by Em Petrova
“Yes,” she said without prevarication, reaching for her top. She yanked it over her bare breasts, but not before he noticed the pink, hard tips begging for his lips.
Chapter Seven
Frost had glazed the sidewalk out front of Ruby’s Place, and a traveler had tripped on it and fallen. While Inessa took the poor woman inside, cleaned the scrape and bandaged it, with lunch on the house, Ruby carried a bucket of soapy water outside to splash on the concrete.
It took two buckets before the small bloodstain washed away, and she stood back, watching the water trickle off the curb onto the road that led through town.
Her focus today was off. She was never off. She couldn’t afford to be. Too much rode on her shoulders.
When the sound of male voices reached her, it was too late to turn and run inside, slam and lock the door. Her distraction meant she’d allowed the guys to sneak up on her.
And Elias’s stare fixed on her from twenty paces away, his eyes glittering and face serious.
Panic took hold, and her feet grew roots, sinking deep into the sidewalk. She held the bucket. Maybe she could throw it at them and drive them away.
But she stood there watching them come toward her, and she couldn’t stop looking at Elias either.
Had he always been so big? Of course he had. She felt how big he really was deep in her stretched, slightly sore walls today. It had been bugging her ever since she woke and felt the effects of his loving yesterday in the laundry room. He’d given her four orgasms. Four. Who did that?
He’d been so far gone during his release that she didn’t know if he even realized she was contracting around his length, milking the cum from him.
As the men filed past her and into the restaurant, she inwardly groaned. She didn’t know their names, but all that mattered was they were meddling with her business. When Elias entered the kitchen and saw those boxes on her counter, she’d damn near died of a heart attack.
She managed to use her attraction to him as a way to deter him from snooping. But the fact was, her attraction had almost gotten her in deep trouble. After she was alone, Max and Big Mike cornered her to pressure her about the encounter both men knew had taken place.
The bastards. She couldn’t even steal a private moment of pleasure with a hot guy without them discussing it. They also made sure to show her video footage of her father trying to eat and being sick. Both left her own stomach twisting.
She sucked in a deep breath as Elias passed her. He didn’t pause to whisper in her ear or talk dirty about washing machines, which she’d never look at the same way again.
Clamping her hands into fists, she realized she still held the bucket. She followed the men inside and hurried to the kitchen. When she stood over the sink, panting hard, Anushka placed a hand on her shoulder.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes. I need a minute.”
Anushka nodded and moved off to her post at the grill again. The lunch rush was nowhere near large, but she still needed to get out there and help take orders, bus tables and generally try to ignore the man she’d fucked.
Spinning from the sink, she waved at Anushka. “I need a slice of pie to give to our injured lady.”
“Sure, what kind?”
“Go with the apple. It’s freshest.”
As Anushka sliced the pie and dished it out on a plate, Ruby tried to steel her resolve to go out into the restaurant and face Elias.
She took the pie. With a toss of her head, she stepped out. The minute her boot crossed the threshold, Elias pinned her with his stare.
From the corner of her eye, she saw his buddy nudge him. Elias didn’t move, but he said something that had the guys laughing. She’d only experienced a small bit of his sense of humor, yet it did break up the tedium, didn’t it?
Quickly, she hurried to deliver the pie to the customer with the scraped knee. She spoke with the woman for a long time, learning she was visiting Alaska on a twenty-day tour that might turn into a month if she got her way. At this, her hubby, seated next to her, smiled in a fashion that made Ruby see the pair of older folks were still very much in love.
Was that real? Her own parents…hell, she could hardly recall them being together. Her mother died young on an icy Alaskan road, and though Ruby knew her father had girlfriends and mistresses, he hid it well from her.
She’d spent most of her time in the kitchen with her grandmother, learning how to cook and run this establishment.
She knew nothing of marriage or romance or… Gahh, why was her brain even going there? She wasn’t marrying anybody, least of all a stranger she’d let into her panties after a few steamy kisses and hot promises.
He raised a hand and beckoned her to their table. Panic hit her chest, and she struggled to take a breath, because all she could smell was his masculine, clean musk. She’d showered twice since he left just to try to rid herself of that scent, and though it was unlikely she smelled him now from clear across the room, her mind was trying to play tricks on her.
The other girl who was taking a shift waiting tables was tied up with other customers. For a minute, Ruby contemplated ignoring the guys and returning to the kitchen. But her grandmother’s voice in the back of her mind pushed her feet across the floor.
She stopped at the opposite corner to where Elias sat. He never moved his stare from her, and her nipples betrayed her by peaking into tight nubs meant for the pinch of his hard fingers.
“What will you have?” She brought up her pad and pen.
One by one down the line, the men gave their drink preferences. When she reached Elias, he spoke up, “I’ll have something sweet. And shaken.”
Oh God. Why was he torturing her?
Heat burned in her cheeks. She refused to meet his gaze as she wrote down tap water and bustled from the table.
