The Master (The Game Maker #2)(24)

An entire night with him? Boundaries. I can do this. I’d still leave town next Monday. I’d have to. I’d never break my third rule to stay on the move. I believed that was the only reason I was still alive.

Besides, Sevastyan would make this easy for me. After a whole night together, the player would grow tired of me and send my ass packing.

“Ah, you’ve decided to stay,” he said, reading me so well.

“I worry though. I don’t know if you can handle my brand of fun.”

His full, open smile was devastating. Better than in pictures. “One way to find out.”

I slipped off my heels and jacket. I unzipped the remains of my dress, stepping out of it. He appeared enthralled as I wriggled from my thong.

Naked, I sashayed in his direction, breasts swaying. On my way to the pool, I trailed my finger over his chest. “Your life’s about to be changed.” I ran and dove in.

When I broke the surface of the water, he was still groaning.





CHAPTER 11




“You’re not drinking as much as I am,” I told him from the shallow end. “Are you trying to take advantage of me?”

He sat nearby at the edge of the pool, feet on the top step, wearing only his unbuttoned shirt and gray boxer briefs that highlighted the strength of his legs and his erect shaft. For some reason, he’d stopped undressing after his pants.

“I’ll pay you a thousand dollars if you tell me something more about yourself.”

I turned on my back, floating, savoring the heated salt water. “Like what?”

“What do you want out of life?”

So much! Phase one was atonement, and phase two was disappearing. Phase three entailed getting a career and friends and a social life. Maybe once I had a new identity these things would be possible. World domination was a distant phase four.

I faced him again, smoothing my hair back. “A house. A yard. A dog to run in the yard. A kitchen with tons of spices, all organized how I like them.”

“Demanding creature, aren’t you?”

“Ha.” I wished hourly for some way to free myself from Edward.

“No man in that scenario?”

I never yearned for a relationship, since I was always preoccupied with survival. Plus, once burned, twice shy. Yet even before Edward had turned murderous, I’d been so disenchanted with men—and stunned by my own bad taste in them.

The love I’d thought I’d felt for him disappeared so totally, I doubted I’d ever loved him at all.

I swam closer to Sevastyan, settling on one of the steps. “Any man in my life would have to like my house. And my dog would have to like him. I would have a very discerning dog.”

He chuckled. Oh, I enjoyed that sound. “Stringent requirements.”

“And you?” I asked.

“I used to want only power. Now I’m not sure. My political term is ending, and I’m letting it.”

“Why?”

“It requires me to be in Russia more than I’d prefer.”

“Don’t you like it there?”

“In winter? I despise it,” he said, the words seeming to skim the surface of what he was thinking. “I might stay in Miami, buying and selling this town. I like it here.”

He would move here right when I was leaving? How unfair. Cool yo jets, Cat!

“You could teach me Spanish.”

Okay, now he was just playing with me. “Sure. Say cállate la boca.”

He repeated the phrase. “What does that mean?”

“Shut up.”

“You’re teaching me how to tell you to shut up?”

“Por Dios, no. You must understand when I tell you that.”

He laughed out loud, reaching out to pull me forward till I was standing between his bent legs. “I enjoy your humor, your playfulness. You’re like a kotyonok, a little kitten—”

Vasili suddenly appeared on the pool deck, gaze alert, hand on the gun in his holster.

Máxim twisted to conceal me, and I sidled up to his back. Another laugh rumbled from his chest. “So unused to the sound of my amusement, he comes running.”

“He could hear us?” I whispered.

“He must be making the rounds. I’ve booked the two stories below for him and his men. Vasili oversees all three floors.”

“Oh.” A small army of mafiya henchmen must be nice. All I had to protect myself was continual movement, a dead bolt, and a prayer. “Do you need this much security? Or is this more of an entourage situation?”

“I don’t think I’m under an acute threat right now. But the show of might deters some foes, and extra men always come in handy.” Sevastyan said something in Russian, and Vasili left. “Did seeing the gun bother you?”

“I don’t know.” My sole experience with one had been horrifying.

Bent on uncovering Edward’s ace in the hole, I’d retrieved my father’s commemorative pistol, a gift from the Cuban government. I’d loaded the accompanying bullets, planning to shoot the ceiling to get Edward’s attention, like they did in movies. I’d also grabbed my mother’s rosary and donned it for courage.

At the end of the night, I’d been drenched in blood, fleeing a madman.

I swallowed. Shake it off, Cat. I told Sevastyan, “It must be reassuring to be so protected. . . .” I trailed off. I’d dampened the material of Máxim’s shirt and could make out marks on his back. Unable to stop myself, I tugged his shirt from one shoulder.