CHAPTER NINE
Rush
“S o you survived my cousin.”
My words are low, deliberately casual. She thinks she’s got me pegged.
Then I remember her threat. Not that kind of pegged. Pigeon-holed. Wait…is there some weird sex thing called pigeon-holed? And do I want to know?
She thinks she’s got my number. And I let her. I’m a lothario, a sexy motherfucker who likes to play around. Well, she thinks I like to play around, anyway. But I wouldn’t doubt she thinks I’m toothless in the big matters and I’ve learned people thinking I’m a weak, self-absorbed fuck boy works.
Sometimes I’m even surprised by the things they say around me.
Right up to the moment when they learn I’m anything but.
I don’t need to be Nikolai to be my own kind of dangerous.
And Jess—Well. Maybe she does have my actual number. Because she gives me a long, appraising look.
It’s a look that has a lot to say.
“He wasn’t going to kill me, Rush.”
“Are you sure? He’s a little…murdery.” I pause. “A lot.”
She sniffs, tossing her hair. “No thanks to you.”
I want to bury my face into that curved part of her neck, right at the shoulder, and breathe her in. She has a scent, soft, barely there, beneath the subtle clean of whatever shit Rose has in the guest showers.
Soft, but complex like her. Just her clean skin, almost like whiskey soaked into leather with a dose of some something else. Something utterly feminine, like those flowers, freesias. Like she’s the mass of contradictions she is.
“Oh, trust me, he would have if he wanted to. If I wasn’t there. I kept him from killing you. Maybe I’ll send you back in. Let him finish the job.”
Jess is the picture of a tough as nails chick. It’s hot, but I don’t miss the slight shake to her fingers.
Nikolai unfettered is a lot.
I’ve seen strong men almost wet themselves when faced with the pure form Nikolai. So, though I’m not telling her this, I’m impressed.
“Putting up with you or death…it’s a close call.”
“You don’t want to die yet,” I say, slinging an arm around her stiff shoulders and loving how she melts in, just a little. “You haven’t eaten. Or experienced all of me.”
“Lead me to the wall. I choose the firing squad.”
“It’s their day off.”
“Damn.” A little smile lightens her pretty face.
I kiss the top of her head and she tries to push me away. Fuck, her buttons are so damn easy and fun to push.
“C’mon, I’ll feed you before we do the tour. I’m betting Mia’s got cookies and they’re the best.”
I lead her to the kitchen.
“Are you five, Rush?”
“When it comes to cookies, I’m always and forever five.”
Mia isn’t in the kitchen and we have minimal staff at best which, considering the way Rose and Nikolai carry on is probably best. I sure as shit don’t want to pay for therapy for innocent people who work here.
Is anyone who works here innocent?
I start to forage in the cupboards.
“Lay it out, Rush,” she says behind me. “Am I a prisoner?”
I go still for a nanosecond, right as I spy a container with very familiar things in it. Grabbing the cookies, I say, “Look, this is the inner sanctum. Nikolai’s protective of us all.”
“Poor baby Rush, needs a protector.”
I narrow my eyes and turn. She’s on the island counter so I cross, setting the cookies down and slamming a hand either side of her. “He’s protective and he’s deadly. But I’m not helpless, neither is Rose. Or Dante.”
She frowns. “Who the fuck is Dante?”
With a meow, Dante appears from fucking nowhere, leaping up onto the counter where Mia doesn’t let him go. But Dante does what Dante wants, and I’m not sure who he reminds me of most. This chick? Fucking Rose? Big, scary Nikolai?
Dante gives me a long feline look, one filled with contempt, and I scratch his ears. “I’m the one who built you a condo, little dude.”
“I knew there was a cat,” she mutters, taking the cookies and opening the container. The scent of chocolate and sugary goodness fills the room. “Oh. My. God.”
I snatch it away and set it down, before getting a morsel of Nikolai’s poached chicken breast. Honestly, that man. Dante meows loudly and pounces on it.
My gaze shifts to Jess. “Why’s he so interested in who owns Bunny Munroe?” I ask. “It’s a low-rent dive—no offense—so the people aren’t ever gonna be savory. But it’s never caused us trouble.”
Until now.
She breathes out. “He’s your cousin.” Her fingers edge to the container. “You tell me.”
I shrug. “I don’t have much to do with the business.”
