Her Relentless Russian (Karev Brothers Book 3) Read online

  Dmitry's hand touched the small of her back. A flood of warmth seeped into her, and Harper stopped nervously messing with her wig. He guided both of them around the low-lit perimeter of the pulsing club, murmuring small talk into her ear. He was speaking to her in Russian, caressing her ear and sending shivers of unexpected pleasure coursing through her. Maybe he was only speaking to her to give the impression to anyone watching that they were preoccupied with each other and beyond approach. Still, Harper couldn't help wondering what it was he whispered to her. It could be anything: nonsense, the weather report, a confession…

  "You are really not making it any easier for me to focus," Harper muttered. The press of Dmitry's hand signaled her to the presence of the hallway he intended for them to go down. She breezed through the door marked employees only, with her former Mafioso covering for her. They walked purposefully down the unlit hallway; Harper could see the familiar blue glow of computers screens coming from the room on the end, and she knew where to take them from here.

  "Why? Do you find my speaking to you in Russian distracting?" Dmitry whispered. They were out of eyeshot, but he still kept himself close to her.

  "I don't like things I don't readily understand," Harper said in her own hushed whisper. The two of them slipped inside the room, leaving the door slightly cracked—the way they had found it—behind them. "I'm a computer whiz, a geek girl, at heart. I like things I can make easy sense of."

  "So do I, usually."

  She decided not to try and unpack that sentence—not now, anyway. She had a feeling it had to do with her, but she could explore that feeling later. In the presence of machines, it was now that she found her focus. Harper grinned and caught her tongue between her teeth as she dropped down into the seat Dmitry pulled out for her. The playful expression helped her think more than anything else. She slipped the flash drive out of her cleavage and slotted it into the computer.

  "This shouldn't take long," she murmured. "Maybe five, ten minutes at most, depending on how much data there is for me to download." She produced a second flash drive to set up the transfer. Her fingers flew across the keys.

  As nerve-wracking as it had been getting in here, the plan was incredibly simple: all they had to do was access Boris' flash drive from one of the mob terminals it was encrypted to, transfer the data onto her portable, personal drive, and then leave the first flash drive here to be rediscovered at a later date. Boris or one of his affiliates would find it and assume he had forgotten it. Sometimes the simplest hacks were mental in nature.

  "All right. We're in," she whispered. "I'm beginning the transfer."

  Dmitry's hand tightened on her shoulder, but Harper ignored it—she was in the zone now, flying as fast as binary code scrolling across the screen. What else are you hiding, Boris? She was just about to navigate her way into his personal files for funsies when the hand on her shoulder clenched suddenly. She found herself yanked away from the console and out of the chair; she barely managed to suppress a surprised cry at being handled so roughly.

  "Dmitry, what are you—"

  She was interrupted by a collision, a kiss, so devastating that it put everything else about their mission from her mind as if she had been wiped clean by a program—but it didn't take long at all for her thoughts to be rewritten by the powerful hands that gripped her. Dmitry kissed her, forcing her around the desk and propelling them both backward until her shoulders hit the wall. He held her there, his body aligned with hers, a drowning man with a steadfast refusal to come up for air. He kissed her as if every misunderstanding that had ever passed between them could be erased, as if the kiss was the finest word he could think of and the act of speaking it was pure collision. His lips moved with an unleashed passion that might have startled them both, had he left them any time to think.

  Her head spun. What was happening? Why was this happening? She brought her hands up to clutch his shirt collar as if the press of her fingers was the only thing keeping him from devouring her whole. She was still in hacker mode, still thinking in lines of code and keystrokes and…

  But now Dmitry's lips were stroking hers, massaging them open against his, and she was momentarily powerless to resist. She had been craving this sensation almost nonstop since their encounter earlier in the park, and her body couldn't care less what her brain had to say on the subject—she wanted more of his forceful lips and heated touches, a lot more, and she didn't care when or how these things came to her.

