Bad Russian 02.04 ivy Read online

  Contents

  Arkady Possessive

  ©

  ©-1

  Prologue Him

  Chapter One Him

  Chapter Two Her

  Chapter Three Him

  Chapter Four Her

  Chapter Five Him

  Chapter Six Her

  Chapter Seven Him

  Chapter Eight Her

  Chapter Nine Him

  Chapter Ten Her

  Chapter Eleven Him

  Chapter Twelve Him

  Chapter Thirteen Her

  Chapter Fourteen Her

  Chapter Fifteen Him

  Chapter Sixteen Him

  Chapter Seventeen Her

  Chapter Eighteen Her

  Chapter Nineteen Him

  Epilogue One Him

  Epilogue Two Him

  Arkady Possessive

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  © Alice May Ball 2019

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner.

  Any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, or to any actual events is purely coincidental.

  All the people portrayed in this story are over the age of eighteen, and entirely imaginary. If you think that you know some of them, or that you may be one of them, then you should consider writing fiction yourself.

  Cover Design by Signs of Desire for TzR Publishing

  This steamy, fast and sizzling hot, insta-love romance has pent-up passion and fulfillment of raw, surging need, enough to burn a vault of secrets.

  There’s no cheating and a Happy Ever After Ending guaranteed to leave you breathless, hot, and drenched.

  Especially written for you, if you need a hard, fast and determined hero who takes what he wants.

  Prologue

  Him

  As soon as I saw her in the shadows, as soon as I caught the wet gleam in her eyes and the slow peel as her lips pull apart, I knew that I had to have her. No matter what it took. She is my destiny. She’s what I’ve waited for, all of my life.

  I hear it in the breath of her sigh. Her wordless voice calls me in a whisper. Sings like a siren. Pleads. Begs. I know what she needs and I need to give it to her.

  Her dewy eyes turn up into mine. She’s been asking for this, tempting and teasing me in that way that she has. Too innocent, and at the same time, too sinful. That look. That, ‘Oh, I didn’t mean it,’ when she brushes up against me.

  The soft curve of her round ass sways against the front of my pants. Presses and then leans, crushed against my cock. Rubs up and down along the length of me. Before she springs away. Scoots with the wide-eyed look of a fawn, startled as she drank from the cool water in a clearing.

  Well, now I’m going to give it to her. Show her what happens when she gets a man like me fired up. Hard and pulsing. Can I stop myself? Maybe. Maybe not. We’ll never know. Because I’m not going to try. Not anymore.

  That lick of her lips, the way she stretches herself up to me. Pulling the front of her shirt tight, giving me a look at the swell of her creamy breasts. I’m going to give it to her hard. I’ll look in her eyes while I pierce her. Drive her, all the way up to the ledge. Propel her to the clifftop, pump her up.

  Make all of her tides and currents surge and swell. Rise to a crescendo together. And burst.

  She will be mine. Completely. Now and forever.

  Chapter One

  Him

  There could not be a worse possible moment to find the love of my life.

  I have a mission. I have to complete my objective in the State Department Annex in less than fourteen minutes. If I am caught, I will have to shoot my way out or die in the attempt.

  All of my life I have known the woman I need. I knew everything about her. Everything that mattered. Everything except her name or where she lived or what she looked like.

  I knew that she would be young. Not too young, not silly or too frivolous. But young enough to have a fresh outlook. Ambition and eagerness to learn. Belief in herself. Someone who could still believe that a person could make a difference. Yes. An optimist. But one with a realistic outlook. A head on her shoulders.

  Of course I knew from the start that I would find her. Always. I didn’t expect it to be in the middle of a mission, though. Not when I’m inside a hostile agency. Not in a place where I gained entry under false credentials. A place where, if I were discovered I could be arrested. Interrogated. Then imprisoned for a very long time.

  The worst possible place for me to be meeting the woman fated to be my love, my czarina, the mother of my children, is in a corridor by an echoing stairwell in an annex of the US Department of State. And the worst possible time is now, when I have a potentially deadly mission to complete.

  “You shouldn’t be here.” Her voice is honey. It rolls, warming me like liquid sunshine. I know right away that this is her. It has to be her. But, of course, I have a mission.

