Dark Trade

by Miranda Kavi

  “Don’t be sorry.” He flipped the eggs onto a nearby plate. “You better eat first and then I’m going to suck your tits through that shirt.” He plunked the plate down in front of her.

  Her mouth went dry. He was so damn hot she couldn’t help it. Her nipples hardened at the thought of his mouth on her.

  “Hurry up, Sophia. You need your energy for me.” He licked his lips and stared at her chest.

  She pulled the shirt down to cover her bottom and then sat down on one of the barstools. She slowly ate her eggs, forcing herself to focus on the food and not what she wanted him to do to her.

  He leaned against the kitchen counter, silent, eyes glued to her while she ate. When she was done, she put the fork on her plate and waited.

  He approached her with noiseless footsteps and predatory eyes. By the time he was close, her body was tense in all the right places.

  He kissed her first, so tenderly, so sweetly, like they were on a first date instead of getting ready to fuck each other’s brains out.

  His kisses became more urgent and rough, and his hands kneaded her bare buttocks. True to his word, he moved his mouth to her chest, sucking her nipple though the fabric. The wetness of his mouth soaked through it, and she gasped.

  He moved to her other breast, sucking through the fabric while his other hand caressed her other breast. She arched her back into him, wrapping her legs around his waist.

  He tightened his hold on her and then lifted her off the bar stool. With her legs still wrapped around him, he moved her to the kitchen table, a long, oak monstrosity with a burgundy table runner. He swept the decorations and runner aside and then sat her gently on the table.

  “I’m done with this shirt now,” he said as he pulled it off her.

  She reached for him as he backed away. He untied his pajamas and they dropped to the floor, leaving his very hard and very impressive cock on display.

  She wrapped her hands around it and stroked him up and down.

  He groaned. “I need to be inside you. Now.”

  He placed his hands on either side of her shoulders as she lay flat on the table and then lowered himself on top of her, using his arms to keep his full weight off her.

  He entered her gently, filling her all the way. She gasped as he pulled out, leaving her empty again. “Damn it,” she gasped. “Fuck me.”

  Her lowered himself further, only propping himself up on his elbows. He kissed her as he moved gently back inside her. “I’m not fucking you. I’m making love to you,” he whispered in her ear. “Tell me that’s what you want.”

  She couldn’t make room for those words; she couldn’t process them, but wanted whatever he was giving to her. “I want you. Make love to me,” she said softly.

  He did, guiding her gently towards her release with gentle strokes as his hands caressed her body, moving from shoulder to rib to breast. Kissing her. Feeling her. Watching her.

  They came together, one of those mind blowing ones that left her lightheaded and breathless. “Oh, God,” she whispered.

  He gently rolled off her, lying on his side, propped up on his elbow. He ran his finger around the circle of her lips, down her chin, the hollow of her neck, in between her breasts and then rested on her smooth stomach. “You are so beautiful, Sophia. The most beautiful thing in this world.”

  She rested her hands on top of his and smiled. “Thank you.” As the orgasm faded, other sensations crept in, like the not so comfortable surface of the table pushing into her back. “But this is not very comfortable.”

  He stood, helping her up, too. He pulled on his pajama bottoms while she retrieved her shirt and pulled it back on.

  He moved back to the kitchen. “Coffee?” he asked. He pulled the carafe out of the coffee maker and filled it with water from the sink.

  “Yes,” she said. “What time is it anyway?”

  He leaned back so he could see the built-in stainless steel microwave. “8:45,” he said.

  “Well, I’m late. Very late for EBCasp,” she said. “I need to call in.”

  He flipped on the coffee maker. “You do not need to call EBCasp. They will not bother you.”

  She joined in him in the kitchen, watching him open the cupboards and pull out two white coffee mugs. “But I don’t have my cell phone or wallet or anything. I need to go home and get my stuff.” She let out a breath of tense air. She’d almost forgotten about the two dead bodies. “And I need to make sure it’s clean. It’s on the market, and my realtor has access to it. What if he finds the bodies? Then what?”

