The Deadliest Sin Series Complete Collection, page 126
I take another bite as I consider my answer and how to keep her from prying any deeper. “I was born there. But my father died when I was quite young, a casualty of the business. I have seven brothers and sisters, and my mother couldn't care for all of us properly on her own. So, she sent me to live with her brother, my uncle, here in Chicago.”
She stops eating and watches me closely. “How old were you?”
“Seven.”
A look of sympathy flashes in her bourbon eyes. “That must have been very difficult for you. A bit of culture shock?”
“No.” I shrug nonchalantly, trying not to get lost in the bad memories of what it was like back home before I left or what it was like here when I first arrived. There isn’t any time to get drawn into those emotions, and she’s the last person I want to expose them to. “I was surrounded by my uncle and his family, his men, his crew. The bratva accepted me into their fold. It almost felt like living in Russia at times.”
“But it wasn't home…”
“It wasn't, and it still isn't.”
“Would you ever go back?”
I grin at her question. “And give up all this?” I drop my utensils and spread my hands wide. “I've worked far too hard to ever leave.”
She nods slowly and takes another bite, considering my words. “What if you were forced out?”
My knife stills on my plate, and I lift my gaze to meet hers again. “Quite the odd question to ask, kotyonok. Do you know something I don’t?”
Fear darkens her eyes for a moment, but she quickly smiles and shakes her head. “No. I just know you have a very dangerous business that you love and wouldn’t willingly walk away from.”
Nice recovery.
“That I do. Which is why I intend to keep you safe from it.”
I don't want to elaborate because something tells me if she knew my intent, I'd have to drag her out of here kicking and screaming instead of walking out hand in hand and ravishing her in the limo on the way back to her place like I had planned.
Sometimes, it's better if people are left in the dark.
The truth can hurt.
The truth can ruin everything.
VALERIAN
Dmitri bursts through my office door, a grin on his face and a stack of papers in his hand. “We have something.”
“What do you mean?”
“Cutter’s guy came through.”
I scowl at him, and he holds up a hand before I can interject my annoyance.
“I know. I'm still trying to find somebody to handle this type of shit for us who we can trust, but in the meantime, we need to work with what we have, right?”
It isn’t completely his fault that he’s having trouble locating someone who can do this kind of work for us. The last guy I had failed so miserably that I took him out in a way that would send a message. Apparently, it was one everyone got since no one wants to come work for me.
I release a heavy sigh. “What do you have?”
He approaches the desk and slaps down the papers. “IDs, real names of all the men on that flight out of Vlorë.”
“Seriously?”
He nods. “Cutter’s guy ran them through facial rec software and did some other…I don't know…techie shit…and came up with these files on all the guys.”
Finally.
Something we can go off of.
“Good, then we should be able to figure out who they're working for.”
Dmitri’s smile falters, and he shifts awkwardly on his feet on the other side of my desk. “That question isn't as easy as who they are.”
“Why the fuck not?”
He shakes his head. “Because, like Genti told us, things have been in flux over there. Especially after Kat made her little visit and Berisha and Dragusha ended up full of bullet holes. They've kept a low profile since then. There were even rumors they died, but their crews certainly haven't slowed down at all. They've been busy expanding their reach and diversifying their businesses.”
“So Genti was right. It could be them?”
“As much as it could be Kat. Turn to page fifteen.”
I flip through the stack and stare at a photograph of one of the men who attacked the church—Aron Kadare. Affiliation—Gashi.
Dmitri inclines his head toward the page. “We know he was one of Aleksander's men. But that was years ago, before The Dragon came to Chicago to take over after Konstandin Morina killed Saban here. He could be working for anyone now.”
“Including that cunt Kat.” I shove the papers off my desk and watch them flutter to the floor. “Fucking useless. All of this is useless. If we can’t get what we need from here, then we need someone on the ground over there. Someone who can get us some real information. Who do we have who might be close?”
“Roan is in Odesa. He could get there quickly with a few men we can rely on.”
“Do it…and tell him to be quiet about it. The last thing we need is any of the other families getting wind that we're sending people in to investigate locally."
Galen already suggested I could be involved with all this, and finding out my men are running around Albania would only reinforce that belief.
