CHAPTER EIGHT

 

 

Demetrius

“Have we met before?” said Nikolai to me.

I shook my head, refusing to meet his eyes. I hoped the hat was big enough to hide my face. “No, sir.”

“But yet you are here with him to blackmail me?”

I didn’t say anything.

“Why don’t you just forget about him?” said Ambrose, clapping Nikolai on the shoulder again. “Trust me, he’s nothing to worry about. He’ll do whatever I say. He’s kind of big and dumb, if you know what I mean.”

I stared daggers at Ambrose’s head. So now I was supposed to play the part of an idiot? What was his freaking problem? How did I even do that?

Nikolai wasn’t appeased. “Take off your hat.”

My heart sank. Fuck. Here it was. Everything was going to go wrong now, and it was all my fault. I should have stayed behind, but I had insisted on being on site. From now on, I would keep clear of Nikolai if it was the last thing I did.

“You don’t need him to take off his hat,” said Ambrose. He nodded at me. “Why don’t you wait outside?”

I had never been so glad of a chance to escape in my life. I didn’t acknowledge anything. I just ran out of the building as fast as I could.

Then when I got outside, I realized that I hadn’t turned my earpiece on. I reached up and tapped it. “Kiera?”

“Oh, Jesus Christ, Danger, I thought you were dead!” she yelled in my ear.

“Sorry,” I said. “I forgot to turn it on.”

“Don’t forget shit like that. I was blind up here. I had no idea what to do.”

“I’m sorry,” I said again.

“Yeah, well, I guess it’s okay. Cass and Blaze are back over on this side, safe and sound, so you guys can pull out whenever you want.”

That was when I realized that I’d left Ambrose in there without any way to know when he was done.

“Okay,” I said. How was I going to let Ambrose know that? I couldn’t go back in there.

“Okay?” she said. “What does that mean?”

I switched off my earpiece again. God damn Kiera. I didn’t feel like talking to her right at this second. I needed to think.

Okay, so I could maybe get up close to one of the windows and make some kind of hand signals to him.

Like what kind of signals?

And what if Nikolai saw me? He would get even more suspicious.

No, that wasn’t going to work.

I was going to have to go back in there, wasn’t I?

Fuck everything.

I couldn’t go back in there. If Nikolai saw me, it would ruin everything.

No, the worst thing that could happen if I didn’t get word to Ambrose was that he would just stay in there all day. That would suck for him, but it wasn’t the kind of thing that would ruin the whole mission.

I was going to sit tight.

I turned my earpiece back on.

“Listen, the thing is—”

“What happened? Did it cut out? Are all these things malfunctioning?” said Kiera’s voice in my ear.

“No, I just turned it off again.”

“You turned it off?” The waves of rage practically radiated through the earpiece.

“I needed to think.”

“Oh, fuck you, Danger.” And then it went silent again.

Huh. I guessed she’d hung up on me. Or, I mean, whatever the equivalent was when you were talking about earpieces.

I was going to have to talk to her about that. She couldn’t get pissed at me during a mission. This wasn’t the least bit professional. Of course, I’d fucked up by turning off my earpiece. That wasn’t exactly professional either. If it hadn’t been Kiera on the other end of the line, I don’t know what I would have done. Probably not turn it off, though.

Maybe Kiera and I needed to hash this out, have a little conversation.

Anyway, we’d have time for that soon enough.

For now, I’d just wait for Ambrose.

About twenty minutes later, he came out of the building, all smiles.

“Hey,” I said, falling into stride with him as we headed for the parking lot. From there, we’d cut over to the building where the others were. “I’m sorry I left you in there without an earpiece.”

“Had to be done, man,” he said. “He was going to make you, and that would have ruined everything. Once you were gone, he seemed to forget about you pretty quick.”

“Good,” I said. “So, he wasn’t suspicious at all?”

“No way.”

“Why did you stay in there so long, then?”

“Oh, I was trying to negotiate the girls a little harder. I thought if we could get into the place where he actually keeps the girls, that would solve half our problems, right?”

“Right,” I said. “So?”

“He wouldn’t go for it. I kept saying we wanted to select the girl we wanted, and we wanted to see everything he had to offer, and he said that he’d bring the girls to us. Or he’d have someone bring them to us. And no matter how hard I tried, he wouldn’t budge on that.”

“Damn,” I said. “Too bad.”

“Yeah.”

“But we’ve got the surveillance in place. We’ll find out that way.”

* * *

 

Kiera

The empty office building wasn’t the most comfortable place in the world, but there was an old couch that had been left behind in one of the rooms, and I figured I could sleep there.

