And still he held her. Firmly. His lips on her neck, her ear, her shoulder.
Kissing her?
Jesus.
“Are you hearing me?” he mumbled.
She gulped over the lump in her throat, not responding. Afraid to say a word and break the spell.
“Baby. Alena. Do you get me?”
No. She didn’t get him. There was no way she could. Not without a demonstration. His words were just words. She needed actions to fully understand.
He thought he was too dominant for her? Well, fuck him. Why did every man in her life think he was put on this earth to make decisions for her? Why did none of them think she could use her brain and make her own decisions?
What if she wanted him to dominate her? Take her virginity? Claim it. Own it. Keep it…
“Alena…” he warned again in that voice she was beginning to realize was his no-nonsense approach to bullying her into getting the response he wanted.
Well, she had news for him. Too. Fucking. Bad.
Not this time. Maybe not ever.
She was not interested in agreeing to his warped view of the universe and how he thought she needed to “see” things. He wasn’t God. He was just a man. A sexy, ripped, delicious man who made her clit pulse and her legs shake. But still a man.
He was not the boss of her, and damn if she intended to give him what he wanted. And the irony in that? Her compliance and submission was precisely what he’d just told her she wouldn’t be capable of turning over.
Fine.
He won.
She wouldn’t agree to his turns.
Sure, it was twisted and immature. But two could play at this game.
He may have won this round, but he hadn’t won the game.
If he was so certain she couldn’t submit to him, then she would do exactly that. Not submit to him. Not even give an inch.
She jerked herself free of his arms so abruptly he actually released her. As she stepped out of his embrace and strode across the room with her head held high, not looking back, she blurted exactly what he didn’t want, “Go to hell.”
Chapter Three
Ivan stared at the door to his room, wincing as it slammed shut and the best thing that had ever walked into his life left him sitting on his own bed wondering what the hell had just happened.
Alena Dudko had bested him at his own game.
He’d held her sweet, sexy, soft body in his grip for many long minutes while he’d lectured her. And damn if the woman hadn’t tossed him the biggest line of sass he’d ever heard.
No. He didn’t do sassy women. They never appealed to him. Never.
At least not until the wind got knocked out of his lungs by a hundred-pound pixie with gorgeous, long, flowing, thick, blonde hair he’d been dying to thread his fingers into for months.
Her eyes, when he’d been permitted a glimpse of them, had stared at him like deep pools of blue ocean, wide open expanses of water pleading with him to fill them.
And her scent. Jesus. The floral shampoo and body wash she used made her smell so sweet. And he knew exactly what she used because he’d been buying it for her himself. Cherry blossom. Whatever that was. Didn’t matter. He kept buying it.
Sassy women were not his thing.
Alena Dudko was, though.
A slow smile spread across his face as he hauled himself off the bed and ran a hand through his hair. He needed one of those cold showers he’d mentioned like never before. After taking care of business with his own hand, he could let her stew for a while and then confront her sassy ass again.
But first he needed to pull his shit together and think.
What the hell had just blown through the apartment and threatened his very existence? Taking everything he’d ever known about himself and tossing it up in the air like a pack of cards to flutter back to the ground, out of order and upside down. He would never be able to put the pieces back together exactly as they’d been before a naked, fucking sexy Alena had burrowed under his skin and told him in so few words how very wrong he was.
“Shit,” he muttered. “Mikhail’s going to kill me. And then Sergei and Nikolav and Leo. Hell, Dmitry will probably resurface from overseas to take me down,” he continued to himself.
This was not going to go well.
Not a chance in hell.
But the game was already on. There was no way he could deny what had just happened. He had no choice but to confront her brother and face this insanity head on.
He may not have fucked her yet, but he didn’t have to take her pussy to know how amazing it would feel wrapped around his cock. He’d smelled her arousal. He’d bet money she’d been so wet it hadn’t remained contained.
And yet, he’d let her walk away thinking he’d shunned her.
She’d be okay. She just needed to cool off. Maybe she’d even begin to see the truth in his words.
He no longer saw the validity in anything he’d spoken, but if she at least tipped in that direction, perhaps it would buy him some time. Give him a chance to pull his shit together, speak to Mikhail.
The last thing he would ever do would be to claim the man’s sister as his own without at least the common decency and respect of confronting him face to face to level the score.
Ivan took a deep breath as he exited his bedroom. He could hear the shower running in the master bath and knew Alena was in there. The morning had started with her taking a shower, so she hardly needed another one already, but he could understand her need for privacy.
Still, he was drawn to her. He needed to know she was okay.
Never had he entered her room without permission. Never had he spied on her. Never had he violated her in any way, except perhaps in his mind. But he couldn’t stop himself. He moved forward, twisting the handle of her bedroom door and finding it unlocked.
He stepped inside her private space and shuffled across the floor toward the attached bathroom.
The apartment had originally been Leo’s when he’d come to Chicago six months ago. It had been way too large for Leo and more than he could afford alone, but it had been in a safe building and the only unit available, so he’d snatched it up and moved in.