Heavy footsteps sound behind Dmitri in the hall, and Aleksei rushes into the office, out of breath, eyes wide. “Pakhan, we have a problem.”
My chest tightens, and I grit my teeth. “What now?”
“We had Ilya on Julia today, and she went into a shop down the street from her house…”
“And?”
He rubs at the back of his neck, averting his gaze from me. “And he lost her.”
“What do you mean he lost her?”
How the fuck does one lose someone? Especially a tiny woman like that…
“Well, a minute or two after she went in, he went in after her, and she wasn't inside.”
“Shit. So, she ditched him?”
“It gets worse.”
“How could it possibly get worse?”
Aleksei glances away again. “After he searched the place for her, he stepped out onto the street to call us, and someone managed to knock him to the ground and pin him down with a knee on his neck and an armbar.”
Dmitri’s eyes widen. “What the fuck?”
He winces. “It was Julia.”
Holy hell.
“She demanded to know why he was following her and who he was working for. And it wasn't very pretty when he told her the answer. He came back bloody.”
“Shit.”
Aleksei offers a tight smile that holds no humor. “She's here.”
I raise a brow at him. “Now?”
He nods.
“Fucking hell.” This isn’t something I can ignore or put off until later. Julia won’t wait, and expecting her to will only allow her anger to grow. It’s best if I address this head-on and explain to her why it was necessary. “Both of you go and let her in.”
One of Aleksei’s dark eyebrows rises. “Are you sure, pakhan? She looks pretty fucking pissed.”
I scowl at him. “You think keeping her out there is going to relieve any of that? Send her in.”
Dmitri offers me one final sympathetic look, then leaves with Aleksei at his side, pulling the door closed behind him.
This is definitely not how I wanted any of this to go. The guys are usually so good at remaining inconspicuous. It couldn’t have come at a worse time. Things were tense at dinner, but she had finally started to thaw by the time I dropped her off at her place last night. I knew she wouldn’t let me touch her in the car, and I respected her boundaries on that. But now, any progress I made getting her to open up to me has been wiped away because Ilya was a fucking idiot and couldn’t remain hidden.
I sit back and brace myself for Hurricane Julia to enter.
It doesn’t take long to feel her energy approaching.
The door flies open, slamming against the wall, and she storms in, her eyes blazing with rage. Her sweet lips, the ones I’ve been dying to taste but have somehow restrained myself from taking thus far, twist with her rage. “You have some fucking nerve, Valerian.”
“It's nice to see you, too, kotyonok.” I smile at her. “I trust you slept well?”
She strides toward the desk and slams her palms down on it. “You asshole! Why were you having me followed?”
“Because being with me makes you a target, whether you want to be or not.”
Her brow furrows. “Who says I'm with you?”
Feisty as always.
This kitten has some bite.
“Before our dinner last night, I wasn't so sure. But I am now. Just like I told you the other night, I won't let anything bad happen to you. And that requires me to know what you're doing every moment of every day.”
She points a finger at me. “First, I don't belong to anyone. No one fucking owns me. Second, I don't need your protection, as I just proved when I took down that moron you had following me and smashed his face into the sidewalk. Third, if you ever pull shit like this again, you're going to pay the price for it.”
I can't fight the grin that pulls up my lips as I rise from my chair and slowly make my way around the desk toward her. Her chest rises and falls rapidly at my approach. Her anger and her fear darken her eyes and tighten her fists at her sides.
Stopping just in front of her, I reach up and rub the strands of her blond hair between my fingers. “I like you like this, kotyonok.” I release her hair and take her face between my palms. “So feisty with your claws out.”
She scowls at me again, trying unsuccessfully to pull away from my hold. “You're not going to like it when you get cut by them.”
“Oh, I will.” Leaning closer, I feather my lips against her cheek. “A little pain always makes the pleasure better.”
A shudder rolls through her body—no doubt the memory of being together the other night flickering through her head the same way it does mine.
“That's something I'm more than ready to show you more of, kotyonok.”
“Pakhan?” Dmitri’s voice is like a bucket of ice-cold water being thrown over me.
“Oh, for the love of fucking Christ.” I turn toward the open door and find Dmitri standing there with a phone in his hand. “What?”
“It's Galen. He says it's an emergency.”
Fuck.
I point toward him. “Give me a second.”