  Dmitri poured her a cup of coffee and handed it to her. “It has been cleaned, and your realtor has not had access since the...events of last night.” He poured himself a cup and took a sip. “We will go over there today and get some of your things.”

  She hid her surprise behind a deep swig of coffee. Was he asking her to stay with him? Did she want to? She didn’t want to sleep in her condo again. Ever. She held back her questions and decided to just nod in response.

  “What is this place?” she pointed to the house around them. “Yours?”

  “Yes.”

  He didn’t elaborate, just drained his coffee.

  “Who were those men? Who sent them?” she asked in a small voice.

  His face darkened. “I do not know for certain yet, but I will soon.”

  She bit her lip. “Your men? Friends of your men?”

  He put his coffee on the counter and then faced her. “No. Unlikely.”

  “Why wouldn’t your men come after me?”

  “Because I pay them a lot of money. And you, some say, are a distraction, a danger to my operation.” He cupped her cheek. “They won’t get to you, don’t worry. They know better than to cross me, and if they don’t, they will soon learn.”

  The hairs on her arms stood. She’d heard the chill in his voice. What if she ever crossed him? Her fear and desire for him were all tangled up together.

  She cleared her throat and stepped away. She needed to get away from him to think clearly. “Then who?”

  “My enemies or yours.”

  She took a sip of coffee. “Do I have enemies?”

  “Red Bluff International? You are now aware of their dirt. They may not like that,” he said.

  She slammed her coffee down. “Yeah, but they brought me to that meeting. It’s their own fault.”

  He looked away. His voice was tight when he spoke. “And that is how we met. Do you regret going?”

  “Do you regret pointing a gun at me?” she snapped. She tensed for an answer. The sickness of her immoral attraction all started there. They’d never addressed it.

  “More than anything in my life.” His voice cracked with a hoarseness she’d never heard from him before. It was sorrow. Deep sorrow that he’d scared her. “Please,” he reached for her, brushing his fingertip against the palm of her hand, “believe me. I had no idea they were bringing anyone else. It is my deepest, darkest regret, and I have so much I should regret, but nothing more than this.”

  She looked into his eyes, surprised that they were filled with emotion. There was so much there, so much that she shouldn’t see, that she shouldn’t feel.

  He was two people: the evil man that did terrible things and the gentle man that cared for her. But both were in the same body, they were the same person.

  She squeezed his fingers back, because she saw caring in his eyes. And she felt it back, damn it. She’d developed strong feelings for him, even the bad parts. Maybe because of them, like Andrea suggested. Maybe he was safe because he wasn’t safe to love.

  Maybe she was way more messed up than she’d ever realized.

  She let go of his hands and picked up her coffee. “I’ll find out when I go back to Red Bluff on Friday. We’ll see how they react.”

  “No,” Dmitri crossed his arms over his chest, “you will not go there again.”

  “Hey,” she pointed her coffee cup at him, “I don’t like being told what to do. I still work there.”

/>   “I don’t care if you like it or not. It is not safe. Fuck them and fuck that job. You can work at EBCasp for as long as you like,” he said. He refilled her cup with coffee. “I’m not attempting to control you. I only want to protect you.”

  She walked away from him, slowly processing his words. She pulled down her shirt and sat on the stool very carefully—she was getting a little sore from all of their activities. “I don’t think they would try and have me killed,” she said.

  He walked up to the bar across from her and rested his hands on the counter. He waited until she looked him in the eye. “Then you don’t know them at all.”

  She sucked in her breath, not even trying to hide her fear. “Are you trying to scare me?”

  “Yes,” he answered.

  She took a sip of coffee, buying her a few seconds to formulate a response. He watched her, eyes flickering as he assessed her. He was eerily good at reading body language and facial expressions. In another life, he would have been an excellent interrogator or psychologist.

