“What are you going to be up to? Or do I want to ask?”
As Natalya stepped into the kitchen, Brandon’s gaze wandered appreciatively over the short hem of her jeans shorts and the loose, linen top that dipped daringly low across her breasts. “Probably not. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Yeah, whatever, Lieutenant.”
Brandon disconnected and shoved his phone in his back pocket. He passed Natalya her purse, grateful that at least one of them would have a gun on hand if things got worse. He didn’t dare bring his without a jacket to hide it in, and the muggy weather made jackets ridiculous. That sixth sense so integral to a cop’s survival, warned him things weren’t as calm as they seemed.
T
he cool desert breeze sifted through Natalya’s hair, soothing and tranquil. Hands braced behind her on the large, flat rock, she tipped her head back and gazed up at the star-filled sky. Beside her, Brandon sat with his elbows looped around his knees, staring off at the long line of sandstone rocks that fringed the horizon. “It’s beautiful out here,” she murmured, afraid the sound of her voice might disrupt the serenity.
“It’s better than the flash and bang of the Strip, that’s for sure.” He tipped his head to take in the full moon. “I get sick of all that, to tell you the truth.”
Leaning sideways, she touched her shoulder to his. “Kate and I camped on the California side when we were in college. We went in the spring and the fall. Right after classes let out and right before they began.” A wistful smile lifted the corner of her mouth. “Been a long time.”
“What did you think the first time you saw the Canyon?”
She shook her head, still awed by the magnanimity of standing on the rim and looking down on the mighty Colorado. Even after fifteen years, she could remember the moment a naïve, Old Believer girl from Nikolaevsk, Alaska, had looked out over the terracotta cliffs and realized how vast the world was.
“Yeah,” Brandon whispered as if he could hear her thoughts. He glanced at her, the light behind his eyes soft and intimate. “Maybe I could convince you to come camping again with me. Last time I went, Stefan was still alive.”
Her heart stumbled into her ribs. Throughout the night, little comments here and there had given her the impression Brandon was hinting at permanency. Nothing she could concretely identify as a long-term outlook on their involvement, but subtleties that left her wondering if he’d shared the same soul-shattering experience she’d encountered in his shower.
What she’d give for a normal life and the ability to indulge in possibilities. Her answer came in a whisper even she had to strain to hear. “Maybe.”
“What was it like in Russia?”
Natalya shivered, despite the temperate air. The truth tumbled free without hesitation. “I hate Russia.”
“There’s nothing you like about it?”
“We have beautiful buildings.”
They fell into silence, and Brandon leaned back, covering her hand with his. After several moments, he broke the quiet with another question. “If you could go anywhere in the world, no limitations, where would you go?”
She chuckled to herself. She’d been to most of the major cities throughout the world. A few days here, a few months there—most recently three years in Moscow. But as the Eiffel Tower and the Great China Wall surfaced in her mind’s eye, the answer resonated in her heart. Home. She missed her family. Missed the quaint old-world ways, though she and Kate had long departed from the Old Believer Orthodox teachings. A few days in the village might just be the thing to restore her spirits when she left Vegas.
“Alaska,” she answered as she squinted at the high North Star. “I’d like to go to Alaska and watch the Northern Lights over the glaciers.” Her gaze skimmed sideways to meet Brandon’s. “You?”
“I’ve never seen the Northern Lights.”
“You’d like them, if you like this.” She gestured at the bright illumination on the horizon. “They make that neon glow flat-out ugly.”
Brandon twisted to face her more fully. He brought one hand up to the side of her face, his expression sedate and meaningful. His thumb caressed her cheek. He said nothing, merely searched her face for something Natalya couldn’t comprehend. Answers? Another attempt at breaking into the depths of her soul?
Before she could ask, his mouth feathered across hers. Their breaths mingled for a prolonged heartbeat that stood Natalya’s nerves on end. Then, offering fulfillment she hadn’t even realized she’d been craving, he slid his tongue along the inside edge of her lower lip and touched his tongue to hers.