Dmitri nods and moves down the hallway, far enough away that he can't hear us anymore.
Julia continues to gaze up at me, her anger not fully quelled but somehow subdued. “That sounds like it's important.”
“Not as important as you are.” I tighten my grip on her. “I need you to understand that everything I do is to protect you, to ensure your safety, because I can't be distracted, worrying about you with everything else I have going on.”
She considers me for a moment, eyes softening before she tilts her head and presses her lips to my palm. “Okay.
The vise around my chest loosens slightly. “We're good?”
Some of the rage she carried in here seems to have evaporated, either with my words or my touch. “We're good.”
I drop my head and press my lips to hers for the first time.
Our first real kiss.
My first taste of her mouth.
Something I’ve been holding off doing for so long that it feels like an eternity has passed since I first saw these lips pressed to that glass at the bar, downing a double shot of tequila.
She issues a little mewl and clutches at my shirt, dragging me even closer. I sweep my tongue across her lips, and she opens for me, tangling her own with mine as our bodies mold against each other, my cock pinned between us.
“Hhmhm.” Dmitri clears his throat in the hall.
I pull back reluctantly, staring into her lust-soaked eyes. “I'll be right back.”
As quickly as possible because I have plans.
Big ones.
JULIA
Valerian takes the phone from Dmitri and disappears into one of the playrooms down the hall while his right-hand man steps back into the main club, leaving me alone in Valerian's office.
My heart thunders against my chest, my breaths coming short and fast—though I don't know whether it's because I just threatened him like that, because of the kiss, or because of what he promised. Maybe all three.
Regardless, I don't have time to wonder and think about it because this might be the only chance I'll have to get what I need. I hustle around the desk, slide into Valerian’s chair, and fire up his computer. My fingers fly over the keyboard as I keep my eye on the door for any signs of someone approaching.
This isn’t how I imagined this going down, but I have to take advantage of any opportunity I can get when it comes to Valerian Kamenev.
Accessing his computer has proven harder than I ever imagined. The man is smart enough not to connect it to the internet so it can’t be hacked, which means this is the only way to get inside—to physically sit at his desk, in his office, deep within his club, with him only a dozen yards down the hall.
Sweat breaks out across my forehead as I easily get past his password screen and into his files. No real security here. And why would he have or need any when he’s never leave anyone he doesn’t trust alone in his office…
I slip the tiny flash drive from my pocket and slide it into a USB port to start duplicating his hard drive as I scroll through the files, trying to locate what I need. One folder name makes me freeze, and I quickly click on it. My eyes dart across the individual file names until they land on one that makes bile climb up to the back of my throat.
Oh, hell…
A door closes in the hallway, and I jerk back and quickly exit out of all the screens, but the files aren't done downloading yet.
¡Ay hijueputa!
I shift some papers from the desk over the drive to try to conceal it and rest my hand near it, ready to pull it from the computer as soon as I have what I need.
Footsteps approach, and Valerian comes into view, his eyes narrowed on me. “What are you doing, kotyonok?” He enters his office and pushes the door close behind him with a deafening click. “Need something?”
I offer him a sweet smile and pull my hand away from his computer. “Just waiting for you. I was going to check my email.”
His dark brows slowly rise. “Check your email?”
“Yeah.” I nod. “That meeting I missed last night…they were supposed to email me to reschedule.”
He casually strolls around the desk and toward me, silent and deadly like a predator stalking his unsuspecting prey.
Feigning concern, I press my hand over my chest. “Is everything okay…with your phone call?”
Valerian nods as he casually leans against the desk, right next to where I sit in his chair. “For the moment, yes.” He offers me a gentle smile. “Again, I'm very sorry you missed your important appointment last night.”
¡Mierda!
I should stop bringing it up, so he'll stop asking about it. The last thing he needs to know is where I was going.
“It’s okay.” I spin the chair to face him. “Nothing urgent at all.”
Certainly not more urgent than convincing Valerian I wasn’t doing anything I wasn’t supposed to in here while he was on the phone. I reach out and run my fingers across the top of his hand, where it's flattened against the desktop.
Heat crackles between us where our skin touches, that same spark that combusted into an inferno in the playroom.
