by Paula Cox
“I don’t know what you think I am, Fiona.”
“Listen,” she says slowly. “I thought I’d make you bid on me because you seemed better than the others. You didn’t grope me or call me names or slap me or anything like that. But then the bouncer said something disgusting to me about you and it got me thinking. Why would a good man be on this boat? What purpose could a good man have of being on this boat? So, you can’t be a good man. And if you’re not a good man, you must be a bad man. And you’re fucked in the head if you think I’m letting a bad man anywhere near me when I’m dressed in this ridiculous goddamn outfit.” As she speaks, her cheeks become red and her hands quiver. She clenches her teeth and stares daggers at me.
“We’re in one tiny room with one tiny bed and the Russians don’t expect us to come out for some time,” I say. “I’m not standing here like this for that entire time. Why don’t you just let me sit down? I’m not going to do anything.”
I see indecision cross her face. Then she sets her jaws firmly. “No,” she says. “Just stand there.”
Fine, I think. I’ll have to tell the truth. My version of it, anyway.
Holding my hands up in a sign of peace, I walk toward her, meaning to calm her. “Listen,” I say. “My name isn’t really Alexander Smith and I—”
She doesn’t hear my words. She doesn’t hear anything. She only sees, and what she sees is the man who just bought her walking toward her with his hands raised. Stupid, I think, as she dives under the bed and springs back up like a jack-in-the-box, waving the knife at me. She doesn’t hold it like most amateurs would, limp at the wrist like they’re scared they’re going to hurt themselves. She holds it like her life depends on it. She swipes at my head. I duck. She stabs at my belly. I hop back. She jabs all over; I dodge easily. Dancing aside, I dart my hand out and grab her wrist. She swings at me with her other hand. I catch her fist and push her up against the wall.
“No!” she roars, spitting at me. Unfortunately, spit in the face is an occupational hazard. The globule which sticks to my cheek doesn’t surprise me. What does surprise me is the stab of shame I feel at the sight of her fear. She really thinks I’m going to rape her and it makes me uncomfortable. Me, Roma, a man mentored by Beast, a man with more kills under his belt than most veteran soldiers.
“No! No! No!” Her body is like a fish plucked from the water and set onto the deck of a boat, one solid muscle flopping madly without care for its surroundings. She cracks her head against the wall and kicks out. I twist my body and pin her against the wall, stilling her.
Then I lean into her ear. “Listen,” I hiss. “Just fucking listen to me, okay?” She keeps screaming, so I pin her harder to the wall. Strange, too, but I’m careful not to pin her too hard. That never normally crosses my mind. A threat is dealt with. That is what usually happens. Cold, calm, calculated, precise, and a hundred other words which all boil down to one thing, really. Killer-trained. But now, I press into her almost softly. I’m oddly aware of her body against mine, soft and supple and warm. But not in the way she thinks. I would never, even if my life depended on it, force myself on a woman.
“Listen,” I repeat, and her screaming grows quieter. “My name is not really Alexander Smith. I am on this yacht to rescue you. That’s why I bought you. Okay? Do you fucking understand? So, for the love of God, stop screaming. You’re not doing us any favors.”
“Wait . . .” She takes a deep breath. “Did my father send you?” Her eyes go wide with hope. “That’s it, isn’t it? My father sent you! Are you secret service? FBI? Homeland Security?”
I can’t help but grin at the thought.
“What? Why are you smiling?” she demands.
“I’m a private contractor,” I say.
“But my father sent you?” she cries.
No. It was a man named Mr. Black, an obscure and shadowy fellow, and the only reason I’m saving you is so that your dad comes out of hiding so I can finish a lovely big contract on him and get a lovely big paycheck.
“Yes,” I lie.
“Then what is my name?” she says, eyes looking close into my face, searching for any sign of deceit. Women don’t usually get this close to my face. It makes me uncomfortable. Women, for me, are a release; we come together and use each other and that’s that. The women move on and so do I. But as Felicity stares at me, I feel like she’s staring into me. Like everything about her, it has a strange effect on me.
“Felicity Fellows,” I say. “You’re twenty-three years old, sporty. You took a course at college in fitness and health and you currently work as a personal trainer. Your mother died when you were three and your father raised you alone. As I understand it, you take much of who you are from him. Chiefly your aversion to violence and your belief that anything can be resolved diplomatically—thought I think I’ll have to revise that after this.” I nod at the knife.
“You have a file on me?” she says.
“A file of sorts, yes.”
Mr. Black is very thorough.
“Now, if I let you go, are you going to stab me?”
She drops the knife. It clatters on the floor. “No,” she says. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”
I step back. “Not usually how I do things, but you’ve left me no choice. I didn’t expect a fighter.” I realize I’m smiling with pride and admiration.
Felicity steps forward. “So now what?” he says. “Is there a helicopter on the way? A SWAT team?”
