Chapter 9
Maksim
I’d told myself to stay away. To cut the thread clean, like Konstantin had said. But the truth was I hadn’t slept that first night. Not a goddamn hour.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her. The stubborn tilt of her chin. The tremor in her hands she tried to hide. The way she had cockily said “nothing that concerns me” when it was obvious that she and the fact that she’d heard things she shouldn’t have was the concern.
Over the past week, I’d avoided Konstantin’s pointed questions—and I’d stalked my pretty little kиса (kisa).
I saw the way she fearlessly walked most places.
I watched the kindness she showed strangers.
I studied her schedule—where she went and when, how long she spent there.
Every little detail I filed away with the information I’d received from my informant.
Her initial determination and desire to become a doctor.
How she had dropped out to care for her mother after she had been out of work due to a severely broken arm after slipping and falling on ice.
When her breath clouded in front of her one late night as she walked home, I found myself wanting to swallow it. I’d growled out loud in the solitude of the SUV as I saw a couple of men call out to her as she passed.
So, yeah, I should have eliminated the risk and walked away. Instead, I walked straight into her fucking bar. The second I spotted her, I saw the recognition flash in her eyes.
As I closed in, the thrill of power coursed through me at the way she battled her fear. She nearly dropped the glass she was drying and a dark satisfaction bloomed in my chest.
Up close, without the mask and the ballroom between us, she was prettier than I remembered. Pretty, yes, but it was the fire she used to bury her fear that had burned into my memory. And I wanted it again.
So I leaned against her bar like I belonged there. “Vodka,” I replied, and when she reached for the good stuff, I was inordinately pleased. Like a hawk, I watched as she poured it, then I let my fingers hover just close enough to make her breath catch.
“Your name,” I softly demanded once again, as if a sleepless night hadn’t passed since the last time I’d asked.
I could practically see her thoughts as she considered lying to me.
Finally, she gave me a stiff smile and drawled, “Bartender.”
Unbelievably, I had to fight an actual grin. She thought she could brush me off with that “bartender” line, but I wasn’t actually interested in names I already knew tonight. Suddenly, I wanted something I shouldn’t. One corner of my mouth lifted as I upped the ante. “Not good enough, Sofia.”
I clocked every detail of her response. The catch in her breath, the slight widening of her pretty green eyes, and the way her pulse throbbed in the smooth column of her neck.
My gaze trailed along her light golden skin from her visibly pounding heartbeat down to the impressive swell of her breasts exposed at the top of her tank top.
Oh yeah, tonight I wanted cracks. It was on the verge of insanity, but I wanted to see where she bent and where she broke.
So I did something I hadn’t done in longer than I remembered—I flirted.
And I smiled—a predator’s smile disguised in charm and cunning. For more years than I could count, I’d been a chameleon, able to blend into any scenario. I’d charmed women from all walks of life and that’s what I did with her.
Not the way men do when they want a woman to laugh. Instead, I let my eyes linger too long, my voice dip too low, my words coil just enough to make her wonder if she should step back—or lean closer.
Imagine my wicked pleasure when she leaned.
Shamelessly, I used the noise levels to my advantage as I met her over the bar to speak closer to her ear. My gaze wandered after the sway of her perfectly rounded ass as she skillfully moved from customer to customer throughout the night.
Several times, she and the man I knew was the owner were bouncing from customer to customer and filling the trays of the two waitresses that were doing their best to keep up. A foreign feeling spread through me each time she returned to visit with me as soon as everyone was served.
At one point, she rested on her elbows, bringing her face close to mine. “Your name,” she demanded playfully in a mock baritone.
An honest grin curved my lips. “Maksim.”
“Maksim,” she repeated, letting the syllables roll over her tongue.
She tried to hide it, tried to keep the banter light, but every time my hand brushed hers as she passed me a glass, every time I bent just close enough that my breath stirred the hair at her temple, her pulse jumped. She didn’t even know she was telling me everything I needed to know.
“What time do you get off tonight, kisa?” I asked her.
Her brows pinched in the center as she gave me a questioning smile, which I pretended not to notice.
“I close.”
Of course, I already knew that.
By the time her shift ended, the tension between us was practically thick enough to suffocate. I didn’t ask if she wanted company. Instead, I walked her out, matched her stride, let her think it was her choice when she didn’t stop me at her front door, under that damn flickering light.
“It’s not much,” she offered apologetically as we entered her home.
Inside, her apartment was tiny, cluttered—yet…
human. Halloween decor was peppered all over the small space.