  "Just go with it," he ordered her in a strange, throaty voice. She couldn't deny that the way he spoke to her set off a firecracker of lust inside of her, but it was the groan he followed up with that alerted her something was off. It was a little too loud, a little too into proceedings that were only just getting started. She had a sudden, sinking feeling she knew why.

  They weren't alone. Dmitry had sensed it before she had and had taken steps to cover them accordingly. This was all an act, and whoever had discovered them was watching. She saw the shadow of another figure filling the doorway and knew she needed to give as good as she got. There was no time for questions, no time for choreography or rehearsal. This was very likely life or death.

  Dmitry broke off to yank her shirt up over her head. She let him. They had to sell this for all they were worth. Even if it meant completely crossing a line and taking their physical knowledge of one another to a whole new level, they had to make prying eyes uncomfortable.

  Harper cracked an eye open as Dmitry's hand moved its way up beneath her bra. Her eyelashes actually were fake tonight, and they came in handy by disguising the focus of her attention—she wanted to see if the man on security detail was moving toward them.

  He stood frozen in the door, wide-eyed, but nodding his head slightly as if in subconscious agreement with what he was seeing. She thought she heard him mutter something in Russian and realized there was another guard flanking him. Both men shared a chuckle and remained a second longer to watch, before the one on the right clapped his buddy on the shoulder and motioned him on. The two disappeared back down the hallway.

  It was very likely they didn't know the importance of the information stored in this room… and even if they did, it was possible they knew it could only be accessed via the flash drive their boss Boris kept on him. Two half-naked club-goers locked in an embrace wouldn't know the first thing about the real nature of the backroom they had stumbled upon. This probably wasn't the first, nor the last, time the club's security was going to find someone back here.

  "Dmitry…" she gasped. She wanted to tell him that the danger had passed, but the Russian didn't show any signs of stopping. He pulled away only long enough to let her utter his name. His lips trailed down the line of her jaw and Harper's heart jolted in her chest when she realized what was happening, what was about to happen. This car had no brakes.

  He was going to take her, and she was going to let him.

  She could feel her own breasts pushing against his chest, and gave a gasping moan. Now that she had given over to it, her need was almost more than she could bear. By the way the Russian was allowing his hands to skate across every inch of her, she knew she wasn't the only slave to their desire.

  Dmitry reached between the two of them, his hand grasping her rear, and he pulled her against him until only their joined waists and the hard wall behind her kept her suspended in space. The tight fabric of her skirt rucked up as his hand slid across one creamy thigh. A bookseller like him had no right to a pair of hands so large, so roughly calloused and warm.

  But this wasn't the bookseller who had her pinned beneath him. It was a hot-blooded Karev, a Russian who was considered to be underworld royalty, someone who had once been ruthless in his pursuit of what he wanted with no thought to the consequences of using excess force. He had marked her as his with every questing, bruising touch, every heated kiss—and there was no one else she would rather be caught up by.

  She flared her hands down the taut muscle of his back, driving his hips into her harder. She could
feel how rigid he had grown, and there was no break for a readjustment this time. He took his mouth away with a gasp to rest his forehead against the cool surface of the wall. His hands soon found her waist and grasped her there. His fingers were so large that he could almost belt her around the middle

  She didn't dare beg him for it. Not because she feared they would be discovered again—and not because she was a woman who didn't enjoy begging for what she wanted—but because she suspected calling attention to what was happening might break the spell of lust that had been cast over Dmitry. Subterfuge had become reality in an instant for him—what's to say there was anything preventing him from coming to his senses?

  And in that moment, she didn't want sense. She didn't want to remember anything except that he wanted her, and she didn't want to anticipate outside of what he would seek to claim as his own next.