I laugh grimly. “No, sorry,” I say. “Now, we lie low and play our parts until we can get off this damned boat. As far as anybody knows, you’re my property now. We have to keep it that way.”
She slumps onto the bed. “This is mad,” she mutters. Then: “You know my name. What’s yours?”
“Roma,” I say. “My name is Roma.”
“Nice to meet you, Roma,” Felicity sighs. “Why don’t you take a seat?”
Chapter Four
Roma
Over the next few days, the auctions continue. After the first night, I’m allowed to move Felicity to my cabin, quarters fit for a snakelike politician, replete with double bed, porthole window, and en-suite bathroom. I’m also permitted to bring Felicity some clothes from a pile collected by the Russians. I return with a black bag full of dresses and shirts which reveal more than they hide.
But Felicity still jumps at the bag with eager hands. “Thank God!” she says, rooting through it.
I sit on the edge of the bed and watch her, wondering at the feelings which move through me. I know I shouldn’t let myself be attracted to her. I’m on a job and that can only complicate matters. I have to stay focused. I have to hone my killer’s attention on the job and nothing else. I can’t let myself be distracted. But it’s damn hard when you’re sharing a room with a woman as beautiful and strong as Felicity. She was kidnapped, I often think in wonder. She was kidnapped and instead of lying down and taking it she played a role and stole a knife from the kitchen and bided her time. I’m impressed. It’s more than most people would’ve had the guts to try.
“These men are so obvious,” she sighs, pulling out dress after dress.
“How do you mean?” I ask. My eyes are rooted to her. Now she’s safe—safer than she was before I bought her, anyway—she’s tied her hair up in her signature ponytail. It’s more of a top-knot, really. Her hair is fixed at the crown of her head and then spills down her back. Like a Viking shieldmaiden, I think. And then I tell myself: Get a grip, man. But it’s difficult. Her body is lithe, strong, honed from hours and hours of sport. Her belly is tight and well-honed and her arms are small but muscular. I love to watch the way her neck bends and the slant of the light as it hits her cheeks.
She stands up, still wearing lingerie, holding a dress. “I’m going to get changed,” she says. She reaches onto the bed and scoops up some underwear.
“Okay,” I say.
She laughs. A laugh of derision? A laugh of fun? I don’t know.
“Can you turn around?”
> “Oh, sure,” I say.
I don’t ask her why she doesn’t go into the bathroom. The idea of her changing in the same room as me, even if my back is turned, is too appealing. I stand up and face the door, arms crossed in front of me. Already, the hostage-purchaser relationship has fallen away. I shouldn’t be standing with my back to her. I’m asking for a knife between my shoulder blades. If Mr. Black saw me acting like this, he’d go into one of his screaming rants.
“Okay,” she says.
I turn around. Air escapes my lips in a great sigh, and then I suck it in with an even greater gasp. She wears a lacey red dress which hugs her in all the right places. Her small, pert breasts are pressed against her chest and her taut legs are on display. I find my eyes trailing down her legs, to her feet, and back up to her chest. And finally to her face, her cheeks red.
“What do you think?” she says.
I nod shortly. “Good, fine,” I mutter.
She turns around. The zip to the dress is undone, down near her ass. I swallow. My cock presses against my pants and all of a sudden I’m a teenager, seeing a woman for the first time.
“Sorry,” she says. “Can you?”
“Sure,” I say.
I walk up behind her, reach down, and take the zip. My hand touches her back. Her skin is warm, tempting. It’s hot. It makes me think of the rest of her. Is she just as hot down . . . I thrust the thought away. On a job, I remind myself. On a goddamn job.
I zip up the dress as quickly as I can.
She turns and faces me. I don’t step away. I tell myself it’s because she turned too quickly, but that’s a lie and I know it. It’s because she’s too sexy and there’s an animal scent come from her, hormonal and potent, that drifts into my body and drives me almost senseless. I feel my hands twitching to reach up and touch her, brush her shoulders. My cock screams at me to take her, to be with her.
Her lips are twisted in a sarcastic grin, her eyebrows raised. “Is something wrong, Roma?”
Dammit, I even love the way she says my name.
“No.” My Adam’s apple shifts as I swallow. “Not at all,” I lie. “Why would you ask?”
“You’ve gone pale.”
“Seasickness,” I mutter.
“Hmm, you haven’t shown any signs before now. I don’t think you get seasick.”
“First time for everything,” I say.
“Maybe.” She watches me for a moment, and then sits on the end of the bed. She stretches her legs out, pointing her toes like a ballerina, drawing attention to every curve and subtle shift in her musculature.
I pace to the other end of the room, afraid if I don’t get away from her, I’ll try something.
I lean against the wall and she tilts her head at me. “You’re acting strange,” she says.
“You barely know me,” I comment. “How would you know that?”
