Wicked Lies: A Dark Mission Novella (12 page)

His fingers tightened on her shoulders. “What’s the cost?” the man asked.

Ivan arced a fleshy hand through the air. “This one, she is thousand more than negotiated,” he said, and Katya’s eyes widened.

A thousand American dollars
more?
Impossible. Ivan’s boss didn’t barter his girls for that much, at least not these girls in this ramshackle Renton brothel. Did the always absent Mikoyan know about this arrangement?

Who was this man that Ivan would demand more money? A politician? A new money launderer? Someone with a business angle that Ivan’s boss wanted to squeeze for everything it was worth?

Dark brown eyes met hers briefly, then skated away. “Fine,” he said tightly. “Jesus Christ.”

“Of course, she is more expensive, but you want her. Next time,” Ivan added as he gestured to the room, “maybe you try another.”

“Right.” The man nodded to the small backpack on the floor. “Mikoyan’s cut is in there. Count it while I’m busy,” he said flatly, and didn’t bother with any more pleasantries. Shifting his grip on her arm, he hauled her bodily out of the cramped living room. There was barely enough room in there for a couch and a television, much less five more people.

Katya stumbled as he pulled her purposefully toward the stairs. Behind them, the sudden blare of the television flickered to life.

“You are
hurting
me!” she protested as he jerked her up the stairs and into a cramped room.

The door clicked quietly into place, leaving Katya locked inside with nothing but a dirty mattress and the man who’d just purchased her for the hour.

He didn’t pay any attention to her accented protest, his fingers hard on her biceps as he spun her in place. Her pale hair slid into her eyes as he seized both arms and tucked her tightly against the door.

His dark brown eyes met hers, his face so close she could smell remnants of his aftershave. Something like fresh sawdust and pine. His angular features were suntanned, darkened by a five o’clock shadow that looked more like it was getting on toward ten.

He looked intent. Focused. And he damn well needed to let her go. Adrenaline forced her blood to surge, wiping away all traces of exhaustion.

She twisted; he pinned her shoulders back against the door. “How good is your English?” he demanded.

Katya stared up at him. That was his reason for holding her? He wanted to
talk?

Her gaze trailed to the neck of his T-shirt, to the telltale bulge under his left shoulder. A matte black edge peeking from the open flannel made her eyes widen. A gun?

A cop? She sucked in a breath.

Those long fingers dug into her flesh.

She snapped her gaze back to his, her heart pounding in her ears. “Is good,” she managed, deliberately thickening the Russian accent that still colored her otherwise excellent English. Pulling her persona around her like a shroud, she let her body soften against his.

Watched his pupils dilate as the lush curve of her breasts pushed into his chest.

Cop or not, he was a man. And all men had an easy button.

One more day, she told herself. One more man.

“I am understanding English very well,” she purred. The tension at her arms lessened. Deliberately, she drew her tongue across her full lower lip.

His gaze pinned there, a whole lot warmer than it had been a moment ago.

“Well enough for hearing what you are wanting,” she added huskily. A muscle leapt in his jaw as she leaned forward, pressing her lips against his chin. “Well enough for obeying. You like me?” Her mouth brushed against his whiskered jaw. “You want me, you are asking just for me,
da?
” Her lips drifted lower, explored the cords tense at his neck.

At his collar, just above his T-shirt. His skin was warm.

Her stomach clenched. To her surprise, not all of it was fear. Or disgust.

He jerked as her tongue slid out to taste the hollow of his throat. Suddenly, his hands constricted again, pushed her back against the door. The panel shook.

His eyes were hard. “Who are you?”

“Katya.” That wasn’t a lie, and he’d heard it already.

“Your
real
name,” he said tersely.

For a moment, she froze. Paralyzed by indecision. She could ask him if he was on the take; she’d know the truth the instant it left his lips. But if his answer was
no
, she’d be in a world of trouble. He’d haul her to Ivan and she’d be left trying to explain why she was asking questions of the clients.

Especially questions about police.

No, she couldn’t ask. He’d bartered for an hour of her body. Good cops didn’t do that.

