The Professional (41 page)

“He’ll come after you?”

“You have no idea—”

A text chimed on my phone. With a grimace, I read it.

Get your ass back here or I will whip it raw

“Shit, Jess! He knows I’m gone. He’s going to assume I came here and follow me.” To catch me and bring me back.

How had I gotten myself into this monumental mess? This had all started because I’d wanted to find my biological parents. Both were dead, and now I was saddled with a fortune that was still in the rinse cycle—along with a lying, stalker ex-boyfriend, who also happened to be an assassin.

Fuck!

“You’ve got a good head start on him, right?” Jess said. “And there’s got to be security everywhere.”

“If I can get away now, do you think we could hide out at your parents’ lake cabin for a couple of weeks?” Months? Years?

“Hide out? Nat, what did he do to you?!” She sounded on the verge of skull-fucking something.

“Nothing like you’re imagining. But he isn’t who I thought he was.”

“Skeletons in the closet?”

“Boneyard. And I still don’t know the half of it. He told me he had no family, but I just met his brother a little while ago! A big-shot politician. And their family is rich.”

“I thought you said Sevastyan was a street kid.”

“That’s what he led me to believe. You can imagine my shock. Jess, I didn’t even know his real name.”

“Holy shit, that’s serious. So to the cabin we go. I’ll make Jell-O shots for our trip, pick you up at the airport, and then we’re off. Quick question of no particular import: was the brother hot?”

“Jess!” I slowed, swiping my palm over my nape. The first night I’d met Sevastyan, I’d had a sense that I was being watched; I had that feeling again.

Wary, I surveyed the terminal—

Sevastyan! He was here, on the other side of the security checkpoint, charging through milling travelers.

God, even now I found him breathtaking to behold, with his powerful body and determined demeanor.

His intense golden eyes swept the area. Because he was hunting.

For me.

“Gotta go. Fucker’s here.”
Click
. How had he found me so quickly?

Our gazes met. Confusion flashed over his face. As if he truly had no idea why I’d left?

Too bad, Sevastyan, I am
done.

I had to hope that he couldn’t get through the long line at security. What were the odds that he’d already bought a ticket—and lost his ever-present pistol?

His confusion was turning to fury. His body language said he would murder anyone who got between him and me. For me, his eyes were filled with warning.
Don’t you dare run.

My expression told him,
This dumbass can
finally
read neon signs.
I gave him a pilot’s two-finger salute, then made my way toward my distant gate. They were boarding! If I could just get on the plane . . .

I was out of breath by the time I filed into the slow-moving line. “Excuse me,” I said to a group of sweet-looking elderly ladies in front of me, “do you mind if I skip ahead?”

They gave me
bitch, please
looks.

Out of the corner of my vision, I spied the crowd parting for a very tall black-haired man. Shit—he’d cleared security! My line snailed forward. . . .

Panicked, I scurried away from the gate down the terminal, knowing how this would go down. He’d catch me and I’d have to scream and fight.

And then he’d still never let me go.

When I had nowhere else to run, I spun around, squaring my shoulders.

His eyes were crazed as he stalked up to me. “Come.” He snatched my upper arm.

“Let—me—go.” I tried to wrench free of his viselike hold. “I’m not leaving with you.”

“Natalie,
now
.”

People were staring at us, whispering behind hands. Under my breath, I snapped, “Why can’t you just leave me alone? You’ve been doing it for weeks!” At least during the days.

“Fight me, and I go to jail. Because nothing short of that will keep me from you.”

Damn it! I’d seen his body language, promising pain to anyone who got between us. In the
banya
, he’d told me he’d do murder to possess me.

I didn’t want anyone to get hurt. And I didn’t want him to go to prison. Again.

“Interpol would love to take someone like me into custody.”

I glanced past him, saw a gate attendant reaching for a red phone. To alert security?

Talk about making a major decision under pressure: My freedom for his?

I recalled how Sevastyan had been last night, in our bed. My dream man.

Damn, damn, damn! It seemed I could leave him—but I couldn’t send him to prison. Not after everything he’d done for me.

This man saved my life.

His grip tightened, and his frenzied gaze pinned mine. His pupils were blown, his eyes appearing almost black. “I won’t be taken from you. Do you understand me?”

I swallowed, hoping very much that I did
not
understand him. I had a flashback of what he’d done to Gleb, and pitied any guard who confronted this enraged enforcer. I had no choice but to go with him. For now. “Let go of my arm, and I’ll come with you.”

Instead, he dragged me along, my wishes ignored yet again.

“You can’t do this!”

“Doing it.”

Okay, so he could force me back—didn’t mean I’d stay. He couldn’t watch me every hour of the day and night. I promised him, “Short of your locking me in a cage, I
will
return to Nebraska.”

“I’m not above using a cage.”

“You dick!” As soon as we were outside the airport, I launched the toe of one of my pointy heels at his calf, booting him as I had his car back at Berezka.

He didn’t seem to feel it whatsoever. So I kicked his ankle.

Nothing. And then he was tossing me into the back of his limo, signaling for the driver to go.

Apprehension overwhelmed my anger. The privacy window was up; I was at Sevastyan’s mercy.

What was he going to do to me?

As if even a foot was too much distance between us, he yanked me across his lap. He squeezed me against his chest, those massive arm muscles rippling around me.

On the way back from the club, he’d held me like this. Never had I felt more cherished and protected.

Now? I’d never felt more conflicted. Had some traitorous part of me clamored for him when he’d scanned the crowd for his woman? Had some part of me thrilled earlier to hear myself called his fiancée?

What is wrong with me??

