"I gotta go," I mutter, grabbing my purse, and he doesn't fight.
The door slamming behind me reverberates through the hall, and I stand on the other side of the door.
What just happened?
7
I haven't been able to get the taste of his lips off mine. I know it's all in my head, that his taste couldn't have permeated my body so easily, but I swear, I lick my mouth and all I can think of is his.
I don't know what I regret more — going over there in the first place, or leaving. I can't get him out of my head, the dark warnings, and burning passion between us. Maybe it's all in my mind. Maybe to him I really am just off limits and so he wants to have me. He has everything else, after all. The nice house, the good job.
The criminal enterprise.
The thought is like a dagger to my heart. Why did this have to get so complicated? I was prepared for him stealing from his mother. I might have even liked that.
But this is something so much deeper.
I still haven't told Rebecca about what I've found, because what if it's nothing? I've seen her temper flare, and I know better than to come to her with bad information.
"Earth to Sarah." Joanna snaps her fingers in front of my face and my eyes slowly refocus on my roommate. We're sitting across from one another, and we're supposed to be catching up. Our silly, weekly ritual. Both of us tend to get stuck in our own heads — and rooms — more than is healthy, so our compromise was Saturday dinners together.
"Sorry," I mutter, rubbing my head and forcing a smile at her. "You're setting up a new data center?"
"Yup," she says proudly, putting aside her own confusion at my behavior for the time being. "It's a pretty big deal, a big promotion. I mean, it's not like it's really that much fun, but it's better than most things they have me do in IT."
"That's great," I say with manufactured enthusiasm. Joanna's been a great roomie, but I know her passion is definitely not in the infrastructure side of IT. She prefers the more hands-on aspects, and I know she was gunning for a background check job in HR but was turned down. Not enough experience, they said.
"Yea. I mean, this might be a real shot at doing something and climbing the corporate ladder," she says, spearing a piece of broccoli and chewing it thoughtfully. "Plus, if I can set it all up, then I'll know all the back end stuff," she grins mischievously and I can't help but laugh.
"So what's been going on in that blonde little head of yours, Sarah? Did I actually hear you stumble in at five in the morning today?"
She heard that? Oops.
"Uh, yea. It wasn't... It was nothing." I can't fight the flush traveling up my cheeks. It so wasn't nothing. I wish I didn't blush so easily when I'm caught in a lie.
"Uh-huh. You got a boy, finally? I've been telling you — for how long? — you need to get out and date. So why are you all gun-shy about it? I think it's fabulous," she says, twirling her fork in the air.
Joanna's hair is pulled back in a ponytail, her dark-rimmed glasses falling down on her nose a little and I can't help but laugh despite all the craziness.
"He's not a boy," I say defensively, and that just makes her smile broaden.
"Ohh, a man, then?"
"He's nothing. It's nothing. Just my boss, he needed something."
Her brow raises and I wonder if I said too much.
"At ass-o'clock on the morning?"
"It was important."
"On a Saturday morning?"
"Really important?"
She rolls her eyes, "Girl, I know a booty-call when I hear it, and if he's calling you up on a Saturday night, then the help he needs isn't going to be that type of important. You got a thing for him or something?"
I'm suddenly grateful that I didn't tell her that he's my stepbrother, because it gives me a chance to gush a little.
"Yea, I guess. It wouldn't work, though."
"Well, yea, that's kind of sexual harassment."
"It's not like that. I mean..."
She stares at me, waiting.
"He didn't... really call. I just went over."
I swear, it looks like she's going into shock, and I can't help but feel a little proud. I doubt I've ever told her anything that has truly shocked her, even when I told her about spying on that guy down the street and turning him into the cops for abusing his little boy. Had the pictures to prove it.
"Wow," she utters, and my pride swells. "I didn't know you had it in you. So what'd you do?"
"Nothing. Not... not really. He offered me a drink, and then... he kissed me."
"He kissed you?" She's leaning in, her food forgotten as she stares at me intently.
I nod, and remember his lips crushed against mine, the weight of his body over me. I wanted nothing more than to forget about the world and our obligations and worries, to lose myself in a night of passion with him, but maybe the chasm is too wide. Maybe he hurt me too bad, and he's in too deep.
If anything can turn me from him, the thought that he might be involved with the Russian Mafia should have me running, right?
"But I left before anything more could happen," I add on and she looks disappointed.
"Oh."
"It's not right, is it? He's my boss. And, oh God, I have to go see him again Monday."
"Yea, that's going to be weird. Do you think it'll happen again?"
And I honestly don't know how to answer her.
8
This is quite possibly the stupidest thing I've ever done in my life. I mean, it's definitely top three, at the very least.
I'm sitting in an abandoned building, surrounded by peeling paint and rusted beer cans, the stink of vomit thick in the air. I'm afraid to even touch anything, both of my hands wrapped around the lens of my camera.
It's an overcast day, fortunately, since that way the light won't reflect off my camera lens as easily, but it's locking in all the humidity, and I can feel the rain threatening to fall.