  Harper shoved her hands down the rippling muscles of his back. One quick jerking motion and she had brought his pants down; they still hung off his hips, but now she could feel the smooth curve of his ass, as muscular as the rest of him. She felt giddy, maybe even nervous about what she had done, but Dmitry didn't stop her. As her hands came around the front, his erection sprang free of his loosened pants. He caught it in his fist and squeezed, groaning, perhaps trying to exercise the last vestiges of his self-control and restrain himself from letting her take the lead.

  He began kissing her neck again fervently, drawing the smooth vulnerable flesh between his teeth. Harper moaned, trailing her fingers lightly along his knuckles until he had no choice but to relax his grip and pass himself off to her. Dmitry's cock was hot and thick and filled her hand with the hard evidence of his need. Harper’s stomach flipped in excited anticipation, and a thrill of momentary fear cut through her feelings of intoxication. How would they come out on the other side of this? How might things change? What if it was too good, the sex firing her addiction for a man whose staunch rules and bullheadedness threatened her independence?

  She couldn't think clearly about it now, not with his smooth, pulsing shaft pressing into her, sliding up her abdomen and taking her dress with it. She prided herself in being a quick study. Dmitry liked pressure, that much was obvious from the way he had grabbed himself… and the way she recalled him grabbing her when they had first met. She tightened her grip and began to slowly, rhythmically work him. She hadn't thought it possible for him to grow by inches, but her personal touch was having a very pronounced effect on him.

  "How long has it been?" she caught herself whispering into his ear. Dmitry's forehead was pressed against the wall again, the only cool surface within reach now that they were both in the grips of a fever that wouldn't break. She knew he had been with other women since his wife's death—a string of one-night stands that hadn't gone anywhere, as far as her research showed. So she had taken a bit of unprofessional interest in Dmitry's life… it was certainly serving her well now to know these things.

  She sped her strokes until Dmitry was pumping into her hand. Soon she was as gasping and winded as he was, her pulse speeding until she thought her heart, or other extremities, might burst with unfulfilled anticipation.

  Thankfully, Dmitry was a quick actor when it counted. Without a road map or plan to guide him, he took the matter once more into his own rough hands, yanking her thigh up and shoving her back against the wall until she was practically climbing it beneath him. The hand that seized her leg ran up her flank. He gave a preemptive moan of satisfaction as he made contact with her ass and found that there was nothing there, no reason to prolong their foreplay any longer.

  Harper shivered. She had made a lot of quick changes in and out of 'costume' that night, and it looked like with this latest one her underwear had been forfeit. She didn't even have time to wonder where she might have left them; beads of sweat were already accumulating on her inner thighs, and Dmitry's hand was exploring her deeply, his fingers plucking and scissoring and parting her unguarded folds. Harper arched into him, her breasts pressing themselves against the rock-hard expanse of his chest. There was nothing yielding about Dmitry now—had there ever been? She had gone up against him in a clash of personality and dueling words before, but somehow, Harper suspected there was mutual surrender in their battle now.

  Once he had satisfied himself that she was ready for him, Dmitry pulled his cock free of her steadily working hands. Harper hummed lustily and bit her lip, running her hands back up his chest to find purchase as he positioned himself between her legs. The broad tip of his manhood pushed past her slick entry, her arousal enabling it to fill her far more quickly than she had guessed. She emitted a wild cry and threw her arms around his neck; Dmitry silenced her with his lips, capturing her voice as he had captured her body beneath him.

  He knew how they fit together without ever having tried before. And Harper—Harper wasn't anywhere near sexually inexperienced herself. She had learned her own body like an instrument long ago, and like any musician, she enjoyed a good collaboration. Dmitry hadn't been inside of her for more than a few seconds before she was moving her hips against his, burying him deep with a single undulation and drawing him back out again.

  If he had thought fucking her would be a straightforward, possible one-sided affair, he was proven absolutely wrong in that moment. Harper could tell by the choked noise he made, by the way she slipped her tongue past his stunned and defenseless lips, that he was as ensnared as she was. She took him inside her again with a quick roll and thrust, and their sweat-soaked skin slapped together loud enough to alert the entire club to their indiscretion.

