Bound to the Beast: Russian Hitman Romance (7 page)

Susanna

Today was a workshop day, thankfully. I only had my workshop classes once a week for three hours, and I was allowed to use the art studio freely between the hours of seven and nine in the morning, and six and twelve at night. Otherwise they were occupied by classes.

Workshop was one of my favorite classes, because it was basically a free for all. Our professor would occasionally walk around and spout existential theories on why art was important or how the colors determined the light of the world, but for the most part this was just about creating viable pieces for our portfolios. And of course our gallery piece. There was going to be one at the end of the semester for all graduating seniors. It would be our exhibit, and for some of us—most of us—it would likely be our
only
exhibit.

The thought made me nauseous—or maybe that was the baby? I wasn’t sure anymore if it was the stress from school, the pressure to complete a masterpiece worth displaying in a gallery, or the strange situation with Tyler. Had he really proposed to me? Of course he had, and it had been an earnest, completely noble plan to save me from embarrassment and exile.

He was so selfless, but…did I really want to spend my
life
with him?

Not that I had a lot of options. I hadn’t dated more than a few people in my life and we had only gotten to the kissing stage, nothing beyond. Until Alexei. He was so different from everything I had ever known, and I thought for sure that was what had swept me away. It was the sense of danger and intrigue he carried with him. It was that sexy Russian accent, just smooth enough to slip beneath his perfect English and make his whole self darker, deeper, and more desirous. It was even that medal he had suspended around his neck, an almost gaudy gold thing that should have made him look cheesy, but only spoke of heritage and belief.

I cursed myself for still thinking of him. For focusing on him. He wasn’t coming back. If he wouldn’t come back just to…to, well,
fuck
me, then why would he come back once he knew that a baby was involved? Simple, he wouldn’t. Few men would, but certainly not a dark, sleek stranger like him. He was the type of man who owned expensive cars and rented expensive apartments, daring to live carelessly, even dangerously, because there was nothing anywhere that tied him down.

The complete opposite of some farm girl and her baby.

No, Alexei wasn’t an option—which was why the painting that kept appearing before me was so inappropriate. It was an urban scene, dark and foreboding. The background was a mixture of streaked rain, midnight skies, and alleys a charcoal gray color that might be full of shadows and nasty things. The roads were cobblestone and shining wet. There was a moon, but it was almost completely covered by the dark clouds which dumped rain on the entire thing. But the part that was so wrong, so inappropriate, was the man standing amidst it all. He had broad shoulders and dark, thick hair that was slicked by the rain, but he was unconcerned as he stared into the alley, ready to face the darkness. His eyes shone in the darkness and there was a tiny golden metal, the only real color besides blue in the entire image.

It had come to me unbidden. I needed to do something, something spectacular for the showcase at the end of the semester, and I kept drawing a blank. Then two months ago I’d had that wonderful night and the heartbreaking morning that followed it with Alexei. Suddenly, something formed in my mind. I didn’t even really know what it was until I started on Alexei, making his form out slowly in little more than a shadow. Slowly, features came in, his tone paler than it should be, his eyes too bright for the dark scene, but he was there.

Alexei. Just as gorgeous and alluring as I remembered him.

Now, I wished that I’d picked something else.
Anything
else, but I’d had such a block and Alexei had opened that up. Now it was much too late to hope to do anything else before the semester was over. I’d just have to live with this and when anyone asked, if they asked, I’d say that it was just someone that I made up, someone who might look like they belonged to the darkness.

“Good, Susanna, good. It’s really coming along,” my professor told me in that feathery voice that suggested she was probably taking some sort of mind altering drug. She floated on past me to the next kid, making some minor suggestions here and there.

I sighed. She was right. It
was
really coming along. It was probably the best thing I’d ever done, in fact, and that was more depressing than I cared to focus on. Putting up my brushes early, I threw my canvas in the back to dry—and to protect from vandals who had occasionally wrecked other students’ work—and told my professor that I had to leave early. I wasn’t feeling well. She encouraged me to feel better and to come in to use the free time to finish my piece if I needed it. I thanked her with a tight lipped smile, then headed out.

I needed to see Tyler. I was going to have to say yes.

***

I was walking towards my apartment, holding the phone out in front of me. A text was typed up and ready to be sent, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. What would this change? Not just for me and my potential life, but between myself and Tyler?

My answer is yes. You’re a good man and any woman would be lucky to have you.

It was the truth, mostly. He was a really decent, noble man. The fact that he was willing to volunteer spending the rest of his days raising someone else’s child spoke to that fact all on its own, not even mentioning all of the time he spent with me when I was sick or when I was bored or just whenever I needed a shoulder to cry on. Tyler was my best friend. Wasn’t that what all women should dream of, to marry their best friend?

Yet I couldn’t bring myself to send the message. I knew I would have to eventually, but for now, it could wait. For a little bit longer still, I could just be Susanna Ferrars.

I saved the message as a draft, then dragged out my keys to open the door, but as I rounded the corner, I froze.