“Me either. I tend bar, that’s it.” Then she looks at me and my cock pays way too much attention.
I slide my hands along her thighs, parting them so I can step between them. She’s warm and pliant. When I was young, I’d take this and run. Now?
Oh, I’m still going to take. The beauty of being a player is I know when someone tries to play me.
And Jess is trying to play me.
When the time comes, I need to play it slow, cool, like I’m hunting a skittish animal. Like I imagine I’d hunt a skittish animal. I’ve never been hunting. I’ve killed. From the ripe age of nine, but I’m not the hunter that Nikolai is.
She might need a delicate hand.
She’ll also feed me my balls if she has any inkling to my thoughts. But the thing is, she just looks and feels and smells so good.
For the first time in my life, the cookies are a distant second, so far down I can’t even see them.
Jess leans in and her breath mingles with mine, it’s like a kiss from a living ghost, the tease against my mouth, and she curls her hands in my hair. Mine are sliding higher, heading to the prize. I stop just shy of it, and her breath is ragged.
Or maybe that’s mine. It’s hard to tell.
“The cookies,” I say, “are from scratch.”
I turn, skimming my nose and mouth up along the column of her throat, nuzzling against the wild burst of beats from her artery, and then across to her lips, brushing against them with my cheek.
She pushes against me, almost like she wants to pull away and get as close as possible, all at the same time. My cock’s fucking beyond hard and her thighs part a little more letting me press closer.
A soft moan escapes her. “I like from scratch.”
“Be good then…” This time, our lips touch, and I kiss a soft line across them. She follows like she wants more. Fuck, I want more.
“But I’m never good.”
“I know. That’s why I like you.” I lean my head back and her eyes are closed. I grab a cookie and slide it over her mouth and she shudders, lips parting as I feed her a bite.
I deliberately smear chocolate and a few crumbs on her lower lip. The cookies always have that melting property about them like Mia’s a witch when it comes to chocolate.
She looks divine like that, a slightly sullied goddess.
It’s so perfect that I lick it up, taking my time, sucking on her lower lip. She moans, her lips parting, and I slide in my tongue.
The kiss is slow, meandering a drawn-out meltdown that ends in flame. It’s the kind of flame a man doesn’t mind being consumed by, one that’s soaked in need and want, one that promises death by desires fulfilled.
I lift my head. “Chocolate is a perfect accompaniment to you, Jessie.”
“I’m not food.” She lets go of my hair to run her fingers along my chest, over my nipples and I may as well be naked in this kitchen, that’s how much I feel the slip and scrape of her touch.
The rough edge is exactly what I need, desire, and I feed her a little more cookie, licking her lips and into her mouth right after I do. I don’t have even the remotest hint of food fetish. I’ve never covered a girl in cream and licked her clean.
Not even my own.
But with Jess? Fuck, I want to paint her in chocolate and lick every inch of her. I want to dive into the layers. I move my fingers up against her cunt and she thrusts into me, her hand at my fly, her palm against my cock.
I lick all the chocolate from her mouth, her tongue, and it’s no longer just chocolate. It’s Jess and chocolate.
There’s a sound, a rumbling, like my motor’s revved all the way to a thousand, like the blood roaring in my ears and—
“Rush?”
Jess goes stiff, which is my job. And I will the owner of that voice away.
When Rose doesn’t say anything else, I lick a spot behind Jessie’s ear, and she melts.
“Rush.”
Fuck.
“Stop,” Jess whispers. “We’re not alone. I mean, we shouldn’t be—”
“It’s fine.” I don’t want her words. I know we shouldn’t be doing this. I’m not sure she likes me. She wants me, but it’s not the same and I don’t care.
“Rush.”
“Rose?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says. “Nikolai wants you before you show, uh, Jess around.”
“Told you,” Jess says.
“Go away, Rose.”
I kiss Jess again, but she tries to wiggle free. I lift my mouth, sighing, and whisper, “Rose’ll go away.”
And I pull Jess back in before she gathers her resolve and her sound mind and dive down into a deep kiss before Rose taps me on the shoulder.
This time I stop and let Jess wiggle away.
“Rose? Do I do that when you and Nikolai are being disgusting?”
Her eyes go big and round. “You spy?”
“No!”
