Red Alpha: A BWWM Russian Alpha Billionaire Romance (9 page)

On more than one occasion, Cadence had contemplated simply asking Demyan if he knew anything about Alessia. She wouldn’t mention her sister by name, of course – merely that there had been an intelligence official killed in action years ago in Russia. She didn’t doubt that, as a man who had his fingers in everything, Demyan probably knew details that would be enough to help find her sister’s killer…

But…that wasn’t why she was here.

Or so she kept telling herself.

Cadence tried to bring her attention back to the meeting happening before her. She could be missing important details, she knew; but the young woman had long since trained herself to tune in if the Russian words for energy, nuclear, or anything of the like were mentioned.

And so far…nada. So, instead, she let herself drift as she remembered how divine the younger Boykov looked when he was mostly naked. She was so absorbed in her fantasy that she barely noticed when the men finished their discussion and decided to take a break for lunch. It wasn’t until the man himself knocked on Danshov’s office to speak to him that Cadence came back to the present.

At the sound of Demyan’s low, accented baritone, she bolted upright, her eyes widening as she pressed her thighs together in attention. He leaned against the doorway, towering over Danshov as he spoke to him in their native tongue. When Alessia was alive, she had always gushed that Russian was the sexiest language and that every time a man spoke it she all but wet herself.

Cadence hadn’t quite understood her fervor until now.

She was pretty sure that Demyan could make the Hokey Pokey sound sexy just by virtue of saying it.

Clearing her throat lowly, she made a show of standing and gathering the papers that Danshov had lent her to read about Russian policies. Usually she would follow him to whatever lunch function he had, but today, there was to be a closed meeting – one to which she wasn’t invited.

Which meant that she had the afternoon to herself. She planned on slipping out past both of the men and hopefully finding her way around the city – anything to clear her mind of the foggy haze that Demyan always seemed to fling over her. Edging up close to the two men, she cleared her throat again, louder this time. “Excuse me, gentleman. If I could just get past you…”

“Of course, Cadence.” Danshov moved aside almost without thinking and she slipped between the two of them, swallowing thickly as the scent of Demyan’s cologne wafted around her. It was only a split second before she was in the clear, all but rushing for the main entrance of the Kremlin with embarrassingly damp panties.

She was wrapping her coat quickly around her frigid form and halfway down the block before a familiar voice called after her. “Cadence! Wait.”

The man spoke with such self-assurance – a statement rather than a request – that she ground to a halt in her tracks, surprised. Within seconds, Demyan was at her side, his expression inquiring as he gazed down at her. “Where are you going?”

Despite the fact that it was freezing, the young woman suddenly found herself a little too warm. “Um…to lunch. Prime Minister Danshov has a private meeting so I…figured I would amuse myself for a while.”

To her surprise, the immense man merely frowned down at her. “By yourself?”

The young woman arched a brow. “Shouldn’t I be by myself?” According to American intelligence, most parts of Moscow were relatively safe for tourists, and she didn’t plan on looking for any trouble.

In answer, Demyan just glanced around them somewhat suspiciously before exhaling hotly. Before she could protest, the man took her arm in his before beginning to tug her back down the street in the direction she’d been headed.

“Mister Boykov!” She finally managed, struggling without much success to free herself as her face flamed.

“Demyan.” He corrected her curtly – and she grew even warmer as she remembered the last time he’d asked her to call him by his given name.

“
Demyan
,” She acquiesced, as he whisked her down the snow-laden sidewalk. “I feel like if someone’s out for my blood, one more man won’t really make a difference.”

“This one will.” The way he said it made her stomach clench almost painfully in desire and she struggled not to stumble as she kept up with his long stride.

“Well…” Her breath frosted on the chill air as they moved through people going similarly about their lunch hour. “I suppose I should thank you…then?”

“No need.” Where were they even going? She certainly hadn’t quite grasped direction in the city yet, and Demyan seemed to just be pulling her in whatever direction he saw fit.

