Chapter 9
EVGENY
Thoughts of Eva won’t leave me alone, and they’re driving me out of my mind.
I can’t get the image out of my head. Her at the kitchen island, hunched over her phone, clutching it in both hands, tears tracking down her cheeks. I can still hear her voice, choked with emotion, as she talked to her family.
I don’t care what Vasya says. I still don’t entirely believe Eva isn’t part of some plot against me. Especially after Tsepov came to the restaurant, a known Kucherov territory. Especially after that parting shot of Tsepov’s.
I would watch your back because you never know who’s coming for it.
I should be working out what the bastard meant by that warning, deciding whether there’s any truth to it or if Tsepov is only trying to rattle me.
He might be trying to throw me off balance, to get in my head and make me slip.
The guy is oily and desperate enough to try anything to get one over on me.
I should be figuring out whether Eva is part of that plan, digging deep to find any hint of a connection with the Sokolinaya Bratva. I gave her the phone to call her family, hoping she would let something slip or call a contact.
But I can’t deny the call sounded real, the pain in their voices unfeigned and pulling at a part of me I thought long-buried. And I’m trying desperately to ignore the small part of me that gave her the phone because Vasya’s plea got to me.
So, Eva haunts me. She’s in my dreams, asleep and awake. She’s there in my mind’s eye when I should be working. And I can feel her under my skin at night when I know she’s at the opposite end of the house.
Her dark eyes bore into me, and my fingers itch to touch her again, to feel the silk of that wealth of hair and the soft warmth of her skin.
I want to taste her lips like I should have that night at the club.
I want to feel her writhing beneath me, burning with desire as she screams for the release only I can give her.
“Boss?”
Dmitri’s question jerks me out of a vision of Eva up against a wall, hair wild, hands pinned, my name on her lips as she screams through her orgasm.
“What?”
Dmitri’s eyebrows lift at my snapped reply, and I adjust myself. The thick bulge in my pants is uncomfortable.
“Did you hear what I said?”
He knows better than to ask if I’m okay, though the question is obvious on his face.
“No.”
Dmitri’s eyebrows lift further, and he licks his lips. I’ve been snapping at everyone and everything lately.
“I said the police found Vladislav dead this morning.”
His sentence brings all my thoughts to a grinding halt. Another one of my men? Murdered?
“What?”
Even I can hear the dangerous edge to my growl, the one that makes Dmitri, for once, take a step away from me.
“The police are starting to look into it,” he tells me. “I’m sorry, Evgeny. With the string of killings lately, we couldn’t keep this out of their hands.”
Anger starts as a tingle and a tightening in the center of my chest, picking up speed and intensity as it pounds through me. It builds until I finally explode to my feet, knocking over the pile of papers and books on my desk with a sweep of my fist.
“Fuck!”
Dmitri takes another uncharacteristic step back, eyes on my face as though he’s trying to decide whether I’ll turn on him. He still isn’t sure as I stalk past him toward my office door.
“Just take care of this,” I snarl back at him. “This is the last thing we need while trying to win the development contract.”
I slam the door behind me, leave my home office, and pound down the hallway to the gym I built. My body wants only one thing right now, but the punching bag will have to do.
For an hour, I work out my anger and frustration on the treadmill, the weight machines, and finally on the punching bag.
Then the security pad on the gym door lights up with a video.
Fucking Eva.
She’s wandering down the hallway, looking at the art I’ve collected over the years like she belongs here. Like this is her home instead of mine.
Dmitri talked me into letting Eva roam the halls unaccompanied, reasoning that she wouldn’t be able to escape.
I’d disagreed at first, but he’d pointed out that we would get more work out of her if she had more freedom, a point I couldn’t argue against. Her freedom, though, would come with strict rules.
And now she’s wandering in my personal space, as though having her in the same damn house isn’t challenging enough. As though she’s not here at the worst possible time when I can barely control my rage, a rage she is partly responsible for.
She nearly screams when I jerk the door open.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
She backs up two steps, her eyes wide, fear sparking in the air between us as the storm of anger rolls off me.
I yank her into the room and slam the door behind me, unwilling to let her go now that she’s the focus of my fury.
Eva stumbles as I let her go, catching herself on a weight bench, watching me warily. I can see her hands shaking, though she tries to hide it, and it makes my blood boil.