There was an old break room with a mini-fridge, a microwave, a coffee maker, and a two-burner hotplate. There was a can of coffee in the cupboards, and some dishes, pots, and pans. I’d brought along some cereal for breakfast the next day. Blaze said he would run out and bring me back some groceries.

I needed to be close to the surveillance equipment to hear everything that was said in Nikolai’s office. I could have left it to record and then come back in and listened to the recordings, but I knew from experience that wasn’t the best practice.

When listening to recordings, especially ones that last for hours on end, you end up doing a lot of fast-forwarding, and you miss things.

If I was here, wired up at all times, even while I was sleeping, then if something happened, I would know.

So, I was going to stay here until we got Nikolai to give up the information that we needed. I was still going to do any work that I needed to do for the guys in the office. I’d just tackle it here. I could work here just as easily.

I had four separate computers set up next to the window. If I looked out from my perch behind them, I had a perfect view of Nikolai’s office. I was ready.

“Kiera?” came Demetrius’s voice from behind me.

I didn’t turn around. “Yeah?” I was still pissed at him for turning off his earpiece when I’d been trying to talk to him. Didn’t he know how important it was for me to be in touch with everyone? I had been the person trying to coordinate everyone’s movements.

This mission had been completed, and we’d gotten our objective, but we’d been so sloppy that I didn’t think that it should have been.

He pulled over a chair. “You all set here?”

“You can’t turn off your earpiece like that,” I said.

He sighed. “Yeah, I get that was probably a bad move. But we’ll talk about that later.”

“Later?” I shook my head. “I could be here for days. I won’t even remember what I was going to say after that.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Wait. You don’t think that I’m going to leave you here alone, do you?”

I wrenched my gaze away from the computer screens. “Of course I’m staying here alone. No one else needs to be here. I got this, Danger. I can definitely watch some screens and listen all on my own. Don’t worry, I’m recording everything, and I’ll get all the pertinent information to you so that you can listen to it yourself.”

“I’m not saying you can’t do it,” he said. “I’m just saying it’s not safe.”

I slid down in my chair, glaring up at the ceiling. “Not this again.”

“You’re right next door to the Bratva, Kiera. It’s not safe.”

I refused to have this stupid conversation with him again. I made a show of fiddling with my keyboard, even though I didn’t really have anything to type. “Right, right. Not safe.” What he was actually saying, whether he knew it or not, was that I was unable to take care of myself. He thought of me as a child, not an equal, and it made me nuts. That was why he’d disconnected on me earlier today. He didn’t respect me.

“Don’t sulk about it. It’s not that big of a deal. I’ll be here, but I won’t get in your way. You’ll be free to do whatever it is you need to do.”

I stared at the computer screen. “You know what could have happened if I needed to convey important information to you while your earpiece was off?”

“Look, we can talk about this later—”

“Everything could have gone wrong. You turned it off, and you didn’t even know what I needed to say to you. You have absolutely no respect for me.”

“It’s not like that.” He leaned forward, so that his face was in my line of vision. “I admit that it was a bad idea to turn it off. But you turned yours off too.”

“Because you deserved it,” I said.

“Okay, but that’s the problem,” he said. “We’ve got to get this thing between us under control.”

My heart sped up for some unknown reason. “There’s a thing between us?”

He got up and walked over to the window. “Yeah, we’re always arguing.”

“Oh,” I said. “Right.” Stop beating so fast, I told my heart.

“It’s not professional,” he told the window. “We need to get a handle on it.”

“I agree,” I said. “And I think what would go a long way toward making things better between us would be if you would just trust me a little more. You don’t have to treat me like a kid. I can handle myself.”

He turned around, crossing his huge forearms over his massive chest. “I don’t think of you as a kid, Kiera. Not at all.” His gaze raked my body.

Now, not only was my heart still pounding, but I felt myself flush. I hunched over the computer, unsure of how to even respond to that. “You can’t stay here with me while I’m listening in on Nikolai.”

“Oh, I’m staying here. You’re in no position to tell me what I can and cannot do.”

“You’ll… distract me.” I gulped, glancing at him.

He raised his eyebrows.

I kept going, my words tripping over each other. “Because I’ll get angry with you. You always make me pissed off.”

He came back over and sat down next to me again. “I know that. And I lose my temper with you a lot too. But that’s why it’s a good idea for us to stay together here for a bit.”

“How is that a good idea?” I glared at him. Why did he have to be so stupidly good looking?

“We need to work out our issues.” He held my gaze.

