Russian's Obsession: An Older Man Younger Woman Romance (A Man Who Knows What He Wants Book 88)

by Flora Ferrari

“I almost forgot,” he says, his body twists and his long arm reaches around into the back seat and when he brings it back to the front he’s palming a box.

  “You’re going to need this where we’re going,” he says.

  I lift the lid off and there is my scarf. It’s folded beautifully. I am definitely impressed and feel a huge weight come off my shoulders, squeezing it tight and holding it to my chest.

  By the time I’ve got it wrapped around my neck he’s helping me out of the SUV and we’re walking into a tall building that I recognize from my Moscow prep.

  When the elevator dings on the twenty-third floor, he holds the door open for me to step through.

  As I do he places his hand on the small of my back in just the right spot. Not too low to make me look like a cheap date, and not too high either. My back wants to arch into his grip but I use restraint, especially considering a hostess is waiting to great us.

  “Lunch for you and your wife, sir, or just drinks,” she asks.

  “Both,” he says, not even acknowledging that her comment was wrong. He’s claiming me already.

  We’re quickly seated at a table right in the corner of the Sky Lounge which sits atop the Russian Academy of Science building.

  I’d looked at studying here before settling on MSU.

  The panoramic view from exactly one hundred meters in the air makes you feel like you’re on top of the world, with Moscow in the palm of your hand.

  And just like that he reaches across the table and takes my hand in his.

  “Thank you for joining me for lunch,” he says. “Would you like a drink to start?”

  “Am I too young?”

  “Not in this country,” he says.

  “I’ll have a water please,” I say.

  He smiles.

  “What?”

  “We have a bit of a problem with alcoholism here, so it’s always nice to see someone who refrains, especially the most beautiful of women who is looking out for her health,” he says. He pauses. “Do you know where we are?”

  “Russian Academy of Science building,” I say.

  “Very good. You know your way around.”

  “Just enough to think I do and then get lost,” I say.

  “I think you are smarter than your modesty reveals.” He stares deep into my eyes, not saying anything. I’m still adjusting to the long silences here too. It’s very normal in their culture and another thing I have to say I really like.

  “We call this building ‘Golden Brains’, because of the gilded cubes that crown this skyscraper…or at least that used to be the reason. I think now there is another meaning.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’ve seen your test scores. They are off the charts so I think ‘Golden Brains’, applies more to you than this place.”

  I feel my cheeks heat at his compliment, but also feel a bit uneasy that he found out personal information about me.

  “How did you find my test scores?”

  “Our country is famous for computer hackers. People are trying to hack into my computers all the time. They want the formulas for my scents, but what they don’t know is that it’s all here,” he says pointing to his head, “here,” his hands moves to his nose, “and here,” he says finishing with his heart. “It is art more than science and if someone wants to take my art they must take me, kill me, and then no one will have it.”

  My eyes move from his back to the view, his aggressive words in dark contrast to the lovely Sparrow Hills park on the Moscow River and the sweeping views across the green belt of nature which stretch along the river all the way back to MSU where I study.

  “Do you enjoy the view?” he asks.

  “Yes, it’s very nice,” I say.

  “The best,” he says, and I turn to see he hasn’t taken his eyes off of me.

  The waiter arrives and takes our order.

  “Why chemistry, Anya? It’s not something many young woman study these days.”

  “That wasn’t in my file?”

  “I’m sorry for invading your privacy, but I wanted to know what I was getting into. The competition is known for sending honeypot traps. I’ve never even come close to falling for one. If anything their lame attempts just make me laugh. But when I saw you everything changed. I lost control for the first time. I’d never felt that way about a woman before and I knew I had to have you, but in a moment of clarity, once I had your name I had to do some research. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to question your motives, as you’ve had none. I am the one who has been pursuing you, not the other way around. I must remember that and learn to trust without always wondering if there is a motive.”

  “That sounds a lot like your file,” I say.

  He shoots me a smirk across the table.

  “Very good. See that? You’re practically Russian already,” he says as a true compliment. His tone is not pandering or patronizing at all. “So why don’t you tell me what you learned?”

  “I learned that you have the world's most acute case of a condition known as hyperosmia, an increased olfactory acuity or in plain English, a heightened sense of smell. Apparently this was caused by your mother who left you orphaned by throwing you in a dumpster, who I am very sorry to learn was addicted to amphetamines.

  “When she threw you in the dumpster you hit your head, your brain shifted slightly, and being that you were such a young age and still developing it increased your sense of smell.