  “I don’t think they are going to drag me out of my office in broad daylight and kill me. I at least need to go back and get my things and make sure my administrative assistant gets out of there. I...care a great deal about her.”

  He sighed and looked away, his normally stoic demeanor falling further away from him. “It’s not worth the risk. But if you insist, I will have someone near you at all times.”

  “I don’t think that’s necessary,” she said. She slid off the stool and walked over to him. “I can’t have some big Russian guy following me around the office. I’ll be fine. If I get a bad feeling, I’ll leave.”

  He didn’t say anything, but when she got closer, he pulled her into a hug. “We’ll leave soon for your condo.”

  “All right,” she said.

  He stepped out of her embrace. “Would you care to join me in the shower?”

  She laughed. “No, we’ll never leave.”

  He cracked a tiny smile. “You are most likely correct.” And then he was gone, padding down the hallway to the bedroom. “Please, make yourself comfortable,” he tossed over his shoulder.

  She moved through the house, clutching her coffee mug. The kitchen opened to a wide living room with floor to ceiling garden windows, revealing a long and heavily landscaped front lawn. The other houses nearby were all different—some ranch houses like this one, a few Victorians, and even some super mod square metallic houses. It was definitely a nice neighborhood. She was pretty sure it was one of the houses in the heavily wooded well-heeled neighborhoods that ran along the bayou near the Energy Corridor.

  She walked down another hallway and found two smaller rooms. One was filled with heavy wooden built in book cases and a large black desk. It smelled faintly of cigar smoke. She ran her fingers over the titles on the shelves—mostly novels in Russian. She picked up the small paperweight on his desk. She was in his private space and it fascinated her.

  She stopped short of rifling through the drawers and checked out the other room, which appeared to be a guest room with a queen size bed and an attached bathroom. She made her way back to the master bedroom and sat on the bed, waiting for the reality of it all to hit her.

  Forty-five minutes later, she was in the back of another black car that Gram was driving. She was pretty sure it was a different car than last night.

  She caught Dmitri watching her, smiling in a very un-Dmitri kind of way.

  “Stop. I know I look ridiculous.” She was barefoot, clad in Dmitri’s very baggy sweatpants rolled to the knee and the white shirt she’d had on earlier.

  “I like you in my clothes,” Dmitri said simply. She blushed and pushed her hair out of her face.

  Her smile faded when they pulled into her condo. Dmitri was out of the car and a few steps away before he noticed she was not with him. He poked his head back in. “Are you waiting here?”

  “No, I’m nervous,” she said.

  “I will keep you safe,” he said. He glanced at her front door and back to her.

  “It’s my home. It’s different now. It’s been invaded.”

  He held out his hand. “Come, you must face this.”

  He was right and she liked that he didn’t try to coddle her. He pushed her to do what needed to be done. She took his hand and they hustled quickly up the stairs. She didn’t want any of her neighbors to see her. She put her key in the front lock and burst into the front door.

  It was clean and normal looking and smelled faintly of bleach. Her entry way tile looked spotless, better than it did before. Her kitchen had been cleaned, furniture righted, and broken items removed. Everything was perfect.

  “Wow,” she said. “It looks great. I could almost sleep here.” She walked down the hallway and into her room. Her drawers had been fixed and the bed had been neatly made.

  “Do you need help packing your things?”

  “No.”

  He said nothing as she slipped out of her sweat pants and shirt, replacing them with jeans and a tank top. She pulled two giant suitcases out of her closet and put them on her bed. She filled them with pajamas, jeans, tops, yoga pants, socks, and running shoes. Next, she pulled open her closet and made a formidable stack of hanging work clothes—skirts, blazers, blouses and slacks. She chose a simple pair of black pumps that went with everything.

  She went to her bathroom and gathered her makeup bag and toiletries. She was done in fifteen minutes.

  Dmitri closed her suitcases and zipped them, then made a phone call. Gram came in a few seconds later and disappeared with a suitcase in each hand.

