Kissing Kosta

by Mia Madison

  The police look like they’re ready to sing the Hallelujah Chorus. I’m more concerned with the fact that I’ve just told Kosta I was watching him.

  “Did you speak to him?”

  “No. I was never anywhere near him.”

  Frank frowns. “Then how could you see him?”

  “I was upstairs. There are windows there that look out over the interior of the club.”

  Frank takes a moment to absorb this. “But you saw him clearly enough to be certain it’s the same man.”

  “Yes.” That face is probably burned on my memory forever.

  “What was he doing, when you saw him?”

  Any hesitation might seem suspicious. “He was talking to Kos—Mr. Adamo.”

  Frank wants to know what time this was, where in the club, and so on. The one thing I know he wants to ask, but doesn’t, is what the conversation was about. So far as he knows, I can’t answer that.

  “Why were you upstairs? Isn’t that area off-limits?”

  “I was there with Mr. Adamo.”

  “You visited him at his club, he took you upstairs, but he didn’t offer you a drink.”

  “No.”

  “Did he offer you anything else?”

  My eyes narrow. I know exactly what that question is fishing for. “No,” I say, a bit too forcefully.

  “I’ll remind you that lying to the police is a crime.”

  Now I’m in full-on glare mode. “I’m not lying.”

  “Let’s take a break,” Romero says. “Miss Grant, can I get you a glass of water?”

  I take a breath. “Yes, please.” From the corner of my eye, I see Kosta get up and follow him. Staring at the carpet, not meeting anyone’s eyes, I try to get my temper under control.

  When Romero comes back, he’s got a glass of water in one hand and a plate of cold cuts in the other. I almost smile; my man’s making sure I eat. It may be rude, but I’m starving, so I take a slice of salami and fold it around a piece of cheese.

  Frank waits for me to finish my snack. Before he can start up again, my dad gives him a “hold on” gesture and leans toward me. “Did you see the entire encounter between the dead man and Mr. Adamo?”

  My stomach tenses. “I believe so.”

  “From what you witnessed, how would you characterize the conversation?”

  Things You Don’t Know

  Clever man. He knows me better than anyone, so I don’t even try to be cute with my answer. “I would characterize it as an altercation.”

  Dad straightens up in his chair, but his partner puts a hand on his shoulder. “They fought?” Frank says. “The dead man and Mr. Adamo?”

  “Argued,” I say.

  “But it wasn’t physical?”

  “Not entirely.” Then Frank grills me until I explain everything I saw Kosta do: the shove, the hand at the throat, the punch to the stomach. I try to keep my answers as direct and unemotional as I can, though my stomach is churning. I know how bad this sounds.

  When we get to the part about the guards escorting the dead man out, and I don’t know their names, Frank looks over at Kosta, who tells him. I give myself those few seconds to look at my man. He doesn’t seem upset or angry; his voice is calm. Maybe too calm.

  Finally, I explain how I freaked out after I tripped over the body — not the part about trying to protect Kosta, just that I was upset — and how “Mr. Adamo” took me home and called a doctor to come to the house. This surprises my audience, especially my parents. Frank asks the doctor’s name, and Kosta tells him that too.

  “That’ll do for now,” Frank says at last. “Thank you for your time, Miss Grant. We may have more questions for you later.” I nod my acquiescence, and everyone gets up to leave.

  Mom comes over to me and I give her a hug. “Are you coming home with us?” she says.

  “Not today, Mom,” I say gently.

  “Erin—”

  “Please, Mom.” This is not the time to try to explain things. “Trust me.”

  She looks into my eyes for a long moment, scanning me with her maternal x-ray, then nods. “I’ll talk to your father.”

  Dad’s gone out with the rest of the cops. On the one hand, it hurts a little that he didn’t stay to talk to me, even for a minute; on the other, maybe it’s for the best right now. “Thanks, Mom.” I hug her again.

  Then Mom surprises me. No, she shocks the hell out of me. Turning to Kosta, she says, “Take care of my girl. If you hurt her, I’ll hunt you down myself.”