The window I'm staring out of is broken, but it gives me a perfect view of my target. A little cafe across the street that I thought was abandoned until I watched Dimitri knock and go inside. I scrambled up into my vantage point once I knew that's where he was going, but I can't make sense of it.
I don't even know what it was that made me want to tail him today. Something about the way he's been acting, about the way he looked. I figured immediately it had something to do with Slava, but I don't know what or how.
You're grasping at straws, I tell myself, and somewhere I feel that's true, but my gut instinct says I'm onto something, and I have to see it through. It's better to look and find out that I'm wrong than never look at all, right?
There's no movement from inside the store, and I let out a bit of a sigh. I can’t get a good look at who Dimitri's inside with, I have no idea what they're talking about. This is just a complete waste of time and I know it.
For days I've been keeping my distance from him, and he's been respecting it much to my chagrin. Maybe I want to be pushed a little. Maybe I want to just have that responsibility of choice stolen from me for a little while so that I won't have to feel guilty about my feelings for him.
I lift the camera to my eyes again, looking through the zoomed out lens to the upstairs apartments, but the curtains are all drawn. That, in and of itself, is weird. The windows are all closed but it's sweltering outside, and the curtains are still on the windows so it's not abandoned. I don't know why but curtains always seem to be the first thing that goes when a place is abandoned.
I sigh, pointing my viewfinder down to the main entrance. Still nothing.
My calves burn from staying squat like I am, but I can't move. I know the drill only too well. If I move, if I draw attention to myself, I get caught. I have to be slow and cautious, keeping my mind on the task at all time.
So that means no fantasizing about Dimitri.
Lightning cracks in the distance and I gasp, a scuttle behind me making me fall backwards onto my ass.
Real smooth, I think to
myself as I push myself up from the dirty floor. I'm going to need a shower after this.
A few moments later and thunder booms.
Oh shit, I think, I can't get stuck in a downpour. I'm six blocks from work and I didn't bring my umbrella.
But to my disappointment, the heavens don't listen to my protests and instead open up, heavy, hard rain splattering on the pavement. It's only a second later that I see the door open.
I raise my camera back to my face, snapping as quickly as I can, hoping to get a picture of the person Dimitri was meeting with, but he stays hidden in the dark recesses of the store. Dimitri hails a cab almost instantly, and leaves me behind in the rain tortured streets.
I lean forward and let out a sigh. Another bust.
I don't have cash for a cab, but I have to get back soon. My lunch break is almost over.
Glancing down at the streets, looking over the people as they hurry out of the torrential downfall, I lament my luck. Splatters of rain come in through the cracked window, sprinkling my face and cheeks in its warm wetness.
I'm just about to stand up and leave, resign myself to getting soaking wet, when a man catches my eye. He looks familiar. His hat covers most of his face, his jacket pulled up over his head, but I bring my camera back up and zoom in.
My fingers go cold, my body beginning to tremble, but I still hit the shutter button on my camera a dozen times before the man enters the same building my brother just left.
Slava.
If there was any doubt in my mind before now, it's completely erased now.
9
I shut the door to my office, my blouse and skirt clinging to my body from the wetness. I feel — and look — like a drowned dog, and I probably smell just as bad.
I debated even coming back. If Slava and Dimitri are visiting the same abandoned store, there’s definitely something going on between them. Something big.
I just don’t know what it is.
Leaning against my desk, I try to catch my breath and make sense of my jumbled thoughts, but it’s useless. What can I make sense of? Once you get in with the Mafia, there’s no getting out, is there? I had hoped that Dimitri’s brief brush with criminality was a phase, something he would grow out of.
The scope of what he was involved in started to dawn on me, though, and all those little things he’s said to me, all the things I’ve seen, all started to slide into place.
It’s too much to deal with and I grab my camera and purse, heading for my door when the door from Dimitri’s office suddenly slides open.
“Sarah, I—”
He stops talking as he looks over my soaking body, amusement sparkling in his eyes. He doesn’t look any different, any more changed. Same old Dimitri, unable to take anything serious.
“Well, looks like you took a swim on your lunch break.”
My heart protests, pounding against my chest.
He’s your stepbrother, but he’s dangerous, I tell myself, but seeing that wicked glint to his eyes, my body feels the magnetic pull to him once more.
What’s wrong with me?
“Yea, I got caught in the rain,” I say, my breath so high in my chest, my fingers trembling as I clutch my camera. His gaze drops to my purse, then my camera, tilting his head to the side.
“Taking pictures in the rain?” Suspicion runs in his voice and I curse myself for being so careless. I shouldn’t have been taking off in the middle of the day anyways, but I just can’t breathe in here. I can’t make sense of it.
“Something like that,” I say, shrugging my purse higher up my shoulder. “I’m not feeling well, so I was going to take off early.”
“Were you?” he asks, daring me to repeat myself, and I shrink like a scolded child. He’s only a bit older than me, but he seems so much larger than life.
He takes a step closer to me when I don’t answer, placing a file on the corner of my desk. It’s the closest he’s been since that night in his apartment, and my body is craving his. My skin ignites when he brushes his fingers along my cheek, my eyes fluttering as I lean into it despite it all.
Why am I so pulled towards his darkness?