  “Later, work was done by Fidelis E. Atianjoh at Howard University, where he discovered that amphetamines decrease levels of dopamine in the olfactory bulbs of rodents and humans. This being the case your mother’s unfortunate addiction to those substances, which reached its peak during her pregnancy with you, may have also led to something of a double effect of your condition, when we look at how it was combined with the brain shift from the head trauma.

  “But instead of getting angry about the hand that you were dealt, you turned it into a winning hand, becoming a billionaire oligarch who completely dominates the global scents industry. Every perfume or cologne you release is an instant hit, with consumers becoming literally obsessed with the scent.

  “Some say this stems from your obsession with smells as well. It’s been rumored that you can reproduce any scent in under five minutes from just one sniff.

  “That is what I found in your file, Mr. Smirnov.”

  “Spoken like a true chemist and a true Russian. I am very impressed. But those are the simple things that Google can tell you. There is one thing which is much more important than the past, and which will determine my future and my legacy, that you probably already know that no one else does.”

  I give him back a long moment of silence, not sure what he’s talking about but not about to admit I don’t know either. I feel like I’m in a game of cat and mouse and he’s a lion, and I’m not about to get eaten…yet. If anyone else used the word legacy to describe their life it would be douchey at best and cause me to taste bile in my mouth just hearing such narcissism at worst. But he isn’t anyone else, and has already donated millions of dollars to all the technical and scientific schools in Moscow meaning he truly does have a legacy.

  “That there is one smell that I cannot produce, which although I tried all night, makes me very happy for the first time in my life to see myself as having failed at something, especially something I worked so hard at trying to achieve. But the real achievement would not have been in the reproduction of that scent, but in its ability not to be reproduced.

  “The one scent that absolutely causes me to lose my mind and makes me feel an obsession for its owner like I have never felt before.

  “Are you familiar with Elon Musk’s company called Tesla, Anya?”

  I nod.

  “Did you know that it is named after the great inventor, Nikola Tesla. He was a man who stood six foot two and was very handsome causing him to be popular with women, although not only did he never marry but he remained celibate his entire life. He claimed his celibacy p
layed an important role in his creativity.

  “He was born on a summer night in 1856 in the middle of a lightning storm. The midwife said he would be, ‘a child of the storm,’ to which his mother countered prophetically with, ’No, of the light.’

  “Why am I telling you stories of an eccentric inventing genius?

  “Because I can relate. I do not consider myself a genius, but I am an inventor, likely the best of my generation. And staying focused on inventing, creating, and sharing my inventions with the world has always provided me with the utmost satisfaction, all I could ever need.

  “Until I met my own child of the light. The one and only woman in the world who showed me the darkness I was living under.

  “And now I know that my greatest creation is still yet to come.

  “And that creation?

  “A family with the woman who is both the most beautiful woman I have ever seen and the sharpest mind that has come to Russia in its history. The only woman for me, now, tomorrow, and forever. The only woman who lured me in with a scent as unique as the world has ever seen. The only woman in the world I’ve ever admired in every way possible. And the woman who, as I told you already, will be mine.

  “You.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Sergey

  A bolt of lightning shoots through the sky and the loud crack of thunder causes her to jump, her breasts bouncing underneath her shirt.

  That body of hers says sinner but her mouth says saint, and I’m ready to take both of them.

  I squeeze her hand tighter, letting her know I’m here for her…letting her know she’s safe. Always.

  “Enough about me. Your turn,” I say, ready to learn even more about what makes my angel tick.

  “I’m here studying chemistry of course, but you already know that.

  “I’ve been mixing things ever since I was a kid. It carried right into cooking and then the lab once I reached high school. I feel in love with chemistry and how things react to one another, how they repel or attract, how they bond or come undone at the slightest change, the slightest temperature, the slightest pressure.”

  “So you know what it takes to make an unbreakable bond?”

  “I know most people these days aren’t looking for that. They’re only looking for something quick, preferring not to go deep, not to build something with someone else. My generation especially seems to be guilty of that, but it’s their choice to make and their lives to live.

  “Not me. I refuse to play that game. I wait for the right time and then I go all in, whether that’s coming here to study or when it comes time for a relationship.

  “Measure twice and cut once, right? As chemists we know that one false move, one miscalculation and things can literally blow up in your face.

