by Nicole Fox
Even now, I flush at the name. Even as fear moves through me at the possibility that Andrei might harm Garret. What the hell is wrong with me? Then I see it: the fabric of the hoodie is tearing under the armpits, struggling to contain his mammoth muscles. Jesus. He’s so unbelievably hot, it hurts.
“It’s true,” I tell him. “I’m a terrible liar. So it’s a good thing I’m telling the truth.”
His eyes stray to the bag a second time … giving Garret just enough time to pull his second gun and press it against Andrei’s side. Andrei’s eyes widen for a moment, a smile touching his lips as he regards me with something like pride.
“Climb off, Russian,” Garret growls. “Or I’ll put a bullet in your gut. We both know what a gut shot does to a man.”
“You are more cunning than I expected,” Andrei says, slowly rising to his feet. “Well done, Jamie.”
“The gun and the knife.” Garret aims his pistol at Andrei’s head. His voice is raspy from where Andrei just had him pinned down.
Andrei shakes his head. “Not on your life, Irishman,” he grins. “Why don’t you come and take them?”
“I’ll put a fucking bullet in your head,” Garret warns. “You don’t think I will? When I tell Cormac what happened here …”
“Except you’re not telling Father,” I say briskly, walking between the men. I put my hands up, as though we’re at a family barbecue and this is just a run-of-the-mill disagreement. Not like two killers ready to do what they do best. Jeez, how can life get so strange so fast? The man who basically raised me and the man who’s only recently climbed into my fantasies, staring at each other like gunslingers at noon.
What the hell is happening?
“And you’re not stabbing or shooting anyone,” I say to Andrei. “If you give up the weapons now, I might be able to smooth things over. But if you keep up this macho-man routine, you’re done.”
“Macho man?” He’s smiling. And then, suddenly, he lets out a great booming laugh. It’s so carefree, so unexpected … so sexy, that he’d feel at ease enough to laugh in this situation. I flush at having been the one to make him do it. “Jamie, you are unlike any woman I have ever met. But you’re a fool if you think I’m giving up my weapons.”
I lurch forward, pushing myself against him, so close that he could slit my throat with ease if he wanted to. Behind me, I hear Garret gasp, but there’s nothing he can do. Even Andrei seems stunned, taking a step back.
“What are you doing?” he growls.
“Come on, then,” I sass. “If you’re going to do something, do something. You have the perfect hostage right here. What’s the problem?” I slide my hand deeper into my camera bag, tightening my grip. Our eyes are locked. I see savage lust in him, as if, despite the craziness—or because of it—he wants to make good on his promise to bend me over and fuck me. “I thought you were the big bad Bratva boss.”
Something in his expression changes, pride mixing with—what?—with fear? No, not fear exactly, but it’s like he’s deciding if he has it in him to use a woman as a hostage. From everything I’ve heard about Andrei, he draws the line at women and children. It’s as he’s having this internal debate that I take out the small handbag pistol and shove it against his gonads.
“Ah, printsessa,” he smiles. “So you weren’t lying after all.”
“You can see you’re done, right?”
“No,” he says easily. “If I wanted, I could break your wrist and take that little peashooter, kill your man—”
“And then be trapped down here without the code.”
He winces. “Capture your man, then.”
“Might be able to shoot me, Russian,” Garret snarls. “I don’t see how you’d be quick enough, but maybe. But you’d have to kill me. Because there’s no way in hell I’d stop fighting.”
Andrei’s smile widens. “You’re an impressive woman, Jamie.” He drops the knife and the gun, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. He nods down at my pistol. “I’d prefer you used your hands … or those perfect lips of yours. The metal is a little cold.”
“Enough!” Garret snaps. “This is it, Jamie. You’ve had your fun, but this has gone far enough.”
“No!” I take a step back. “I came here for a reason, and now’s the best time. Look at him! Art is about capturing something real, Garret.” I’m talking fast, slightly manic. This is how I get sometimes when I’m in the midst of a project. It’s intoxicating. “This is real. This is The Beast. Wait outside.”
