don’t think you’re glass,” I rasped. “I know that you’re flesh and blood, but I know that makes you just as vulnerable. And I don’t want to break you, damn it. I want you whole and happy, and if it means that I have to stay away from you—”

  “Fine, then. So, why are you touching me now?” Her voice was small. “Because I can’t take it again, Demetrius. I can’t walk away, still tasting you on my lips and have you reject me—”

  “I’ve never rejected you.”

  “You push me away.”

  I put my lips on her neck, tracing the outline of her clavicle with my tongue. Here in the dark, nothing seemed real, and I didn’t want her to talk. I didn’t want to think. I wanted to feel her body, discover her only with my hands. I wanted to have her again. I was never going to get enough of her.

  “Stop it,” she gasped, obviously affected by me. “You can’t just kiss it all away, make me lose my mind like that. If I can’t have all of you, I don’t want anything at all.”

  I skimmed my hands over her hips. “I’ll give you all of me,” I told her in a dark voice. “Every single inch of me.”

  “No,” she said. “You won’t. You’ll run away, and you’ll hold back. I’m falling for you, and every time we do this, it hurts worse and worse, and I can’t do it again.”

  I sighed. I rested my forehead against hers, and I was enveloped in her sweet scent, and I felt like I was drowning in her. “I know. I know, and I should stay away from you. I’ve been trying so, so hard. But when I’m close to you...”

  “Why? Why do you have to stay away from me?”

  “Because I’m bad for you.”

  “Maybe you should let me decide that for myself.”

  I kissed her.

  She kissed back, melting into me, her fingers clutching my shoulders. “Maybe,” she murmured against my lips, “you should respect me enough to let me take the risk if I want.”

  “No,” I said, my hands working their way under her shirt. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know what might happen to you. I have to protect you from all of it. I have to protect you from me. I’m a bad man.”

  “You’re not bad, Demetrius,” she sighed. “I couldn’t love you if you were bad.” Then she cringed from me. “Fuck, I can’t believe I just said that out loud.”

  I didn’t respond. I felt as if something
had been lit up inside me, something bright and strong. Every passing second was feeding it, turning it into a raging inferno. I was getting swept away in the blaze, and I was losing every shred of control that I had over myself.

  She was pushing at me. “Move, you idiot. Move.”

  I slammed her into the wall. I put my lips on hers, and I slid my hands down her hips over her thighs. I lifted her, wrapping her legs around my hips, and I kissed her everywhere. I kissed her mouth, her chin, her jaw, her neck, her ear lobe.

  She choked and gasped in pleasure and confusion.

  I seized the hem of her shirt and yanked it over her head. I pushed her bra out of the way. I bent down to kiss both of her nipples, to lick them and suck them.

  She drew in breath. “Demetrius—”

  I lifted my head. “I don’t think I can,” I said in a gravelly voice.

  “Can what?” she said, her voice breathy.

  “Stay away from you,” I said, returning to her breasts, sucking her tender flesh into my mouth. Hearing her words had put everything into sharp relief for me, and everything was very clear.

  The truth was, it hadn’t really been her that I was worried about breaking. It was myself. I was the fragile one. I was the one who was worried that I couldn’t survive losing love again.

  But now I realized that if I pushed her away, I was guaranteed to lose her. And I didn’t want that. I couldn’t bear that.

  I ran my tongue over her skin.

  She moaned.

  I fumbled at the catch to her pants. “I love you too,” I said.

  * * *

  Kiera

  “Shh,” Demetrius whispered as he lowered me to the floor. “You’ve got to hold still, sweetheart. I need you wet and ready for me, because when I fuck you, I’m going to need to do it hard and fast.”

  “Now,” I muttered, groping for his pants. I wanted to rip them off him.

  “Not yet.” His fingers were on my thighs. “Open your legs nice and wide for me. Let me touch your sweet pussy.”

  I obeyed, my legs falling apart. I was trembling. His words had turned me on more than anything he’d ever done to me.

  “Mmm,” he sighed. His fingers slid over my clit.

  A rush of euphoria traveled over my trembling body.

  He slid a finger inside me, still keeping another finger on my clit. “Oh, so nice and snug and wet. Have I told you how perfect your pussy is?”

  It was dark everywhere, and I felt like the darkness itself was caressing me. A wonderful taut feeling radiated out from my pelvis to the rest of my body, and I was floating in goodness.

  He began to rub circles around my clit, all the while working his finger inside me. “Just perfect. Made for me. Made to fit my fingers, my cock. Love the way you respond to me.”

  I whimpered. The pleasure was starting to thrum and gather. I felt it like a heaviness, like the promise of a rain storm.

  “Love having you open for me, surrendering to me. You’re mine, Kiera.”

  “Yes,” I whispered. “I’m yours.” The pleasure surged, electric and tantalizing. And then it ebbed.

  “This pussy is mine.”

  “Yes,” I moaned, feeling the surge come again, more intense this time, almost breaking through. I felt a twitch, promising what would come soon. “Yours.”

  “I love how wet you are,” he said, circling my clit faster and faster.

  The pleasure was mounting.

  “My cock loves how wet you are,” he breathed.

  More intense. It was coming. The rainstorm was coming, and thunder was shaking my thighs.

  “My cock loves you. So hard for you,” he gasped.

  I was right on the edge. Thunder rolling in, lighting threatening.