“Demyan…where-” she huffed as he suddenly pulled her into a small corner building and out of the cold. Warmth swirled around them, accompanied by the heavenly scent of sizzling potatoes and meat. Cadence blinked through clouds of steam as she inhaled deeply, her stomach growling with a vigor she hadn’t known she had in her.

They were in a restaurant – and a tiny one at that. The interior was just large enough for five or six tables, and all of them were absolutely packed. These weren’t people, Cadence quickly realized, that represented the upper crust of Russian Intelligentsia. Instead, there were families from the working classes. No table cloths, fancy bistros or little coffee drinks...instead, everyone seemed to be heaping bowls of the same thing.

“
Pierogi
,” the young woman breathed – all at once, starving. Alessia had taught her to make the small, savory potato based dumplings when she was still in school and she had never forgotten them – even if she had always been shit at following the elder woman’s recipe.

Demyan arched a brow in pleased surprise. “So you’ve had them before?”

“Of course!” Cadence exclaimed, her face flushing in pleasure. She looked for a menu and only just stopped herself from revealing that she knew far more Russian than she let on. She bit her tongue as Demyan moved forward, nodding in familiarity at the two men in the open kitchen as he greeted them in Russian. “Shall I order for us?”

The young woman swallowed thickly. Though she did indeed crave physical sustenance, it was strange that just being around Demyan seemed to feed…
other
needs. Cadence forced herself to straighten her spine and swallow the lust in her gut as she moved carefully around him. “That sounds good.”

All of the tables in the tiny establishment were already full and so they were forced to take their plastic plates to a raised plank that decorated one wall, serving as an eating surface, and take their lunch there. There was precious little space, and as they ate with plastic forks, they were close enough for Cadence’s hip to brush Demyan’s. Even through all of the layers he wore, she could still feel the solid lines of his body – and it was more than enough to distract her from her meal.

Even so, Cadence shoved food into her mouth mechanically, trying to think of something,
anything
but the man beside her.

“So you had pierogi in the United States.” She leapt on his foray into conversation like a slavering dog on a bone.

“Oh, plenty of times. They were my sister’s favorite.”

When he replied, she could hear the surprise in his voice. “Your sister likes Russian food?”

“Oh yes. Blintzes, caviar, borscht…she absolutely adored the stuff.”

For the first time since he had been inebriated, Demyan’s mouth curved into a small semblance of a smile. The effect was devastating, and Cadence felt her stomach flutter. “You should have her come visit you while you’re here. I’m sure that Danshov would love to meet another woman so enamored of Russian culture.”

At his suggestion, Cadence’s face fell. She couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to be with Alessia in Moscow. Not after the country that she had so loved had taken her sister’s life. Embarrassingly, she felt her eyes welling and clenched her jaw against threatening tears. “She…she died. A while ago.” It was all she could manage before conveniently filling her mouth with pierogis to give herself time to regain her composure.

Next to her, Demyan stopped with his fork halfway to his mouth, his expression somber. “Oh.” He seemed to hesitate a moment for continuing. “My condolences.”

Nodding stiffly, Cadence continued to eat and the knot in her stomach loosened bit by bit. The
last
thing she needed at this particular moment was to talk about Alessia. If she was looking for a sure fire way to get Cresseda to haul her ass back to the States, revealing too much about her sister was the ticket.

Despite her aching desire to know.

“How are the pierogi?”

The young woman smiled sadly as she remembered the enthusiasm with which Alessia had bustled around the kitchen to make the potato dumplings for her. The elder woman’s hadn’t been this good, but there was little Cadence wouldn’t give to taste her cooking again.

The rest of their meal was tersely silent, and Cadence cursed herself for ruining their lunch hour. Things were awkward enough between she and Demyan as it was without adding any emotional entanglement to the mix.

Just imagining the man telling her that she needed to go to bed with him was enough to set her off… “They’re good.” She managed quickly, finishing her food quickly before carrying her plate to the window at the far end of the restaurant. No sooner had she dumped it than she stepped back into the brisk air outside, the cold hitting her in the face like a sledgehammer.

Even so, it wasn’t enough to detract from the secret warmth between her legs. Wrapping her arms around herself, Cadence hopped from foot to foot outside as the frigid air seared through her system. Yes, Russia was epically beautiful, but she had no idea how her sister had endured this
cold!