“You feel chilly,” he says, suddenly seeming concerned, and he takes my camera from my hand, setting it on the desk. “Are you sure it’s just the rain?”
Can he see that something’s wrong? Can he read me so easily?
I shake my head, and his presence is suffocating me. I’m drowning in him, and the worst part is how little I want to fight it. When I’m away from him, I can think clearly. I know what a bad idea this all is.
But the second he returns to my side, I turn to putty.
His fingers lace into my hair, pulling back the wet strands, his eyes looking at me intently.
“You can’t lie to me, Sarah. You never have. So tell me what’s really wrong. Is it the thing at the condo still?”
I shake my head, feeling the little tug against my scalp.
He smiles, a moment of triumph passing over his face.
“Well, then tell me,” he says, his lips lingering closer to mine. He’s so much taller than I am, yet somehow he feels so near, like if I just leaned up on my toes a little, I could turn off my mind again. Lose myself in his body, if only for a second.
“I saw you,” I say with a little whisper, my brows knit in the center. “I know you’re into something, Dimitri. Something bad.”
He raises his brows but I’m not sure I surprised him. His free hand finds my hip.
“Where did you see me, Sarah?” he asks, and his tone is darker than I’ve ever heard it. Gone is the teasing, the lightness. Instead, he’s simply the cold devil I only ever saw that once, in the parking lot so many years ago.
“In the cafe,” I murmur, and I can’t look at him anymore. I don’t know if it’s shame or what, but I feel like I’m the one that’s been disobedient.
His fingers tighten in my hair and he makes me meet his gaze. “You saw me... walk into a building?”
I nod.
“And where were you?”
“Across the street.”
“And you took pictures of me in the building?”
I nod again.
He curses under his breath, and glares down at me.
“Didn’t you learn what happens to you when you take pictures of me when I don’t know you’re there?” he says, and the edge of warning to his voice sends icy-hot chills down my spine.
He’s scaring me.
He’s turning me on.
I swallow, and I know I have to choose my words carefully. Though I don’t know what to say, especially not something that’s going to get me out of hot water with him. I bite in on my lower lip, watching as the anger boils behind his dark eyes.
“Sarah,” he says through clenched teeth, and I cringe.
His hand squeezes my hips, his other moving from the nape of my neck to the hollow of my throat, his thumb pressing against it in warning, and even though I know he wouldn’t kill me, I still feel a rush of fear.
“I’m sorry,” I say, louder than I anticipated. “I’m worried for you.”
His expression is at war, and he pulls back a half-inch.
“You should be worried for you,” he says, his jaw clenched. “You don’t have a clue what trouble you could’ve gotten into today, Sarah. No fucking idea. If they knew you were spying, you’d be gone in a second. Not even a chance to regret your boneheaded actions.” He releases me, backing up and throwing his hands up in exasperation. “I should’ve known you wouldn’t be able to leave well enough alone.”
I take a step back, my shoulders pressed into the wall and he comes towards me again, all fire and brimstone. I cringe away, but then his lips crash against mine as if he owned them, his tongue probing my mouth. I’m in shock, and a rush of excitement goes through me. My door is unlocked, anyone could simply barge in.
So why does that make it hotter rather than scarier?
“You should’ve stayed away from me,” he says, his eyes smoldering beneat
h his dark lashes as he cups my jaw. He’s stolen my breath, and there’s something in his expression that chills me to the bone.
I suck in air, but then I capture his mouth with mine again, and we’re a tangled mess of limbs. He doesn’t seem to care that I’m still soaking wet and ruining his perfect suit, especially not as he lifts my thighs, pressing my back into the wall. He has me pinned, my arms tossed around his neck, and I’m not sure if it’s passion or fear that’s binding us together at this point in time.
It’s wrong, but it feels so right, and for once, I succumb. I let my mind simply drift, losing myself in the pleasure of his hard body tensing against mine.
“You never should’ve tempted me,” he growls darkly. “You are sweet.” He pulls back glancing at my face, “You’re still pure, da?” he asks, and when I nod my head, he lunges for my throat, his tongue exploring the delicate bones. There’s nothing in the world better than that sensation, and I have to hold in a sigh of pleasure.
“We were both safer before you came back,” he says, his teeth nipping my collarbone, half possessive, half teasing. “We were better off.”
“I wasn’t,” I protest, my fingers running into his hair, my back arching towards him, my nipples stiffened beneath my bra. “Every day I missed you.”
“This is about more than you and me,” he says, even as his fingers move up my thighs, digging into my ass, groping me with wild abandon in my office. “If you want this, it’s all or nothing.”
And I want it.
“All or nothing,” I say out loud, finishing my silent thought. I grind against him, and he reaches for his belt.
“There’s no going back. After this, you’re mine,” he says, and the word burns in my belly, my stomach suddenly filled with potent fireworks exploding in time to his heartbeat.
My lips press against his once more as I moan against him, feeling his belt slip open, the jingled sound delighting all of my senses.
In his office there’s a vibration, his phone purring on his desk, but he ignores it as he hikes up my skirt.
Saved by the Outlaw: A Bad Boy Romance Page 27