Russian Mafia Boss's Heir (27 page)

“This is a beautiful home.” She tried for a flirty smile in the dim orange light of the car’s dash lights. “Apparently laundromats and restaurants are the way to make good money.”

He smiled but didn’t answer. Instead, he parked and got out. She held her breath as he walked around to let her out. This was the big moment. It was possible that one of his men had seen her at some point and would blow the whistle.

He opened her door and held out a hand. “It’s certainly satisfying to have you here at my home.”

Was he being cagey? She couldn’t be sure. She was too busy thinking about what a nice smile he had and how it made his eyes really sparkle. Then she realized where her thoughts were heading and reined them in forcefully. “Thank you. I have to admit that I’m a little anxious.”

“I think that’s normal, don’t you?” His tone was so reasonable that it actually calmed her nerves.

“Normal? Perhaps.” She frowned. “I suppose I should be texting a friend and making sure everyone I know is aware of where I am.”

Vitaly shrugged. “If you think that’s necessary to make you feel safe, I think it’s a wise choice.”

She held his hand and followed him up the steps to the front door. Her heart was thudding against her ribcage and she could hardly catch her breath. She was doing exactly what she had boasted to Johnson she could. Yet her anticipation was not related to her mission at all.

They entered the front door. She could hear men laughing and knew she was about to meet the Maximov brothers. It took less than a minute for them to appear after Vitaly closed the front door.

“You finally brought the mysterious siren home, I see.” A tall young man with blond hair gave her a very thorough once-over with his gaze. “And I can most certainly see the attraction.”

A second brother elbowed the first. “Uday, can’t you see by the boss’s expression that you’re really pissing him off?” Then he turned and offered Alexandra his hand. “I’m Dimitri. The idiot is Uday, and the quiet one is Anton. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

She shook his hand. He did not seem to fit the butcher reputation that his FBI file assigned to him. “It’s very nice to meet you all. My name is Alexandra.”

Fortunately, they all seemed to be too blinded, either by her smile or her boobs, to inquire about a last name. She’d been entirely too fortunate that way so far. At some point her luck was going to run out.

Vitaly gestured to the men. “You three keep out of my way. Stick to this evening’s plan, got it?” They immediately dipped their heads respectfully and retreated down the darkened hallway.

She got the feeling that they were in the middle of trying to unravel some sort of issue. Had Joe Farelli really rocked them so much by picking up Jacob? It was hard to tell at this point. She needed more information.

Vitaly leaned down and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Let’s go find someplace a little more private.”

“That would be wonderful,” she murmured, feeling a whole slew of mixed emotions over that idea.

Vitaly was leading her down a hallway. To her right she saw a set of double doors that looked as if they could lead to an office. Inside she heard the low timbre of male voices, most likely that of the Maximov brothers. She filed the location away for later use and continued to follow his lead toward the opposite side of the house.

“Please.” He opened another set of double doors and Alexandra found herself inside a well-appointed den. “Come inside and make yourself comfortable.”

“What is this?”

“Just a den.” He smiled. “Did you think I was going to give you a peek inside my bedroom so soon?”

She tried for flirty, but she was very afraid he could see right through her. “I wouldn’t have expected that you would be that forward, but a girl can hope.”

He threw back his head and laughed. “Is that really what you were wishing?”

“Why else would a gentleman invite a lady back to his house for drinks?”

Vitaly’s brows went up. He took a seat on a long leather sofa. She perched on the other end.

He looked relaxed. He was lounging there in his expensive custom-tailored suit and looking disgustingly handsome. She found her mind wandering to the night before. Had his hands really felt that good? And had she honestly come
that
many times? Surely her mind was fabricating some of the details. She
had
had a few drinks.

“Why would you assume that’s all I wanted?” Vitaly asked, obviously going somewhere with this strange, suggestive line of conversation.

She shot him a droll look. “Seriously? Don’t you know that’s what little girls have been told that little boys want since we were old enough to understand the birds and the bees?”

***

Vitaly smiled at his little firecracker. It was quite obvious that she had expected him to jump her bones the moment they were alone. “What’s the matter?” he asked. “Are you disappointed?”

