Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 113324 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 567(@200wpm)___ 453(@250wpm)___ 378(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113324 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 567(@200wpm)___ 453(@250wpm)___ 378(@300wpm)
“This is kidnapping!”
“I told you my intentions. Gave you a countdown.” He started the engine and pulled away from the curb. “Understand me, Natalie, I do exactly what I say I’ll do. Always.” He smoothly executed turn after turn, as if he knew this town as well as I did. “And right now I’m telling you that I will get you safely to your father in Russia.”
“How do you think you’ll get me through airport security like this?” I waved my hands to indicate my robe. “I don’t even have my purse!”
“We’re going to a private airport. And by the time we land in Moscow, you’ll have all new clothes brought to the jet.”
New clothes? Jet? Was he serious?
His gaze landed on my legs, on my half-bared thighs. And with that one dark glance, my skin flushed. I couldn’t help recalling the way he’d looked down on me in the bath.
Like a hungry predator eyeing tender prey.
Like I was already a caught thing, his to enjoy. I shivered.
“Are you cold?” he asked. “You look . . . chilled.”
Chilled? Oh. Because my nipples were still jutting. Yes, I was cold, but my body was also suffering the aftereffects of my foiled masturbation attempt. To be so close, drawing in on myself . . .
In some ways, I felt the same now. Tense, drawn, my skin prickling with awareness each time he looked at me.
When I didn’t answer him, Sevastyan turned on the heater, and hot air blasted against my chest, over the hypersensitive tips of my breasts. I nearly yelped when I felt the seat warmer toasting the cleft of my ass. In the close confines of the car, I got another hit of his mind-numbing scent.
So much stimulation. Could he see me trembling?
Once we were on the main highway heading out of town, the car purring along at eighty miles per hour, he commanded, “Put on your seat belt.”
I didn’t like this tone at all, heard it constantly at my server jobs. “Or what?” I narrowed my eyes. “And did you really call me pet earlier?”
“When I tell you to do something, it’s in your best interest to do it, pet.” Without warning, he reached over to yank my seat belt into place, roughly grazing my breasts with his forearm, filling my head with his scent. I squirmed on the hot seat, feeling dazed by this arrogant man.
I remembered one time when I’d been written up for public intoxication after a football game; I’d been mentally yelling at myself to sober up, willing myself to recover my wits so I could talk the cop out of the expensive citation. Stop chuckling, Nat, and answer the nice officer! Not OSSIFER, dumbass! Do NOT touch his shiny, shiny badge, do not—DAMN IT, NAT!
I felt like that now: under the influence.
Sevastyan affected me in a way I couldn’t shake. I was experiencing a bewildering attraction to him, some inexplicable connection.
And no matter how bad an idea it was, I kept wanting—metaphorically—to touch his badge.
No, no, no—I needed to concentrate on getting information out of him. “Do you keep your promises, Sevastyan?”
“To you and your father alone.”
“You promised me answers.”
His hands tightened on the wheel, those sexy rings of his digging into the leather. “Once we are on the plane.”
“Why not now? I need to know more about my parents.”
He didn’t deign to respond, just monitored the rearview mirror with that wary alertness.
I remembered his earlier demeanor, checking the street through my bedroom blinds. “What’s up with this paranoia? We’re in Lincoln, Nebraska; the most dangerous thing that’s ever happened here was when this Russian asshole kidnapped an unwitting co-ed—in her robe.”
The speedometer hit triple digits.
“Are we . . . are we being followed?”
Another glance into the rearview. “Not at present.”
“Which indicates we might have been in the past—or perhaps could be in the future?” This was too bizarre. “Am I in some kind of danger?” Questions about my parents and past faded as dread about my immediate future surfaced.
With reluctance, he said, “Kidnapping for ransom is always a fear.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I don’t buy that. What you just described sounds like a chronic problem, or a theoretical one. Yet you broke into my house and demanded that we leave in five minutes, which sounds like an acute problem. So what happened between the time I saw you in the bar and the time you entered my home?”
Sidelong glance. “I think you have your father’s cunning.”
“Answer me. What happened?”
“Kovalev called and gave me the order to get you on a plane. Which means it’s as good as done.”
A sudden thought struck me. “How long have you been my bodyguard, Sevastyan?”
“Not long,” he hedged.
“How—long?”
He hiked his broad shoulders. “A little over a month.”
And I’d never known. “Have you been following me around? Watching me all this time?”
A muscle ticked in his wide jaw. “I’ve been watching over you.”
Then he would know me better than I could even imagine. So what would a man like him think of me?
When he turned off the highway at an obscure exit, I cried, “Wait! Where are we going? There’s no airport out this way. Not even an executive one.”
“I had to arrange an alternative departure point.”
Alternative? I’d promised myself that if I didn’t like his answers, I’d flee into the arms of a security guard. I’d gotten no answers, and now had serious doubts about running into any guards.
After a few miles, he turned onto a dirt road that bisected a cornfield. We drove and drove until a clearing appeared ahead, what looked like a crop-duster airstrip. At one end, a jet awaited, beacon lights flashing, engines radiating heat in the night air.
To take me to Russia. This was all . . . real.
Sevastyan parked near the jet, but didn’t open his door. “I understand you have questions,” he said in a milder tone. “I’ll answer any I can when we’re in the air. But you must believe me, Natalie, you won’t regret taking this step. You’ll enjoy your new life very much.”