Chapter 3
Stash
Deliciously decadent and destructive.
My thoughts. About her. A woman I shouldn’t desire in such a primal way or any way at all.
But I did.
What was the saying? One taste was never enough?
I’d thought of my assistant often and at all times of the day after sharing such a passionate experience.
Few women if any had created the kind of need that had managed to furrow into my system.
Try as I may, and I definitely had done so, I couldn’t erase the memory or the desire.
My only jollies were pushing her limits.
It was very enjoyable because she could give it right back.
I yanked off my glasses, tossing them aside and immediately rubbing my eyes. The ache behind them had nothing to do with coffee or exhaustion, although I’d gotten little sleep lately.
The dull throbbing at my temple bore a name and had for weeks. No, months.
Saige Fucking Mitchell.
Angel bez kryl’yev
An angel with no wings.
Otherwise known as a temptress extraordinaire.
Very few people challenged me.
In fact, I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had done so.
At least not since I’d taken the position as CFO of the Chertov Corporation or as Enforcer to the Pakhan and my cousin.
In Moscow. In Sicily. In New York. There wasn’t a single man who’d pushed what were self-imposed limitations because my reputation always preceded me.
My eyes fell down the length of Saige’s long legs, amused that she’d worn tennis shoes to the meeting.
For the first time, it was as if I’d made her nervous.
One of the reasons she’d been hired, other than her impressive resume, had been her attitude at the Christmas party that had carried into our interview.
There was no mistaking our connection, although we’d done a damn good job on pretense.
The quick look over her shoulder allowed a thrill. What the hell was I doing playing games with her? The moment was brief, but the spark that we’d both felt throughout the conversation kept the air in the room charged.
Witnessing a flash of her temper the moment she’d realized that I’d read her email was priceless. And exactly what I’d been going for.
Perhaps the game being played was unforgivable, but I was the boss.
Albeit briefly, I’d even been gifted the joy of seeing her almost lose her perfect calm, launching into me. I’d felt it before, her longing to tell me exactly what she thought and we were this close.
Laughing, I rubbed my jaw, allowing myself to take a few moments envisioning what her expression must have been when she realized I’d read her email.
Truth be told, I’d been surprised she’d made such a mistake in sending it to me instead of her intended party.
I wondered if Tawny had ever received it.
I didn’t know her friend, but I could tell the two were close.
Then again, the juicy mental lapse had been late at night, perhaps just before she’d gone to bed.
Saige Mitchell.
There it was again, the thought of her name dredging up wanton desires that shouldn’t cross my mind. Ever.
Boring. The woman had called me boring? Seriously? What was boring about me? And I did not have eight of the same suits lined up one by one. Maybe four.
With a slight shake of my head, I could laugh at myself. She’d pegged me just like I’d done with her.
As I took a deep breath while mentally enunciating the syllables in her name, I realized her perfume lingered in my personal space. Lightly floral with a hint of citrus. The scent was exactly what I’d expect a woman with full intention of remaining professional would select.
In her pencil skirts and high-necked silk blouses, her usual uniform of choice, she had no idea that every day she tested both my patience and my resolve as a man.
There was no uniform or costume that could hide the good fortune she’d been given at birth. She was a masterpiece of femininity, an hourglass figure screaming to be caressed. Every day she tried to hide the passionate woman inside, refusing to acknowledge the attraction between us.
Completely understandable and becoming impossible to navigate.
What she didn’t know was that after she’d walked away that night, I’d looked for her later. She’d disappeared. Imagine my surprise when she’d walked into my office a few weeks later. Oh, the irony.
There were days remaining professional myself was a clusterfuck of difficulties. When she bent over her desk, simply keeping my eyes off her rounded ass or preventing my hands from grabbing a handful was difficult at best.
With her ballsy personality, I hadn’t expected to be so attracted. But with her perky nose and light freckles leaving soft kisses across the bridge of her nose, I’d lost count of the number of times I’d wanted to rip out the hairpiece she always wore, fisting a handful of her luxurious dark hair.
