by Abbi Cook
My eyes open to see a tiny line of sunlight streaming through where the blackout curtains almost meet. Still groggy, I turn to my left to see Adam gone from bed. Curious how late I've slept, I roll over to look at the clock on the nightstand and see it's right after eight o'clock in the morning.
I hurry downstairs to catch him before he leaves for work and find him sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast. He's made scrambled eggs and sausage, which is strange since he never cooks any meals.
"Good morning. You look like you slept well. Do you want some coffee?"
"That sounds great. My mouth is kind of parched from the sleeping pill," I say as I sit down across from him. A few seconds later, he hands me a cup of coffee with extra milk, just as I like it, and smiles.
"Here you go. I can get you some eggs and sausage. I made enough for both of us."
He doesn't wait for me to answer, and as I watch him scurry around the kitchen to get me breakfast, I can't help but think he might be more amenable to discussing my recent difficulties this morning. He does seem to be in a very good mood.
Adam places a plate full of scrambled eggs and sausage down in front of me and smiles. "A good breakfast is the way to start the day off right."
"Thank you. It looks delicious."
I know I need to time this just right, because I don't want to wait too long and start a conversation just before he's ready to head out the door for work. After a few bites of egg, I take a sip of coffee and quietly bring up the topic again.
"That pill must have worked. I didn't have any dreams or nightmares last night. I just wish I didn't have to take drugs to get a good night's sleep."
Nodding, he finishes a forkful of sausage and says, "I was thinking of that last night while you were asleep. You probably just saw something on TV one night. You've always had a very active imagination, so I don't doubt that's it. I'm sure you'll be fine now."
His dismissal of my issues disappoints me, but I've begun this conversation, so I want to see it through to the end I'd hoped for. At least I need to try.
Quietly, I make a suggestion. "I was thinking maybe I should see a doctor about things since it's probably related to my injury. You know, just to be sure."
Adam shakes his head as a stern expression comes over him. "You don't need to see Dr. Johnson. He's just going to tell you the same thing I did."
"No, I mean a doctor like a therapist," I reply, lowering my gaze so I'm not looking at him.
I don't need to see his expression to know his reaction to my idea. His fork slams onto his plate, startling me, and he abruptly stands up from the table. When I finally look up, I see him shaking his head angrily.
"Absolutely not. I'm not going to let you put yourself into a position to be locked away. That’s what they do with crazy people, Natalie. No. I won't let you do it, and that's final."
He storms away without saying another word, leaving me sitting there at the breakfast table horrified at what he said. Locked away? I don't want to be locked away in a hospital with crazy people.
I won't be going to that appointment. I don't want anyone thinking I'm crazy.
Chapter Twenty
Alexei
For three days, I try to put Natalie Anchoff out of my head. Samson reports she’s stayed in the house since returning from her sister’s in Georgetown.
Since she and I almost slept together.
“Fucking focus, Alexei,” I mumble to myself as I glide my hand through my hair in frustration.
A knock on my office door pulls me out of my thoughts, and a moment later, Roman walks in. Similar to Samson in size, he does what I order, and lately that’s meant he handles who sees me and who doesn’t. It’s a less-than-stellar use of his skills, which consist mainly of fists the size of grapefruits and a temper that could use some controlling, but after he nearly killed someone he was only supposed to scare, I made him my secretary, for all intents and purposes.
Like Samson and a few others, he’s a holdover from my father’s time in my business. Unlike Samson, he’s my brother. Well, technically half-brother from a dalliance with some woman my father didn’t really care about.
At least that’s how he described it once to me.
I don’t trust Roman with my life. I can barely trust him enough to turn my back on him. He’s too much like our father. However, he looks like he might work in an import business, so he fits in with the lie I tell people about what I do for a living.
“Mina’s here. She says you called her,” Roman says with more than a hint of disbelief in his voice.
“Send her in and don’t bother me until she leaves. Understand?”
Roman nods as a sly smile lifts the corners of his mouth. “Got it, boss.”
Looking down, I brush a stray piece of fuzz off my tie and then lift my head to see Mina Volkov strutting across the floor toward my desk. As beautiful as the day she married my father seven years ago, her long blond hair tumbles down toward her tiny waist making her look even younger than thirty.
She stops behind the black leather chair in front of me and her red stained lips pout for a moment before she gives me a sexy smile. “You beckon, I come, my favorite son. Long time no see, Alexei.”
“Favorite son?” I ask with a chuckle. “Have you given birth in the past couple months and I didn’t hear about it?”
Tilting her head to the right, she gives me another pout. “Is that any way to treat me? I was your stepmother, Alexei.”
“You were the woman my father married, Mina, not my mother or anything like it. You’re six months younger than me, if I remember correctly.”
“Seven,” she answers flatly. “So if you didn’t call me for a family matter, why did you summon me here today?”
“Maybe I missed you. Stranger things have happened, you know.”
She rolls her eyes and walks around my desk, stopping next to my chair. Turning me to face her, she bends down so I get a full show of the gorgeous tits my father happily bought her for their first wedding anniversary.
