“Saul,” she moans, her eyes fluttering open. “Where’s Saul?”
I look around, but the men are no longer in the room. They’re “disposing” of the evidence before the police get here. “He ran,” I tell her. “He knocked you out and then attacked me.” I touch my throbbing cheek, and her gaze goes there. I want her to see what her boyfriend did to me. I want her to realize he’s dangerous to everyone.
“He hit you?” Her voice is a tiny whisper.
I nod, my own eyes tearing up. “He tried to rape me. But Nick . . . he stopped him. They screamed at each other, and then Saul . . . he ran.” The lie sounds awful in my mouth, but I don’t know what else to say. That Nick broke his neck and is even now disposing of the body with a dirty cop?
It would put everyone in danger. And I won’t lose Nick because of Christine.
To my surprise, though, Christine bursts into noisier tears. “He said if I ever tried to leave him, he’d disappear. That I’d never see him again.”
My mouth goes dry. Could we be so lucky? “He—he said something like that when he left,” I lie. “He was shouting. Really mad.”
But she just buries her face into my shoulder and cries. “I’ve lost him.”
And I pat her shoulder and try to soothe her, even though I’m brimming with relief.
We have an easy out. If Christine, who professes to love her boyfriend, readily accepts that he will just disappear from her life, we can use this.
I’m willing to sell this lie to whoever will buy it.
***
Hours later, McFadden—the dirty cop—drives Christine home. We have all given our statements, been examined by paramedics, and the cops are now on the lookout for a man who matches Saul’s description. They won’t find him, of course. Even Christine seems to think he won’t be found if he doesn’t want to be found.
It’s perfect. The police will look for a while, and then everyone will stop asking . . . except for maybe Christine. But my adoration for her has palled in my desire to keep Nick safe.
Does having a hit man for a fiancé mean that I will never be able to get close to anyone but him?
If so, I choose him. I always choose Nick. My Kolya.
The door to our apartment closes, and then it’s just me and Nick, alone once more. The stiff upper lip I’ve had for the last few hours crumples, and I collapse against Nick. I’m no longer crying—my eyes are red and swollen from the last few hours of crying—but all of the strength is gone from my body. I’m done, mentally and physically.
“Shhh, Daisy. I have you.” Nick grips me under my legs and swings me into his arms, taking me to bed. “You’re safe.”
I shake my head. I’m not worried about my own safety any longer. My fear at my near rape has been replaced with a hard kernel of fear for Nick, for McFadden, who I’m not sure we can trust. For Christine, who I briefly wanted to smother with a pillow this afternoon before she could endanger us. For me, because who am I becoming if I would so casually think to kill my friend?
Nick sets me on the bed, and like a doll, he undresses me, taking off my shoes and removing my torn clothing. His hands glide over my skin, and I know it’s to check and make sure for himself that I am all right. He kisses my mouth, hard. “Wait here.”
He returns a moment later, and I hear the shower running. Then, he strips off his shirt and begins to remove his own clothing. “You will feel better when you are clean, kotehok,” he tells me. “And I will not let you out of my sight ever again, so I will shower with you.”
My Nick. Always so dramatic. Instead of being irritated at this high-handed comment, my heart squeezes with love. He always puts me first, no matter how much it inconveniences him. God, I adore this man so much. I would do anything for him.
“Maybe . . . maybe we should leave,” I tell him as he pulls me to my feet. He’s now naked, and his lean, ink-covered body is bare before me, gorgeous and dangerous all at once. “Maybe we should go to Europe. Here, you stick out. But there, you might be safer . . .”
He chuckles as if things have not gone to hell this afternoon. “I think McFadden will wish for me to stay around a while longer. I know how men like him work. I do the dirty work, and he takes the credit for closing his cases. It will suit us both, kitten.”
“But he has leverage against us,” I tell him, feeling helpless and miserable. “We need to think of ourselves. We can put Christine in the apartment next to my father’s so he can watch her. And maybe we can talk McFadden into taking an apartment here, too. Then we’d have something over both their heads so if they try to use it against us, we have them—”
I don’t realize how panicky I am until Nick cups my face between his big hands and forces me to look him in the eye. “Daisy,” he murmurs. “It will be all right. I promise. Do not worry.”
“I won’t let anyone take you from me, Nick,” I say fiercely.
“No one shall.” He smiles and plants a kiss on my mouth. “Now, come, and let me wash you clean of today’s worries.”
I don’t speak again until we’re in the shower. Nick and I chose this apartment because it was the one with the biggest bathroom, and the shower is one of those tub-less ones with multiple shower heads and glass walls. It’s luxurious in an apartment that is otherwise plain. I suppose it’s our way of living a little. I’m glad for it now, though, because here, in the spray of the water, I wrap my arms around Nick and press my face against the spiderweb tattoo on his shoulder.
“I thought about killing her,” I tell him. “Suffocating her with a pillow so she couldn’t tell on us. So we’d be safe.”
“Oh, Daisy.” His hand strokes my wet hair back from my face. “You are not a killer. Leave such things to me.”
