My hand shoots up to her throat, pressing hard until her eyes start to roll back in her head. “Oh, fuck,” I growl, feeling as if I were about to combust just from watching her take her pleasure from me.
“I need more, just a little bit more.”
Well, I need fucking everything. I need it all.
Knowing there is no way I’ll fuck Stella in a damn car our first time, I grind my molars so hard I fear they might shatter.
“Kill,” she calls out my name again, leaning forward as she dry humps me into oblivion. “I’m so close. So close.”
Unable to stop myself, I grab the nape of Stella’s neck and crash my mouth on hers. She lets out a little, broken sound, the kind that shreds every last thread of control I have left. My tongue breaches the seam of her lips without warning, claiming her mouth and making a home there. She twists her fingers into my shirt, pulling it tight, dragging me closer as if starving for me. I kiss her deeper, hungrier, enough that our teeth almost collide, but neither of us cares. And as she kisses me back with that same desperate edge, it feels less like a kiss and more like a confession neither of us is ready to say out loud.
My other hand slaps Stella’s ass before guiding her hip so that the tip of my cock can hit where it will do the most damage. And that’s when I feel it—her body shaking on top of mine, her little moans of ecstasy getting lost in the depravity of our kiss. I come instantly undone, letting the same electric current take over all my senses. After her body stills and her breathing slows, our ardent kiss morphs from exploratory and dominant to soft and gentle. I wrap my arms around her, as I give her lips one last soft kiss, before letting her head rest on my chest.
We lie like that for a few more stolen minutes, my mind still trying to catch up with what this all means. After a while, Stella lifts her head off my chest and looks down at me for one split second. Her mouth opens as if to speak, yet a subtle shift crosses her expression, leaving whatever words she had for me forever unsaid.
Before I know what’s happening, Stella snatches my phone from the center console, holds it over my face to unlock it, and taps a few keys. I’m still a bit off-kilter by her erratic and sudden change in demeanor when she slides back into her seat. She then uses the rearview mirror to fix her hair and rumpled top, and smiles at whatever she sees in its reflection a few moments later. Then she tosses the phone back into my lap, leans in, and whispers, “Nice dancing with you tonight. It was fun. We should do it again sometime.” And with that, she bites down on my earlobe before flinging herself back to her seat and opening the car door.
“Stella… what the… Where are you going?!”
“My ride is here.” She winks, blowing me a kiss before slamming the door in my face.
Just like that, I watch her skip over to the Uber now parked behind us, slide into the back seat, and drive off. No hesitation. No second thoughts. Nothing. As if the whole damn night slid right off her, while she buried herself even deeper inside me.
Chapter 9
Kirill
The jet’s wheels hit the tarmac with a shudder I feel in my bones. Snow whips across the runway, stinging my face, but I don’t move. My men stand behind me, a quiet wall of muscle and guns, watching as the plane rolls to a slow, heavy stop. The staircase clanks into position, and a moment later the door swings open. And of course, the first thing I see is my idiot little brother, arms thrown wide, head tipped back, and tongue out, trying to catch snowflakes as if he were five.
Kostya then bounds down the steps like a kid on Christmas morning, his luggage carried by one of the various babysitters Misha assigned to watch over him in San Francisco.
“I fucking missed this shit!” He laughs. “Leave it to the Windy City to give me a taste of home.”
I shake my head as he barrels into me, wrapping his arms around my shoulders.
“You hate home,” I remind him, hugging him just as tightly.
Kostya pulls away, grinning that carefree smile of his. “Take it from me, after a few years in Cali, you start getting homesick for arealwinter.”
I rest my hands on his shoulders, taking him in properly. “You look good,” I say, noticing all the little changes in him. His face still carries that softness of youth, which is the only thing that really separates us since we’re nearly clones, right down to the black hair and black eyes. That, and the black eyeliner he’s prone to wear just to stand out from the mold. But there’s something harder in him now, too. Something darker. A change that comes for all of us once we’re fully integrated intoBratvabusiness. An innocence lost.
“So do you,” he shoots back, unaware of my thoughts. “But then again, we were always the good-looking ones in the family.”
“Don’t let Sasha hear you say that.” I chuckle.
And just like that, the humorous light in his eyes dims. “Fuck Sasha.”
“You two are still fighting, I see.”
“I don’t remember a time when we weren’t, do you?” he mutters. “But I don’t want to talk about his ugly mug. Tell me about you. What have you been up to?” he asks, while slinging an arm over my shoulders and steering us toward the waiting SUVs.
“Nothing. Just following orders,” I reply flatly. “Like you should have.”
“Jesus, don’t start, Kill.” He groans. “Iwasfollowing orders. Down to the fucking T. Not my fault the feds sniffed us out.”
I stop at the passenger door, fixing him with a look. “The better question is how they got a whiff of our plans to begin with. The feds have been trying to tie us to something for years and never managed a damn thing. So what made this job different?”
Kostya sucks in his teeth, annoyance flickering across his face. “They played dirty, that’s what. Sent an undercover agent in to do the dirty work for them. She was so far down the totempole I didn’t even bother sparing her a second glance until it was too late. I honestly thought she was just another junkie paying off her habit by dealing for us.” His jaw flexes. “She fucked us over good. But I never forget a face. If I ever see her again, she won’t walk away breathing.”
