Chapter One
Juliet
Vitaly Volkov.
I swear to God, no man should be allowed a name that sexy.
Volkov.
Just saying it in my head makes my thighs press together.
It’s not a name for a baker. Not with that dangerous V.
That’s a name you carve into enemies.
A name you snarl before someone vanishes in the dead of night.
It’s the sort of name you find scrawled in blood on the wall behind a velvet rope.
Not frosted in sugar on a bakery window.
And then there’s his voice.
The first time I heard him speak, it was like being slapped and stroked at the same time.
Deep. Rough.
Brutalized by Russian winters and whatever else turns a voice to velvet-wrapped gravel.
He could read the phone book, and I’d end up needing new panties.
The last time I heard him, he was saying something utterly filthy, something that stuck in my head for days.
“Good morning, Mrs. Patel. Your usual?”
I nearly fucking creamed on the sidewalk.
So, naturally, I need him.
Need him to murmur filth into my ear.
Need that accent curling around my name while he fucks me six ways to Sunday on a pile of flour sacks.
I want to see if he can dirty up that pristine apron the way I dirty up sheets.
Focus, Juliet. You’re a professional. This is an investigation, not a honeymoon.
Two months. Two goddamn months of watching him in shifts with Callum.
We’ve cased him like the world’s thirstiest FBI unit, and I still don’t know what the hell he’s hiding.
No one with that name and that face just moves to a tiny town to make babushka bread.
Bratva? Ex-hitman? Assassin in disguise?
Honestly, I don’t care.
I just want to know if he’s more murder or more marriage material before I claim him.