“But I would have,” I tell him, full of desperation. My nails dig into his damp skin. “I would do anything to keep you. You understand that, right?”
He smiles at me, and his hand slides down my back, fingers running along my spine. “I feel the same. Every day, it is a difficulty to let you go to class and leave my side, because I wish for nothing more than to be with you always.”
Nick’s hips shift a little, and then I feel his cock pressing up against my body, hard and insistent. I’m a little shocked by that, and my eyes go wide. I pull back to look him in the face. “Adrenaline?” I ask him.
“Your wet body,” he corrects me. “But I will ignore it. Just relax against me.” Nick’s hands drag me back against him. “You have had a bad day.”
The absurdity of that statement makes me giggle. I tuck my head under his chin and let him hold me in the shower. Yes, I have had a bad day. One of the worst. But it could be worse. I am still here, and I am still with Nick.
In the end, I suppose that is all that matters.
I can’t stop thinking about McFadden. For the longest time, Nick’s secrets belonged to just him and me, then Regan and Daniel. Now this new man has been brought into our circle, and I don’t even know if I can trust him. “Promise me something, Nick.”
“Anything.”
“That if you start to suspect McFadden of anything, of playing us . . . that you’ll kill him and we’ll cut ties here and go to another country. Somewhere safe. Canada. Mexico. I don’t care where as long as I’m with you.”
“Da,” he tells me. “It is not the worst plan to have an exit strategy. We do not need one yet, Daisy. But when the day comes, we will be ready. I am always ready.”
I nod against his chest, feeling better already. Nick is always prepared. He always has the right answer.
“What about your father?” he asks me.
I pull back and look up at my beautiful Nikolai. “If we had to run, we’d leave him behind. It would hurt, but not nearly as much as the thought of having to be parted from you.”
He groans and pulls me against him. “You are my heart, Daisy.” He begins to kiss me, pressing his mouth against my face, my jaw.
“You are mine, Kolya,” I breathe. He’s still hard and I feel his erection agains
t my wet skin. This time, it doesn’t strike me as shockingly out of place, but right. Just right. And this time, I want him as much as he wants me.
I wrap a hand around his length and begin to stroke, my mouth seeking his even as my hands seek his erection. Our mouths connect in a mesh of slicking tongues and soft groans. He tastes heavenly, my Nick. Like masculine spice and love and sex and intensity and all of the good things he’s brought to my life. And I’m so in love with him that my tears spring forth again.
“No crying,” he murmurs hoarsely against my mouth. “Only love. Only you, Daisy. Only me. We are here, and we are together. All else is not important.”
I nod and kiss him again, my hand moving lower to cup his sac, to tickle him in his private places, the only ones that tattoos have not touched with their lurid ink. He is a dark god, my Nick, but he is mine, and my hands will worship his flesh.
His hands glide over my breasts, and I arch against his hand, needing more. He teases them with his fingers, and then his mouth dips low, heading for my breasts. I release his cock and move my hands to his shoulders so he can touch me as he will. He cups both my breasts, squeezing them together, and the stark tattoo of his art on my breastbone is squished between the two globes he’s plumping with his fingers. Nick pushes his face against my skin and licks the crease, then moves to my nipples. He runs a fingernail over one, then soothes it with his tongue, and I moan at the shockwaves of pleasure it sends through my body. He knows just how to touch me, how to make me go wild until I’m panting for him.
One hand slips away from my breast, and while Nick is holding one captive and sucking my erect nipple, the other moves between my legs. He finds my clit and begins to press it with his thumb, then moves it back and forth, rubbing hard.
I cry out and cling to him harder, because I want to collapse at his touch, but the shower is slippery and the tile hard. “Nick, please. I want you inside me.”
His mouth nips my breast one more time, and then he releases me and gives my ass a noisy slap. “Turn, Daisy.”
I do gladly, greedily, and press my hands flat to the tile, presenting him with my ass. I spread my legs, eager to have him between them, to have him filling me and making me come so hard that I see stars.
As I push my ass toward him, he stands again and his hand reaches between my legs and slaps my pussy. I gasp, startled by this, but aroused, and I buck against his hand. “Nick,” I breathe. “Kolya.”
He growls low in his throat, and then his hand latches at my hip and I think yes, yes, now moments before he sinks deep. I cry out with how good he feels, that first push into me always startling with its intensity.
Nick’s other hand moves between my legs, and when he thrusts into me again, his finger pushes against my clit. I rub against it when my body rocks forward, and a mew of pleasure erupts from my throat.
“Mine, Daisy,” he rasps, and his cock drives into me from behind. “You are all mine.”
“Yours,” I pant, wriggling against the fingers pressing against my clit. Oh God, he feels so good. I’m going to come too fast. As he continues to thrust into me and growl possessive words, I close my eyes and brace against the shower wall, lost in how he’s making me feel.
When he spanks my clit again, though, I gasp, and from there, the orgasm bursts through me. I clench around his cock, my legs quivering and tense, every muscle locking with the force of my release. Nick’s hand leaves my clit and braces against my hip, and then he’s holding me in place while he thrusts into me, his movements wild and surging. He breathes my name as he comes, the sound curiously soft and gentle even though his movements are anything but. He pushes our joined bodies forward and pins me flat against the tile, my breasts shoved against the wall, and pumps into me again, milking his own orgasm.