“Maybe?” She shifted on the sofa, her position giving him what was most certainly a calculated view of her upper thigh. “Perhaps I was interested in trying an experiment.”

“Experiment?” He admired the gleam in her gray eyes. Something about this woman chased all rational thought out of his head. “What sort of experiment?”

“I’m sure you noticed that the chemistry between us the other night was rather…shall we say explosive?” She arched one elegant brow. The fingers of her right hand trailed lightly over the golden skin of her bare thigh.

He knew the move was deliberate, yet he found himself unable to resist staring. “I would have called it more than chemistry, I think.”

“Exactly.” She shifted and he tore his gaze away from her leg and focused on her face. Her expression was flat-out seductive. “Which is why I was so interested to discover if what happened the other night was an anomaly. You know, some sort of combustible circumstance created by the atmosphere of the club.”

“Do you believe that?” Vitaly found he did not like that idea at all. What he had experienced had been bliss. It wasn’t simply hormones.

“I don’t know what I believe.” Her tone was casual, almost deliberately so. “That is why I proposed the experiment.”

“And what would the…procedure be for this experiment?”

“Well,” she began slowly, “I suppose I would need to be closer.”

She scooted across the center of the sofa until her leg was nearly touching his. Vitaly could feel the heat of her skin through the fabric of his pants. His breathing started to speed up as his body reacted to her proximity.

“Then?” She leaned even closer, until he could feel every exhale of her breath against his neck. “I think I would need to touch you.”

Her lips brushed his skin and Vitaly was powerless to stop the groan that slipped out of his mouth. His skin felt more alive right than ever before. The tip of her tongue flicked against his pulse point. Vitaly’s body tightened and his cock rose to full attention between his legs.

Alexandra’s low laugh was sultry and welcoming. Had he ever been so turned on by nothing more than a touch and a kiss? Vitaly knew he had not. He reached out to touch her and she pulled away.

“No, I think not,” she told him playfully. “This was
my
experiment. Remember?”

He had to clear his throat in order to speak. “And have you come up with any findings yet?”

She gazed at him from beneath her eyelashes. “Not yet. I think I may need a few more trials.” Placing her hand on his knee, she let her fingers walk their way up toward his groin. “Tell me how hard this is making you, Vitaly.”

“Why don’t you see for yourself?” he suggested in a voice gravelly with lust.

Her fingers inched closer. Vitaly realized he was holding his breath and forced himself to calm down. She had created such anticipation with her teasing that he was ready to ravish her. Then she very lightly traced a line down the shaft of his cock. The contact burned like wildfire. His dick actually throbbed, pushing against his fly as though begging for more.

She leaned closer, putting her lips beside his ear. “You feel very, very hard.”

“And what do the parameters of your experiment suggest for such a thing?” he asked, playing along.

“It would appear that I need to modify my procedures,” she told him, drawing back and giving him a teasing grin.

She withdrew her hand from his cock and he fought the urge to grab it and pull it back. Her demeanor shifted to an almost businesslike manner. He wondered what had happened.

“Alexandra?” he whispered. “I enjoy your touch. You can report that in your findings.”

She put her palms to her face. “I also need to report that I’m unable to remain an impartial researcher.”

Vitaly laughed. The blend of playful and seductive was incredibly enticing. “I think that might have an effect on the results of the experiment. Don’t you?”

The creamy tops of her breasts rose and fell as she took a deep breath. “More than I might have expected, I think.”

“You seem disappointed.”

She didn’t answer. Instead, he felt her pull away emotionally. It made him angry for the briefest moment until he realized what it most likely meant. Alexandra was more affected by him that she had intended to be. He could work with that.

Chapter Ten

 Alexandra was determined to keep her head. There was nothing to be gained by forgetting the reason she had wanted to come to Vitaly’s home in the first place. That meant not giving in to her hormones and having sex with him. She stood up, leaving the couch and exploring the den. Behind her, Vitaly didn’t move from his seat.