As angry as I was with him last night, a huge part of me regretted the way we left things. I almost wanted him to bring me back here, to do to me what he did the other night. My body craved it even through my anger at what he had done. Or maybe because of my anger.
His hard gaze locks with mine. “What about now…any urgent, pressing business to attend to, kotyonok?”
I pull my bottom lip between my teeth and shake my head. “No.”
His cock begins to swell against the black fabric of his pants, and my pussy clenches at the way his blue eyes darken to almost black. I reach out with my free hand and rub over the bulge, feeling his length stiffen even more under my palm.
He issues a little grunt, takes my other hand in his, and tugs me from the chair, then pushes me down to my knees in front of him. “Good, because I do have something pressing and urgent for you to take care of, kotyonok.”
I fight the desire to glance over at the computer where the tiny drive still sticks out, just barely visible from under the papers I tried to shove over it. If he looks over there, he'll know what I was doing. I'll be busted, and then, all this will be over.
Not just my plans but also this.
Whatever this is with Valerian.
Unexpected. Dangerous. Frantic.
I never expected to end up like this with him, but now that I’m here, I don’t want it to end.
It can’t.
I unbuckle his belt and slowly lower the zipper, keeping my eyes on his. Lust burns across the blue, igniting a fire deep in my belly for all the things I shouldn't want.
My mouth waters at the thought of what I'm about to do, and I free his cock, pulling his pants down to his mid-thighs. It juts out from his body—thick, heavy, a drop of pre-cum already beading at the tip.
I flick my tongue over it, the salty flavor making me moan in approval as he buries his hands in my hair.
“Fuck, kotyonok…”
Swirling my tongue around the head several times, I revel in the way his body stiffens. I inhale a deep breath and take him in my mouth, suctioning around his hot flesh.
I don’t have a fucking clue what I'm doing. Watching a video is the closest I've ever come to doing this before, but given how tense his body is, his thighs rock hard, muscles straining, I must be doing something right.
That knowledge spurs me on, encourages me to keep going even when I feel like a bumbling idiot on my knees with this man who has no doubt had his cock sucked by women far more talented than I am.
Determination to be the best, to get him to lose control, overtakes me, and I suck him back as far as I can until I have to fight the reflex to gag. Something rumbles in his chest, and his grip on my hair tightens.
He tugs on it slightly to get me to look at him. “Have you ever done this before, kotyonok?”
She stops eating and watches me closely. “How old were you?”
“Seven.”
A look of sympathy flashes in her bourbon eyes. “That must have been very difficult for you. A bit of culture shock?”
“No.” I shrug nonchalantly, trying not to get lost in the bad memories of what it was like back home before I left or what it was like here when I first arrived. There isn’t any time to get drawn into those emotions, and she’s the last person I want to expose them to. “I was surrounded by my uncle and his family, his men, his crew. The bratva accepted me into their fold. It almost felt like living in Russia at times.”
“But it wasn't home…”
“It wasn't, and it still isn't.”
“Would you ever go back?”
I grin at her question. “And give up all this?” I drop my utensils and spread my hands wide. “I've worked far too hard to ever leave.”
She nods slowly and takes another bite, considering my words. “What if you were forced out?”
My knife stills on my plate, and I lift my gaze to meet hers again. “Quite the odd question to ask, kotyonok. Do you know something I don’t?”
Fear darkens her eyes for a moment, but she quickly smiles and shakes her head. “No. I just know you have a very dangerous business that you love and wouldn’t willingly walk away from.”
Nice recovery.
“That I do. Which is why I intend to keep you safe from it.”
I don't want to elaborate because something tells me if she knew my intent, I'd have to drag her out of here kicking and screaming instead of walking out hand in hand and ravishing her in the limo on the way back to her place like I had planned.
Sometimes, it's better if people are left in the dark.
The truth can hurt.
The truth can ruin everything.
VALERIAN
Dmitri bursts through my office door, a grin on his face and a stack of papers in his hand. “We have something.”
“What do you mean?”
“Cutter’s guy came through.”
I scowl at him, and he holds up a hand before I can interject my annoyance.
“I know. I'm still trying to find somebody to handle this type of shit for us who we can trust, but in the meantime, we need to work with what we have, right?”
It isn’t completely his fault that he’s having trouble locating someone who can do this kind of work for us. The last guy I had failed so miserably that I took him out in a way that would send a message. Apparently, it was one everyone got since no one wants to come work for me.