The places where his gaze settled tingled. I felt flustered. I fidgeted. “I don’t want you here,” I said, my voice unsteady.

“Too bad,” he said, and his voice did that low rumbling thing that made me all shivery.

Damn him.

* * *

 

Kiera

Everyone else had left besides Demetrius and me. We were alone.

Since I was still annoyed with him for staying here with me when I totally did not need a babysitter, I decided to do my best to ignore him. Which was really easier said than done. He was kind of conspicuous, being all big and hulking like he was. He hovered in the doorway, and he took up more space than he should. And even when I wasn’t looking at him, I could somehow sense him, as if his presence had taken over some aspect of my brain.

He was there, dark and immense.

Outside, the sun began to gradually sink over the horizon, and it got darker outside. It was late fall, and the dark came earlier and earlier each night, the hint that winter was coming. The dark seemed suffocating, like it was closing us both in together, and Demetrius was so big that he was using up all the air in the room.

He was crowding me. His essence was everywhere. I could smell him. I could see him. I could hear him breathing. Everything about him was so… male. And it was having this odd effect on me. Everything felt tight and constricting. Especially my clothes. My pants were hugging my pelvis too tightly, and whenever I moved, the fabric seemed to stimulate my sensitive parts.

I was getting turned on.

That made no sense.

It was that stupid caveman thing again. Had to be. He was all man, and I had gone primal. I imagined what it would be like if I just strode across the room and put my hands on his biceps. I wanted to touch them. They were enormous. He had tree trunks for limbs. I bet they were hard—just like wood.

Oh. Shit.

Wood.

I giggled at the junior-high-school-ness of my mind.

“What?” said Danger from the doorway.

“Nothing,” I said.

We weren’t talking.

“Are you laughing at me?” he said.

“No,” I said.

He pressed his lips together. I had never looked at his lips before, but now I realized that they were shaped like a bow, and that they softened his face somehow. They hid behind his stubble—which was really starting to look more like a beard, actually, but that juxtaposition of his almost-pretty feature with his hairy maleness made him even more appealing.

I liked his facial hair. I liked that it made him look wild and untamed and masculine. I wanted to run my fingers through it.

I gulped.

Jesus Christ. It was one thing to have a stupid cavewoman response to this man. It was another thing entirely to keep thinking about touching him every time I looked at him.

The only thing for it was not to look at him.

I kept my eyes on the computer screen.

The phone rang in Nikolai’s office.

Oh, thank God. Saved by actual work.

I pulled up the audio on speaker so that both Danger and I could hear it.

“Angelo’s Pizza,” said a voice.

I groaned.

“Yes, I want to place order for delivery,” said Nikolai.

I turned the audio down. I could still hear it in case something happened, but I didn’t need it so loud. Nikolai’s ordering pizza was not exactly important.

The call was short, and Nikolai hung up.

Then Danger and I watched as the pizza was delivered to his office.

We listened as he ate and watched television.

Finally, around nine-thirty, he left the office.

It was quiet.

I didn’t want to look at Demetrius again, but I knew that I was going to have to, because there was nothing else to distract myself with.

He spoke from behind me. “We should maybe make this an early night. From what I understand, Nikolai’s in the office early in the morning.”

I turned, getting out of my chair. “Go to sleep? Now?” It wasn’t just early, it was crazy early.

He shrugged.

“Fine,” I said, heading across the room. “Don’t even try to fight me for the couch, because I completely call dibs.”

“Sure,” he said. “But don’t you think you should sleep in the same room as the equipment? In case he comes in the middle of the night and something happens?”

I narrowed my eyes. “You’re just trying to get the couch away from me.”

“No,” he said. “If you want, we can move the couch in here.”

“Oh,” I said. “Okay.” We went into the other room where the couch was.

Together, we picked it up. It wasn’t actually that heavy.

“Turn it sideways,” said Demetrius. “We have to get it through the doorway.”

“Turn it sideways?” I said. “While I’m holding it?” It wasn’t that heavy, but it was bulky.

“Set it down,” he said. “I think I can get it on my own. This thing is made of cardboard or something.”

“I can do it,” I said. “Just give me a second.”

“Jesus, Kiera, just set down the couch.”

I set it down, but I wanted to punch him.

He picked it up like it was nothing, turned it sideways, and stalked through the doorway.

I followed him, hardly able to believe the man was carrying a couch on his own. My pants felt tight again. And my shirt. It was brushing against my nipples, and I was thinking about what a man who was that strong could do to me…

I braced myself against the door, shutting my eyes. This was fucking ridiculous.