She melted into his arms, sitting up to loop her wrists around his neck. His hands dropped to her waist, and the firm press of strong fingers conveyed a deeper passion than his possessive kiss. That strange, unnamable sensation surfaced again, hungry for undefined fulfillment. Something more than sex. More than the ecstasy his body gave to hers.
Pulling away, just as she began to drift on the tide of rising emotion his gentleness provoked, Brandon’s mouth hovered over hers. “I need to make love to you.”
Make love. Since when had they moved beyond fucking? The shower. He’d felt it too. Oh, God.
“Now?” she asked, overwhelmed.
“Right now.” Emphasizing his insistence, he tilted her hips into his so she felt the firm press of his cock. His breath scraped along the side of her neck, his words a low murmur. “With the wind in your hair, and your eyes twinkling like the stars.”
Excitement danced in her belly. It was truly shameful how easily he lit her up. But instead of fighting the call of arousal, she embraced it and looped her arms around Brandon’s neck as she eased into his lap. He plucked open the buttons on her blouse, teasing each inch of flesh he exposed with a nip, a lick, a nuzzle. When his lips grazed the thin satin of her bra, he pushed the cup down and drew her nipple into his mouth.
Natalya arched her back, lifting her breasts closer to the magic of his tongue. Her hands plied at his shirt, tugging it free from his jeans, and pushing it up so she could explore the tight contours of his body. She loved touching him almost as much as she loved his hands on her.
Brandon rubbed his cheek against her breast and lifted his eyes to hers. “You’re so damned beautiful. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. This ache for you won’t stop.”
She felt it too—the constant need to be as close as humanly possible. And she told him so by rolling her hips forward and grazing her damp center against the bulge behind his fly.
“I touch you, Natalya, and I have to be inside you.”
Her mouth curved with a tender smile. “I’m not stopping you.”
That was all the encouragement Brandon needed. His mouth latched onto hers, his kiss as feral as the coyotes howling in the distance. He did away with the last of her pesky buttons by giving the opened panels of her blouse a tug and popping the chips of pearl. As her hands dipped to his waist to free his impatient cock from the confines of his jeans, Brandon dragged her body flush with his. The press of his bare skin intoxicated her. Her womb contracted, and she let out a soft moan. “Brandon, God I lo—” She pressed her lips to his to stop the sudden rush of words. Love you. She’d almost said it. Holy shit. Covering up her nearly fatal confession, she whispered, “Love the feel of you.” To further distract him, she nipped hard on his lower lip. “Take me.”
A possessive growl rumbled in the back of his throat. She didn’t know how her shorts ended up on the rock beside them, but in the next heartbeat they were, and Brandon was lifting her body, aligning her wet opening with the wide head of his cock. He lowered her slowly, easing inside her narrow channel, stretching her bit-by-bit and sending shocks of pleasure surging through her veins.
“Brandon. God.” She clutched his shoulders, feeling very much like she’d just plummeted off the canyon rim.
He moved inside her, pulling back, slowly filling her up again. “Come for me, beautiful,” he whispered against the hollow of her throat. “Let me feel you hold on to me.”
/>
It wouldn’t take much at this rate. A few more slow strokes like that and she’d—Oh! Brandon pressed his thumb against her clitoris, his lazy stroke as powerful as the deep thrust that hit the mouth of her womb. She tried to move against the fantastic pressure, but his other hand held her hips in place, subjecting her to the blissful agony of his masterful possession. A whimper bubbled in the back of her throat.
“Oh, please…” Her vagina clenched, and against her inner walls she felt his cock twitch.
“Like that,” he rasped. “Just like that.” Again, he tapped her clitoris, again he pushed high into her slick sheath, the pressure on her hips pushing her down as he lifted up.
Another wave of pleasure hit her hard, and Natalya clung to his shoulders, scarcely able to breathe. She managed a few jerky gasps, found the ability to somehow swallow. But when she lifted her lowered lashes, his smoldering gaze seared past the last of her crumbled defenses. In those tawny depths emotion reigned. Feeling so foreign to her she couldn’t be certain she translated correctly. But her heart recognized the language—the same words she’d nearly spilled gleamed in his turbulent stare.