What pushed me into an even more pronounced need were the pointed looks she’d given me since the beginning. Even though she attempted to mask her emotions, I could read one every time she stood in my presence. Anger. Frustration.
Desire.
She sinfully encompassed every one and usually on any given day.
But she was also the master of hiding her emotions, using her conservative attire as an accomplice. But being the master of observation that I’d learned to use to my advantage long ago, the first day she’d walked into my office I’d sensed her hidden pain.
How I longed to peel away her layers of clothing and at the same time her emotional fragility that held her in place. Perhaps my filthy desires were the very reason I’d locked down my emotions years before.
Long before my structured, nonconsequential, and impoverished world had shattered. Long before I’d finally accepted the identity of my birth father, his regime what nightmares were made of. And certainly years, decades before I’d accepted both a position of importance and wealth.
But I was getting ahead of myself.
My assistant was a treasure box, a puzzle to decipher piece by piece.
As with every child’s game played or experienced, I preferred taking my time, savoring every moment so that when the prize was finally revealed, I wasn’t disappointed but excited to the point of reaching what some might call nirvana.
I called it necessary fuel.
She’d experienced the extreme heat of my silence and instead of running, she’d reveled in the flames. Where most people, both enemies and acquaintances, flinched under my gaze if not running far away, she was the opposite.
She’d rushed toward me at full speed with eager and open arms.
Time had offered her more confidence.
Soon it would be time to break down her defenses.
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, completely aware of what her presence did to me. My dick was straining at the seams, the rush of adrenaline more powerful than almost anything else.
My usual silence or what some would call lack of communication skills was becoming increasingly useful as a weapon. By remaining quiet and using simple yet effective mental techniques, I’d prevented several potentially dangerous situations from occurring.
No one needed to learn anything about me other than what had been told to them. I was an anomaly to some, a violent, unpredictable freak to others.
The labels suited me just fine.
The truth was somewhere in between. I wasn’t a people person and had never been.
When accepting this job, I’d been made aware I’d be forced to deal with people, overseeing several employees in various aspects of business. Assistants were both easy to come by and completely expendable. I’d gone through several.
Her attitude at the party, her keen wit and obvious skills had landed her the position.
Now she wanted to move up. Little did she know tempting me was dangerous.
For her. I’d needed help with the rapid expansion given the company’s recent diversification into the oil and gas industry.
With her flair for numbers and an enjoyment of the hospitality industry, she’d seemed perfect.
Even though from minute one, she’d questioned everything. Every method of operation. Every decision made. I’d normally be pissed. Not with her.
Within days, I’d realized there was much more behind her haunted eyes and tight-lipped smile.
I’d suspected from the beginning that she’d heard all the rumors about me and my family. We were supposed to be monsters lurking in the shadows. Like Saige had mentioned in her email that hadn’t been intended for my eyes, we enjoyed eating the young.
What she didn’t understand was that it was not our young but our enemies.
After all I suspected she knew and the game I’d been playing with her, she was coming back for more. That took someone special. Or someone who needed money as she’d mentioned. My curiosity about her was growing.
I fingered the report she’d left for and had no doubt it was exactly what I’d asked for. Thorough. Accurate. Detailed.
While I adored numbers more than I did people, I had no desire to review her findings. Not just because I could count on their accuracy, but also because I suddenly had no interest in the report. None.
What I was curious about was if her story truly checked out.
Not just what I’d seen on paper and had people in the Chertov employ do a deep dive, providing me every glorious detail about her upbringing in Iowa.
And her illustrious rise of scholarly accolades while attending Columbia, including being on the student council.
She was a true leader hiding beneath a persona that could be passed by.
What was she hiding and was it possible she was someone I should be concerned with?
Over the course of the last three years since my half-brother’s rise to power as Pakhan, the number of challenges by entities considered enemies continued to rise.
Even though I hadn’t grown up in the world of organized crime, my mother keeping us in the shadows well into my adult life, I understood the hierarchy of regimes.
And of the required violence to keep kingdoms in power.