“Jamie, that’s not a good idea—”
“He’s already proven he won’t hurt a woman. Have you ever heard of Andrei Bakhtin hurting a woman?”
“No,” Garret admits reluctantly.
“Then wait outside, and take my gun. I don’t want him trying to steal it.”
“This is so stupid,” Garret grumbles. “If your father—”
“My father isn’t going to hear a single fucking word of this. Clear?”
Garret eyes me warily.
“I asked you a question. Am I clear?”
“Yes, Jamie,” he sighs. “Crystal.”
He doesn’t say what he could: that the only reason he’s doing this is because I know about a zillion things about Garret he wouldn’t want the Family finding out, one of them being that he has half-Russian cousins who live in a different state. I’d never use them against him, of course. But he doesn’t know that. And it’s convenient for the time being.
Andrei’s smile is possessive and tempting and so wrong. He’s looking at me like I’ve just performed a new trick. It would annoy me … if it was anybody other than Andrei. “You are full of surprises, Jamie. That way you handled that just now, you truly did seem like a princess. But even princesses have dark desires. Come here, and let me show you what you want. What you really want. What you’re too scared to tell anybody else. You want to be possessed, to be owned, to be painted red with rough fucking and left gasping and pleading for more.”
It takes a lot of willpower not to quiver like a nympho, which I emphatically am not. “You’re lucky that was Garret,” I say, trying to change the subject. “Any other guard, and you’d be dead right now.”
“You’re lucky I draw the line at women,” he counters. “Even if they are Irish.”
I can’t help but sass him, despite what just happened. And isn’t that the most bizarre thing in the universe? Shouldn’t I be panicking or angry or something? But no, here I am, making my run for the Sassiest Woman in America gold medal. “Well, you’re lucky I was in a forgiving mood, because I could’ve painted the walls with a bunch of little Andreis, just saying.”
He narrows his eyes, trying to work this one out. Then his lip twitches. I can’t get over that look he keeps giving me, almost proud, like I’m more impressive than he ever would’ve guessed. I’m annoyed by how much I like it.
“You mean when you shot me in the balls,” he says. “That’s dark, Jamie, far darker than I would expect from a pampered, sheltered princess.”
He walks forward silently, reminding me of how easily this man could sneak into my room at night if he had access. To hurt me? To pleasure me? Jesus, my mind is a jumble right now. Haywire doesn’t even begin to cover it.
“Why are you here?” he growls.
“Do you really want to know? Because, if you do, you need to back the hell up.”
“Getting too excited?” he taunts.
Well, yeah, sort of. And by sort of I mean, big time. But I’m not about to let this steamy, sweaty, sexy Russian giant know that, am I?
“No,” I retort. “It’s just, you smell really bad. Worse than a dumpster fire.”
He says something in Russian, gaze locked on me the whole time. I don’t understand it, of course, but there’s something lust-filled in his intense eyes. He’s grown a light beard during his time locked up, making him looked rugged and wild. How would that beard feel tickling my sex, stroking against my clit, up and down my lips?
“What did you say?” I br
eathe.
He smiles oh-so-innocently. “Just that you’re a lady who deserves respect.”
“Yeah, right.”
He shrugs. “So, you’re here—why?”
I tell him about The Beast, my photography project. I tell him that I want him to wear a vintage Minotaur mask that I had shipped last night by courier and which cost several thousands of dollars—my money, not Dad’s—and that I think it’s going to be my greatest project yet. It’s only when I stop, hearing my own voice, that I realize just how bizarre I sound. Maybe that’s the artist’s curse, or just mine.
“So you want me to put on a mask and strip down to my underwear,” he says. “And tense my muscles, and pose for you … for a photography project.”
He licks his lips. Oh fuck, and the way he licks them makes me think a zillion sinful things. He’s Hades, he’s Lucifer, he’s every incarnation of a demon that’s ever existed in all of human history. And I want him, even if I know I shouldn’t.
“It sounds like you’re trying to give into your desires without admitting to it,” he says.