  “And that’s the hardest part these days, trying to determine judge of character and what a person’s real motives are. Most people are just calculating, trying to extract every ounce out of you that they can get, blind to the fact that when both partners give unconditionally there’s more value, more strength, from the two bodies coming together as one than just a doubling effect. It’s an exponential increase.

  “That’s what I want, whether in my professional life or my personal life, and I’ve come to realize that counterintuitively for all the logical boxes to be checked you have to find the person that your gut feeling, your instinct or the complete lack of logic, tells you that they are the one.”

  There is wise beyond one’s years and then there’s this. She’s a damn genius, a long-term thinker, and unbelievably not already claimed yet. Boys her age should be tripping over themselves for a shot with her, but fortunately for me she says they haven’t, at least no one at the moment that’s deserving of her attention and emotions.

  I want to take her home right now and we haven’t even been served our drinks let alone our meal.

  Over her shoulder a man suddenly stands up and walks quickly towards us.

  My eyes dart to him and he sees me, throwing a ski mask over his face before I can properly see his face.

  I jump out of my chair, releasing her hand and throwing my fist right into his gut as he reaches for a pistol shoved in his pants.

  I spin, knowing there will be another, and sure enough a wild elbow swings for my head and I duck under it, sweeping the second assailant's feet with a leg kick.

  My attention immediately turns back to the first man.

  I grab a knife from the table next to mine and drive it home and then twisting it, finishing him swiftly and surely.

  Before the second assailant can get back to his feet I’m on him landing punch after punch after punch, until he stops trying to squirm free, his body going completely limp.

  I stand up, furious anyone would try to attack me, or her.

  The sons of bitches did it in public when I was with my woman too. They will pay. Oh will those fuckers ever pay.

  “Let’s go,” I say taking her by the hand and we move towards the staircase.

  Being Russia, no one makes eye contact, most patrons calmly move towards the elevators and a few more not even seeming to bother with the interruption.

  Good.

  The last thing I need is a scene right now.

  In the stairwell I squat down and she quickly gets on my back.

  I quickly take off my shoes, banging them against the railing until the heel comes off each. Once I slide them back on my feet, I take a deep breath.

  “Hold on, and don’t worry, I got you.”

  I feel her grasp tighten and then I tip my feet and use the slick parts of my shoes to slide down the stairs much faster than we could walk.

  With each bend in the stairs I grab the rail and our momentum carries us around and right down the next flight.

  We reach the bottom quickly and I flag a taxi.

  “Your car, sir,” the valet says.

  “Later,” I say, letting the first cab that stops go and taking the second one.

  We get in and I give him directions for a building just next to mine, one where we can duck in the back way undetected.

  No way was I taking my own SUV. It could have any number of traps installed right now. For all I know the valet got a fat tip and was in on it.

  I’ll send someone out later to look at it.

  Right now all that matters is keeping her safe. She’s everything to me and just the thought of someone trying to harm her fills me with rage.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  “Yes. Thank you. That man had a gun,” she says.

  “Had being the key word,” I say.

  “Where are we going now?”

  “My home. It’s the safest place in the city.”

  She nods, her eyes widening.

  The two of us locked in my home with plenty of food, a view, an indoor swimming pool, hot tub, Jacuzzi, movies on demand…everything.

  Everything but her that is.

  And now she will be there, with me.

  There may never be a need to leave my place ever again.

  But there’s a different need. One that is so fucking hard in my pants right now that if she knew the thoughts going through my brain she’d probably run in the other direction.

  But Sergey Smirnov doesn’t run, nor does his woman.

  And that’s what she is, and now it’s time to show her what it means to be mine.

  CHAPTER 10

  Anya

  Sergey’s penthouse condominium is a cross between The Four Seasons and Fort Knox.

  Everything inside is sparkling clean, and perfectly arranged.

  It’s modern with many lines and nothing beyond what’s really needed, but it’s not sparse.

  Except the right woman.

  I follow him into the bathroom, watching him as he disinfects his blood-covered hands.

  “Do you have gauze?” I ask.

  “In the lab,” he says. “I will show you.”

  A minute later he’s got the bleeding stopped and he takes me to his lab. As a c
hemistry geek I’m in complete heaven. One of the biggest pet peeves of chemists is other people not labeling things or leaving a mess in a shared lab.

  Not his.

  It’s cleaner than the best operating room, and the labels look like they were applied with the steadiest of hands, someone that might even be slightly OCD.

  He takes the gauze from the room and we head back into the bathroom.