Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 107079 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 535(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107079 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 535(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
My cop brain kicked in and insisted that I start planning, solving, doing. I sat up and stared at him, breathing hard. Why is he worried? What happens now? Is he going to push me away again? Does he actually feel anything for me, or was this just about fucking his enemy? Is a man like him even capable of—
He leaned in and kissed my forehead. And my brain went fzzt and refused to work. I hadn’t ever even remotely conceived that he could be that tender. From the look on his face, neither had he. “Why did you do that?” I thought out loud.
“You were thinking too much,” he told me. Then he grabbed one of my ankles, and I yelped as he pulled me down the bed, and I went flopping onto my back again. He knelt astride me, hulking over me like a big, clumsy bear, caging me in with his arms just like that very first time at the casino. Except now, those pale gray eyes were full of concern.
“It is possible,” he said, his Russian accent polishing the s’s, “that I owe you an apology.”
I blinked up at him.
“The kiss was not a mistake. Neither was the one in the alley. And neither was the one on the bed.”
“What one on the—MMF!”
His lips were on mine, hungry and demanding, and my eyes closed as I floated up into warm bliss. I could feel where the kiss was meant to end, the tiny lift of his lips...and then he growled and came back for more, his tongue dancing with mine as if addicted. Both of us had started to pant before he finally drew back.
“You, Special Agent Brooks,” he growled, “are the first thing I think about in the morning and the last thing I think about at night. You’re maybe the only person on the planet who understands me, and I understand you. I started off wanting to kill you; now I’m terrified something’s going to happen to you. When you hurt, I hurt. When you’re not around, I miss you.” He shook his head. “And that’s why I am not letting you go.”
That fragile, silvery excitement that had risen, been stomped into the dirt, and tentatively risen again? It bloomed, sprouting a whole canopy of glittering branches and leaves. He kissed me again, this time hard and possessive, and I felt myself lifting up off the bed and rising up past the clouds. I felt something slotting into place, deep in my soul. All along, I’d thought he was my nemesis, but that wasn’t it: he was the other half of me, the half I’d always been missing. That’s why he got me. That’s why we were always competing, because we were the same.
When we finally came up for air, I stared up at him, double-checking that he was serious, that he wasn’t going to pull the rug from under me again. He gave me a solemn little nod.
I started to get up—I needed space, I needed to process—and he reluctantly lifted one of his arms to let me out. I slid out from under him and stood, clutching the towel around me to cover myself. Then I started to pace in the space passing between the four-poster bed and the polished copper bathtub. Us? Could that work? Yes, I’d been fantasizing about kissing him almost since day one, even when I hated him. Yes, my feelings for him had been growing steadily and accelerating this last month. But this was still a lot to take in. I started to pace, thinking. “Why did you push me away?”
He watched me from his position on the bed. “You’re a good person, Alison. I thought you deserved...a good man.”
I took a deep breath. He was evil. And from what I’d seen, he was spiraling, getting more and more ruthless and violent. But I’d seen the good he tried to hide. “I’m a big girl, Gennadiy,” I said firmly. “And I choose you.”
I saw the relief in his eyes. Then he stood up, towering over me, and put his hands on my shoulders to stop me pacing. He smirked. “One thing you most definitely are not is big.” And he patted me on the head.
I frowned up at him. “Pat me on the head again and I’ll break your arm,” I growled.
He gave a little nod, and we stood there looking into each other’s eyes. When I thought of how we must look, the hulking, tattooed Russian gangster and the little FBI agent gazing up at him, I wondered if we were crazy. But, God, those pale gray eyes were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, and that full lower lip, still slightly smirking, made me go weak. Goddammit. I have it bad for this guy. “What do we do when I go back to the FBI?” I mumbled.