Jess shifts over to the furthest edge of the island, taking the cookies with her and gets another one. The one I fed her’s sitting on the bench, which I try not to take personally.
I shove a hand through my hair and count to ten, trying to get my erection under control.
“Couldn’t you assess the situation Rose,” I mutter. “Make an executive decision and pretend you couldn’t find me?”
“Don’t mind me,” Jess says. “As prisoner I should have rights under international fucking law. And shouldn’t be subjected to manhandling.”
“It’s called a blessing,” I say. “You were kissed by Rush.”
She just looks at me.
Rose crosses her arms, and I eat the abandoned cookie.
“I’ve got the cookies, I’m good,” Jess says.
Rose flicks a look at me, then Jess, and finally a soft smile at the devil himself. Who purrs. “Eat all the cookies, Jess, and I’ll have to take you down.”
Mia bustles through. “We’ll make some more, Rose.” Then she sets her gaze on Jess. “Oh, good. You can help with lunch.”
“I don’t cook,” Jess says as Dante pours himself off the bench so he doesn’t get the sharp side of Mia’s tongue.
“You can learn,” Mia says.
“Are there any other females in this house who want to come in here?” I mutter. “Interrupt a man’s time with his cookies?”
“They’re my cookies now,” Jess says.
But Mia and Rose did do one thing. They killed my boner.
“I’ll be back, okay, Jessie?” I grab a handful of cookies and get singed by the heat of Jess’s look, and go to Rose, giving her half the cookies. I wait until we’re at the door. “What does he want, Rose?”
“Your head, probably.” We head out the door to the main part of the mansion.
“His not working? I mean his head on his shoulders not his—” She hits my ass. “Ow, you’re very violent. Niko’s rubbing off on you.”
We head out and she stops, leaning against the wall in the hall as she nibbles a cookie. “What are you doing, Rush?”
“Walking with a sexy lady?” But I sigh. “C’mon she’s hot, she saved my life. She warned me of gang activity.” I blow out a breath. “Jokes aside? Why would she get stabbed?”
“I don’t know,” Rose says. “But Nikolai always has a reason. This is Smith territory, formally no man’s land, or so he said…”
“So he thinks it’s the perfect breeding ground for more trouble. He thinks I’m the slick outside the world sees. He thinks he needs to protect me because, what? I’m an idiot?”
Rose puts her hand on my arm and she then rests her head against me, too. She’s the softness of Nikolai. “He doesn’t think that.”
I swallow. She doesn’t know what a fuck up I was as a kid, and to Nikolai, not wanting the mantle’s the same as fucking up. “He gave me a task and I’m doing it.”
“With your tongue down her throat.”
I wrap my arms around her and hug her, breathing that sweet rose of her in. “Where’s Genius when I need her?”
Her best friend’s pretty damn cool.
“She’s in Italy causing havoc.” Rose is quiet. “You do know the reason he wants to protect us is…it’s Nikolai. He protects to show his feelings, his love.”
To her? Yeah. To me? Nikolai wants me to be badder, harder, more like him, because in Nikolai’s world, more like him is safer.
I’m not.
“Nikolai thinks emotion is weakness.” She pulls free, finishes a cookie and frowns. “Or showing them is weak.”
“He shows it with you.”
“And you, Rush. We’re his life and his family. He wants you to take care of this—”
“Because I fucked up.”
“You’re more like him than you think. Both stubborn assholes.” She darts off to straighten a vase with flowers from her garden Nikolai had put in for her. Roses, peonies, poppies, dahlias, all the frilly, girly flowers. And they bloom most of the year.
She touches a petal.
“You know that he asked you to do whatever he asked you to do for a reason, right?” She’s being vague and then I realize it’s because if Jess escaped Mia’s clutches, somehow, she wants to keep it generic.
And okay, I love Rose the mafia boss lady. A lot.
“Yeah,” I say, “And—”
“Trust, Rush. He’s trusting you.”
“Maybe.”
“I’m his wife, I know.”
“I just think you like saying wife.” I give her a long, hard look as I tuck her hand into the crook of my arm and I lead her down the hall. “Speaking of, you’re getting long in the tooth. Ever think about a brother or sister for Dante? He’s an only cat. It might be going to his head.”
“I’m not sure Nikolai’s going to allow another cat.”
Like that ever bothered Rose.
