I hit my indicator, letting him know I was pulling off, then eased onto my breaks to slow my car down, watching as the number inched down from one hundred, to eighty, to sixty, to forty, and then to twenty. With my hands tight around the steering wheel, I eased onto the shoulder, let the speedometer hit zero, then shifted my car into park.
He pulled in behind me, and then, his lights switched off.
I rested my forehead on my steering wheel and blew out a soft breath.
The Caribbean was looking better and better by the fucking second.
Chapter Five
Alfonzo
Ileaned against the driver’s side door of my car, watching through Maksim’s back window as he banged his forehead on the steering wheel. My lips twitched in amusement. I had no idea how he’d survived so long when he was so afraid of someone like me. Didn’t make sense that Anatoly had sent him afterme. I was a high-powered player. Dangerous. Sneaky. Barely fucking existed when someone researched me. I was Rico’s greatest asset.
Yet he’d sent someone as untrained as Maksim Arsenyev after me. It was almost an insult, but I wasn’t easily insulted. Amused, however? Didn’t take much to amuse me.
Finally, Maksim sat up, seemed to suck in a deep breath, then pushed open his car door. One sneaker appeared, then the other. Finally, he angled out of his car and turned to face me, his body stiff. Even from where I was standing, I could see the fear in his blue eyes. Didn’t matter that I’d promised him he wasn’t dying tonight. Maksim was afraid of me.
I was kind of obsessed with his fear.
“Afraid, mouse?” I taunted just because I fucking couldn’t help myself.
He tensed even more, his jaw clenching tight before he snapped, “No.”
Itsked and moved away from my car, inching my way closer to him. He stood his ground, but I could see his pulse ticking away at the base of his throat. His heart was pumping blood through his veins at a level that was only normal when adrenaline was spiking. A light sheen of sweat glistened on his skin, and my mouth watered as I wondered what his sweat-damp skin might taste like.
I intended to find out before the night was over.
“You don’t look unafraid,” I mused, only stopping once there was nothing more than a mere foot of space separating us. “In fact, mouse, you look like you want torun.” Reaching out, I stroked my thumb along his jaw, enjoying the scrape of his day-old beard along my skin. “Do you want to run from me, mouse?”
He swallowed thickly, his Adam’s apple bobbing. Those pretty eyes of his roved over my face, like he was searching for the answer to… something. Finally, he uttered, “Yes.”
I grinned. “If you run, I’ll chase you, Maksim,” I warned him. “You’re nothing more than prey to me.”
“You’re so fucked up,” he rasped, taking a step back from me. I took one forward, arching a brow at him. He halted, but his muscles practicallyvibratedwith the urge to attempt to put distance between us. He knew I wouldn’t allow it though. He didnothingwithout my permission. Not now that he’d become my target.
My fucking fixation.
“What is your deal?” he bravely demanded, his Russian accent suddenly making an appearance now that he was growing angry and frustrated, andfuck, it made my dick hard. I wondered if his accent would make its appearance if I had him beneath me with his pretty ass impaled on my cock. “Why don’t you just put me out of my fucking misery, Aguado? Why keep doing this? We both know I’llneverget Anatoly what he wants, and not completing a job, especially one as big as this one, is already signing my fucking death warrant.”
Suddenly, something hot andviolentslid through my veins,poisoning me, at the thought ofanyonetouching him that wasn’tme. A snarl curled my mouth before I could stop it, and Maksim sucked in a sharp breath, stumbling back from me. His terror waspotent. And before I could do or say a fucking thing, he turned andran.
His pale skin disappeared into the trees on the side of the road. I rolled my neck to one side, then the other, as I watched him go, thatviolencestill turning my veins black and my temper hot.
I woulddestroyAnatoly fucking Balakin and tear his whole goddamn organization apart if he or his men so much as had a fucking dangerous thought about Maksim fucking Arsenyev.
I shook my head, then prowled toward the woods. Maksim had done the one thing I’d warned him not to, and now with this fucking primal feeling rolling through me, this need toown, tofucking controlleeching through my veins, I knew this thing between me and Maksim was about to take a turn.
And it was all his goddamn fault forrunning from me.
“I told you not to fucking run, mouse,” I called, listening to his feet trample through the underbrush. “Don’t say I didn’t fucking warn you.”
And then, like a blood hound after a bleeding deer, I took off after my mouse.
Let the fucking games begin.
Chapter Six
Maksim