Him. Alexei. He was here, standing outside the door of my apartment, looking every bit like he didn’t belong and yet like he could belong anywhere.

What is he doing here? Does he know about the baby?

Hope surged forth only to be quashed a second later. No, of course not. He couldn’t possibly know about the baby. I hadn’t told anyone yet besides Tyler and I wasn’t far enough along for me to be showing. I still had my slim physique, though I could feel my breasts beginning to ache, as though they were swelling with the milk I would need for the baby.

He couldn’t know, but then why was he here?

I sucked in a quick breath, then let it out, trying to stay calm. Forcing myself to keep walking to the door, I refused to make eye contact with him, unlocking the door casually. “What are you doing here?” I asked, opening the door.

Without any prompting from me, he strode inside first, looking around my dingy little apartment. Instantly, I felt embarrassed. I remembered still what his luxurious apartment had looked like and he must be utterly disgusted by the way I lived. At the very least, it was neat and picked up, so he wouldn’t think I was just a total slob.

“When was the last time you saw your brother, Susanna?” he asked, completely ignoring my question.

I blinked at him. My brother? “What?”

He rounded on me and I was startled by the intensity of his eyes. Quickly I looked away before I got caught in their spell. “Your brother. Christopher. When was the last time you saw him?”

How does he know Chris? Oh, god, did I sleep with one of my brother’s friends?
I didn’t think so, but I couldn’t come up with any other reason for why Alexei would know Christopher. “Um, a while. He’s out of state right now.”

Alexei frowned at me, his thick brows pulling together, creating a crease between them that was troubling and still sexy at the same time. I tried not to think about the strange craving I had for him, just as strong as the first time we’d ever met.

“Out of state,” Alexei repeated flatly. “He hasn’t been here?”

I shook my head. “No, I mean, not for a while anyway. He had to leave town for a job or something.” I shrugged my shoulders. My brother was a carpenter, sort of. Mostly, he was a jack of all trades. He’d do a little bit of anything for some extra cash, which meant he was never
really
good at any one thing. But, he could half-ass just about anything. I guessed that was something.

“A job.”

“Why do you keep repeating everything I say? What are you
doing
here?”

Finally, Alexei seemed to focus. He was troubled still, serious in a way he most definitely wasn’t the first night we met, but he seemed to have decided something for himself as he locked gazes with me. “Your brother isn’t out of state doing a job,” he told me, his voice low and deep and laced with that accent that I loved so much. “He’s running.”

My mouth dropped open a little. “Running? From what?”

“From who. And the who is important only because it is a very powerful man who will do very bad things to anyone who crosses him.”

I almost felt like laughing. A powerful man? What, like a mob boss or something? Was this man some sort of gangster, Capone style? That was ridiculous! My brother was kind of a screw up sometimes, but he was family and I knew he had a good heart. He would never get involved with some sort of dangerous mobster. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. My brother is a
carpenter
—”

“A carpenter who was hired by this powerful man to do a job. He failed in that job and then he stole a lot of money. This man wants his money back.”

At this, I did laugh. It was a short bark that wasn’t wholly sincere, but it was all just too much. It sounded like a bad plot to some B-grade heist movie! My brother wasn’t capable of pulling anything like that off. But then I saw that Alexei’s expression hadn’t changed. He looked just as serious—no, grave—as he had a moment ago.

He was being serious.

A shiver ran through me, all of the laughter instantly sucked out of me. I felt cold and worried and suddenly I knew that Chris was in a lot of trouble. Bad trouble.

But I wasn’t ready to accept it. Not from this man who had used me and left me and then haunted my dreams and desires. No, not from him. My brother was
fine
. This was all some huge misunderstanding. “Get out.”

Alexei’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “What?”

“I said, get out. Now. Leave. Go. I don’t want to
see
you!” My voice was rising and I could tell that I was almost hysterical. Maybe it was the hormones or maybe it was a part of me that believed what Alexei was telling me. Either way, it was making it harder to breathe. He needed to go.

“Leave me and my family alone. Don’t you
ever
come back here!”

Alexei

Being yelled at by a woman who was the sister of the man I was hired to kill should not have made me hard. But it did. Her face was flushed with anger, her freckles little pinpricks of burning heat. Her eyes were so bright they almost glowed blue in the dim lighting of the shitty little apartment she called home. Her long hair fell across her shoulders and tickled at her breasts in soft waves that called to me, begged for me to grab them and jerk them back to expose the long column of her smooth neck.

I thought I was getting better with this strange, lingering desire for Susanna, but I was beginning to think I was wrong. My cock ached in my pants, shuddering at being so close to her, with the need to be inside of her.

And she wasn’t helping matters at all. She was yelling at me, telling me she never wanted to see me anymore, but her breasts were trying to escape the simple button-down shirt she wore, and her legs were long beneath the shorts she was wearing. Even her delicate hands, pointing at the door to emphasize her words, were sending my mind spiraling towards dirty, dirty things. I imagined the way those tiny fingers would look wrapped around my shaft. I imagined the way they might grip my hips, my shoulders, my back as she writhed in ecstasy beneath me.

