Kissing My Killer (29 page)

I spun around, but Konstantin had walked silently up behind me, so close that now we were almost touching. I stared up into his eyes, panting with fear.

He suddenly hooked an arm around my waist and spun me around so that I was facing the dungeon again and pulled me back against him, my ass to his crotch. I could see us in the dresser mirror: the powerful, handsome man in the suit, towering over the woman in the—God, I’d forgotten how low-cut the dress was! With the gilt edge around the mirror, it could have been some painting of a king and the maid he planned to ravish.

Alexei will be here soon,
I told myself.
Soon.

Konstantin grinned at our reflection—the slow, patient grin of the cat who has the mouse firmly trapped by the tail. I swallowed. I could feel his cock hard against my ass.

“Welcome to my world,” he whispered in my ear.

Alexei

I stood in the doorway of the main party room, one hand on the frame. I was squeezing it so hard I thought the wood might crack.

Everything had happened so fast. One minute we’d been dancing—
me, dancing!
And then suddenly she was with
him.

Gabriella and Konstantin had been downstairs for several minutes, now, and the guards were still in the hallway. They’d started to chat, talking about some Russian soccer game they’d seen that afternoon.

I couldn’t get past them—not without either getting shot or getting captured. Because we’d sneaked into the party, I had my guns with me, but shooting them wasn’t an option. I couldn’t turn this into a firefight while Konstantin had Gabriella or he’d use her as a hostage.

What the hell did she think she was doing?!
But the hardest part was, I knew exactly what had been in her head: she’d wanted to stop me running into the poker room and getting shot. She’d been worried about me and she’d put herself at risk to save me. It was the first time anyone had given a shit about me since the army.

I groaned as the guards wandered towards the door Konstantin and Gabriella had disappeared through. They took up positions around it, one actually leaning against it.

Until I could think up a new plan, Gabriella was on her own.

Gabriella

He’s coming. He’ll be here any minute.
The panic was rising in my throat, threatening to stifle my voice. I couldn’t have that. I needed my voice. I had to stall him. I had to be like that woman in
Arabian Nights
and keep him talking for hours and—

“Why don’t you start by taking off your dress?” asked Konstantin. It was phrased as a question, but it wasn’t one.

“I—Maybe we could have a drink first?”
Perfect! Well done!

“I didn’t bring you down here to sip vodka and play chess,” he said dryly. “I may give you some champagne later, but I’ll have to feed it to you. By then, you won’t be able to use your hands.”

My knees weakened.

He leaned around me and brought his lips to mine. I thought for a second he was going to kiss me, but he didn’t—not quite. He whispered, his lips so close to mine that they brushed them with each syllable. “Can you guess how I’m going to feed it to you?”

I gulped. His lips were like silk over hot, throbbing steel. I thought of them forcing my mouth open, of bubbling champagne flowing inside, accompanied by his tongue.

And then his lips were gone.
He
was gone, and I had to whip around to find him.
Jesus,
he moved fast for such a big guy. He really was like a lion, all prowling, majestic strength one second and then speed and ferocity the next. I stared at him, unable to speak. Something was happening, something that had started upstairs and was progressing with every second I stayed in his presence. It wasn’t that soul-deep
wrench
I got when I saw Alexei. It was something simpler and baser, like the shudder when you see a spider or the
aww
when you see a kitten. Not a feeling but a
reaction.

The closest I can get to it is the way a medieval king used to ride through a village and all the serfs used to bow their heads. Alexei made me feel like a princess, ravished by some rough, muscled conqueror; Konstantin made me feel like a peasant, ravished by the king.

“Take off your dress,” said Konstantin, leaning against the bed. This time, he didn’t even phrase it as a question.

I had no choice. I’d already probably acted too scared, too hesitant. If I delayed any more, he was going to guess I wasn’t a call girl sent by Vadim. And then both Alexei and I would be in danger.

I can do this.
I’d already been fully naked in the steam bath with Vadim looking on.

Except...Vadim might have appreciated me, but he hadn’t been looking to have sex with me. He wasn’t expecting to tie me up and spank me and whip me and God knows what, throw me on the bed and—

Breathe. Just breathe.