She frowned. Pouted, really. “Why?” she demanded petulantly. “Katya is not pretty?”

“Now.”

Fine. “Ekaterina Mikhailovna Zhuvova,” she said, so smoothly that she watched him blink at the onslaught of blurred syllables.

“Where are you from, Ekaterina Mikhailovna Zhuvova?” His echoed accent was damn near close to perfect.

“Moscow,” she lied. St. Petersburg, actually, but it was all the same to Americans.

“Why were you at the police station this morning?”

Katya’s eyes widened. So he
was
a cop. And given how buddy-buddy she’d seen him get with Ivan, not the kind of cop she desperately needed.

Her mind racing, she watched the intensity, the suspicion, in the dirty cop’s features and recognized them for what they were. He was grilling her. Why? Did he have reason to suspect her?

The ability to
hear
a lie wasn’t going to help her deliver her own pack of them. Her heart slamming in her chest, she managed, “Station? You are police?” She tried to shrink back, but he hadn’t let her go. She didn’t have to fake the fear in her voice as she begged, “
Please,
do not arrest me. Do not hurt me!” She allowed herself to shake in his grip, watched with some satisfaction as his expression banked to sudden surprise.

Then fury. He was . . . offended?

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he growled. It resonated like honesty.

It didn’t matter. “You are police,” she cried, as if it explained everything.

“Yeah, but I’m not—Son of a bitch.” He let her go.

She slid out from between his body and the door, but the only place to go was deeper into the tiny room. Any farther, and she’d be on the stained mattress.

The signal he expected, but not the one she wanted to send.

She’d had enough of this filthy room to last a lifetime. The water-stained walls, single mattress, and bare, scuffed floor would be indelibly imprinted on her brain forever.

She just had to last one more day. Which meant playing by this cop’s rules. She clasped her hands under chin. “You are here to arrest Katya?”

The cop grunted. Then, seamlessly switching gears—and again surprising the hell out of her—he said in passable Russian, “I am not going to hurt you, Katya. I just want to know why you were at the station.” So the bastard knew her language.

And he was still telling the truth.

Katya’s shoulders rounded. She dipped her chin, letting her hair slide over her face in a light golden curtain. “They picked me up,” she lied, this time in the same language he almost didn’t butcher. “They were asking me questions. I told them I was visiting my sister.”

The cops had claimed they needed more evidence than just the word of an illegal immigrant like her. Now she knew why. A cop on the take.

Why wasn’t she more surprised?

He watched her as if trying to read the truth in her eyes, and she met his gaze squarely.
Believe me
, she prayed. Seven girls counted on his gullibility.

Katya started as he crossed the small room. She backpedaled, her stomach twisting around an icy knot of anticipation. Her heel hit the edge of the mattress, and she jerked.

He caught her arms, but there was nothing restraining about it this time. He steadied her gently. His brow furrowing in tacit concern, he said, “My name is Nigel Ferris.”
Truth
, whispered the tiny signal in the back of her brain. “Did you tell them that you were a—”

He hesitated, and she barely kept from laughing outright. Was it possible? Did he have trouble shaping his mouth around the word
whore
?

A dirty cop with morals. Now she’d seen
everything
.

Forcing her features into a mask of terrified sincerity, she shook her head until her hair swung. “
Nyet!
I say nothing.”

His face shuttered, and she slowly took in a deep breath. Did he believe her? If not, she could end up very dead, very quick. There’d been girls who vanished before.

Lies spoken about their whereabouts.

Distraction. She could do distraction.

She stepped into him. Closed the distance between them, slid her hands up his chest. A part of her mind fragmented at finding him hot to the touch, even through his T-shirt. His muscles leapt under her palms; his heart slammed against her hand.

He wasn’t as unaffected by her as he wanted to be.

And rightfully so; her role demanded she dress the part. Her too-thin T-shirt was white, her bra sweetheart pink and clearly obvious beneath it. It left two inches of her waist bare, hugged tight by low-rise jeans.

She looked edible. Fresh.

She looked like every other Russian girl off the boat who had ever been forced into prostitution.

And she knew how to act the part.