Weeks later, when Dmitry and Lauren fled the country to avoid Anton Yenin, Mikhail and Alena had moved from the apartment the four of them had shared into Leo’s. It worked out perfectly.
Over the last several months, all the guys had lived in the three-bedroom apartment at one time or another. Gradually, they’d all moved out. Leo moved in with Katie first. Then, Mikhail moved in with Haley. And last, Nikolav had moved in with Belinda. It was anyone’s guess what Sergei was up to.
Ivan closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the bathroom door, freezing in his tracks and holding his breath when he realized Alena was crying.
Her voice was soft, but not soft enough to be covered by the fall of water.
Shit.
Dammit.
Fuck me.
He was a Dom. A hard-nosed, bossy Dom. Not the sort of man who was easily swayed by tears or sassiness. But he obviously hadn’t met his match in that department.
Until today.
∙•∙
Alena closed her eyes and leaned her cheek against the cool tile wall. She sobbed again, trying hard to stop the absurdity of her reaction.
So what if he turned her down? She was a big girl. She would live.
Still the tears fell. And dammit if they did anything to dampen the arousal flowing through her body. She wasn’t a total prude. There had been plenty of times she’d touched herself until she came.
Not often because she was so rarely alone. She was almost never the only person in the apartment. And the thought of one of the men catching her masturbating in her room or bathroom made her cringe. She wasn’t sure what sort of noises she made or how loud she was when she came, either.
So the luxury of stroking herself to orgasm hadn’t been in the cards often, but she didn’t currently give a fuck how loud she was or i
f Ivan heard her. Too bad. She was on the edge of a cliff and had been for the entire morning.
If she didn’t put an end to her misery, she would probably implode before the afternoon.
Taking a deep breath to control her tears, she smoothed her hands down her chest to cup her full breasts. Fuller today from the intensity of her encounter. They felt heavy, weighing her down. Her nipples had never been more sensitive. And she pinched the one Ivan neglected immediately.
It stung, making her lift onto her tiptoes, but no matter what she did, it didn’t match the fire he’d set in the other one. Only Ivan could stoke that fire. Her own fingers weren’t close to equaling his touch.
Releasing her breasts, she smoothed her palms down her belly until she reached the curls that hid her sex. She tipped her face down to watch her hand, taking in the pale blonde of her curls dripping with water under the spray. They were soft beneath her touch.
Lower still she reached with one hand, letting her middle finger glide over her clit, the bundle of nerves so ripe, she moaned in reaction to her own touch.
She was close.
Another reason she didn’t often masturbate was timing. It took her forever most of the time. And besides not having enough privacy, she certainly didn’t have enough alone time to come at her own touch.
She knew women had vibrators they used to speed up the process, but she’d never exactly been in a position to own one. She didn’t have a driver’s license, let alone a car. She rarely left the apartment and never alone. And there was no chance in hell she could have ever asked Mikhail or one of the guys to please stop into a sex shop and pick something up for her. Or worse, take her to do it herself.
Yeah, right.
She shook the thought out of her head and concentrated on her fingers, dipping the middle one inside her pussy and then drawing it back out to circle her clit again.
It felt so good.
She closed her eyes and pictured Ivan holding her against his chest while she sped up the flicks of her finger over the swollen nub.
The way he commanded her. The way he spoke directly into her ear, softly, but with authority. The way he cupped her breast and finally pinched her nipple.
Oh yeah. That was all she needed. She stiffened, biting her lower lip so hard it hurt. But she didn’t care. When the waves of release consumed her, she released that lip to cry out.
She rode the orgasm, the pulses coming rapidly and then slowing as it finally ended. How loud had she been? Who the hell cared?
It took a few minutes to pull herself together and gather the strength to pick up the soap and wash her body, but it wasn’t entirely necessary, either. The morning had started with a perfectly fine shower. She wasn’t exactly dirty. She’d used the shower as an excuse to escape humiliation, which turned into a place to cry, which then became a fantastic spot to orgasm.
When she shut the water off and reached for a towel, she sighed. Her towel was on the floor in Ivan’s bedroom.
“Shit.”
Dripping with water, she stepped from the shower and took a few steps to get to the linen closet to retrieve a new towel. She shivered in the cool air of the room.
Did she have regrets?
She asked herself this question as she stared at her reflection in the mirror.
No.
There was no sense worrying about the past. She couldn’t change what had happened. And truth be told, she wouldn’t even if she could.
She may have lost in her quest to win over Ivan Belinsky, but it was probably worth it. Minutes spent in his arms, her naked body rubbing against him, could get her through a lifetime if it was all she ever got from him. And they were the best minutes of her life.
She could relive the way he’d gripped her breast and pinched her nipple for months. Perhaps years.
