Midnight Alpha (20 page)

He gave an impatient shake of his head. “And what do you think would have happened to you if I had been responsible? If I had been the ruthless, cold-hearted bastard you believed me to be and I discovered what you were doing? Ah yes, I remember now—you mentioned something about being fitted for a pair of concrete shoes!”

“Don’t mock me, Gregori,” she choked.
 

“You think I’m mocking you?” he ground out harshly. “I assure you, in my father’s day such an outcome would not have been so implausible.”

“You’re just trying to frighten me again now—”

“Think yourself lucky that is all I’m doing, because what I would really like to do is wring this delicate little neck!” His fingers curled about her nape, firmly enough to hold her in place, but not enough to bruise as he loomed over her in the darkness. “If I didn’t know how much you would enjoy it, I would give you the spanking you deserve for your reckless behavior!”

“Do it,” she groaned. “Punish me if it will make you feel better.”

Gregori looked down at her searchingly, noting the fever in her eyes, the flush to her cheeks, her lips still slightly swollen from their lovemaking earlier this evening. “Are you wet just at the thought of it, Gaia?” he prompted huskily.

“Yes, damn you!” she choked.

“Let me feel for myself how wet you are.” He pushed her gown up to run his hand along the length of her thigh until he reached the dampness of her panties. “Do you want me to touch you, Gaia?” He could feel the pulsing of her clit as he ran his fingers along the outside of the lace thong.

“Yes. Please!” Gaia gasped as she arched up into that too-soft contact.

“Are your nipples still sore from earlier?”

“Yes…” she breathed softly, letting out a hissing breath as Gregori first cupped her breast and then rolled the swollen nipple between his finger and thumb.

“Pleasure as well as pain,” he mused huskily.

“Yes…” Gaia was so aroused at this dual assault on her nipple and those stroking fingers.

“How badly do you want it, Gaia? Tell me!” he rasped sharply when she didn’t answer.

“Very badly,” Gaia gasped as Gregori’s fingers stroked harder along her swollen labia before pinching her clit. “As badly—wickedly—as you want it to be. Oh
please
!” She arched up again, still wanting more.

Gregori looked down into those pleading golden eyes as he felt Gaia’s juices flowing over his stroking fingers, watching her face as he thrust two fingers deep inside her. He relished her breathy groans as he deliberately found and stroked that knot of muscles deep inside her.

“How does that feel, Gaia? Tell me, describe your pleasure to me.” He gave her nipple another pinch.

“It’s heat,” she gasped. “Aching heat. So good.
So good
…” she groaned as he rubbed her clit with his thumb.

“And this?” He thrust inside her with one finger now, using her juices on the other to stroke along the dampness of her bottom, pressing, testing for entry. “Do you like this, Gaia?” He pressed harder, almost penetrating. “Do you?”

“Yes,” she hissed as he penetrated further.

“Would you let me take you here, Gaia?” he breathed against her ear. “Would you let me put my cock inside you here?”

“I don’t know… I… Yes!” she groaned, throat arching as he thrust in further still.

“Has anyone else ever—”

“No!” she gasped. “Never.”

“Describe how it feels to me. Tell me—”

“As you said, pleasure and pain,” she gasped. “It burns, but it’s oh-so-pleasurable too.”

“My cock would feel better, though, hmm?” he pressed. “Filling you up, stretching you until you couldn’t be stretched any further.”

“Yes… Oh God, yes!” Her eyes closed as her head fell weakly back against the seat.

Gregori wanted that too.

Wanted to feast between Gaia’s thighs, have her suck his cock in the way that gave him such delicious pleasure, and then he would thrust inside her, time and time again, anywhere she would take him. And she would take him
everywhere
, her responses now leaving him in no doubts that she would welcome his complete possession.

The problem with possessing Gaia was that Gregori knew he would also be possessed in return, and this woman had already taken too much of him,
owned
too much of him.

“Please, Gregori…” she encouraged achingly.

“No.”

“No?” her eyelids fluttered open and she looked up at him dazedly as his thrusts and the stroking abruptly ceased.

“No.” he repeated with deliberate coldness as he removed his hand and sat back on his own side of the car. “Unless of course you like to perform in front of an audience?” He took a handkerchief from the breast pocket of his jacket and began to wipe her juices from his fingers. “In which case I believe I would prefer that you suck my cock. I’m sure that Lijah would enjoy imagining himself in my place—”

“Stop it!” she gasped. “Why are you doing this?” She gave a shake of her head.

He shrugged. “Because it appears I can.”

“Go to hell!” Gaia choked as she hastily straightened her clothes, totally humiliated by the coldness of Gregori’s tone and the things he was saying to her even as she inwardly cringed at the intimacies she had just allowed. Allowed? She had been begging for it. “You bastard!” she choked as she blinked back tears of humiliation.

But what had she expected?

She had as good as admitted that she’d initially thought he could be responsible for Angela’s death. He now knew that she had lied and deceived him from the beginning, and she’d still seriously expected him to want to make love to her again?

Idiot
.

He had been playing with her just now, proving once again that he was the stronger of the two of them—as if she didn’t already know that—and that he could bend and shape her, arouse her, do whatever the hell he wanted with her anytime he damn well felt like it.

Whatever she may feel for him, Gregori didn’t feel the same way about her, and she would do well to remember that in future.

In the future?

There was no future for her with Gregori.

Above all, she needed to get away from him. As far away as she could possibly get, before he completely destroyed her.

