Chapter Sixteen
Dmitri licked his lips and cursed when someone knocked on the door.
“Hold,” he barked. It was one thing to have Keira spread for him on his desk.
It was entirely another to have any of his men witness the show.
It was for Dmitri and Dmitri alone. He kissed first one thigh and then the other. “I have a task for you.”
She blinked those hazel eyes at him. “I’m going to need a minute before I regain the use of my legs.”
Sheer satisfaction flared. The sated look written over her face was his doing. She’d be feeling the aftereffects of pleasure for a while now, and every time she did, she’d think of him.
Tomorrow, he’d give her more to think about.
“Dmitri,” she prodded. “The task.”
He dragged himself back to what had to be the priority. “I need you to take charge of the reception.”
“What? No.”
He spoke quickly and firmly. “This is important, Keira. I’m not giving you busy work.
This will be our first event as a married couple, and as such, we’ll have half a dozen families there who want to kill each other.
Your family will be there, which means both the Sheridans and Hallorans will be represented as well.
Ivan and his wife will be there, watching to report back any weakness they see.
It is vital that it proceeds without any issues. ”
She thinned her lips, but finally nodded. “I don’t know how to throw a party.”
“I find that hard to believe. You might have never been a host, but you’ve seen countless ones put together.” He saw the flicker of doubt and relented. “I have a woman who I usually hire to take care of these types of things. I’ll set up a meeting for the two of you in the morning.”
“Okay.” She hesitated. “Are you coming to bed?”
A loaded question if he’d ever heard one.
“Not tonight.” It was more complicated than he wanted to go into, but it had become increasingly clear that Keira truly could be his if they could get out of each other’s way long enough to make it happen.
Dmitri didn’t think he knew how to do that any more than she did, and they didn’t have the luxury of time to figure it out.
Sink or swim.
Those were their only options.
He caught her around the waist, holding her in place, and waited until she met his gaze. “I want to. I would give damn near anything to spend the rest of the night with you. But if I come upstairs now, we will fuck, and you need time.”
“I think I know what I need more than you do.”
He tightened his grip. “You need sleep more than you need my cock. Part of what it means to be a leader is making personal sacrifices. Not being with you tonight is a sacrifice that has to be made.”
Keira finally nodded. “I get it.” He released her, and she immediately slid off the desk and went to grab his robe. She shrugged into it, and a part of him mourned the loss of the view.
“Have dinner with me tonight—tomorrow night, I mean.”
“We already tried that—several times.”
“No politicking. No guests. Just you and me.”
Keira tied the cloth belt and hesitated. “Fancy shit?”
As much as he wanted to have her the way she was now, her hair tangled from their earlier fucking, her skin flushed from her orgasm, naked but for his robe, he wanted to capture that glamorous version of her, too. He permitted himself a smile. “Fancy shit.”
“Then hold on to your ass, Romanov. I’ll show up ready to wow.” She strode out of the office, and he watched her go. It was a gamble putting her in charge of anything, but one he had to take.
More, one he wanted to take.
What would Keira become if given the freedom and power to do so?
Only one way to find out.
Alexei appeared in the doorway after Keira had left. “There’s new information on the Eldridges. I sent it to your computer.”
“Spasibo.”
He spent the next hour wading through the new intel.
He needed to know how Alethea had secured Mae’s bail.
Obviously the woman had dirt on someone higher up, and knowing who would be vital in continuing on this path.
If she was doing something as mundane as blackmail, her victim would likely thank him for removing the issue.
If it was a partner or some sort, that changed things.
The problem was that Keira’s scent had permeated the office.
With every inhale, he was transported back to the vision of her spread out on his desk, her hazel eyes hooded with pleasure, her body primed for him.
All he wanted was to leave the office and climb the stairs to the master suite so he could finish what they’d started here.
The phone rang, and Dmitri took a few precious seconds to get his head on straight and check the time—five a.m.—before he answered. “Romanov.”
“I have the location for you.” Cillian O’Malley’s voice was perfectly businesslike, just like it was every time he was forced to deal with Dmitri.