“What desires?” I say weakly.
Now, he fully closes the distance. Before I know it, I’m backed up against the wall, his solid body feeling so firm it takes a whole lot of self-control not to dig my nails in just to see what’ll happen first. Will my nails break, or will I draw blood? Twisted, I know, but he just drives me so easily into fantasies I’ve never entertained with other men.
Own me. Take me. Make me yours. Leave me quivering and gasping for more.
Fuck, I’m horny.
He seems to be able to read me. Quickly, he darts his hand out and grabs my upper leg. I’m wearing gray sweatpants, the type that lets me feel every shivering movement through the fabric as he grinds his hand up my thigh. Palming the flesh, he stops just short of my sex. I close my legs, as though to warn him away. But I sort of ruin the effect by moaning breathily.
I clamp down my lips, killing the sound, remembering that Garret is outside. No matter what dirt I have on him, there’s only so much he’ll put up with before he gets my father involved and ruins everything.
“What desires?” he snarls, repeating my question. “The desire to give yourself to me, body and soul. The desire to sacrifice yourself to the Beast. Isn’t that it? Is that what you want? Let me make you come like you’ve never come before.”
My sex is flooding with wetness. How does he know? How can he read me so easily?
In a bid to win back some of the control, I dart my hand out, gripping his manhood.
Oh. My. God.
He’s so, so hard. It’s difficult to believe how hard he is, that there are even gradients in how solid an erection can be. If I hadn’t been looking at him this whole time, I’d be tempted to check if he had a steel pipe down there.
I’m gratified to see a tremor move through his expression, unable to hide his hunger for me.
“Do you think you’re in charge here, Jamie?” he snarls, shifting his hand higher. The edge of his palm grazes achingly close to my wanting clit. It feels engorged, my sex thirsty.
And wet.
And hot.
Make me come. Somehow I stop myself from saying those words. I want to remind myself I’m in charge, but I feel intoxicated with the closeness.
“Y-yes,” I whimper, a blatant lie.
I squeeze his manhood even firmer, stroking down to the balls and up again. He bites down, his whole body trembling.
“Careful,” he growls, leaning down, his breath moving over my face. “I haven’t let myself go for over a week. I’ve been waiting for you, Jamie.”
A thrill runs through me.
“Oh really?” I stroke his manhood faster and faster through the fabric of his shorts.
“Take it out, Jamie,” he commands.
“Bossy,” I sass.
But I want to take it out. I grab under his shorts and free his throbbing cock, a glistening drop of pre-come slicking my palm as I stroke the span of him. I stroke faster.
Then, when he wedges his hand down my pants, pressed right up against my pussy, I gasp. We touch each other in unison. The faster he strokes my pussy, the quicker I move my hand up and down his shaft. I’m not even sure who’s in control anymore. Maybe neither of us. It’s like we’re both so caught up in desire, we’ve forgotten we’re meant to be prisoner and captor, Russian and Irish.
We just want—no, need—each other in this moment.
“You’re so wet,” he snarls, voice trembling, as if he’s having trouble speaking in full sentences. “I want to feel your gushing juices on my hand. I want to taste them. I want to feel your whole body thrumming with pleasure.”
“Oh fuck,” I whisper. “Keep talking to me like that, Andrei.”
He slips a finger inside of me. My pussy flares. Deeper, he pushes so fucking deep, and then—oh God—and then another finger, his thumb pressed up against my clit. He possesses every part of my pussy. I’m pumping my arm so fast now, my hand a blur of motion on his cock, I feel like I’m getting a workout.
I feel suffocated by the mass of his rippled body, but in a good way, something I didn’t know was possible until now. I was lying when I said he stank. He smells incredible, somehow, that just-Andrei scent of sweat and man.
And then he slips a third finger inside of me, somehow still giving my throbbing clit the attention it needs. The walls of my pussy stretch and contract, pulsing against him.
