A Very Russian Christmas (13 page)

He narrowed his eyes at her. “But?”

“But I decided to get you something a little silly and something else that I think you’ll actually enjoy.”

He decided not to ruin her surprise because he had done the same thing for her. Instead, he exhaled dramatically. “I suppose I will let it slide this year.”

She raised an eyebrow and saucily retorted, “Or I could bend over the arm of that couch and you could give my backside a swat for being such a naughty little elf.”

Heat unfurled fast and hard in his core. The vision of her bare, wiggling ass enticed him. What would her bottom look like all pink and hot after a good spanking? He could almost feel her snug, wet heat wrapped around his cock while he fucked her roughly after giving her exactly what she deserved—and needed.

Taking the bag from her, he warned, “You should be careful making overtures like that, Holly. One of these days, a man might take you up on them.”

She smiled at him. “Oh, I’m counting on it.”

The thought of another man accepting her offer made his stomach lurch. The overpowering urge to cup that perky little ass of hers and drag her tight to his chest was almost too much to deny. Right here, right now, he could claim her as his woman. For tonight, at least, he could be an everyday sort of man making love to and enjoying the woman of his dreams.

But it wasn’t that simple.

Because you aren’t an everyday sort of man. You’re a mob cleaner and a hit man. You’re all wrong for Holly. Let her go. Let her have the chance to find the man she deserves.

Taking the gift bag from her, he stepped back before the scent and heat of her coaxed him to make a huge mistake. “Thank you, Holly.”

“No, thank you, Kostya. You saved me tonight.”

“If you see Cody again—”

“I’ll tell you,” she promised. “But I don’t think either one of us will ever see him again.”

For Cody’s sake, Kostya hoped that was true.

Holly shadowed him to the front door. “Good night, Kostya. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas, Holly.” He stepped onto the welcome mat and gestured to her door. “Lock up.”

“There you go again with your overprotectiveness.”

“Someone has to look out for you.”

“So it may as well be you?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

She smiled sweetly. “I can’t imagine a better protector.”

Oh, if only she knew…

“Night.”

“
Spokoynoy nochi.
”

Safe inside his house, Kostya carried the gift bag into his kitchen and shrugged out of his jacket. He peeled off his holster and placed his pistol on the counter next to the present. After plucking free the knife sheathed along his left leg and his backup pistol from the right, he pulled the fluffy red and green tissue paper out of the bag and withdrew his gift.

His fingers brushed something cold and hard. Ceramic? He felt another object of the same size next to it. He grabbed one and hauled it out of the bag. Staring at the bizarre and slightly creepy face looking right back at him, Kostya burst out with laughter. It was a garden gnome!

He found the female match to the pair inside the bag and placed her next to the white-bearded male gnome. The homeowner’s association would hit him hard for putting them in his front yard, but Kostya didn’t care. He wanted Holly to laugh every time she pulled into her driveway and spotted the weird miniatures in the flower beds in front of his house.

Remembering the real gift she had admitted to buying him, he fished around in the bag and finally withdrew a card. He opened the envelope and found a gift certificate to the very last place he had ever expected—the animal shelter. Wondering what in the world she had been thinking, he read the note scrawled inside the card.

Because I know you’re going to hem-and-haw over this, it’s good for a year. Oh—and I get first dibs on helping you name your new furry friend. I’ve already got a shortlist. What do you think about Tokarev?

He traced the loopy shapes of her handwriting. A dog? Was she insane? That was the very last thing he needed.

Except.

Well.

Maybe it would be nice to have a companion.

Maybe.

Possibly.

Even as he mentally listed all the reasons why a dog was a terrible idea, he grudgingly admitted that Tokarev would be a good name for his pet, especially considering his fondness for the surplus 7.62x25 ammunition that he occasionally got his hands on during the family’s illicit arms trading.

Leaving the gift certificate on the counter, he walked over to the small dining room table where Holly’s gift sat. Unlike her, he hadn’t decorated for Christmas and didn’t have a tree. She had been the only person he had shopped for this year.

In fact, she was the only person he had shopped for since his mother’s death over ten years ago.

Though he had planned to drop off her gift in the morning, he decided that he wanted to have a little fun with her tonight. There was no chimney for him to come crashing down so her front door would have to do.

Not bothering with his jacket, he nonetheless tucked a pistol into the back of his jeans. Out in the cold, wet night, he made a stealth crossing of their property lines and walked up to her front door. He could see the faint glow of a television around the closed wooden blinds and the edges of her living room drapes. He placed his gift on the welcome mat, rang the doorbell—and ran like a kid pulling a prank.

He made it to the tree in her front yard before she opened the door. He could only just make out her silhouette in the light shining behind her. She bent down to pick up the gift and then glanced around the yard. Feeling sillier than he had in years, Kostya deepened his voice and called out, “Ho, ho, ho!”

Holly’s snort of laughter echoed in the quiet night. “Aw, Santa, you shouldn’t have! Bacon flavored toothpaste in a jewelry box? I’m such a lucky girl.”

He chuckled but remained hidden behind the tree. “Don’t throw away that jewelry box without turning it over first.”

“Why? Is there—holy shit! Kostya, this is too much.”

He smiled at the thought of her wearing the gold bracelet with the jade cabochon that he had carefully taped to the bottom of the box. The moment he had seen the bracelet in the jeweler’s case, he had thought of her pretty green eyes. “Santa doesn’t have the receipt so you’ll have to keep it.”

She didn’t say anything for a few seconds, and he started to worry. Had he been wrong to give her jewelry? He had been sure that a bracelet was the perfect gift for her. Now he had second thoughts.

“Santa will have to let me cook him dinner to show my appreciation.”