“Always mine,” he murmurs thickly.
“Always,” I agree.
***
After a weekend spent cuddling with Nick in bed and holing up in our apartment, I’m ready to face the world again. Christine makes it easy on me, though. She’s not at class this week, and things are quiet. I find that I don’t mind having lunch by myself quite so much, and take new delight in the sight of Nick’s beloved face waiting for me when I leave class. Did I ever feel like we needed more people in our lives? How odd. I have him, and I feel complete.
Nick is all I need.
I’ve started visiting my father again, now that Christine is no longer muddying my thoughts with reminders of old memories, old worries. We’re easy again, and my father’s proud because he’s started taking his dog out on the stoop at night to do his business. The apartment no longer smells like dog pee, and my father is going outside voluntarily. Both things are wonderful, and I bring him batches of cookies to make his day brighter.
The next week, when Christine is not at class again, I approach my architecture teacher and ask about her. She’s dropped the class, my teacher tells me. His frown shows he disapproves. It’s too late in the year for her to get a refund, but I doubt Christine cares. I feel a twinge of guilt, imagining that she’s out there somewhere, desperately hoping that Saul will return. And then my guilt is overtaken by scorn. She hopes he will return so he can beat her and ruin her life?
We’ve done her a favor, Nick and I, and she can’t even know about it.
Nick and McFadden have talked once in the last two weeks. They went out and got a beer down at a bar one night, and I visited my father. When Nick returned, his mood was curiously light. McFadden reported that there were three teenagers involved in the shooter game. The goal was to shoot something to prove that you could have killed someone. The man who’d sustained the gunshot to the head had died as a result of very poor aim. The teen had been attempting to shoot the stop sign. A stupid, stupid tragedy. Nick cursed in Russian and said that he’d offered to kill the three boys in order to rid the gene pool of such idiocy and that for at least a minute, McFadden considered his proposal.
Fortunately for all of us, McFadden said that the legal system should take care of them. Nick has no belief in that, and I admit I don’t have much either, but we’re safe and together so we don’t spend more time worrying about the matter. That’s for McFadden to deal with.
I realize in bed that night, when Nick is asleep against me, that perhaps McFadden is filling a role for Nick that he did not realize he needed—that of a friend. A peer. Who better to understand an ex–hit man than a dirty cop?
Perhaps I should ask if McFadden has a girlfriend. I wouldn’t mind someone to go shopping with. Then I squish the idea down, shoving it away. I don’t need anyone as long as I have my Nick. I wake him up then, pressing kisses against his back, against the dark tattoos that crawl over his pale skin. “Kolya?” I murmur into the night.
“Hmm?” He rolls over and pulls me against him, kissing my temple. “What is it?” His voice is sleepy, but content.
“Want to take a cooking class with me?”
“I will do whatever you like, my Daisy,” he murmurs, then yawns. “We will enroll in the morning.”
I smile and burrow against his chest.
I need no one but my Nick.
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LAST KISS
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One Month Ago
Vasily
“You think to lead the Petrovich Bratva?” Georgi Petrovich cries from far down the table. He is so far removed from the main branch of the Petrovich family tree he barely warrants a place here. “You aren’t even blo
od Petrovich!”
“Am I not?” I ask. There’s no need to raise my voice. Any emotion indicates weakness. I am not a weak man. “What makes a Petrovich?” I stand then and begin to walk around the table. “Is it blood? Then half of you should be executed on the table for failing to have the requisite DNA. Who shall go first?”
I point to Thomas Gregovorich, a loyal member of the Bratva for at least two generations. His father served during the Cold War and the KGB.
He gives a small nod in deference acknowledging that the Bratva was a true brotherhood made up of allegiances rather than blood.
“Or you, Kilment, when we took you and your brother in when you were left orphaned on the street, did you believe you became a true Petrovich when you made your first kill? Conducted your first job? When we speak of the Bratva, we speak as one voice. What is done to one, it is done to all. Or does that maxim no longer hold true, Georgi?”
There are low murmurs of approval and Georgi sits back, folds his arms and looks petulantly at the table. We are meeting today to discuss the future of the Bratva after the death of Sergei Petrovich. A death I helped orchestrate, and many suspect it, which makes it difficult for me to enact my next step—to kill Elena Petrovich. Two Petrovichs dead so close together smells of a coup. We are an unstable lot and lopping off the head of this snake would result in chaos. In order to achieve my ends, the Bratva must be stabilized.
However, in this den of iniquity, it is not love that holds the loyalty of each man. It is fear. The Petrovichs have held power over us all by setting us one against the other. To rise above, I have eliminated all weaknesses.
What sets me apart is all that I am willing to do. Each of these men at the table has limits. I have none.
The men that sit at this table are divided. Some view me with awe and respect and others disgust. The latter are the ones I respect because a man who would kill his own sister, a man such as I, deserves to be in a dungeon, locked away from all of humanity.
Last Hit: Reloaded Page 12