  I’m stunned speechless, but Kosta not only doesn’t look offended by her words, he seems to approve of them. He moves to my side, resting a hand on the small of my back. “No one is going to hurt your daughter,” he says. “Not me, not anyone.”

  Mom gives him the super-ultra x-ray treatment before she nods. “You’ll call me,” she says to me as she moves toward the front door.

  “Yes, Mom.” I’m kind of amazed I can even get those words out. She leaves, Romero shakes my hand and shows himself out, and then Kosta and I are alone.

  He turns me to face him. “You sounded like a lawyer yourself,” he says. “You listen in to a lot of interrogations growing up?”

  “No,” I say, “but I am a pre-law major.” His eyebrows go up, and I take a deep breath. “Kosta, I need to tell you something.” Looking up, I meet his eyes. “I heard what you said to that man. All of it.”

  “I know, babe.”

  I blink. “You do?”

  “You forgot to turn the speaker off in the office.”

  Oh, crap. I completely forgot about that. “I guess I should give up on my alternate career plan of being a spy.”

  His mouth quirks. “Let’s get you fed,” he says, and takes my hand to walk me to the kitchen. Kosta’s house is sleek and modern, but also warm and comfortable, with clean lines, rich fabrics, and splashes of vivid color. The kitchen is huge, with a banquette in one corner that looks like it would seat eight comfortably.

  I settle down and watch as Kosta moves through the kitchen with the obvious ease of familiarity. When he sets a plate of blueberry pancakes in front of me a few minutes later, I stare at the food, then at him. “How did you know these were my favorite?”

  “I asked Tonio to ask Cait.”

  Sudden tears prick my eyes, and I blink them away. This man. So good to me. He brings his own plate, and we eat in contented silence for a few minutes. When we’re finished, Kosta takes our plates before I can and gets them loaded in the dishwasher.

  “Do you get motion sickness, anything like that?” he asks.

  “Uh, no. Why?”

  “Drink some more water, babe. I’ll be right back.”

  Perplexed, I do as he says, and hear him going up the stairs. He’s back in no time with a sweatshirt, which he hands to me before leading me to his garage. “You have a bike!” I say when I notice the Ducati. Cait’s told me about her rides with Tonio.

  “We’ll take that for a spin sometime soon, babe, but not today.” He guides me to the black sports car he brought into Revved yesterday and opens the passenger door for me, then takes the driver’s seat. Thirty minutes later, we’re pulling into the regional airport. I notice that we have an escort on the way there, but Kosta doesn’t mention it so I don’t either.

  When he leads me to a sleek little jet with no crew standing around, my eyes get big. “You have a pilot’s license?”

  “Yeah. I’ve been flying for almost twenty years now.” As long as I’ve been alive, just about. Maybe I should feel funny about how much older he is, but I don’t.

  Inside, it’s roomier than I expected, and luxurious. I wander its length while Kosta runs through the pre-flight checklist. Finally, I pull on the sweatshirt and strap into the co-pilot’s seat next to him, and we taxi down the runway.

  When the plane lifts off, I get a rush of adrenaline. “Woo-hoo!” I shout, hands in the air, then subside and shoot Kosta a sheepish glance. “Sorry.”

  He’s smiling. “Not a problem, babe. Gives me that
feeling too.”

  We climb to a cruising altitude, heading out over the countryside. “How far can we go?” I ask.

  “The plane’s got a range of about three thousand nautical miles without refueling.”

  “Wow.”

  “Once things are back to normal, pick a destination and I’ll take you there. New York, LA, Seattle, wherever. We can even go overseas if we stop to refuel.”

  “Paris?” I say immediately.

  He gives me a look that makes my heart swell. “Yeah, babe. I’ll take you to Paris.”

  I want to say things, foolish romantic things, but I don’t. There’s still too much unsettled between us. But Kosta knows it too, and doesn’t make me wait. “Time to talk, carina.”

  “Yes.” My hands fidget in my lap. “Do you want to start, or should I?”

  “Ask your questions, then I’ll fill in the gaps.”

  “Okay.” The sky is perfectly blue today, without a cloud in sight. Being up here makes everything so serene, so peaceful, the world’s problems only distant abstractions. It’s a perfect place to talk about difficult topics, but still I hesitate.