As I sputtered protests, he stripped off my messenger bag and coat—still too much between us?—then he clasped me harder, inhaling the scent of my hair, like we’d been parted for ages. In a distant tone, he asked, “Why would you leave?”

“You know why! I didn’t sign on for a one-sided relationship, didn’t sign on to be treated like a thing. You don’t confide in me, you order me around, and you lie to me!”

As if he hadn’t heard me, he grated in Russian, “You’re not to leave me, Natalya. I’ll never let you go.”

“My God, are you hearing me at all? You sound like a freak! You can’t keep me if I don’t want to be kept!” I managed to draw back a couple of inches to glimpse his face—then wished I hadn’t.

A professional hit man had fixated on me, and now seemed to be experiencing some kind of mental break because I’d left him. It was as if he couldn’t make out my words because some bomb blast was repeatedly going off in his head.

Realizing how futile it was to try to communicate with him, I fell silent. But he wasn’t done.

“For now, I’ll discipline you.”

I swallowed. “Putting the D back into BDSM?”

Against my hair, he said, “I told you that if you ran from me again, I’d catch you. I told you I’d spread you over my knees and whip your ass until you knew better.”

His text had said he’d whip it raw. At the thought, I tensed even more in his iron embrace.

“And don’t I always do what I say I will?”

S
evastyan kept me trapped in his arms as he climbed the steps to our suite. He only let me go to slam the doors behind us.

As his threat replayed in my mind, I wondered if I should make a dash for the safe room. Yet even now I couldn’t manage to be afraid of this man.

“Never run from me again!” He couldn’t seem to catch his breath. “The thought of not having you . . .” He punched the wall near the hole from his last show of fury. As his fist made impact, he loosed a short, violent yell. Like an animal in pain.

“Sevastyan, just wait.”

Flexing his hand, he twisted around to face me. “Strip.”

“No, I don’t want to.”

“STRIP!”

I snapped, “Sure thing!” and stepped out of my shoes, scooping them up. “Here we go!” I flung the first one overhand like a dagger. Missed. He batted away the second.

“Why don’t you arm yourself with your shirt next, sweet?”

“Fuck—you!”

“Fuck me?” Though his pupils were still blown, his sexy lips
curled. “We’re getting to that.” Underneath all this pain and frenzy, Sevastyan was still Sevastyan.

Seductive. Undeniable.

He prowled closer, running the heel of his palm over the straining bulge in his pants. I’d been conditioned by him; seeing this man’s erection would always make me grow wet to receive it. When he was just before me, his body heat and addictive scent wreaked havoc on my senses.

“You won’t remove your clothes when I command it? I think you don’t want me to discover what you’re hiding.”

Hiding?

He seized my hip with one hand. His other hand was climbing under my skirt. “Will I find you wet? If so, you’re going to get whipped. If not, I won’t touch you.”

Not fair—I couldn’t control my response! I squeezed my thighs together, but he forced them apart.

When he felt my damp panties, he grunted with satisfaction. “I think you want your punishment very much.”

Was I already so lust-stupid that I . . .
did 
? He rubbed me with his slow, hot fingers, sending my thoughts into chaos.

Maybe I should use him for the pleasure he always gave, then figure out what to do afterward. So what if he was going to spank me? It wasn’t like he hadn’t done it before—with a flogger. I could get through this.

Or maybe I was making excuses for him—yet again! I shoved at his wrist and twisted away from him.

He let me get a step away before his hands landed on my shoulders to jerk me back. He leaned down, his mouth descending on mine.

My cry was his access.

His tongue flicked . . . deliberate, sensual. Leveling my resistance.
Even as he tore my blouse from me like it was tissue paper, he was giving me his mind-numbing, toe-curling lover’s kiss—as if he couldn’t help himself.

As if his mind was saying
Discipline her
, while his heart was saying
Kiss her
.

Though my mind screamed
Resist him
, my heart told me . . .
Surrender
.

With a defeated moan, I kissed him back, twining my tongue with his. He was caught up, and now I was too. I might hate myself afterward, but I couldn’t stop this.

Whatever happened tonight would be my grudging toll, to buy my break from him.

He cut short the kiss to snatch at the fastening of my skirt, rending that material as well. He shoved what was left of it down my legs, all but clawing away my hose at the same time. His overt aggression was turning me on, the wild edge to his touch. . . .

As he ripped away my bra, he kissed my neck—licking and sucking right over my pulse point, knowing how that drove me crazy.

“Tell me to give you the punishment you’re so wet for,” he said against my skin. “Or tell me you never want to feel my hands on you again.”

Never to feel those tattooed fingers on my skin, playing me like an instrument?

Can’t.

“Tell me no”—he scraped his teeth over that spot on my neck—“or tell me you want this.”

I choked out, “I want this.”

With one brutal yank, he ripped off my thong. Once I’d been stripped down to nothing, he released me, moving to sit on the leather ottoman. “Come here.” Though he sounded like he was
on the very brink of  losing control, I crossed to stand before him.

“Turn around,” he ordered me. “Then go to your knees and forearms.”

As I had in the bathroom that night? It was such a vulnerable position to be in. Was he about to go down on me again?

“Now, Natalie.” His face was unreadable.

What would he do to me? Curiosity flooded me as I followed the command, kneeling on the plush carpet—

He seized my ankles, yanking me back until I was in a wheelbarrow position over his lap, leaving me to balance myself on my hands.

“Sevastyan!”

“Lean on your arms.”

Breathless, I did, resting on my forearms and forehead, which put my ass in the air.

“Wrap your legs around my waist.”

I had no choice but to comply. With my legs circling his torso in reverse, I could feel his hard cock pressing against my mons and belly. He’d told me he would spread me over his knees; he’d never specified how.