I release a heavy sigh. “What do you have?”
He approaches the desk and slaps down the papers. “IDs, real names of all the men on that flight out of Vlorë.”
“Seriously?”
He nods. “Cutter’s guy ran them through facial rec software and did some other…I don't know…techie shit…and came up with these files on all the guys.”
Finally.
Something we can go off of.
“Good, then we should be able to figure out who they're working for.”
Dmitri’s smile falters, and he shifts awkwardly on his feet on the other side of my desk. “That question isn't as easy as who they are.”
“Why the fuck not?”
He shakes his head. “Because, like Genti told us, things have been in flux over there. Especially after Kat made her little visit and Berisha and Dragusha ended up full of bullet holes. They've kept a low profile since then. There were even rumors they died, but their crews certainly haven't slowed down at all. They've been busy expanding their reach and diversifying their businesses.”
“So Genti was right. It could be them?”
“As much as it could be Kat. Turn to page fifteen.”
I flip through the stack and stare at a photograph of one of the men who attacked the church—Aron Kadare. Affiliation—Gashi.
Dmitri inclines his head toward the page. “We know he was one of Aleksander's men. But that was years ago, before The Dragon came to Chicago to take over after Konstandin Morina killed Saban here. He could be working for anyone now.”
“Including that cunt Kat.” I shove the papers off my desk and watch them flutter to the floor. “Fucking useless. All of this is useless. If we can’t get what we need from here, then we need someone on the ground over there. Someone who can get us some real information. Who do we have who might be close?”
“Roan is in Odesa. He could get there quickly with a few men we can rely on.”
“Do it…and tell him to be quiet about it. The last thing we need is any of the other families getting wind that we're sending people in to investigate locally."
Galen already suggested I could be involved with all this, and finding out my men are running around Albania would only reinforce that belief.
Heavy footsteps sound behind Dmitri in the hall, and Aleksei rushes into the office, out of breath, eyes wide. “Pakhan, we have a problem.”
My chest tightens, and I grit my teeth. “What now?”
“We had Ilya on Julia today, and she went into a shop down the street from her house…”
“And?”
He rubs at the back of his neck, averting his gaze from me. “And he lost her.”
“What do you mean he lost her?”
How the fuck does one lose someone? Especially a tiny woman like that…
“Well, a minute or two after she went in, he went in after her, and she wasn't inside.”
“Shit. So, she ditched him?”
“It gets worse.”
“How could it possibly get worse?”
Aleksei glances away again. “After he searched the place for her, he stepped out onto the street to call us, and someone managed to knock him to the ground and pin him down with a knee on his neck and an armbar.”
Dmitri’s eyes widen. “What the fuck?”
He winces. “It was Julia.”
Holy hell.
“She demanded to know why he was following her and who he was working for. And it wasn't very pretty when he told her the answer. He came back bloody.”
“Shit.”
Aleksei offers a tight smile that holds no humor. “She's here.”
I raise a brow at him. “Now?”
He nods.
“Fucking hell.” This isn’t something I can ignore or put off until later. Julia won’t wait, and expecting her to will only allow her anger to grow. It’s best if I address this head-on and explain to her why it was necessary. “Both of you go and let her in.”
One of Aleksei’s dark eyebrows rises. “Are you sure, pakhan? She looks pretty fucking pissed.”
I scowl at him. “You think keeping her out there is going to relieve any of that? Send her in.”
Dmitri offers me one final sympathetic look, then leaves with Aleksei at his side, pulling the door closed behind him.
This is definitely not how I wanted any of this to go. The guys are usually so good at remaining inconspicuous. It couldn’t have come at a worse time. Things were tense at dinner, but she had finally started to thaw by the time I dropped her off at her place last night. I knew she wouldn’t let me touch her in the car, and I respected her boundaries on that. But now, any progress I made getting her to open up to me has been wiped away because Ilya was a fucking idiot and couldn’t remain hidden.
I sit back and brace myself for Hurricane Julia to enter.
It doesn’t take long to feel her energy approaching.
The door flies open, slamming against the wall, and she storms in, her eyes blazing with rage. Her sweet lips, the ones I’ve been dying to taste but have somehow restrained myself from taking thus far, twist with her rage. “You have some fucking nerve, Valerian.”