He leans close to my ear, whispering urgently, “You’ve never been this wet before. I can tell from the way you’re moaning, Jamie. You’re flooding my hand. The wetness is going all over my palm, juices just for me. I can feel how tight you’re getting, how close. Because you’re finally getting what you want most, your Beast, a release you never dreamed you’d get outside your wildest fantasies, and—” he cuts off abruptly.
“What’s the matter?” I taunt, barely able to talk. “Too horny to—”
Too horny to talk? But I can’t even finish the sentence.
Both our voices catch as we reach our shared climax. He bites down on my shoulder like a wild animal. I twist my head, giving him better access, loving the feeling of his teeth through my shirt. My orgasm comes like a fireworks display, so passionate I feel my legs turning to Jell-O. Andrei holds me up with his fingers inside of me.
With a judder, he comes, the release he’s been waiting for causing come to shoot violently into the air, some spattering the wall, some gushing against me. He growls, teeth burying deeper into my shoulder.
Finally, we step away from each other, both of us panting. With a glint in his eyes, he brings his glistening, wet hand to his mouth and slurps my juices from his skin.
It’s so damn intimate.
It’s so damn dirty.
Then, I come to my senses. I pull my pants up and shake my head, flustered, wondering if Garret heard any of that.
“Right, let’s get to work,” I say, trying for a professional air.
He smirks. “I’m not being your prop, Jamie,” he says. “Even princesses don’t get what they desire all the time. Anyway, I just gave you what you wanted, didn’t I? Don’t get greedy.”
I flush, and then gesture at his cock, which is getting hard again even as lines of come hang onto the swollen head. “Pull up your shorts and take off your hoodie. We’re getting to work.”
“No,” he says calmly, “we’re not. And if you want my shorts up, you better come here and pull them up yourself. That is, if you can trust yourself not to fall to your knees and suck the come from me, to put your hands behind your back like an obedient princess and let me fuck your mouth, and then, when I’m close, only then will I let you touch your aching pizda.”
I grind my teeth. “I can force you, Andrei. I can make you do what I want.”
“I highly doubt that,” he says easily. “But you’re welcome to try.”
“I could have you killed for what you just did,” I say, flustered, trying to get some semblance of power back. How can this
man be so in charge when he’s the one in the cell? What sort of sense does that make?
“What I just did?” he smiles.
“You’re an animal. You took what you wanted; you took advantage.”
“Only two of those statements is true, Jamie,” he grins. “Can you guess which?”
I march to the door, throwing him a withering look over my shoulder. Then I slam my fist against it. “Garret!” I call. “I’m ready to come out now.”
Andrei pulls up his shorts, still smiling. “Wear that red dress and the heels next time,” he tells me.
“Fuck you!”
“That’s the idea.”
When Garret opens the door, I march out, only remembering as he locks it that I’ve got Andrei’s come on my hoodie. I wipe it off with my sleeve and turn to find Garret frowning at me.
“Be careful,” he says. “That’s a dangerous man in there.”
“I know what I’m doing,” I say.
I want that to be true so badly, but right now, my sex still screaming out for more Andrei, I’ve got no clue if it is.
8
Andrei
I wedge my feet under the bed and lean up for my sixth set of sit-ups. I have stripped to the waist. My muscles crunch with each rep. I like the pain. It makes me feel alive. It reminds me that, even if they lock me up, I’m still stronger than them, fiercer, tougher.
And, one day, I’ll take my fucking revenge.
On Cormac.
On Timofey.
Timofey’s betrayal hurts me far more than Cormac’s. I expect Cormac to act like a rat. But my own man, my own second, a man I have known for years? There are severe punishments for men who turn on the Bratva like that. Growling as sweat runs down my body, I push him from my mind.
The really fucked-up thing is, I know I’m not breaking out of here. Even if I took one of the guards hostage, I’ve learned that they change the code on the door each time they come down, meaning that they have to be let up from upstairs by the guard they’re changing shift with. It’s a good system, one I can’t help but admire in a sick way. Cormac might be a fool for crossing the Bratva, but he’s not a complete idiot—not that that will stop me from executing him.