Just like that she soared, his name tearing from her lips as ecstasy crashed through her body. Brandon groaned long and low, and clutched her hips with both hands as his body spasmed into hers. Deep inside, she felt the pulse of his cock, the heat of his ejaculation spilling against her needy flesh.
He held her still, his breath hard and heavy against her shoulder. Natalya trembled in his arms, the feeling running through her so powerfully frightening. She didn’t know what to say, what to do… and she damn sure didn’t want to move.
Brandon solved the dilemma with a feather-soft kiss to her cheek and whispered, “I’d like to see the Northern Lights with you.”
“With me?” To her shame disbelief clung to her dry throat.
“Yes. With you.” He captured her lower lip with his teeth and teased her mouth open once more. But his kiss ended too soon. “I meant it when I said you did powerful things to me.”
Afraid he’d say more than her heart could withstand, Natalya pressed her fingertips to his parted lips. “There’s things you don’t know, Brandon.”
He turned his head, easing himself out of her. “I’m not stupid. I know that. Trust me, this scares the shit out of me. But I’m not going to be ruled by fear.” He took his hand in hers and added more quietly, “Not anymore.”
That damnable emotion welled once more, and Natalya felt the salty prick of tears. She dipped her chin to hide her welling eyes.
Unwilling to let her hide, Brandon framed her face between his hands and turned her gaze to his. “I’m falling for you, Natalya. If you don’t want me, you need to tell me now, so I can walk away.”
Her throat clogged, forbidding her reply. She swallowed once. Twice. Felt the hot splash trickle down her cheeks. Ashamed, she tried to twist her head. He denied her the ability by dusting his mouth over her damp skin and kissing away the tears.
“I know you’ve got a secret you don’t want me to know yet. I’m okay with that. For now.”
“Brandon—” The twisting of her heart was too much. Did she want him? God, yes, she wanted him. If she could find a way to save Kate, protect Sergei, and drag Brandon to a corner of the world where Dmitri could never find him, and know that Brandon would be happy, she’d do it in a heartbeat. But she couldn’t. She was leaving tomorrow night.
Feeling her heart breaking already, she twisted away from his soul-searching gaze and pulled on her shorts. A passing car jerked his attention to the road. She looked after him, observing the snail-like pace of the approaching vehicle. It slowed more as it cruised past the Accord they’d parked on the highway’s shoulder.
B
randon eyed the silver sedan, instincts on high alert. A flash of his memory painted the picture of a similar car shooting past his window. He stiffened as the sedan drove thirty yards past the Accord, then nosed into the shoulder. It turned perpendicular to the highway, headlights shining across the dark landscape. He sat taller, and his heart rate accelerated. Taking his eyes off the vehicle long enough to glance at Natalya’s hip, he ensured she’d brought her purse. She already had it in her lap.
The buzz of warning shifted into a high-pitched alarm as the sedan pulled a U-turn, then backed into the opposite shoulder. Bright light splashed across the rock he and Natalya shared. The sedan sat no more than fifty yards away.
“Give me your gun.” He opened his palm, but made no other move.
“What?”
More firmly, he repeated, “Give me your gun.”
“Like hell. I’m not giving you my gun.”
“Damn it, Natalya,” he said as he glanced at her stubborn expression.
A car door opened. Slammed shut. The echo drummed through the barren landscape.
He let out a controlled breath, his jaw tight. His order came out in a venomous hiss. “I’m a fucking cop, give me the goddamn gun!”
Across the highway, a shadow passed before the headlights. It stopped on the passenger side, lifted bulky arms.
Brandon reacted on reflex. He grabbed the back of Natalya’s hair and dragged her to the ground. As her cheek made contact with the rock’s rough surface, two crisp, rapid-fire shots cracked through the air. They pinged off a rock to his left.