Suddenly she leans in to me. “Rush?” Eyes wide. “Do you know he’s got a bird enemy, it’s been hanging out in the garden for weeks. Frenemy?”
Not the bird Jess mentioned, then.
“Benemy?” Then I stop, take a bite of a cookie. “Nikolai or the cat?”
N ikolai’s talking to me, but I’m not listening. It’s crowded in here. Half my mind’s on how good Jess fucking tastes. The other half is running wild. Does Rose want me to see how Nikolai feels about another cat? Then again, they made eyes at each other when we came in, so maybe I should just get a cat. Would Jess like cats? What the fuck am I even thinking? Shit—
“Did you mention aliens?” I ask casually.
Nikolai looks at the last two cookies I’m holding. “Mia’s?”
I nod.
He holds out a hand and I give them to him.
He has his with whiskey.
“Yeah,” he says, “I did. I wanted to see if you were paying attention. We don’t have much on Jessica Carabella. Other than she has a brother who’s into motorcycle gangs and petty thievery. So, pay attention when you show her around, get close, find out what you can.”
“She’s not going to talk. She already knows she’s basically a prisoner.”
“Guest.”
“Who can’t leave.”
He shrugs. Drums his fingers on the desk. “The fucking attack shouldn’t have happened.”
I think about it.
“So they were watching me? The guys who jumped me?”
Nikolai looks at me. “What does that tell you?”
I hate it when he’s like this. Another fucking lecture. I get it. I’m heading toward thirty and I fucking despise that I keep coming across as a failure, that Nikolai thinks I need his protection. I don’t. I’m not him, but I can take care of myself. I can fight and kill. How is it my fault I don’t want to rule the fucking world as the prince of fucking darkness?
That’s his job.
There’s trouble here, though. He smells it and I can, too. “It tells me I was being watched, and targeted and maybe it’s important to know why. I don’t go making enemies. Unless they’re disgruntled boyfriends.”
“Or yours.”
“Yours, Nikolai.”
He doesn’t look amused.
“I think it’s not telling me much but it’s making me ask questions.”
“Like?”
Ah, fuck. Now I feel like a master betrayer. And I shouldn’t. I don’t know Jess. “I’d ask why she was at the ready to come and save me.”
“Yeah, my thoughts, too,” he says, frowning.
I eye the bottle of whiskey on the desk, remembering the night at the bar when I had one cracked over my head. Fuck, had that hurt. “Maybe she helped because I stepped in where I shouldn’t have, or maybe…”
Nikolai looks at me. “What?”
“Maybe she got hurt because of me.”
“And maybe she’s involved in the strange shit that’s causing small waves.”
“Maybe. Nikolai, why are we having this conversation again?”
“It’s a different one. And when you’re with Miss Carabella—”
“Is that her last name?”
Nikolai’s eyes narrow. “Yes. She also has a brother, but that’s all I have right now, so when you’re with her, think about this conversation. Got it?”
Carabella. It’s pretty, exotic in a way, and it’s her. It’s—
“Rush?”
I sigh. “Got it.”
He taps on the computer. “Tony said the bar had some guy working, didn’t seem bothered about Jess, then someone named…Steve handed him her jacket. Tony took her keys, and there’s a phone. We haven’t touched it, but make sure she gets it.”
“And let you know what she does.”
“Go show Miss Carabella around. Tony’s taking care of her place.”
I’m dismissed.
I head back to the kitchen where the scent of baking goodness hits the air. Nikolai might use his deadly brand of sophistication and violence to get things done, but that’s not me. Rather, I can’t pull off a Nikolai.
I’m going to use my good looks, my appeal she’s not immune to, and get things from her. If there’s anything to get.
She’s bent over the counter where there’s flour and a jar of premium chopped chocolate—Mia and Nikolai don’t mess with anything less than the best—by her elbow.
Jess looks up, flour streaked on her cheek, and it does something to my insides, leaving them like the aftermath of a wild storm—a total mess.
“Ready for the tour?” I ask.
“Sure,” she says. “Make sure to point out all the escape routes.”
“I will.”
Mia waves us off and I decide there’s more to Jess than I thought. And maybe Nikolai’s right, maybe I don’t need to trust her, and to do that I’ll have to keep an eye on her.
A close eye.
Like one where I touch her.
A lot.
Just in case…