  “And I love you, Kiera.” He kissed me, his fingers frenzied on my body. “I adore you. I can’t live without you.”

  And I came. I was doused in a pounding downpour of thrashing, exquisite convulsions. My climax was bright and intense, like being struck by lightning again and again, and I moaned and screamed and bucked against his fingers.

  And before I was even done, before the aftershocks had left me, he was pressing his huge length into my sensitive flesh, and I was filled and complete.

  “Oh, so good,” I said. “You feel so good.”

  “You feel perfect,” he said.

  And we began to move together.

  * * *

  Kiera

  I lay in the circle of Demetrius’s arms, feeling as if I’d just run a marathon or something. My limbs were weak. I was spent. I wanted to burrow into him, stay here with him, connected, forever.

  There was no sound except the slow in and out of his breath.

  We were close and touching.

  We were together.

  Suddenly, there was a loud noise and the floor shook.

  “I think that was Blaze blowing Nikolai sky high,” said Demetrius softly.

  “I think you’re right,” I whispered.

  And then, all at once, the lights blinked back on. There was a whirring sound that started up as processors in the closet began to work again.

  The light bathed us, bringing us back to reality.

  I felt embarrassed. Had I really just stopped everything in the middle of a job to get it on with Demetrius? Christ on a cracker, that was probably the most unprofessional thing I’d ever done. I scrambled for my clothes.

  He stopped me. “What’s the problem?” he grinned. “I’ve seen all this before.”

  I blushed. “It’s just that…” I put my bra back on, fished my panties up and stuck a leg through. “This is the part where you take it all back and tell me how dangerous it is for us to do this. And—seriously—in the middle of a job? What were we thinking?”

  He nodded. “You’re right.” He started to pull on his boxers. “This was very unprofessional of us.”

  “Exactly,” I said, but my heart was sinking. It really was going to be like all the other times, even though he’d told me he loved me. He’d said it in the heat of the moment, and he hadn’t meant any of it.

  He tugged me against him and planted a kiss on my lips. “So, I think that we’re going to have to spend a lot of time out of work doing this.”

  “What?” I hadn’t expected that.

  “You were right before, when you said that I should respect you enough to decide to take the risk if you want to,” he said. “And besides, I am utterly addicted to making love to you. I can’t stop. I want you all the time. So, I’m thinking that we should just make a habit of doing it every morning and every night, and maybe on lunch breaks, and—”

  “Demetrius.” I shoved him, giggling.

  He kissed my forehead. “And then maybe we’ll be able to concentrate on work,” he said in his rumbly voice.

  Damned if it didn’t still give me shivers. I cupped his face with both my hands. “Are you serious about this?”

  “Deadly serious.”

  And then I kissed him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Demetrius

  Natasha was sitting on Matteo’s lap, and she had her arms around his neck. He was grinning like the Cheshire cat, and she hadn’t taken her eyes off him since we’d reunited them about an hour ago. Truthfully, they hadn’t stopped touching.

  I wasn’t one to judge. I didn’t want to let go of Kiera either, and I thought having her sit on my lap would be pretty awesome, but I just wasn’t sure how she’d take that.

  Besides, she kept moving around, going to get things for Natasha. She went to fetch tea, then honey, then milk.

  We were back at Matteo’s place, sitting in the living room. Kiera was perched on the couch next to me, just out of my reach. I wished that I still had my hands all over her. But there were other things to think about.

  We’d delivered Natasha here right away at her request.

  Cass and Ambrose were working with the girls that we’d released from the basement of Nikolai’s building. They basically had herded them all onto the metro an
d were taking them to the Ukrainian embassy. They’d all be returned home, and they would be safe.

  Blaze? Well, he’d stayed to watch his explosion burn out. He liked watching things burn.

  “I could not believe it,” Natasha was saying. “Out of nowhere, my ceiling…” She made a hand gesture, both of her fingers bursting open like an explosion. “And that man look down on me, and he say your name.” She beamed at Matteo. “I knew I was safe.”

  He stroked her cheek. “You lied to me. Your English is fantastic.”

  She shook her head. “Is bad, bad. But I practice since we are engaged. I want to talk to you when I come to America. Not think that…” She screwed up her face, thinking hard. “That bad men…take me.”

  Matteo said something to her in Ukrainian.

  She beamed.

  “I’ve been practicing too,” he said.

  She laid her head down on his shoulder.

  Kiera cleared her throat. “So, maybe we should go and leave these two alone,” she said.

  “You all right here, Natasha?” I said. “Because you can come with us if you want. We took the other girls to the Ukrainian embassy.”

  She furrowed her brow. “Why would I not be all right with Matteo?”

  Matteo glared at me. “She’s fine here. We’re happy together, Demetrius.”

  I held up both my hands in surrender. “I just asked a question.”

  Matteo turned to Natasha. “We should call your parents, yes?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “What am I thinking? They are very worried, I think.”

  “Come on,” said Kiera, standing up. “Let’s let them be.”

  I stood up too. “Well, you two, um, have fun.”

  Matteo had given Natasha his cell phone, and she was dialing intently.

  I followed Kiera out of the living room, and then out of the house.

  The minute I shut the door after us, she rounded on me. “Why did you say that?”

  “Say what?” I said.

  “You don’t still think that Natasha is scamming Matteo, do you? You can’t possibly believe that.”

  I scratched my jaw. “I don’t think I said anything that would make it sound as though I thought—”