  “Ask,” Kosta prompts me gently when I don’t speak.

  Taking a breath, I stick a toe into what feels like shark-infested waters. “Right before I came to the club last night, I heard that there are … rumors about your family, that maybe they’re into … illegal activities.”

  Without hesitation, he says, “Certain members of my family are of interest to the police.”

  “Holy shit,” I whisper. Then I ask the question I’m dreading the answer to. “Are you also … of interest?”

  “By association, yeah. I’ll be plain, babe: all of my business activities are completely legitimate.” I let out a shaky breath, relief leaving me weak. “But because of my family, I’m always under scrutiny.”

  “They think you launder money for them or something?”

  “The cops suspect me of anything and everything, babe.” His tone is even, without a trace of bitterness, which I’m not sure I could manage if I were in his shoes. “Money laundering, drugs, you name it. And along with that, there are certain elements in the city who assume that because of my family, I should be open to activities they want me to be a part of.”

  “Is that what the dead guy was talking about? Deal with him or he’ll deal with you, that whole thing?”

  “Yeah. And in retrospect, I wish I’d let him talk. It looks like his organization decided to use him to try to fuck with me. He might have been trying to get out, offer me info.”

  That reminds me of the other question I’ve been wanting to ask. “Is that why you think I’m not safe? Because they’re trying to fuck with you?”

  “Hitting him outside my club, as fast as they did, says to me they were waiting for him to come out. They know the cops aren’t stupid, and the cops know I’m not stupid. Like you said, I wouldn’t leave a body lying around to implicate myself. So he may have been left there to lure me out.”

  “Oh my god. You mean they were watching?”

  “They might have been, yeah. If any of them recognized you as a cop’s daughter, that would have made them hesitate. But then, if they saw you with me, figured out you matter to me, they might still decide hurting a cop’s daughter is worth the risk.”

  I’m no longer sorry that I went gonzo on him last night. Maybe my instincts were right. “Your reaction to the dead guy — before he was dead, I mean — it seemed …”

  “It was extreme, babe. Because of things you don’t know about yet.”

  I look at him. He’s focused on flying, hands on the controls, eyeing the instrument panel. His profile is so handsome, but there’s a tight set to his jaw. “Do you want to tell me about them?”

  “I don’t, but I will.” His voice sounds heavier, weighted with pain and reluctance, and I almost tell him it’s okay, he doesn’t have to talk about it. Except he does.

  Heaven to Hell

  “Years ago,” he says, “there was a woman. I got wrapped up in her. It was twisted, babe, in ways I don’t wanna talk about. It was not a healthy relationship.”

  “Okay,” I say softly, hating that I have to hear this and that he has to tell me. The plane banks, circling wide, and I gaze unseeing at the landscape below.

  “Because of that, it took me too long to realize that she’d gotten into some bad shit. She was an addict.”

  “Oh, Kosta.”

  “She met her dealer in my club. He belonged to the same group as the guy last night.”

  “Fuck,” I whisper.

  “Yeah. I never countenanced that shit, but in those days I wasn’t as vigilant about keeping it out, had more of a live and let live attitude.” He shakes his head. “My fault. I should have known better, but I was young and stupid.”

  “Honey.” I wish I could hold him right now, try to comfort him.

  “By the time I woke up to what was going on with her, it was too late. I tried to get her help, but she wouldn’t take it. She overdosed. Found her one day with a needle in her arm.”

  “Oh my god. Baby.”

  “Everything that happened with her — not just how she died, but the whole fucked-up mess of what we had — put me off relationships. I didn’t want anything like that again, not for myself, and I didn’t want to feel responsible for anyone else’s welfare.”

  “I can understand that,” I say quietly.

  “It took me a long time to get my head on straight. I was a cynical bastard. Good-time Charlie on the surface, but scrape that off and I wasn’t much fun to be around.”

  “Rico … he told me to be careful with you.”

  “He was right to warn you,” Kosta says. I see the airport ahead of us, a distant patch getting rapidly larger. “What he doesn’t know is that night you and Cait walked into my club, something changed in me.”