“Did you miss me, Alexei? Because I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you a great deal, in fact.”
“I often wondered about that since we broke up on a Wednesday and you married my father three weeks later. Doesn’t give a person much time for missing anything.”
A tiny groan punctuates the silence between us after a few moments, and she takes a step toward me to stand between my legs. “You broke up with me right after New Year’s, and I didn’t marry Adrian until close to Easter. You always want to make it sound so sordid. You left me, Alexei, not the other way around. If I remember correctly, it was for some bimbo with a flat chest and big ass, but I could be mistaken.”
For a moment, I try to remember who she’s talking about but nothing comes to me. It was almost ten years ago, after all. Whoever she was, she doesn’t sound very appealing, at least not the way Mina describes her.
“Three months to fall in love with a man forty years older than you.”
A smile lights up her beautiful face, and she shakes her head at my characterization of her romance with my father. “Age is just a number, and it never meant a thing to me. You know that.”
“I do. The only number you ever cared about had a dollar sign in front of it.”
“So petty. You always want to make my marriage to Adrian about money. Sorry to disappoint you, but it wasn’t about that either.”
I know exactly what it was about. That’s why she’s here today.
Reaching out, I take her hand and pull her forward so she’s just inches away from me. My eyes roam up and down her body before my gaze meets hers and I see in her dark eyes she understands why I called her here.
“So you’ve missed me?”
Mina runs her hand down the length of my black silk tie and nods. “Of course. I have no other family but you and Roman, so naturally I’ve missed spending time with both of you. At one time, you and I were as close as two people could be.”
“I need you to help me wi
th something,” I say in a low voice.
“Have I ever not said yes, Alexei? Your wish is my command.”
Without my saying a word, she understands when I drop my gaze to the floor. She follows it, lowering herself to her knees between my legs.
“You must be wrecked about someone if you’re using me to forget her, baby,” she says as she tugs my zipper down.
All I need is to get Natalie out of my mind, and there’s no one better for that than Mina, the woman who punished me for breaking up with her by fucking my father and then marrying him. Nothing like revenge sex to mess up your head so you can’t think of anything else.
Taking my cock into her hand, Mina strokes it up and down, her grip tighter than Natalie’s would be because she’s so much more experienced in this. I close my eyes and try to push the thought of her innocence out of my head to enjoy this moment.
I just need to let myself have this, and she’ll disappear from my mind.
“Mmmm, baby, if you want to skip this and move to the main event, I’m more than willing. I’ll make sure you can’t think of anything for hours.”
“No. Just this,” I say, stuffing my hand into her hair and pushing her head down onto my cock.
Jesus Christ. With her usual skill, she takes me down to the base and closes her throat around the head. I’d forgotten how good Mina is at blowjobs.
Lifting my hips, I arch my back and she does that thing by swallowing again that never fails to make my eyes roll back in my head.
I tighten my hold in her hair and force her to bob up and down at the pace I set. “Fuck…just like that.”
She lets out a moan that vibrates against my skin and goes straight to my balls. I open my eyes and look down to see her red lips dragging up my shaft to the head. With a hard suck, she delivers just the right amount of pain to make me crazy.
“Don’t stop.”
Don’t stop, for fuck’s sake, so I can forget the woman I wish was here with me.
As commanded, she goes back to bobbing up and down, taking me to the edge and then easing me back again. My free hand grips the arm of my office chair so tightly my knuckles turn white. Just a little more and I’ll be there.
Just a little more and I’ll forget about Natalie.
Natalie, with her soft blue eyes filled with so much innocence that I walked away when all I wanted to do was possess her for my own. Not a minute has passed since then that I haven’t regretted that. I know damn well I shouldn’t have let myself get lost in someone I have to kill. I’m not new at this fucking game. I don’t know how it happened, but there’s something about her I can’t stop myself from wanting.
Desperate to get lost in the ecstasy Mina’s mouth offers, I let my head loll back onto the chair and stare down at her sucking my cock. I should be able to enjoy this. Fuck, I should be able to think of nothing else. A beautiful woman I loved and who married my father after swearing she’d never touch me again is bobbing up and down in my lap giving me a blowjob. The messed up family dynamic alone should be enough to make me forget everything else in the world.
But it doesn’t work.
A minute later when I come down Mina’s throat, I physically feel incredible but emotionally there’s nothing. I shouldn’t give a fuck about feeling anything. Why should I care about feeling? I’ve got my ex sucking my cock like she claimed she’d never do again, yet all I can think about is Natalie Anchoff.
So much for a distraction.
Mina sits back on her heels and wipes the corners of her mouth before smiling up at me. “Poor Alexei. Someone’s wormed their way into his soul and he can’t seem to get rid of them. Want to tell stepmommy all about it?”
“You’re more fucked up than even I can deal with today,” I say as I stuff my still hard cock back into my pants. “Do you have some oedipal thing these days? Does Roman know?”
With a giggle, she reaches out and slides her palms up my thighs. “Nothing like that, and Roman was never my favorite of your father’s sons. The fact is, though, I was your stepmother at one time.”