“It's nice to see you, too, kotyonok.” I smile at her. “I trust you slept well?”
She strides toward the desk and slams her palms down on it. “You asshole! Why were you having me followed?”
“Because being with me makes you a target, whether you want to be or not.”
Her brow furrows. “Who says I'm with you?”
Feisty as always.
This kitten has some bite.
“Before our dinner last night, I wasn't so sure. But I am now. Just like I told you the other night, I won't let anything bad happen to you. And that requires me to know what you're doing every moment of every day.”
She points a finger at me. “First, I don't belong to anyone. No one fucking owns me. Second, I don't need your protection, as I just proved when I took down that moron you had following me and smashed his face into the sidewalk. Third, if you ever pull shit like this again, you're going to pay the price for it.”
I can't fight the grin that pulls up my lips as I rise from my chair and slowly make my way around the desk toward her. Her chest rises and falls rapidly at my approach. Her anger and her fear darken her eyes and tighten her fists at her sides.
Stopping just in front of her, I reach up and rub the strands of her blond hair between my fingers. “I like you like this, kotyonok.” I release her hair and take her face between my palms. “So feisty with your claws out.”
She scowls at me again, trying unsuccessfully to pull away from my hold. “You're not going to like it when you get cut by them.”
“Oh, I will.” Leaning closer, I feather my lips against her cheek. “A little pain always makes the pleasure better.”
A shudder rolls through her body—no doubt the memory of being together the other night flickering through her head the same way it does mine.
“That's something I'm more than ready to show you more of, kotyonok.”
“Pakhan?” Dmitri’s voice is like a bucket of ice-cold water being thrown over me.
“Oh, for the love of fucking Christ.” I turn toward the open door and find Dmitri standing there with a phone in his hand. “What?”
“It's Galen. He says it's an emergency.”
Fuck.
I point toward him. “Give me a second.”
Dmitri nods and moves down the hallway, far enough away that he can't hear us anymore.
Julia continues to gaze up at me, her anger not fully quelled but somehow subdued. “That sounds like it's important.”
“Not as important as you are.” I tighten my grip on her. “I need you to understand that everything I do is to protect you, to ensure your safety, because I can't be distracted, worrying about you with everything else I have going on.”
She considers me for a moment, eyes softening before she tilts her head and presses her lips to my palm. “Okay.
The vise around my chest loosens slightly. “We're good?”
Some of the rage she carried in here seems to have evaporated, either with my words or my touch. “We're good.”
I drop my head and press my lips to hers for the first time.
Our first real kiss.
My first taste of her mouth.
Something I’ve been holding off doing for so long that it feels like an eternity has passed since I first saw these lips pressed to that glass at the bar, downing a double shot of tequila.
She issues a little mewl and clutches at my shirt, dragging me even closer. I sweep my tongue across her lips, and she opens for me, tangling her own with mine as our bodies mold against each other, my cock pinned between us.
“Hhmhm.” Dmitri clears his throat in the hall.
I pull back reluctantly, staring into her lust-soaked eyes. “I'll be right back.”
As quickly as possible because I have plans.
Big ones.
JULIA
Valerian takes the phone from Dmitri and disappears into one of the playrooms down the hall while his right-hand man steps back into the main club, leaving me alone in Valerian's office.
My heart thunders against my chest, my breaths coming short and fast—though I don't know whether it's because I just threatened him like that, because of the kiss, or because of what he promised. Maybe all three.
Regardless, I don't have time to wonder and think about it because this might be the only chance I'll have to get what I need. I hustle around the desk, slide into Valerian’s chair, and fire up his computer. My fingers fly over the keyboard as I keep my eye on the door for any signs of someone approaching.
This isn’t how I imagined this going down, but I have to take advantage of any opportunity I can get when it comes to Valerian Kamenev.
Accessing his computer has proven harder than I ever imagined. The man is smart enough not to connect it to the internet so it can’t be hacked, which means this is the only way to get inside—to physically sit at his desk, in his office, deep within his club, with him only a dozen yards down the hall.