Minutes later, still shaken herself, as he knew she would be, she returned with the drinks. She set each glass before the men. A couple teased her about the special being spaghetti and meatballs when it was Friday, and shouldn’t they have fresh fish off the coast?
She joked with them and finally reached Elias. She set the glass of lukewarm water in front of him. He took a look at it and the corner of his lips twitched.
“That’s not what I ordered.”
“Can I bring you something else—like your bill?”
He reached for the glass. Why did she zoom in on his callused fingers wrapped around the glass as he brought it to his lips, or how his throat worked on a swallow of the liquid?
He set the glass down with a smile for her. Some of the guys snickered.
“I think we’ll be staying a while. Maybe do some karaoke?”
She arched a brow. “We don’t have karaoke.”
“We’re pretty good at making our own entertainment.” He cocked a brow back at her.
Inside, she groaned. And twisted up in knots. And burned for him.
“The waitress will be with you in a moment.” She spun from the table and made a show of going to the register and finding they needed more change.
“I’m going down to the laundromat to get some quarters,” she called to her girl.
As soon as she walked out, she knew Elias would follow, and she wasn’t mistaken. He caught up to her in a few long strides and he hit the doors of the laundromat right after she did.
When he caught her arm and whirled her to face him, she felt her resolve to distance herself flow away. He searched her face.
“Elias, you don’t know what you’re doing. You guys have to leave White Fog.”
He pulled her closer. His big chest heated her through her top. “Tell me why, Ruby.”
“This is bigger than me.”
“I won’t go until I understand how to help you and what I’m up against.”
Her chest heaved. Her skin prickled. Her raging hormones got the better of her, and she couldn’t stop herself from throwing herself at him. He caught her in his arms and slammed his mouth over hers at the same second she rose
on her toes to meet him.
The sound of the laundromat door opening and closing tore at her senses. Then someone cleared their throat.
Elias let her go and glanced over his shoulder. When she spotted the state trooper standing there, her bowels turned to water.
“Can I help you, Trooper?” Elias wasn’t a bit cowed.
“I’m here for Ruby.”
Her eyes bulged. “For me? What did I do?” Her heart raced faster and faster, leaving her weak and nauseated.
Someone must have seen the shipment arrive last night. Or one of the girls spilled her guts to a paying customer.
Oh God, her father would be beaten for her slip-up.
The trooper stepped toward her and pulled his handcuffs off his belt. “We received a complaint from a young woman who says you threw her out on the streets without food or money, knowing full well she couldn’t gain assistance.”
Her mind reeled. Jenicka had turned her in? Anger struck. How dare she?
“She knew my rules about taking drugs under my roof. I sent her away.”
“She says she was under your care.”
“Well, she’s not anymore.” Ruby raised her jaw. Beside her, Elias was frozen stone.
“The young woman is underage, which means you’ll be charged with endangering a minor.”
“Under—” The word cut off in a slurry of cuss words her grandmother would wash her mouth out with soap for. She didn’t know Jenicka was underage. The girls were all supposed to be adults, but of course, what did the Bratva care?
“I’m afraid I need to take you to the station with me.”
“Son of a bitch,” she murmured under her breath. “Fine. But at least let me call my restaurant and let someone there know I won’t be back this afternoon.”
When the trooper eyed her, she lifted her jaw in defiance. “It’s lunch hour.”
“Fine.”
Within minutes she was bundled into the back of a car. Elias’s face passed in front of her as he leaned in the opening.
“Ruby, I’ll meet you there. Okay? I’m sorry for this. There was no other way.”
She blinked at him, stunned with shock as she was shut inside the back of the car. She sat there handcuffed to the seat so she couldn’t escape.
The only man she thought she might be able to put her trust in had betrayed her by having her arrested.
“She’s never gonna trust me again. I fucking betrayed her.” Gasper dug his fingers through his hair. The urge to fight, to inflict pain on someone, was overpowering, and he dropped his fists onto the table with a bang that made his captain look up.
“You didn’t have a choice. We needed to get her alone.”
“By having her arrested?”
“You know we had nothing to do with that. The girl called the cops.”
“Fuck!” Gasper shoved from the table where he and Penn sat waiting for the trooper to book Ruby so they could talk to her. Offer her a deal.
This morning, the perfect storm had hit, and the Xtreme Ops team never let something this good go. They needed Ruby on their side to squeeze more information from her, but the only way to do that was to get her away from her business. Then they received intel about the warrant out for her arrest for child endangerment, and well… Penn’s plan might be solid, but goddammit, Gasper didn’t like it.
He paced between table and window. This small state police barracks wasn’t even in White Fog but the neighboring village an hour’s drive away. But all over the world, these rooms were the same. Meant to drive a person crazy if they sat here too long, and he had. He needed out of this place, out of White Fog.
That meant leaving behind Ruby.
If he hadn’t just seen the betrayal and hurt on her face, he might believe he could persuade her to leave with him. He’d fucked that up good, hadn’t he?
“You’re getting too damn close to this mission, Jack.”
He sliced a glare at Penn. “You’re one to talk. I remember hearing moans coming from your tent in the middle of that storm when you first met Cora.”