“Didn’t Dmitri tell you to stay the fuck away from the north wing? Why can’t you fucking listen?”
“I…” she starts, stumbles, then says, “I think it’s a dumb rule.”
“A dumb rule?” I echo. “You are a guest in my house, and you—”
“I’m not a fucking guest, asshole!” Eva shouts back, hands still shaking even though they’re clenched into fists at her sides.
“You’re keeping me here against my will.
You took me from my house, away from my family, and you’re forcing me to work for you under threat of my family’s well-being. That is not a guest!”
She’s up against the wall in a heartbeat, my hands and greater bulk pinning her shoulders. I see real fear in her eyes, and I relish how it feeds the rush in my blood like kindling to a fire.
“Do I have to remind you again that you’re the one who hacked into the computers of a fucking Bratva? My Bratva? You will do whatever the fuck I say, and you’ll be grateful I’m not resorting to other solutions.”
My eyes are locked on Eva’s. I hold her gaze, and I expect her to look away, cower, or try to get away as quickly as possible. But the fear subsides, and her own fury flares as she fights back, her nails digging into the skin of my arms and leaving raw scratches.
I knew she would be a fighter, and the thought makes my blood soar, a heady pulse centered at my crotch.
The moment Eva feels it pressed against her stomach, her eyes widen before narrowing. She doesn’t blush, doesn’t scream, doesn’t push me off. As I lean over her, our faces so close, I can see the way her pupils have dilated, feel the way her chest is rising and falling with shallow breaths.
“Get the fuck off me,” she says, her voice low and icy. But her palms are pressed flat on my chest, and she’s not pushing me away.
“I give orders around here, not you.”
Our mouths are inches apart, nearly brushing, as I say the words. I teeter on a precipice, dangerously close to crossing the line between anger and lust, and I’m not sure which is winning.
I don’t know which I want to win.
“Let. Me. Go.” Eva bites out each word, but her hands bunch into my sweat-soaked T-shirt, pulling me closer even as her words try to push me away.
“I’m not letting you go anywhere.”
My voice is a throaty, rumbling growl, and I realize it’s not a threat. I want her to stay. My body screams to know what she feels like, to claim her body as my own as she gives it to me.
My breath is coming in shallow gasps now, the anger exploding into desire and need so bright it might consume me.
She has one last chance to push me away, to tell me to go to hell and walk out of this room before I can’t control myself anymore. I pull away slightly, giving her the room, the opening.
She doesn’t move, and I can see the fire burning in her eyes. That’s all the invitation I need.
Our mouths crash together, kisses full-mouthed, messy, frantic, our hands grasping, exploring, demanding.
Eva pushes into me, grinding against my rock-hard dick. My growl is so low it’s more felt than heard, and I shove her back against the wall.
Instead of snapping out of it and realizing what’s happening, instead of showing fear, Eva shoves me back before fisting her hands deeper into my shirt and rising to her toes to devour my mouth, her tongue raking against my teeth.
I take just enough time to haul my shirt over my head and strip off her sweater and bra before I’m on her again.
Her breasts are perfect, round, and pert, big enough to fill my hands without spilling over.
My tongue laps at the stiff peaks of her nipples until she lets out her first moan, then shudders as I brush my thumb against the other nipple, her heart pounding beneath my palm.
That’s what I want. That’s the image I’ve had running through my mind since Eva arrived. I imagined her squirming under me, entirely lost to my power and the pleasure I’m giving her.
My hand finds the crotch of her leggings, and she gasps as my finger runs over the mound hidden within the thin fabric. I drag the stretchy fabric down and plunge my hand into her panties, parting the soft curls to feel her warm, wet folds.
“Oh.” Eva’s mouth rounds, kisses forgotten, and her eyes close as I slip first one finger, then two inside her dripping pussy. The way her head rolls back, the way she presses herself against me, squirming deliciously, makes my breath hitch.
I work her fast and hard, too raw and too drunk on what I feel to be softer or slower. But Eva doesn’t mind, her breath coming in sharp gasps and moans that soon become loud, impassioned cries.
She surges and cries out, her back arching away from the wall, her pussy swelling and pulsing around my fingers.
Eva breathes heavily as the waves of orgasm wash over her, her eyes half-lidded as she stares at me.
“Well,” she purrs, trying to move away from the wall, “that was…”
“I’m not done with you yet.”