Sweat breaks out across my forehead as I easily get past his password screen and into his files. No real security here. And why would he have or need any when he’s never leave anyone he doesn’t trust alone in his office…
I slip the tiny flash drive from my pocket and slide it into a USB port to start duplicating his hard drive as I scroll through the files, trying to locate what I need. One folder name makes me freeze, and I quickly click on it. My eyes dart across the individual file names until they land on one that makes bile climb up to the back of my throat.
Oh, hell…
A door closes in the hallway, and I jerk back and quickly exit out of all the screens, but the files aren't done downloading yet.
¡Ay hijueputa!
I shift some papers from the desk over the drive to try to conceal it and rest my hand near it, ready to pull it from the computer as soon as I have what I need.
Footsteps approach, and Valerian comes into view, his eyes narrowed on me. “What are you doing, kotyonok?” He enters his office and pushes the door close behind him with a deafening click. “Need something?”
I offer him a sweet smile and pull my hand away from his computer. “Just waiting for you. I was going to check my email.”
His dark brows slowly rise. “Check your email?”
“Yeah.” I nod. “That meeting I missed last night…they were supposed to email me to reschedule.”
He casually strolls around the desk and toward me, silent and deadly like a predator stalking his unsuspecting prey.
Feigning concern, I press my hand over my chest. “Is everything okay…with your phone call?”
Valerian nods as he casually leans against the desk, right next to where I sit in his chair. “For the moment, yes.” He offers me a gentle smile. “Again, I'm very sorry you missed your important appointment last night.”
¡Mierda!
I should stop bringing it up, so he'll stop asking about it. The last thing he needs to know is where I was going.
“It’s okay.” I spin the chair to face him. “Nothing urgent at all.”
Certainly not more urgent than convincing Valerian I wasn’t doing anything I wasn’t supposed to in here while he was on the phone. I reach out and run my fingers across the top of his hand, where it's flattened against the desktop.
Heat crackles between us where our skin touches, that same spark that combusted into an inferno in the playroom.
As angry as I was with him last night, a huge part of me regretted the way we left things. I almost wanted him to bring me back here, to do to me what he did the other night. My body craved it even through my anger at what he had done. Or maybe because of my anger.
His hard gaze locks with mine. “What about now…any urgent, pressing business to attend to, kotyonok?”
I pull my bottom lip between my teeth and shake my head. “No.”
His cock begins to swell against the black fabric of his pants, and my pussy clenches at the way his blue eyes darken to almost black. I reach out with my free hand and rub over the bulge, feeling his length stiffen even more under my palm.
He issues a little grunt, takes my other hand in his, and tugs me from the chair, then pushes me down to my knees in front of him. “Good, because I do have something pressing and urgent for you to take care of, kotyonok.”
I fight the desire to glance over at the computer where the tiny drive still sticks out, just barely visible from under the papers I tried to shove over it. If he looks over there, he'll know what I was doing. I'll be busted, and then, all this will be over.
Not just my plans but also this.
Whatever this is with Valerian.
Unexpected. Dangerous. Frantic.
I never expected to end up like this with him, but now that I’m here, I don’t want it to end.
It can’t.
I unbuckle his belt and slowly lower the zipper, keeping my eyes on his. Lust burns across the blue, igniting a fire deep in my belly for all the things I shouldn't want.
My mouth waters at the thought of what I'm about to do, and I free his cock, pulling his pants down to his mid-thighs. It juts out from his body—thick, heavy, a drop of pre-cum already beading at the tip.
I flick my tongue over it, the salty flavor making me moan in approval as he buries his hands in my hair.
“Fuck, kotyonok…”
Swirling my tongue around the head several times, I revel in the way his body stiffens. I inhale a deep breath and take him in my mouth, suctioning around his hot flesh.
I don’t have a fucking clue what I'm doing. Watching a video is the closest I've ever come to doing this before, but given how tense his body is, his thighs rock hard, muscles straining, I must be doing something right.
That knowledge spurs me on, encourages me to keep going even when I feel like a bumbling idiot on my knees with this man who has no doubt had his cock sucked by women far more talented than I am.
Determination to be the best, to get him to lose control, overtakes me, and I suck him back as far as I can until I have to fight the reflex to gag. Something rumbles in his chest, and his grip on my hair tightens.
He tugs on it slightly to get me to look at him. “Have you ever done this before, kotyonok?”