It was a world away from Popov’s chandeliers and Boris’s polished studies.
But I didn’t care about the peeling paint or the stack of unpaid bills on the counter.
I cared about the way she looked at me—like she knew I was dangerous and wanted me anyway.
“Maksim—” she started as she turned toward me, but I was already there.
I kissed her because I had to, because not kissing her wasn’t an option. It was as if I didn’t taste her that fucking minute, it would have killed me. She kissed me back with the fierceness that I’d recognized that first night.
When I broke free of the kiss and scraped my teeth along the sensitive flesh of her neck, her head fell back. She clutched the fabric of my jacket like she’d been waiting her entire life for someone to send her up in flames.
We didn’t make it far. Clothes scattered like fallen leaves as we stumbled into her bedroom. With a single glance at the bed that would be much too small for me, I laid her down, her body pressed under mine.
Together we ignited. It was the kind of heat that didn’t ask permission and didn’t promise tomorrow. She was soft where my world was sharp, but she met me as I knew my little kisa would—with teeth and nails and fire.
Needing to taste her, I pushed off and spread her legs as I settled my mouth on her wet cunt. I groaned when my tongue swiped through her, and she cried out my name.
“Maksim!” Her back arched off the bed, and I looped my arms around to hold her where I wanted her. Then, I devoured her.
Her fingers tangled in my hair as she grabbed hold with a punishing grip. She tried to stay quiet, but I was relentless. I didn’t stop until a guttural scream burst free as she came all over my face.
Primally satisfied, I wiped my face with her sheet before prowling back up her voluptuous curves. The dazed wonder in her soft green eyes made me want to beat on my chest.
When I hooked my hand under her knee and lifted her leg, she eagerly reached for my aching length. I took her hand and pinned it above her head. Then I held her gaze as I slowly slid my cock in her still-throbbing pussy.
“Oh fuck,” she gasped when I drove myself deep into her tight sheath.
With each determined thrust, we panted. I stared into her eyes until she closed them. “That won’t do,” I grunted out as I wrapped my hand around her throat and lightly squeezed. “Look at me.”
Her dark lashes lifted and her plump lips parted.
“You watch me as I fuck you. You understand?” I snapped.
“Yes,” she choked out.
“That’s my good little kisa,” I crooned before I lowered my mouth to hers briefly. Just long enough for her to taste herself on my tongue.
Then, for a few stolen hours, I let myself forget who I was.
When dawn bled through the blinds, I slid out of her bed, careful not to wake her. She looked peaceful for the first time since I’d seen her, lashes fanned against her cheeks, already plump lips swollen from my kisses and being wrapped around my cock.
The way I hungrily watched her sleep told me I should have walked away without a second thought. Unable to look away, I pulled on my pants as her perfectly rounded tits rose and fell with each breath.
But my phone buzzed, shattering the quiet.
Konstantin.
I hit the fuck-you button and shoved my phone in my pocket. I’d deal with him later. Quickly and efficiently, I gathered my scattered clothes and finished dressing. My reflection in her bathroom mirror looked the same—same cold eyes, same scar down my jaw—but something in me had shifted.
Ignoring it, I let myself out of her apartment, ensuring the door was locked behind me.
Years of training had me descending without a creak of the ancient stairs.
Until my phone vibrated again and the last step groaned at my weight.
The door at the bottom of the stairs flew open and a guy stepped out with a scowl.
His mouth opened to say something, but when I stopped in front of him, his gaping hole flapped like a fish.
Shooting him the look that made better men than him piss themselves, I dared him to say something.
Like I knew he would, he quickly backed into his apartment, slamming the door. I grinned as I heard three locks slide into place. Then I exited the building.
As I walked back to the bar where I’d left my SUV, my phone vibrated for a third time.
I swiped the screen and brought it to my ear.
“You’ve lost your mind,” he said before I could speak. His voice was calm, too calm. “Tell me you didn’t.”
I didn’t answer.
The silence stretched, heavy with everything I wasn’t saying.
Finally, he exhaled a curse in Russian. “Christ, Maksim. You don’t fuck the liability. You erase her. You know this. You should’ve let Dima deal with this. You’re thinking with your dick.”
I ended the call without saying a word, shoving the phone back into my pocket.
He was right. I should have ended her.
Instead, I’d branded her into my very skin.
And as I approached my SUV, the only thing I knew for certain was that Sofia Rodriguez wasn’t merely a problem anymore.
I was going to play with her for a while.