Rising up on her tip-toes, she hooked her fingers into the collar of his shirt and said in her accented English, “You will not hurt Katya?”

His jaw shifted. His body all but vibrated against hers. Most men would have had her on her back by now.

Was he shy?

She flicked her tongue against the column of his throat. He sucked in a breath. “Katya will not hurt you,” she murmured. She nuzzled the skin behind his ear, and his head moved. A fraction of an inch. Reluctant as hell, but there.

“Katya will make you feel nice,” she whispered, just before she sank her teeth into the sensitive skin of his earlobe.

The sound he made was guttural, leashed taut.

So he had the same button as all the other men after all. The same weakness that would buy her the time to figure out what to do with a dirty cop.

She smiled against his skin.

A smile that faded as he once more caught her shoulders, wrenching her away. His eyes blazed in stormy black and brown; a wild intensity that ratcheted tension through her as he stared into her own.

Her heart leapt into her throat. “I—”

“They’ll know if I don’t,” he muttered hoarsely, but more as if he spoke to himself than to her. Without warning, he pulled her hard against him. Caught her face between his palms and tipped her face up with impatient fingers.

Katya gasped.

He covered the sound with his lips, pulled the air from her lungs on a low, angry noise that did nothing to dull the sudden heat flushing her chest. Her stomach, and lower.

His lips were warm, firm against hers. Demanding. He didn’t coax, he didn’t wait; Katya had long since learned never to expect it. He tilted her face up, thumbs at the corners of her mouth, and swept his tongue inside to taste her.

Her breath shuddered. The sensation seemed to light a fire in him; he dragged his tongue across hers. Teased it, coaxed it to follow back into his own mouth. The world simmered around her, danced wildly as if caught in a heat wave.

His eyelashes were black, she realized. The skin across his high cheekbones was taut, flushed with control and arousal and his body against hers was rock solid and—
Oh, God.

For one moment, Katya forgot about her situation. She forgot about the other girls she was so desperately trying to protect; forgot about their jailer somewhere in the small house.

She forgot about the plans to escape this hellhole and the police who had turned her away.

There was only Nigel Ferris; dirty cop with a mouth to die for.

She closed her eyes. His hands left her face and she fisted her fingers in his shirt, hauling him closer. Begging him wordlessly to continue feasting from her lips. Tasting her soul. He groaned again. His arms came around her, dragged her off the floor. Wild, wanton, she wrapped her legs around his hips and tangled her fingers into his short, wavy hair.

He sank his teeth into her lower lip and she arched. The thick length of his erection ground against the front of her jeans and her skin caught fire. Gasping for breath, she could only moan helplessly as he held her as easily as if she were made of feathers, ground himself against her, devoured her identity and her willpower with a bruising kiss that would be sure to leave her lips swollen when he was done.

Arousal filled her so hard, so shockingly hot and fast, that she reeled.

It had been too long.

Why? Why a cop? A bad cop, even?

And then his hand crept under her shirt and she forgot that, too. Her world was suddenly comprised of the feel of his callused palm against her naked waist. Her ribs. And then hard and warm over the soft pink cup of her bra. She thrust herself into his hand, her fingers tight at the back of his neck.

“Not a good idea,” he groaned against her mouth, each syllable a throaty curse. “Wait, stop, I—The hell!” He staggered, jarring Katya out of her reverie as somewhere beyond that door, girls screamed.

Her eyes snapped open.

“Shit!” Nigel dropped to his knees, still cradling Katya against his chest. “Get down!” He dropped her, and arousal flipped over to utter confusion, total fear. A raid! Were they being shot at? Was that—

“The floor,” she gasped, struggling to push herself to her hands and knees. “It’s moving!”

He didn’t say anything, flattening a hand on her back. Katya grunted gracelessly as he pushed her to her stomach, and yelped as he covered her body with his. She felt dwarfed. Smothered.

Sick to her stomach.

He pushed her head down, folded his arms over her. The house shook and trembled around them. Plaster cracked, dingy white dust sifting to the floor as it rolled. Her stomach pitched and yawned; one ear plugged abruptly, and vertigo slammed into every nerve still trying to find mental footing.