Relieved that she liked the gift, he replied, “Santa will have to check his calendar and get back to you. Now—go back inside and lock that door.”

“Yeah. Okay. Bossy butt.”

He laughed again and waited for the front door to close before returning to his house. Alone in his bedroom sometime later, Kostya stared at the ceiling and played his moments with Holly on an endless loop inside his head. It struck him suddenly that she had given him the greatest gift of all this Christmas.

She had given him a glimpse of what it might be like to be normal, and—God help him—he liked it. One taste of how things could be if he wasn’t mired in the swamp of his mobbed-up life, and Kostya craved the possibilities.

Was this the feeling that Ivan Markovic and Alexei Sarnov had chased all those years ago when they were making their exit plans? Now, Ivan had everything he wanted—a clean life, a successful business and a gorgeous woman who loved him.

Can I have that?

He honestly didn’t know. Even before getting involved with Nikolai’s crew, Kostya had never dared to dream that his life might be normal. His rather unorthodox upbringing with parents who were KGB operatives had sealed that deal. When he had proven to be a genius like them, he had gone to university where he had excelled in biochemistry and then he had accepted a government contract to follow in his parents’ footsteps.

Getting out from under the Kremlin’s thumb had required that he make a hasty exit from his homeland, and there had been only one way to do it—Maksim Prokhorov, the mob boss of Moscow. Through the boss’ vast network, Kostya had ended up here and attached to Nikolai. His friendship with Nikolai was the truest of his life, and he would give his life to defend his friend and his boss.

But what if there was something else for him?

Even if he could get out—and the odds of him surviving such a move were less than one percent—what the hell could he offer a woman like Holly?

Money wasn’t an issue. He had so much of it stashed away in various banks and hidey holes around the world that he could stop working tomorrow and live the life of a very rich man until he was ninety years old. She could have anything she wanted if she belonged to him.

But what if she wanted more than he could give? If she started asking hard questions about his life and his work, could he tell her the truth? What would she say if she found out about the dark, unforgiveable things he had done in the past? His particular skillset lent itself to some truly terrible deeds.

Rolling onto his stomach, Kostya punched his pillow into submission and clamped his eyes shut. He didn’t want to think of all the reasons why he couldn’t have what he wanted. Tomorrow, in the cold light of day, he would accept the reality of his totally fucking shit situation. Tonight, in his dreams, he could have the woman he wanted. He could have Holly Phillips.

In a bikini, on a beach, and throwing a Frisbee with a mutt of a dog named Tokarev, he decided with a sly smile. It was Christmas after all. He might as well dream big!

You can read all about Kostya finally having a chance at his happily ever after in Spring 2014!

Toys for Tots

DANILA

As if on an army recon mission, Danila Cherevin slowly drove through the parking lot of the Black Eagle social club. He spotted the beat-up truck that Burt Garner drove and eased into a spot a few spaces back. Sliding out of his black Tahoe, Danny flipped up the collar on his coat and crossed the parking lot for a quick chat with the host.

Though he belonged to Nikolai Kalasnikov’s family, Danny was on good terms with the rival Albanian crew. They handled different pieces of Houston’s criminal underworld so there wasn’t much competition between them at the moment. He had no problem convincing the host of the social club that doubled as an illegal gambling den to give him the lowdown on Burt.

Once he confirmed that the man had only just arrived, Danny slipped an envelope of cash to the host to buy his neighbor a nice marker and enough credit at the bar to keep him busy for the night and morning. He also pushed a few crisply folded fifties into the host’s hand to make sure the transaction was completed without delay. Assured Burt wouldn’t be around to bother his family and ruin another Christmas, he returned to his SUV and headed home.

Driving across Houston, Danny thought of Thanksgiving when he had been forced to throw that drunk old bastard onto the street. He had come home from a night guarding a gun shipment for the boss to hear the most terrible sounds of violence coming from the townhouse next door. The police were frequent visitors to the Garner residence yet nothing ever changed.

Rather than rely on them to help, he had beaten on the door until Burt answered and then had dragged the paunchy asshole out onto the front lawn where he had given him a taste of the pummeling the man had just doled out to his family. Frankly, that asshole had been lucky Danny hadn’t killed him after he had discovered not only the wife beaten to a bloody pulp but the daughter too.

An arc of pain speared his chest at the memory of Macy’s battered face. There were a lot of things Danny had learned to stomach since falling in with Nikolai’s crew, but there were lines that should never be crossed. A man did not put his hands on a woman or a child in anger. It wasn’t done. Hell, in Nikolai’s family, it was a crime punishable by death. The boss didn’t fuck around when it came to protecting the vulnerable and neither did Danny.

As he pulled into his parking spot, he acknowledged that his protective instincts toward Macy were growing stronger with every passing day. Since he had crossed paths with her nine months earlier, not one single night went by when he didn’t think of her. At first, his interest in the redheaded, blue-eyed beauty had been purely motivated by concern for her welfare. The afternoon he had moved in next door, he had seen the bruises on her arms from being grabbed and jerked around by a much bigger person.

She had been outdoors with her much younger brother and sister when the little boy had crashed his bicycle into Danny’s new SUV. He had been pissed off at the dent but had quickly found himself unable to scold the boy or his big sister after he saw the panicked fear in reflected in their eyes. He recognized that look all too well. It was one he had hoped to never inspire.

From that night forward, Danny had vowed to keep an eye on the family next door. The mother was nice enough but haggard and overworked. As best he could tell, she juggled two jobs and relied on Macy to keep up the house and do the bulk of the childcare. The father appeared to work infrequently. What he did make, he pissed away on beer or wasted at the betting tables and on the sports books at the Black Eagle.