I wanted her. More than I should have, but I couldn’t help it.

Dragging her into this mess with her brother was a bad idea, but he was being reckless. He was reckless the moment he took a job offer from Vinny, but that would have smoothed over easily enough if he’d simply done what he’d been hired to do. Vinny was a shrewd man, but he paid you what you were worth. Do a good job, and he’d make it worth your while. All Christopher had to do was not screw Vinny.

Which was the one goddamned thing he
did
do. And now Susanna was caught in the middle of this. If I could find her, someone else could. Someone who maybe didn’t appreciate that, though related, she didn’t have anything to do with her brother’s stupidity. And what if Vinny decided that she was a liability?

He wouldn’t go after her… unless her dumb brother decided to show up and ask for help. And I had the distinct impression that he wouldn’t be completely forthcoming with her about the details.

The urge to protect her was almost as strong as the urge to strip her and plunge inside of her. An urge I didn’t seem able to resist. Ignoring her request, I closed the space between us and grabbed her, pulling her flush against my body. Her breath caught and her eyes went wide, but I didn’t give her any time to think. I kissed her hard, like I’d wanted to since that night. Like I’d wished I’d done every night since then.

She resisted at first, her small hands balling into fists and trying to pound my chest, but she couldn’t make me budge. Her punches were like love taps, and I wouldn’t let her go for anything. Nothing in the damn world.

I slid my tongue against her lips and I felt her shake, trembling not with anger, but desire to match my own. She was beginning to give in, her fists unclenching and her arms raising until her hands could slip around my neck and pull me closer. When my tongue passed over her full lips again, her mouth opened, and when I slipped my tongue inside to taste her, she moaned into me.

My hands slid down from her upper arms to wrap around her little waist. I wished she were still wearing that little summer dress so I could yank it up, pull it high enough to expose those luscious thighs and maybe just rip off her panties then and there in the middle of the living room, take her on the floor.

Instead, my hands slid lower until they hit the waistband of her short little denim cut-offs. Still kissing her passionately, holding her against me, I let my hands dip between the denim and her body so that I could feel her firm, full ass in my hands. When I had one cheek in each hand, I ground her against me so that she could feel my hard length against her thighs.

I wanted her to know how much I wanted her.

When she broke the kiss and gasped, I knew that I had her. I kissed a trail of fire down her neck until I hit the collar of her t-shirt. Growling in frustration, I pushed her away from me—I was pleased when she made a sound of protest—just far enough so that I could jerk that damn t-shirt up over her head. I tossed it to the side, pleased to find that she was wearing a black lacy bra too small for her full breasts. They were practically half out of the cups, her cleavage spilling noticeably as her breathing caused her chest to heave.

I went to her shorts next, undoing the button and the zipper. Her hands went to my shirt at the same time, undoing the buttons quickly and then tracing over the expanse of my chest. I groaned at the contact, my body aching for more.

When her shorts were off, I yanked my shirt the rest of the way off and undid my belt. She watched me hungrily as I undid my slacks and pulled them off, revealing my large, aching erection.

I needed her. Now.

I pulled her to me and thrust my hand into her panties, searching out her wet folds and sliding a finger into her hot core. She cried out and I was surprised to find that she was still just as tight as that first time. A thrill ran through me.
She’s only been with me.
I began to pump into her opening over and over again, her body arching and her hands gripping at me desperately. I added another finger, beginning to stretch her so that she could more easily accommodate my girth. When I added a third finger, she begged me, “Please.”

Losing myself, I laid her down on the floor, dragged down her panties, and aligned myself with her wet pussy. She was already panting, flushed and whimpering, needing me.

I let myself have a moment where I slid myself along her opening, collecting the moisture there, then I put my head against her entrance. Meeting her eyes and holding them, I gently slid inside her, slowly, inch by inch.

She winced, but urged me forward still. I knew to be gentler with her this time, though there had been no complaints with my aggression last time.

When I was finally fully sheathed inside her, we truly began. My rhythm started out slow, my pumps deep and hard, but the slow pull as I took almost my entire length out of her was sweet agony for the both of us.

That didn’t last long. I needed to pound into her, hard and fast, and I wasn’t one to enjoy waiting. Pinning her hands above her head, I thrust into her as deeply as I could, my speed building. I watched as her breasts, still encased in that tiny bra, bounced and collided with each other, as erotic as anything else I was doing. Susanna moaned and arched her back and begged me, whispering again and again, “Please, oh, god,
please
, Alexei!”

Hearing my name fall from her full, bruised lips was enough. I lost myself in her, jerking and thrusting erratically as I spilled myself inside of her. I collapsed there on the floor next to her, pulling her tightly into my arms where I could keep ahold of her a little longer before I had to really think about what I’d just done and what it really meant.