  Dmitry fought back. He bore down on her from his superior height, trapping her beneath him and eclipsing any chance of escape. He surged into her, meeting every quick, impertinent flick of her hips with a powerful pump of his own. Harper disengaged from their charged kiss to throw her head back. She wished she could bring herself to meet his eyes, but there was no hope for it. The dark room spun, the Russian's chiseled features filled her vision; every thrust dispersed the shadows on his face and laid all new ones. Harper turned her head away, trying to fix on something, anything, to keep her grounded. All of that went out the window as she felt Dmitry lift her off the ground bodily to take her at a new angle.

  It was too good. She was a goner. She was his, and she wasn't sure she wanted to be otherwise.

  Harper's fingers slipped beneath Dmitry’s shirt collar and caught themselves on his collarbones. "I'm going to come." She breathed the warning out raggedly. She wasn't sure what she expected by saying it, but Dmitry didn't slow or quicken his pace; he fucked her steadily. Something inside her core tightened, and she clenched her thighs reflexively around his thrusting hips. She felt like she was being torn apart by her own desires; she wanted him to slow down, to stop, yet she also wanted him to speed up and pound her into the wallpaper. Her cries for less, for more, escalated to a great crescendo of desperate noise as her orgasm built itself to its breaking point.

  Dmitry let out a string of oaths in Russian. Even though he had been speaking it fluently enough earlier, its reappearance now was completely unexpected, and the hottest fucking thing he could have thought—or not thought—to do.

  Harper came, the warm sensation erupting in her bloodstream, making her limbs clench and shake like she had just sampled the best drug imaginable. Her voice broke on a wail; she gripped Dmitry closer and attempted to stifle the sound in her fist, but it was way too late for discretion. Everything club security had assumed was going on had already come to pass. In a twisted way, making herself this vulnerable and giving herself over completely had just solidified their cover.

  The muscles in Dmitry's back jumped, tensed, and she felt a thick, warm rush flood her already overfull passage. The Russian's seed spilled into her and trailed down the inside of her thighs as he withdrew. He set her back down on the ground hard. Both were breathing raggedly. Now that the lustful fog had been blasted from her brain for the moment, Harper was trying to work out just what on her person was expend
able in trying to get herself cleaned up.

  "The data?" It sounded as if Dmitry barely had the wind left in his lungs to form those two words. Still, they got Harper's attention; her gaze immediately snapped up from trying to rearrange her skirt.

  The data! She had almost completely forgotten their mission. Her alter ego, Belvedere, would so not approve of this rookie slip. She crossed to the console quickly to take stock of what was happening on the screen; her eyes flickered once, nervously, to the door. Too late to worry about anyone knowing they were here, but their reckless actions had managed to drive suspicion away… for now.

  "It's downloaded," she whispered. She yanked both the flash drives free and closed down the windows. Dmitry stood close behind her, a bigger presence than she remembered. When she straightened, her back hit up against his chest.

  "That's one way to put it," he murmured.

  Harper was glad for the relative darkness of the room; she could feel her face heat with… not quite embarrassment. Dmitry made her want to writhe and squirm, and maybe take her frustrations out on him with a quick second round.

  But there was no more time to be lost here. They would either have to circumvent security by going out a back door, or talk their way sheepishly past it. Harper tucked her flash drive between her breasts for safekeeping, messed up her hair a little more in the back, and locked eyes with Dmitry.

  Looks like now they had more than just a murder case to work through.

  5

  Dmitry

  "If we're going to do this, we're going to need to put some rules in place," Dmitry said firmly.

  They had returned successfully from their mission at the club, and now sat opposite from one another in the back office of his bookstore. After what had so recently transpired between them, he found it vaguely ridiculous that they should place the desk between them like a border wall—then again, it had been his decision not to join Harper on her own side. He was the one who had drawn the temporary line between them, and he had no one to blame but himself if he felt awkward about the arrangement.