I rub my thumb over her lower lip swollen from sucking me off and shake my head. “So fucked up.”
She sucks the tip of my finger into her mouth and moans before letting it pop out from between her lips. “Just so you know, Alexei, I used to pretend it was you when your father and I slept together.”
And with that little tidbit of knowledge, I can officially say I have the most fucked up family in the world.
Mina stands up and straightens my tie for me. “Baby, whoever she is, you aren’t going to forget her by doing this with me. Trust me. If I couldn’t forget you after what we did to one another, you aren’t going to forget whoever this one is with a blowjob.”
“I think I liked you better when you creeped me out by mentioning fucking my own father,” I say with a chuckle.
She leans forward and kisses my lips. “I just tell the truth. Whoever she is, if you have to try to forget her, then it isn’t time for her to be out of your system yet.”
Looking away to avoid facing her, I say, “This one doesn’t belong in my system in the first place.”
“I don’t believe that for a second. There’s no woman Alexei Volkov can’t have.”
I let out a heavy sigh and turn my head to look at her. Time for confession. “She’s married. She’s not mine to have.”
Mina rolls her eyes. “As if that’s anything you ever cared about.”
She knows me well, but the truth is Natalie being married isn’t the problem and I know that. Wincing at that reality, I lower my voice even more. “She’s a target.”
For the first time since I’ve known her, Mina’s eyes fill with pity. “Oh, baby. Now I know you’re lost. You have to choose between love and the job, and you know how that has to end. Poor Alexei.”
And right there is the truth I can’t deny. I don’t want to choose between who I am and having Natalie.
After Mina leaves, I know what I have to do. Adam Anchoff paid me two hundred grand to do a job. Now I have to do just that.
I have to kill the woman who’s somehow wormed her way into my soul.
Chapter Twenty-One
Natalie
Halfway to D.C., it dawns on me that I have no idea how much a session with Dr. Trevino costs. I can't very well use one of my credit cards, and I certainly can't submit the appointment to our insurance, assuming we even have coverage for therapist visits, since I used my sister's name. At a stop light, I frantically rifle through my purse to find my wallet. Just before the light turns green, I fish it out and see I have fifty-three dollars to my name. Will that be enough?
As I press my foot on the gas, I know the answer to that question. No, it likely won't be enough. Maybe I can withdraw money from one of our accounts. No, that won't work either. Adam would find out and want to know what I spent the money on. I don't want to lie to him on top of not telling him about my seeing a therapist.
I could ask my mother. No, I can't go to her either. She'll want to know what I need it for, and I don't think I could lie well enough to get past her.
That leaves me with the fifty-three dollars I have on me and cancelling the appointment. With each passing mile, my stomach begins to twist into a knot. I need to speak to someone about what's been happening to me for the past few months. I need to unburden myself about what happened with Alexei too.
About the fact that I can’t seem to get him off my mind. God, with every second I spend fantasizing about him, I’m betraying my marriage, my vows, and my husband. If only I can talk to someone I know won’t tell anyone, I think I can forget about him.
I’ve wrestled with going or not going to this appointment, changing my mind nearly twenty times. Adam’s warning about me getting locked away scared me half to death, but worse is what my nightmares make me feel. The addition of the guilt over what I did with Alexei has made these last few days nearly unbearable. I vacillate between worrying that I’m losing my mind one minute and then practically obsessi
ng over what happened with him the next.
I can’t go on like this.
So who can I get the money from? I run through the choices, and the only other people in the world I could conceivably ask for money are my sisters. I dismiss the mere idea of going to Tess about this within seconds. My younger sister would likely have some to give, but the strings attached would be far too costly. I don't even know if I could trust her not to tell Adam, and I'd have to make sure she understood he couldn't know. There is no way I want that hanging over my head with her.
That leaves Claire. Ordinarily, I'd go to her without a second thought, but after all she's been dealing with in the past few months, I've tried not to be anything but a positive part of her life. In this case, though, I don't have a choice.
She answers on the first ring and begins talking before I can say hello. "Did you go to see the therapist? What did he say? Do you think he can help?"
"I haven't gotten there yet. I just realized I don't have any money to pay for the session, and I can't charge it on one of our credit cards because Adam will see it when he gets the bill," I admit sheepishly. "I was wondering if I could borrow some money from you."
"I only have a couple dollars on me now. How much do you need?"
For a moment, I think about the question. I have no idea how much a single session with a therapist costs. "I don't know. I've never been to a doctor like this. I'm guessing more than the fifty-three dollars I have on me."
Claire groans. "If I take money out of the bank, Albert will see and want to know what I spent it on."
"That's the same reason I can't take it out of our account. Adam will know. I really don't want to lie to him about that too."
She's silent for a few seconds and then says, "I'll give it to you anyway. If Albert asks, I'll tell him shopping made me feel better. He'll just be happy I'm not crying or depressed."
Her answer buoys my spirits. "Are you sure, Claire? I don't want to cause you any problems."