  “Is this everything? Dmitri said. “Anything else?”

  “There is nothing here for me,” she said. She picked up her shoes and a stack of clothes and walked out. Dmitri waited a few seconds and then walked out behind her with the rest of her clothes.

  Chapter 20

  After another tour de Houston, lose-the-tail style, they were back at Dmitri’s house, or whatever it was.

  Sophia struggled with the right words to ask him if she was staying in his room or the guest room, when Gram walked in the front door with her suitcases.

  “Put them in my room,” Dmitri said.

  Sophia blushed, question answered, and followed Gram down the hallway with her own load of clothes. She put them on Dmitri’s bed.

  Dmitri came in. “There should be plenty of room in the closet for those, and I’ll clean out some drawers for you.”

  “Thank you,” she mumbled.

  She was putting her clothes in his drawers, her suits in his closet, her toothbrush in his bathroom. She was moving in. With him.

  Temporarily, she told herself.

  She hung her clothes in his closet and began putting her things away in the drawers he’d cleared out for her. Did she really just do this? Move in with him? Even temporarily?

  In his silent way, he left her alone to unpack. She appreciated it. She needed a moment to catch up with what the hell had just happened.

  Her phone rang from where she had it charging on the top of the dresser. She didn’t recognize the number.

  “Sophia, this is Reggie.”

  Her confused, overloaded brain took a moment to remember who he was. “Oh, hi,” she finally said.

  “Look, I started going through the documents along with my associates, and I wanted to touch base with you.”

  “Okay.” She paced over to the bed and sat down.

  “It’s much worse than anything I could have imagined.”

  Her heart rate picked up. “Oh?” she said.

  “Hidden assets. Fake shell corporations. Tax fraud. Investor fraud. Shareholder fraud. Misreported earnings. FCPA violations left and right. This whole thing...it’s huge. Massive. And I’m just scratching the surface. I’m not even a quarter of the way through the box, and I’m sure there’s a ton more evidence out there.”

  “FCPA?” she echoed

  “Federal Corrupt Practices Act.”

  “That sounds serious,” she
whispered.

  “You should report this. The whole company is a fraud, and I’m sure they are destroying evidence as we speak.”

  “Wait, what are you saying?” she said.

  “I’m saying this is going to be the biggest corporate fraud. Ever. It’s a complete house of cards. I can’t even imagine how many people’s lives they’ve destroyed.”

  She sighed. “I can’t believe this.”

  “Believe it. It’s the worst I’ve encountered in my career. This is going to make the mortgage backed securities scandal look like a children’s game. It’s bad. Really bad. We’re talking we’ll still be litigating this in twenty years bad.”

  “Shit,” she said. She plucked at the bedspread. She couldn’t deal with this right now. She didn’t have room for it. She’d been hunted like an animal, pushed out of her own home, and now this. “I have friends that have built their careers there. Hell, I have.”

  “Where are you right now?” he asked suddenly. “I am very concerned about your safety. There’s a lot of money flowing through this thing.”

  “I’m...I’m...” she clenched her fist, searching for the right words, “I’m at a friend’s. I believe I am safe here.”

  “Call my guys. Call them right now. You need private security. And for God’s sake, don’t set foot in that building again.”

  “My...um...friend, thinks so, too. You really think they would do something to me?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. People do strange things for money and power, and if they know you know...I can’t tell you how important it is that you take this seriously.”

  “Okay,” she said. Her voice was hoarse, because she was scared. She was scared shitless because of those two dead men in her house and because of Reggie’s words and because she’d sought refuge with one of the most dangerous men in the world. “Okay,” she said again, more firm. “What do we do now?”

  “I’ll get through this and deploy some private investigators to fill in the gaps. Then, if you say go, we’ll report and announce. We have to, Sophia. When you’re ready.”

  “I understand,” she said “I just need a little more time.” She hung up the phone.

  What was going to happen to her? What would her life be like post whistleblower?