Penn didn’t rise to the taunt—he knew Gasper well enough to see he was itching for a fight. He only watched Gasper pace to the window and back. To the window and back.
“Is that what this is?” Penn finally asked.
He stopped in his tracks. “I don’t fucking know.”
“Have you fucked her?”
Leave it to Penn. He never beat around bush and got straight to the crux of the matter.
“Yeah, I did. But there’s more than sex.” Now that the words were out, he couldn’t suck them back in. Hearing them with his own ears forced him to analyze his emotions.
“You sure she isn’t playing you?”
“She’s not.” His voice came out gritty.
“You don’t know what she’s capable of. If she’s working with the Bratva, like we believe—”
Gasper lifted a hand and massaged his temples. His head ached, and it all started when Ruby walked out of her business under her own steam and stepped right into the trap laid for her.
“If she’s working with them, she has a reason.”
“And you know this reason?”
“No.”
“Take a guess. You’re the jack-of-all-trades. Surely you can read between some lines.”
He dropped his hand to stare at his captain. “I’m not a mind reader and I can’t predict the future.”
“My guess is she owes them money, and they’re using her restaurant as a trade center.”
Puzzle pieces were scattered at their feet, and they could stick a few together, but the big picture wasn’t yet visible to any of them. Least of all to Gasper, who was looking with his heart.
Dammit, yes, he was into Ruby. Acknowledging that much eased something inside him, a flutter of panic edged with adrenaline. He walked back to the chair and dropped into it.
No sooner had he sat than the state trooper stuck his head in. “She’s all yours.”
He swallowed hard and then shoved to his feet again. Before they followed the trooper to the room where Ruby was being held, he exchanged a look with Penn. Gasper didn’t even know what he wanted to convey to his captain—he just didn’t want him saying anything about their discussion.
Penn gave him a nod. Feeling more assured that his captain didn’t plan to tell Ruby anything about what had been confided, he strode out of the room.
Seconds later, the trooper showed them to another room. Gasper entered first. As soon as he set eyes on Ruby sitting there with her head bowed, his heart gave a hard jerk, and he took a fist in the gut. Christ, there had to be some other way.
But if so, he couldn’t see it. He’d just have to make the best of the path they were on.
She didn’t glance up at him or Penn when they sat across from her. Under the fluorescent lights, her hair took on a strange cast that muddied the red hue. She was pale and her expression carefully set in stone.
“Ruby, we’re here to help you,” Penn spoke up first.
The glare she sent them might as well have been a bullet for all the force behind it.
“Anything you say in this room stays between us.” Gasper pitched his voice low.
“You had me arrested.”
“That girl you cast out of your restaurant made the call. We just—”
“Saw an opportunity and took it? What are you guys really here for?”
Gasper shifted. “What’s really going on in Ruby’s Place?”
When she didn’t speak, her lips twisting as if to contain anything that might fly out of her mouth and convict her, Penn shifted in his chair.
“Look, Ruby. We know the Russian mafia is operating in these parts. You have a lot of women ‘working’ for you. We’ve seen a shipment delivered to the bar.”
Her gaze jerked to Penn.
“And you sent us to that purple buoy knowing full well what we’d find there. I know you’re scared—the Bratva is one of the deadliest organized crime groups on the planet. But it
comes down to you letting us protect you.”
“Who are you?” Her voice rose on the question.
Gasper set his palms on the table, fingers slightly spread in a gesture of truth and honesty. He needed Ruby to trust him again, because she didn’t have many other options. Her time with the Bratva was coming to a close, and he’d seen what the group did to people who crossed them.
“We’re a special ops team based here in Alaska, sent to handle terroristic acts on home soil.”
She settled her stare on the center of his chest.
“We’ve been driving the Bratva out of Alaska for a couple years now. But they have a strong foothold. We know they smuggle drugs and weapons and women. And we’re pretty damn sure at least two of those move through your business.”
She paled even more, which only made her hair appear brighter. Christ, he wanted to help this woman on a level he didn’t understand. Helping people, protecting them, was his job. But Ruby took that drive to a whole new level.
“What do you want from me?” The vitriol in her voice cut through the silence.
Gasper couldn’t fucking say it. He sat back in his seat, indicating that Penn had the floor.
His captain leaned his elbows on the table and laid it out for her. “You can either become a criminal informant and aid us…or you can be charged as a co-conspirator.”
She slammed her mask back in place, cutting off any view of her emotions on the matter. She might as well be the rocky shore out there along the coast of White Fog for all her expression gave away.
“That’s no choice at all.”
“Ruby. We want to help you,” Gasper said.
As her stare met his, his chest swelled with that almighty need to keep her safe above all else.
“You can do your best, but we both have dealt with the Bratva long enough to know that we’re on the losing end of this battle. What choice do I have? You’ve bound my hands.”
“We can unbind them. We just need information, and this all goes away.”
She glared at the ceiling. Gasper wouldn’t be surprised to see twin scorch holes in the tiles.