As if to add insult to injury, at that exact moment, an immense snow plow drove by, displacing what had to be at least thirty gallons of dirty slush – directly on top of Cadence.

For a moment, the young woman wasn’t quite sure what had happened. All she knew was that she was covered in filth, completely drenched, and chilled to the absolute bone. All around her, people stared – some of them as obviously awed by her plight as she herself was. With a low, coughing gasp, Cadence stumbled backward from the street – and into the arms of Demyan, who had just emerged from the restaurant after her.

The man took one look at her and cursed under his breath before drawing her back into the warmth of the establishment they’d just left. The young woman was, of course, mortified at her current plight, and tried to protest.

“
Stay
.” Demyan merely barked a rough command in English before leaving the shop once more. There was little more Cadence could do than look after him as he raised his hand to hail one of the many taxis humming along the roads. When he got one to stop, he returned to her side to tug her back into the freezing air.

Cadence shrieked. She couldn’t help it. The frigid wind striking her already wet skin was almost painful. “
Tschina, tschina
.” Demyan’s voice was almost soothing as he hushed her, boosting her dripping form into the waiting car.

The driver looked as though he might protest a moment before he saw clearly who his passengers were. After recognizing Demyan’s face, he went where the man directed without hesitation. Cadence didn’t understand the place he asked to be driven to – not that she understood much of anything when her teeth were chattering from the cold. Reflexively, she curled up into a ball, gazing down at her blue fingertips.

“
Fuck
…” Despite the air of poise she’d tried to emit up until this point, she couldn’t help the low curse that escaped her at the painful tingling at the ends of her fingers.

“Hold on a moment.” Demyan’s voice remained low as he spoke to her. “We’re almost there.”

Indeed. – They were in the car for all of three minutes before they spilled out onto the sidewalk once again. This time, they were outside for blessedly little time – only enough, really, for, Demyan to shove her into yet another unknown building. Cadence was far too cold to do much more than follow his lead.

As they moved through a plush, well-decorated lobby, the young woman quickly realized that they were in a hotel – and a lavish one at that. Somehow, they moved past the front desk and to the elevator bay without encountering any obstacles.

Once inside said elevator, Cadence was given a wide berth as she dripped onto the elegantly marbled floor. She stared devotedly at said floor, knowing that she must look a complete mess, and praying that their little jaunt upward didn’t last long. They stayed on for about fifteen floors before she was ushered out into a brightly lit hallway. Cadence stumbled over her own half frozen feet and practically into the first door outside the elevator, upon which Demyan knocked briskly.

When no one answered, the tall man plucked an unmarked, blank card from his pocket and passed it over the digital lock. Cadence’s eyes widened as it sprang open instantly, admitting them inside.

She supposed it was the typical luxury hotel room – not that she’d been into many during her brief thirty year stint alive. The air smelled perfumed and the carpets had been freshly shampooed. The drapes were thrown back to let the afternoon light from the city in – though this was something that Demyan quickly rectified by jerking them closed. Barely a beat passed after that before the man turned to her, his jaw a tight line of what Cadence interpreted to be irritation. She gazed up at him warily a moment before he reached out to rip her sodden, heavy coat from her shoulders before dropping it to the floor.

The young woman’s eyes widened as Demyan took another step towards her, closing the distance between them. He took her scarf from where it was draped around her neck to toss away, and when he reached for her sweater, she finally found her voice.

“Wh-what are you doing?” Her tone was embarrassingly high and unsteady when she spoke – but when she attempted to jerk back out of the man’s grip, she found it unrelenting.

“Getting you out of these wet clothes.” He replied curtly, his green eyes narrowing somewhat. “Before you freeze to death.”

At that particular explanation, there wasn’t much she could counter. Of course, had Cadence been in her right mind, she would have protested that she didn’t need him to help her. That she was perfectly capable of undressing herself,
and
in the privacy of the bathroom – but she found herself dumbfounded by the way Demyan’s able hands stripped clothing from her body.