After drying off, she combed through her wet hair and left the bathroom. Naked. She padded toward her dresser, hesitating before she reached her destination. Her gaze landed on the door to her bedroom. It was ajar. Only a few inches, but still. She assuredly hadn’t left it open at all when she’d entered the room. She would remember something like that. She’d even turned around thinking to lock it and then changing her mind.
Ivan had come in while she showered.
Did she care?
Not really. But what had he done? Had he heard her crying? Had he heard her masturbating?
Again, did she care?
»»•««
Anton picked up the phone on the first ring, rubbing his forehead with his free hand. He had a splitting headache that wouldn’t go away with any amount of aspirin. “I can’t talk now. Can it wait?” he asked the man running his lab in Chicago.
Jorge Montego. He’d hired him a few weeks ago. Brought him into the US from Colombia to continue work on his life’s project. Right about now, he didn’t give a fuck how the experiments were going.
His father, Grigory, was dead. Died at Anton’s own hands. Never mind the man insisted on being injected with the still-experimental drug. Never mind he was dying anyway and only had days to live even before the fatal injection. Never mind he probably hadn’t been strong enough to withstand any trial drug.
The fact was he was dead. He’d spent the majority of his life working on this drug only to die anyway in the final stages of its development.
Anton knew he was a world-class asshole. He’d killed many people in his life, several of them in the past few weeks, using them as a means to an end. He’d prayed for a miracle, hoping for a breakthrough by attempting human trials before the drug was ready in order to speed up the process and save his father’s life.
All in vain.
Grigory Yenin was dead. And Anton had flown to New York to seal that fate. Tomorrow was the visitation. Tuesday the funeral. And then Anton would shake out of his self-loathing and get his ass back to Chicago. He had other lives to save. Starting with his own.
Grigory had ALS. Anton was a carrier. If he admitted it to himself, he already had the early symptoms. There was no proof the drug would even cure ALS. If he was honest, there was no proof the drug would cure anything.
It had been designed by the Russian government as an experiment in the early eighties and tested on several groups of abandoned children who were expendable and would never know the difference.
And it had worked. It kept human beings from contracting diseases. It helped them heal faster. It mended broken bones and cuts with incredible speed. But did it work on preexisting conditions? There was no way to know.
The drug wasn’t created for anything like that, however. It wasn’t created to save the lives of orphans or even the general population.
It was invented in the height of the cold war as a means of combatting the threat of chemical warfare. The Russians hoped they could arm their soldiers with something that would allow them to withstand any airborne weapon of mass destruction.
And they had apparently proven at least that much. After injecting dozens of children with the experimental drug, they’d followed up with exposure to diseases, none of which ever touched a single child. The kids could not get sick. A breakthrough. But so many questions remained.
The KGB headed up the operation. They guarded it with extreme secrecy. They spent years developing and testing the drug, and it was close to completion when the USSR fell.
No one ever knew if the drug would work for its intended use because with the fall of the KGB, the government ordered its destruction.
But Grigory Yenin worked for the KGB. He had for two decades. He was aware of the drug, its location, and its possibilities.
Anton had started with the KGB just months before the fall. He’d been stationed in the same building where the drug and its research were kept. One call from his father, and he raced to the lab, stole everything he could get his hands on, and fled the building.
The two of them escaped the country later that night, never to return.
It took twenty years to piece enough information together to recreat
e the drug. And now…
Now, Anton found himself just short of his goal. At least as far as Grigory’s life was concerned. He needed to wrap things up in New York and keep his eye on the prize. But it was tough.
He realized Jorge was speaking to him, and he’d heard nothing.
“Jorge, stop. I’m distracted. I haven’t heard a word you said. If it’s not urgent, can I call you back later? I need to finish making arrangements here.”
“Yes. Of course, sir.” He ended the call without another word.
Anton put the phone back in his pocket and turned around to find Viktor standing in the doorway to his father’s office.
The room was fitting for Anton’s current state of mind. Dark mahogany surrounded him. Even the walls were paneled with the dark wood. There were no windows in the office. Grigory liked it that way. He said it was less distracting to work in an enclosed room without the disturbance of knowing whether it was raining, snowing, sunny, or even day or night.
“You okay, sir?” Viktor asked.
“Yes.” No.
“You realize his death was imminent and inevitable, right?”
“Yes.” Sort of.
Viktor was one of the few people who knew exactly what Anton had done—given Grigory the injection he’d demanded on his deathbed, knowing full well the chances of any sort of success were slim. Nearly non-existent.
Anton knew Viktor well. The man had worked for him in Vegas before moving to New York to be with Grigory in his final months. Anton trusted him more than anyone.
“Was that Jorge on the phone?” Viktor asked.
“Yes.” Anton sighed. “I didn’t give him a chance to speak, though. Wasn’t in the mood to listen to him right now.”
“Understandable. Has he had any more success with the drug trials?”
Anton shook his head. “So far the drug has only worked on two individuals. Out of more than a dozen homeless people we snatched from the city streets and injected with the experimental drug, only two have survived, and it turns out one of those wasn’t homeless in the first place.
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