But the truth is, she knows me better than any woman ever has. It’s not that she knows me incredibly well. It’s just that every woman before Felicity didn’t know me at all. I can’t just leave this cabin like I would a motel in the middle of the night. Circumstances have trapped us.
“Just a hunch,” she says. She lowers her voice: “How’s the auction going?”
“Boring and routine.”
“That’s good for us, right?”
I’m impressed by her, make no mistake. She’s thrown herself into this completely. She knows the rules and she’ll play the game until we can get free. I think about the nighttime, when we’re forced to sleep in the same bed. Half the night, I lie awake on my end, staring up at the ceiling and fighting urges which surge through me like electricity. Once, she rolled over in her sleep and draped her arm across my midriff. I didn’t sleep for half the night, just savored the feeling of that small warm hand against my skin.
“That’s good for us,” I confirm.
She nods. “How long now?”
I shrug. “A few days. Need to wait until . . .” I cut short.
“All the girls are auctioned off?” Felicity murmurs.
“Exactly.”
“And my father only sent you to rescue me?”
I force myself not to look away. “Yes,” I say, lying directly into her face.
That shouldn’t bother me. I’m a killer, after all, and last time I checked lying is more moral than killing. But with Felicity it bothers me and I don’t understand it.
She opens her mouth to say something, but then there’s a knock at the door.
I bring my finger to my lips. “Fiona,” I say, looking meaningfully into her eyes.
“Alexander,” she says.
Good.
I open the door. I’m met with Barinov’s glistening forehead. He totters from foot to foot and waves a glass of champagne as he talks. “Alexander, my good friend!”
“Barinov!” I grin, wishing I could snap his neck.
“How goes the merchandise?”
“Good,” I say, hoping my anger doesn’t show in my voice.
“Good, good, good!” he sings, grinning like a jackal. “I am here at the request of Master Zherkov. He wishes to inform you that the men are doing a little display of their merchandise in the viewing room. Lap dances. And I’m sure you know, it’s poor manners to refuse such an offer, especially from the big man himself.”
“A lap dance?” I say. “In front of everybody?”
Baroniv squints at me. “Yes, I can assume there’s not a problem with that, yes?”
“Can you give me a second?”
“That shouldn’t be necessary,” Barinov mutters, but waves his hand.
I close the door and go to Felicity. “Did you hear?”
She nods, biting her lip.
“What will happen if we don’t do it?” she asks.
“They’ll get suspicious and start asking questions we can’t afford them to ask.”
“It’ll break our cover, in other words?”
“Exactly.”
“Then we have to do it.” Her eyebrows furrow. “Let’s just get it over with.”
I’m sorry, I think but do not say.
I return to the door and to an impatient Barinov. “We’ll be down in a moment,” I say.
He claps his hands together. Champagne swills over the side of his glass onto the floor. “Most fantastic!” he grins, and then waddles down the hallway.
I turn back into the room. Felicity stands tall, strong, holding her high heels in her hand with a determined expression on her face.
She’s unlike any woman I’ve ever met, I think.
Chapter Five
Felicity
Over the past few days, my hope has become stronger. I’ve gone from having to fight off a rapist with a kitchen knife to being rescued by one of my father’s men. But there’s something else, too, something that sits deep inside of me and that I’m finding more and more difficult to deny. It’s inappropriate, maybe even dangerous, but it calls out to me over and over and despite how many times I stifle it, it resurfaces.
It came out in full force one night when I was pretending to be asleep. I didn’t think; I just rolled over and placed my hand on his belly. It was rock-hard. A clearly outlined pack of muscle. I longed to trail my fingers over it, feel each individual bump, but that would’ve given the game away. Instead, I just lay my hand upon it and felt the power of him. He is handsome, and there’s a quiet intensity about him I find inexorably attractive. Despite the danger of our situation, I find myself thinking more and more frequently about Roma, about his muscles, about his capability, about his hard-set jaw and his dark, brooding eyes.
Stop it! I cry at myself. Get your head in the game, now!
I follow Roma down the hallway, past other cabins in which men hold women prisoner. Roma wears a tight grey suit and walks just in front of me. Sometimes, he won’t look at me. I’m not sure if that’s because he senses something between us, too, or that he feels nothing. I’m inclined to think the former. My little trick with this dress secured that. He ca
n look away and mutter and grunt, but he can’t stop his breathing from getting quicker, can’t stop the heat emanating from him. The other night, I even dreamt about us. In the dream, I rolled over and sat atop him, grinding, and when I woke up I realized my hand was creeping down my body. I stopped it, but only with an effort.
Roma pushes open a door at the end of a long hallway, revealing a circular room with one chair in the middle. All around the room, men stand, fat Russian men with hungry eyes, rubbing their hands together as before a meal.
I swallow. No time for thought now. The show has begun.