Moving Target (Target #3)(26)
“You were also old enough to know that if you didn’t kill him, that someone else would have, and maybe your mentor would have killed you for disobeying him. That’s what bad guys do, right?”
“Yes, that’s what we do.”
“If you’re such a bad guy, then how come you disobeyed him for me? If you’re such a bad guy, then why do you refuse to traffic humans and animals?”
“We all have our quirks.”
“To be compassionate is not a quirk,” she disagrees.
“In my world it is.”
“Maybe your world needs to change.” She looks away from me. “I don’t like your mentor very much.”
My heart kicks against my chest. “My mentor is your father.”
Her mouth drops open, and then snaps shut. Shaking her head, she attempts to pull away from me, saying, “Deeper and deeper I fall.”
“Please. Stay here. Hear me out.” For the first time, I use my strength against her and refuse to let her go.
“Fine,” she huffs, all bravado. “Anything else I should know? Do I have a half brother somewhere?”
“Actually, Leonid is rumored to be Konstantin’s son, but I think Leonid started it himself.”
“My own potential half brother is trying to kill me?”
“Rumored half brother,” I correct. “Back to the eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room. Konstantin is my mentor. He is like a father to me, in some ways. I didn’t want to unnecessarily alarm you.”
“I don’t know what to think or believe anymore.” Her voice is nearly a broken whisper. “I want my old life back. The one where I didn’t get out of bed for days because it was easier than trying to live without Mario.”
“What about me?”
She flicks her gaze to me. “I don’t know what to think about you either. It stands to reason that you’re loyal to Konstantin, even if he is possibly hunting me down. That’s a real option, right? I mean, KGB agents aren’t the good guys.”
“Depends on where you’re born.” Depends on what they do to your family.
“Maybe you’re just keeping me alive in order to make up for something you did wrong.”
“You’re entitled to your opinions. But trust me, I wouldn’t go to this much trouble to keep anyone alive, not even my mentor’s daughter. Not to mention the fact that I had no idea who you were until we met Benjamin and Morgan in Milan. Hell, you might not even be his daughter.”
“One can only wish.”
“If you are his daughter, you have nothing be ashamed of.”
“If you were in my head, you might not think so. I liked it when you blew up the boats. Okay, so I pretended that the men on them were hurt rather than killed—”
“Most likely, they were hurt rather than killed. I aimed for the motor, not them.”
Her brow furrows. “You did?”
“Didn’t you see the way it flipped?”
“Yeah, but—”
“But nothing. They deserved to die, and you shouldn’t feel ashamed for wanting that. Survival is everything right now. Figuring our next step and staying calm while we do it will keep us alive.”
“You sound so sure of yourself.” Finally, her body relaxes against me, and I notice she’s stopped crying. “I wish I could be that sure of anything right now.”
I push her wet hair out of her face. “You can be sure that I will die in order to protect you.”
She says nothing at first, then slowly, her hand cups the side of my face and her lips are finding mine. “I know, Dima. I know.”
“Let me take care of you, love. Let me…” Her mouth parts, and I am lost to her.
We kiss and touch one another until we’re both shaking and I can no longer wait. “I have to be in you.”
“We don’t have any condoms,” she says.
I shake my head, even as she moves to straddle me. “I can… if you trust me… pull out. I’ve always been careful. I don’t sleep around… haven’t been with anyone before you in a year.”
Her eyes widen slightly. “A year?”
“I can’t be too trusting. I’m at my most vulnerable like this,” I admit.
“Would you like for me to ride you? You can keep your back against the wall. I’ll be the vulnerable one.” Her voice is like a siren’s—silky and seductive. Full of promise.
“Yes.” I catch a nipple in my mouth and suck on it until she pulls her breast out of reach. Dipping my head, I attempt to pull the hard flesh into my mouth again, but she fits the head of my cock against her pussy and bears down. “That feels bloody good.”
The heat of her surrounds me, her breasts bouncing in my face, and her slender back leans against my hands as she begins to move. Her thighs quiver as she rides me, as she grabs my face and kisses me hard, her tongue thrusting into my mouth.
I jerk my hips against her, sending my cock as deep as possible. I’ve never felt anything so good before, never been so intimately connected as this. Chloe surrounds me, and I fill her.
A perfect combination of rough and soft, of strength and softness.
Despite the fact that my back’s against the wall and I can see everything, I feel more vulnerable than I ever have before. But it’s in the most superior way.