The room was comfortably situated with wide windows overlooking the back yard and very fine furnishings. “This is such a beautiful place. Did you and your mother live here with your stepfather?”

She hazarded a glance back at him, wondering what he would think of her rather bold statement. To her surprise, he was grinning. “Not exactly, although the house my mother and I lived in with my stepfather was comfortable enough compared to our tenement in Moscow.”

Discreetly pulling her phone from her pocket, Alexandra snapped off a couple of quick pictures of the bookshelves in case there was anything interesting that might give her a clue to Vitaly’s operations.

“Did you say tenement?” she asked, more to cover up what she’d just done. Except once the question was out, she found that she really wanted to know.

“I believe Americans sometimes have a difficult time wrapping their mind around the tenement notion,” Vitaly said with amusement. “It’s perhaps a side effect of the communism-versus-democracy mentality.”

“I’m sure.” She did feel a strange shot of empathy for the man who had struggled and worked hard to get where he was. Even if his current success was built on breaking the law.

He stood up and approached her. “Shall we discuss what happened the other night?”

“The sex?” She searched for that nonchalance that she swore she felt about it. “It was just sex. Didn’t I just do an experiment to prove that?”

“Oh really?
That
is what your experiment proved?”

Vitaly moved closer. She sucked in a quick breath. Unfortunately, that did nothing but suffuse her senses with his wonderful male scent. Her body began to soften, everything below her waist melting as she grew aroused. How did he do that with just his presence in the room? It was disconcerting.

She took a breath to speak and realized that her nipples had peaked into hard little points. Her skin was growing heated and flushed and she could not stop thinking about how good it felt to have his hands on her body. Nobody had ever touched her the way Vitaly had, and God help her, she wanted him to do it again.

“Did you know,” he said softly, “that when you become aroused, your pupils dilate?”

“That’s just a normal physical reaction,” she said, licking her lips and trying to swallow away the cottony feeling in her mouth.

***

Vitaly could see how hard she was fighting the attraction. For some reason, that only made him want to push her a little harder. When would she break? When would she be unable to maintain that formidable self-control? And what would the reward be for pushing her past her limits?

“I believe it is my turn to perform an experiment,” he whispered.

He lifted his fingers slowly in order to let her see exactly what he was doing. Lightly stroking her cheek, he was rewarded with a quick exhale. Her breasts bobbed as her breathing grew ragged. Unable to resist, he lowered his mouth and took her lips in a long, lingering kiss.

It took only seconds for the contact to become heated. She wound her arms around his neck and kissed him back without reservations. Vitaly marveled at her passionate response. Her lips parted and she welcomed his tongue. He swept it inside her mouth and tasted her fully. The wonderful spicy flavor of her muddled his mind. He wrapped his arms around her body and drew her flush against him. He could feel how hard her nipples were through her shirt.

Cupping her backside, he lifted her until she was standing on her tiptoes and continued to kiss her warm lips. She was so eager. The tiny noises she made drove him crazy with lust. Backing toward the sofa, he felt the backs of his legs brush up against the seat. He sank down slowly and took her with him.

She straddled him, her knees on either side of his hips. Her crotch was spread open across his groin. He could feel the heat of her against him. The only barrier between them was the soft fabric of her slacks and that of his pants. Vitaly wanted it gone. He wanted nothing between him and this wild, passionate woman.

Continuing to kiss her, he threaded his fingers through her long, dark hair until the pins came loose and her sensible bun fell. Her hair tumbled over her shoulders. She made a tiny noise in her throat and then drew back, ending their kiss. The way she stared at him made him feel more wanted than he ever had felt before. Her eyes were luminous. The intense gray color seemed to lay bare all of her longing.

Vitaly placed his hands flat against her sides. His fingers brushed the undersides of her breasts. She trembled at the touch. Then he grew bolder, cupping her left breast in his palm and letting his thumb skate over the hardness of her nipple. Her eyes slid shut and her expression turned to one of satisfied bliss. Using his other hand, he gave her right breast the same attention. Soon she was arching her back and pushing her chest into the contact. He felt her nipples throbbing against his fingers. It was a wonderful sensation, but it made him want much more.