I reached back and fiddled with the zipper. Konstantin stopped leaning on the bed and straightened up, his eyes raking up and down my body. With every pass, it was as though I was being heated up by a laser.

Where the hell is Alexei? Stall! Stall!

I swallowed. “Um...I think the zipper’s stuck,” I said. “Could you…?”

Now he’d walk over to me and I could maybe accidentally turn the wrong way, moving the zipper away from him. I could do that a few times, and then I could fidget and make it difficult to get the zipper down and—

He covered the distance to me in two large paces. One big hand caught in the neck of the dress and then there was a ripping sound so loud it seemed to tear the air itself. The dress went loose around me and fell around my waist. “There,” he said in a voice like silver-coated iron. “Now it’s unstuck.”

I tried to gather the tops of the dress around me but the shreds were already hanging down over my hips. I crossed my arms in a protective “X” over my breasts, my chest heaving in fear. And yet, as his eyes burned into mine, I felt that unbidden ache in my groin.

My nipples were hardening. I told myself it was the sudden shock of the air.

“Take off the rest,” he said. “Or would you like me to rip that off you, too?”

With shaking hands, I pushed the dress off my hips. It slithered to the floor and then I was naked except for my heels. I stood there panting, staring at him, and he stared back at me. The heat in the room seemed to steadily rise and rise. Then he gripped my wrist and led me over to something that almost looked like a bench you’d find in a gym...but much, much older. The frame was made of iron, the pads from soft, dark red leather.

Konstantin pointed to it. “Get on.”

I gulped, the blood rushing in my ears. The thing was shaped like a stool, but it was too high—the seat was waist height. And there were two long pads extending from it, a little like chair arms...but instead of being up above the seat, they were down low.

It was for kneeling on, I realized. The victim knelt with their lower legs on the pads and their torso flat on the “seat.” There were black leather straps along both parts. Once in, I could be completely restrained. He’d be able to do anything he wanted to me.

I swallowed. “Umm….”

“You did say, did you not, that you’d do whatever it took to please me?” he asked. I didn’t miss the little caress his accent gave to
please.

Alexei will be here. Just hang on a few more seconds. He’ll be here.

I climbed onto the bench.

Alexei

I stood there fuming in the doorway as the seconds ticked past, my mind running wild. I knew about Konstantin’s tastes, but Gabriella had gone down there with no conception of what he was into. Right now, he might have her on her back...or on her knees. Or—

I did something I hadn’t done since the coffee shop: I lost my temper.

The hell with the four guards. Four hundred wouldn’t be enough to stop me.

I stalked into the party room, found the table with the ice sculpture and kicked a table leg hard enough to snap it off. The table fell sideways and the sculpture went crashing to the floor with a sound like the end of the world, accompanied by screams and yelps from the people around it.

I got back to the doorway just as one of the guards ran in. I swung my arm into his throat as he passed, knocking him to the ground.

That was one.

I marched down the hallway towards the remaining guards. Another one was running towards me, eyes wide at the sight of his comrade on the ground. I side-stepped him, grabbed his jacket and hurled him towards a huge ornamental vase and then walked on. Behind me, I heard the crash as he slammed into it and the groan as he fell to the floor.

That was two.

The remaining two were trying to get their guns out, but fear was making them clumsy and slow. I didn’t blame them. I’d be scared of me, too.

I reached them just as one of them finally got his gun out. I banged their heads together hard and stepped past their crumpling bodies to haul the door open.

I was halfway down the stairs when I heard a gun being cocked behind me. “
Stop there!
”

I froze. The voice was hoarse and I could see the guy’s shadow on the wall next to me: he was rubbing his neck. It was the guy I’d hit in the throat.
I should have hit him harder.

I glanced down the stairs. One door was shut—that would be the room they were in. I was
so close.
The need to just storm on down the stairs and save her was dragging my limbs forward. But the guy behind me had the drop on me. If I took another step, he was going to put two bullets in my back and I’d never get to Gabriella.

Gritting my teeth, I raised my hands.