He didn’t even blame the man for it. If their situations were reversed, he imagined he’d feel the same. The only difference was that Dmitri wouldn’t show his dislike every time they interacted and give his enemy ammunition to further get under his skin.
There wasn’t time for any of that at the moment. “I’m listening.”
“I’ve e-mailed it all over, though you’ll have to click through a few links to unscramble it.”
Dmitri blew out a silent sigh of relief. He’d been sure Cillian had the skill set, but it was one thing to be sure in theory and another to have the man following through on his promise. “If I find them, I’ll relay the information.”
“No, you won’t, and we both know it. Which is why Mark will be arriving shortly.”
Fuck. The last thing he wanted to deal with was an O’Malley man underfoot.
They had enough going on without adding to the dynamic, and he didn’t know how Keira would react.
Would she be pleased to see Mark? The thought didn’t sit well with Dmitri.
Mark lived in the O’Malley house. He would have had unlimited access to her over the years.
Dmitri wasn’t aware of their relationship being anything other than platonic, but he’d also missed the fact that Seamus had hurt Keira.
Going home had done a number on her. He hadn’t had a chance to address it yet, but that was the event where everything pivoted.
She might not have been settling in here, exactly, but she’d withdrawn after going back to Boston.
Dmitri initially thought it was because of homesickness, but she walked out of that house with ghosts in her eyes.
“Romanov.”
He shook his head. He shouldn’t be mentally wandering while on the phone with an O’Malley. Even Cillian. Especially Cillian. “I’ll discuss it with Keira, and we’ll make arrangements for him to stay where she’s most comfortable.” Somewhere not in this fucking house.
“You’re really married to this fantasy that she wants to be there, aren’t you?”
“I’m really married to her.”
Cillian cursed. “She’s barely more than a child.”
“She’s twenty-one and more than capable of making her own decisions. But that’s the problem, isn’t it? Not that you think I forced her, but that she chose me.”
“I know how you operate. You wouldn’t have to force her if you leaned hard enough on the right pressure points.”
It was a valid argument, and it was how Dmitri pushed Keira into coming with him in the first place. That changed nothing. “She made her choice. Respect it.”
“I’ll respect it when I believe it was actually her choice,” Cillian fired back.
Her family would never believe it. Even if her feelings for him turned into something real, they’d still doubt and question and chip away at the fragile balance Dmitri had fought so hard for. There was too much history between him and the O’Malleys for them to do anything else.
For the first time, he regretted the plays he’d made—just a little.
“Thank you for the information, Cillian.” He hung up before either of them could say anything further. They would never be friends, but he respected Cillian for the way he treated Olivia and Hadley.
That didn’t mean he’d let the man do whatever he damn well pleased, though.
Dmitri pulled up his information on the Eldridges and plugged the range of coordinates into his system. He doubted they’d stay in one of their publically owned properties, but he knew a number of their safe houses—the very ones Mikhail had been searching.
It was almost impossible to pin down an exact location on a phone that had been turned off or destroyed, but Cillian had noted the towers it had pinged last and created a circle that Mikhail must have been inside at the time.
The Eldridges could have snatched him off the street and transported him elsewhere, but there hadn’t been so much as a single sighting since Mae posted bail.
He didn’t doubt that Alethea had her people working on her behalf, but the Eldridge territory was on the opposite side of the city from where Mikhail had been.
No, Dmitri’s instincts said that his man had gotten too close to their hiding location.
Normally, he’d have the other man who went missing with Mikhail—Yuri—working on any electronic searches required, but he couldn’t for obvious reasons.
Dmitri had the ability to do this; it would just take him longer.
He pulled up the file he had with the addresses of known Eldridge safe houses and checked them against the map Cillian had provided, but none of them were within the range of the coordinates.
They weren’t even close enough to warrant Mikhail stumbling on the Eldridges.
Dmitri stilled. Stumbling on them. That had to have been what happened.
Mikhail was the best there was—he wouldn’t have allowed himself to get caught while confirming a property.
They must have caught him unawares, which meant they saw him before he saw them.