“Kiera?” came his voice from the other room. “You want this up against the wall?”

I hurried into the other room, feeling more turned on with every step. “It really doesn’t matter where you put it.”

He’d set it down so that it was on the opposite side of the room from my computer display. “This good, then?”

“Sure,” I said. “I’ll get some blankets.”

I left the room, found the pile of blankets we’d brought, which I had thought were too many for just one person, but not said anything about. Now I realized they’d been for the both of us.

I divided them in half.

I set my half on the couch and thrust the other half at Demetrius. “Here you go.”

He took them.

I waited for him to leave. I figured he’d sleep in one of the other rooms.

But he started to spread one of the blankets out on the floor next to the couch.

“What are you doing?” I said.

“Sleeping on the floor,” he said.

“In here?”

“Well, if something happens in Nikolai’s office, I want to hear it.”

“There’s no reason for us to sleep in the same room,” I said.

“Sure there is. I just said what the reason is.”

I did not want to be so close to him all night. I would hear it if he moved around, if he snored. It was all far too intimate. It made me nervous. But I couldn’t think of any reason for him to leave, not one that I could say aloud.

So, I just turned to the couch and began spreading out my own blankets.

When I was finished, I realized that I had another problem. I had packed some pajamas, because I wasn’t crazy about sleeping in jeans. But now I didn’t want him to see them, because they were a little bit dorky. They were a button-up shirt and pants set. They were covered in pictures of wiggly aliens with big eyes.

I picked at my jeans. I could not sleep in these things. Way too constricting.

Damn it.

I crossed to the door and flicked the light out.

“Hey,” said Danger.

“Go to sleep,” I said, heading to the bathroom, stopping to pick up my bag along the way.

“Where are you going?” He was standing in the doorway, half in the shadows. He seemed like a predator hiding and waiting to pounce.

I felt lightheaded. I wished he wasn’t there. “I’m brushing my teeth,” I said primly. “Don’t wait up.”

He shrugged. And then he reached down and yanked his shirt over his head.

Like it was nothing.

He bared himself to me, all of his olive skin and rippling muscles. He was big and bulging and hard and angled. Dark accents of hair clung to his chest. The hair traveled down his stomach in a line that disappeared into his pants.

I turned away from him, shaking a little bit.

I didn’t think I’d ever been so close to such a gorgeous half-naked man.

Half-naked.

My body convulsed. I dove for the bathroom, shutting the door behind me. What the hell was wrong with me? I hated Demetrius with a fiery passion.

Okay, hate was a strong word.

But he drove me crazy. I wanted to slap him silly.

I had never thought that I would feel so… so sexual around him.

I didn’t even know what to do with myself. Generally, if I started feeling like this with a guy, I just bolted. But that wasn’t an option right now, and I didn’t know what I was going to do.

I brushed my teeth, scrubbed my face, and put my hair in two braids. That was how I always slept. I looked at myself in the mirror, and I thought that I looked like a two-year-old. I started to take the braids out. But then I left them in, because I didn’t care what Danger thought of me. I was not changing my routine for him.

No way.

Defiantly, I shrugged into my pjs. And then I padded back to the dark room where Danger was waiting for me.

I stepped into the darkness. He was lying on the floor on his back, facing away from me. He was just a big, shadowy heap.

Good.

I went to the couch and climbed under the covers.

“What the hell have you been doing in there?” he said, his voice soft and deep.

“Getting ready for bed.”

I heard him rolling over to face me.

I yanked the covers up to my chin and stared at the ceiling.

“You have some kind of beauty routine or something?”

“No.” I fisted my hands in the blankets. “I wasn’t in there that long.”

“You were gone forever,” he said. “If I hadn’t been here, you would have missed anything that happened over in Nikolai’s office.”

“It’s being recorded,” I said. “And besides, if you weren’t here, I would have just changed in here.”

“In here?” His voice got a little scratchy. “You would have taken off all your clothes in front of that window?”

“No one can see this far up,” I said, but my own voice was breathy.

“This is why you need me around,” he said gruffly. “You don’t know how to take care of yourself at all. A pretty girl like you should not be taking off her clothes in full view of the window.”

“You think I’m pretty?” I released the covers.

He didn’t answer. He breathed. Finally, annoyed: “Anyone with eyes would think you were pretty.”

Really?

“We should go to sleep,” he said flatly.

“Okay,” I said. I shut my eyes. But when I did, all I could see was Demetrius’s bare chest.

Christ on a cracker. I was never going to be able to get to sleep.