“Son of a bitch!” Brandon outstretched a hand and dragged Natalya’s purse beneath his nose. “Remind me next time I blow my cover to make sure I have my badge so I can prove it. Where the hell’s your gun?”
He scowled at Natalya in the same instant she confidently rose to one knee. Right arm stretched toward the vehicle, he caught the brief glow of the Sig’s night sights. Shit! She made a perfect, motionless target. He grabbed for her ankle, intending to knock her back to the ground, but as his fingertips grazed her skin, she returned fire with two identical trigger pulls.
Brandon jerked his hand away and snapped his head up, a string of curses on the tip of his tongue.
Across the highway, a tire popped. A tinny ping announced the second bullet sped home a breath away from the first. The shadow dove over the sedan’s hood. Brief light glimmered as the interior dome flashed on. Then, on three good tires, the sedan pealed off the shoulder, flat tire thumping. It vanished into the desert landscape, leaving them, and Vegas behind.
Brandon glanced at Natalya, suspicion creeping in to replace his stunned surprise. “Lucky shot?”
Natalya’s stone-cold expression told him luck didn’t have anything to do with her dead-on shot.
Her purse still clutched in one tight fist, he snapped his opposite hand around her wrist and struck off for the car. “I’ve just stopped being okay with not knowing your secrets.”
Thirty-seven
S
elf-defense. Brandon ground the word between his teeth, resisting the urge to snort at the ludicrous claim. No self-defense student learned how to hit a target at fifty yards like Natalya had. It just didn’t happen. Not unless she’d practiced every day, for hours at a time. Highly unlikely—even he didn’t have that many hours at the range under his belt, and he was a consistently accurate marksman.
Yet she clung to the explanation no matter how many times he asked during their drive back to his house.
She hadn’t reacted to his confession either, which made him more uneasy. Either she knew, she suspected, or she hadn’t heard him, which he didn’t buy in the least.
He groaned inwardly. What if she was some Internal Affairs piss ant sent to hawk over him? That would certainly explain her blank file. IA would expect him to run a background check, and they’d cover anything that might give him a glimmer of the truth.
What had he done to piss off Joe?
Searching the banks of his memory for something worthy of an IA investigation, he pulled into his driveway and slammed the Accord into park. He pinned her with a squint. “Are you IA?”
Natalya laughed. “Hardly.”
Truth. Okay. So if she wasn’t fr
om Internal Affairs then what?
Mayer’s voice echoed in his head. I think you better distance yourself.
As the engine tick-ticked against the cooling night air, Brandon stared at his unopened garage door. What if he’d been wrong and she was somehow associated with these murders? No. He banished the thought as quickly as it came. Just because she could aim well didn’t make her a murderer. Or even an accomplice.
He sighed. “Natalya, damn it, talk to me. Who’s Nikolai? I know you’re afraid of him. How does he relate to that gun?”
Natalya wrapped her hands around the bulky pistol hidden in her purse. “He’s nobody. Would you just drop the subject?”
“No, damn it, I won’t!” His temper spiked. “I just blew my cover. Twelve years of narcotics work might very well be shot down the drain. All I want is a straight answer from you. Who the hell is Nikolai, and why did his name turn you ghost white?”
She looked out the window, her expression far away. So softly he had to strain to hear her, she answered, “Your cover’s safe. I knew you were a cop.”
“You what?” he asked slowly.
Her chest heaved as she took a deep breath. “Can we go inside?”
“Fine. Whatever.” He shoved open the door and climbed outside. Too frustrated to wait for her, he started up the porch steps and unlocked the door in the dark. Her heels clacked on the pavestones behind him.
Inside, Brandon flipped on the light and stalked into the kitchen. He spun on her when she entered and set her purse on the island. “How the hell did you know?”
She made a production of withdrawing her gun and taking it apart. He waited, his pulse notching up another degree with every drawn-out second, while she pulled a paper towel off the dispenser and wiped down the slide. “You’re right, Nikolai is from my past, and I’m very afraid of what he’s capable of doing.”
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