She sat stiffly on her side of the car. “Would you instruct Mr. Smith to drive me to my apartment, please?”

Gregori gave a humorless smile. “I’m sure we both know that isn’t going to happen.”

“I-want-to-go-to-my-apartment!” her voice was low but determined.

“You’re an intelligent woman, Miss Miller,” he drawled, “as such you know that your actions mean it is not safe for you to return there yet.”

“My actions?” Gaia wasn’t going to be responsible for ‘her actions’ if he called her Miss Miller one more time in that condescending tone! “It was one of your enemies that shot at me,” she reminded disgustedly.

His mouth thinned. “That matter is being dealt with.”

“Really?” Gaia taunted. “By ‘dealt with’ do you mean eliminated?”

“Only as a last resort,” Gregori rasped dismissively.

“How reassuring!” She eyed him scathingly, relieved to have something to focus her anger on. Humiliation didn’t even begin to cover how she felt right now.

“Do not pass judgment on things you do not understand,” he dismissed.

“Then help me understand.” She turned to look at him. “You told me Orlov believes that you killed his son, but not why he believes that?”

“I cannot discuss that with you.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

Gregori’s nostrils flared. “Won’t.”

“As I thought.” Gaia felt a perverse satisfaction in his discomfort. It seemed only fair after the way he just humiliated her.

Gregori gave an impatient shake of his head. “It is not my secret to tell.” If Gaia believed he was unaffected by what had happened between them just now, she would be wrong.

He didn’t
want
to alienate Gaia. He
had
to. For her sake as well as his own. Hopefully the threat of Ivan Orlov would soon be over, but there would always be other enemies, other threats to his leadership of the Markovic family.

Just the thought of falling in love with a woman, any woman, and having to keep that woman permanently safe, to worry and fret about her when she was out of his sight, was enough to make him shudder.

Dair manages to love Katya and keep her safe
, a little voice reminded inside his head,
they are even having a baby together
.

Then perhaps Dair was a braver man than he was, because the thought of Gaia being in permanent danger, simply because she was with him, was totally unacceptable to Gregori.

“This man did something to your sister, didn’t he?”

Gregori turned sharply to look at her. Gaia
did
know him, too well it seemed.

“If he did then I understand why you might have felt the need for…retribution. I feel the same way about the man who killed Angela.” She drew in a ragged breath. “She didn’t take drugs, Gregori, ever, and I want him to suffer, in the way she must have suffered—”

“You will leave me to deal with that situation —”

“I don’t think so,” she scorned.

Gregori’s hands clenched into fists in his frustration with her stubbornness. What was the point of saving her from the danger of being involved with him if she was going to throw herself in front of danger of another sort?

None at all
, that voice taunted again inside his head,
so you might just as well take what you can while you can.

He was not an animal, damn it, no matter what Gaia may now think to the contrary after the way he behaved a few minutes ago.

He regretted doing that to her; knew he’d behaved as the bastard she accused him of being.

It was the only way he knew of putting her at arm’s length and keeping her there, even if it meant the possibility of Gaia ever willingly making love with him again was now extremely remote.

He sighed as he confided reluctantly. “There has been a drug problem in Utopia for some months, and someone working at Utopia is involved—”

“Not Angela,” she maintained stubbornly.

“Nikolai has been working hard on this problem today and now believes he has narrowed the possible culprit down to one of five people.”

He also knew that two out of those five people were Rick Turner and Claude le Coeur, the same two men Gaia had been talking and laughing with earlier tonight…

“Am I allowed to know who those five people are?”

His jaw tightened as Gaia once again seemed able to discern his thoughts. “No.”

“That’s what I thought.” Gaia nodded before glancing out the window as the car came to a stop in front of Gregori’s home. “I hope, for both our sakes, that Nikolai resolves this situation soon.”

Because she really couldn’t continue to stay in the same house as Gregori for much longer.

“I’m going back to Utopia for a few hours,” he informed her after walking her to the door and seeing her safely inside.

Gaia wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say to that. Have fun? Don’t work too hard? Find my sister’s killer? So she said nothing, instead turning on her heel and walking up the stairs to the bedroom that felt even more like a prison than it had the previous night.

But she was totally aware of Gregori watching her each step of the way, could feel those eyes on her before the front door softly closed behind him as he left.

Chapter 14

Music.

Trapped between that twilight of waking and still sleeping, it was the music, the soft and beautiful notes of a piano playing, that finally pulled Gaia all the way into wakefulness.

She lay in the darkness for several minutes, slightly disorientated, just listening, being soothed by that music before turning her head to look at the luminous clock on the bedside table. It was five in the morning, which meant she had only been asleep for a couple of hours. She had been too agitated to fall asleep, and had tossed restlessly for several hours after Gregori returned to Utopia.

He must be home now though, listening to classical music downstairs to relax himself after a long night.

She didn’t even stop to consider whether or not he would welcome her intruding into his solitude as she threw back the sheets and pulled on her robe before padding barefoot out of the bedroom. At least she had one of her own nightshirts to wear tonight beneath her own knee-length robe. She followed the sound of that music down the stairs; several lamps were once again left on to light her way.

She liked classical music even if she couldn’t tell one piece from another, let alone name the composer. At the moment, she very much liked whatever composer Gregori was currently listening to.

The music was haunting, touched something deep inside of her, and she could feel the emotion behind each note. A solitude and loneliness that touched a chord in her own heart.

Whoever had composed the music was also alone. Gaia could feel it, recognize it, and she
ached
with that same loneliness.