  That catches me off-guard. “Really?” I whisper.

  “You were so full of light and life. Not to put you on a pedestal, babe, but there was something almost pure about you. I run a classy joint and you seemed too good for it, even in that outrageous outfit you had on.” That makes me blush, but he’s not done. “I couldn’t stand the thought of a bunch of sleazy guys putting the moves on you so I took you upstairs, to keep you near me and to keep you safe. Without even trying, you woke up a part of me I thought was dead forever.”

  “Kosta, honey,” I say in a voice choked with emotion.

  “You’re kind. You’re smart. You’re sexy as hell. You take my moods and give me sass. You take my cock like you were made for it. When I said you were perfect, carina, I wasn’t kidding, because for me you are.”

  “That’s enough.” In about two seconds I’m going to cry all over his jet. “You need to stop talking now.”

  His lips twitch. “Gotta land the plane now, babe, so yeah.” After that, his only words are to the control tower until the jet is on the ground and he’s run his final check.

  As we’re walking back to his car, he takes my hand. I almost skip along beside him, everything is so right with my world. “Are we going back to your place?” I ask.

  “That’s the plan, yeah.” He holds my door, then moves around to the driver’s side. “Why?”

  “Because I kind of want to jump you.”

  His eyes flash. “Fuckin’ perfect,” he whispers. “Strap in, Blondie; I might break some land speed records.”

  My giggle is drowned out by the roar of the engine as the car leaps forward.

  We’re ten miles out of town when it happens. The car’s racing toward the last of the daylight and I’m loving the speed, the Gs pressing me back into my seat. “Knees or no knees,” I shout, “I am going to give you the blow job to end all blow jobs.”

  Two point five seconds later, Kosta swerves into a turnout and brakes. Before I have time to be worried, his seatbelt and mine are undone, his seat pushes back away from the steering wheel, his hands are on my hips, and then I’m straddling him and his hand is at the back of my ne
ck, urging my head forward.

  Our mouths meet in a heated rush, kissing like it’s our first time, or our last. His hands slide into my hair; mine frame his face. Our concentration is absolute, like the clash of our tongues is guiding the space shuttle to a safe landing and we can’t stop no matter what.

  When a hungry moan crawls from my throat into his, we finally come up for air, but we still don’t stop. I’m peppering his face with tiny kisses — on the edge of his mouth, then along his jaw, until I suck his earlobe into my mouth — while his hands go under the sweatshirt and t-shirt and fill themselves with my breasts. He plucks at my nipples, then pinches them, and I latch my mouth onto his again.

  I’m wriggling on his lap, trying to grind myself against him, his cock straining against his pants. He breaks the kiss to trail his mouth along my jaw until he nips my earlobe. Electricity surges through me and I growl. Me. Growling at him.

  Kosta whips off my tops and tosses them aside, then goes to work on my bra. I suck his upper lip into my mouth, chew on it, then switch to the lower. “There’s no one else like you,” I pant between nibbles. “No one ever.” I suck his tongue into my mouth, doing my best to show him what I want to do to his cock, while my hands get busy with his jeans.

  I get distracted when Kosta turns the kiss slow, deep, drugging me with pleasure. “Next time we do this,” he rasps when he finally frees me, “you’re wearin’ a skirt.”

  “And no panties,” I agree, and he growls, then groans when I free him and take him in hand. I can’t contain all that he is so I use both hands, the thumb on my upper one rubbing the sensitive ridge under the head. “My beautiful man. I need you, all of you, always.”

  When I climb off his lap, he doesn’t stop me, but when I stretch myself across the gap between the seats, he says softly, “Baby.”

  “Shh,” I whisper, eyes on the prize. “Let me, honey, please.” I lick him from root to tip, lap up the liquid welling in his slit, then stretch my jaw wide and take him into my mouth.

  Ah, glorious. I’ve got one hand cupping his balls, the other squeezing the base of his shaft. I suck him gently, then harder, angling my head to take him deeper, when the moment is shattered by the cold metallic clicks of multiple guns.