  My career in the Counterintelligence Division of the Russian FSB has been what the Americans would call sketchy at best. I do the work because I can. I have enough independent wealth that I can do whatever I please, but I’ve been able to keep a low enough profile that I can move in and out of anywhere, here or at home in Russia, without attracting any official attention.

  Journalists and spy watchers don’t pay attention to me. Not unless they’re female, of course. That effect is something I just have to deal with everywhere I go. The circumstances don’t matter. Almost all women, certainly all beautiful women, are insanely attracted to me. Really. Insanely. In the past, I’ve had women stake out my residences.

  That’s one reason why I’m so aggressive guarding my identity and my privacy. It’s not business, all my business is completely above board and under control. It’s not my wealth. I’m not extravagant, and I’m not foolish or frivolous. Nobody is going to see me as an easy mark.

  Anyone who set out to try and prey on me, they would soon learn that they were walking into a firestorm.

  I am a Russian. I want a woman to be strong in character. Intelligent. Self-aware and determined. The woman I love will be able to protect herself, but she will love me for defending her. I will be her wall. She will be my queen.

  Right now I must complete my mission. I have a brutal task to accomplish, and then I will have a surveillance blackout for exactly ninety seconds along the length of my escape route.

  If I am challenged or if anybody obstructs me, or even suspects me, I will have no choice but to kill them. I will do it without a second thought.

  When I see her I stop.

  I see the intelligence in her eyes, and I hear loveliness on her breath. Her softness calls to me and I am aroused immediately. She has to be mine. Whatever it takes, I have to make everything perfect.

  Her skirt and coat are plain. Pale gray with a blue tone, worn over a white shirt. At her throat is a plain silver chain with an ornament—a ring.

  She wears her clothes like a uniform. A defense. Practical clothes that show a woman at work. A woman who wants to be left alone. They say, Don’t look at me. Nothing to see here. But they can’t hide her beauty from me.

  She is the reason that I am a man.

  Chapter Two

  Her

  I catch sight of him in the shadows at the end of a corridor. I freeze immediately. One look at his eyes, and I’m jolted by a shock. He’s a man of power. I feel it tin
gle through me. He’s big. He has an athletic build, but more than that, an animal energy radiates from him. He’s magnetic.

  My first week interning at the State Department Annex, I absolutely cannot risk anything even slightly inappropriate. All the thoughts that I’m having now are so inappropriate they should be in a burn bag.

  I can’t risk being unprofessional. But it’s exactly what I want to do. I’m sure that he wouldn’t be interested in me, but I’ve never been so turned on by the sight of a man.

  I was lucky to get this post for the summer vacation. For a first-year law student, this is a dream posting. Every student in my law classes would kill for it.

  Harry Beck, my line manager, was welcoming on Monday morning. I think that he likes me. When I was introduced to the Director, Ms. McCleaver, I got a very dirty look from her.

  Allowing myself to get into a state over a stranger in a hallway would not improve my image with her one little bit.

  He’s still looking at me. His voice is slow. Lazy. It lolls out and then it just sprawls around. I want to grab it and shake it.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “Can you show me the way to archive rooms?” He doesn’t look a bit sorry. There’s no trace of an accent in his voice, but I know it’s not an American voice.

  He’s poised like a big cat, a top predator. A lion who just found the shady spot where the tastiest gazelles all hide. He sounds like he’s come straight from the fun part of Hell. His tongue flicks out along the edge of his lip as he tells me, “I’ve come to meet someone in archive section but I seem to have lost my way.”

  I’m on my way there myself, but I know he’s lying. He’s wearing a visitor’s badge. Visitors are not allowed anywhere near the archives. He has no accent, but when he says, ‘in archive section,’ I know that he’s not a native English speaker. Eastern European? Instinctively, I think Russian and something clicks. Somehow, I know that’s right. Even though I habitually mistrust my instincts.

  Every part of him is a stimulating and welcome sight. But he’s too old to be interested in anyone like me. And too sophisticated. And way too hot.

  “You need to get a different pass,” I tell him, while I try to stop my eyes from licking him all over. He’s looking at me with an infuriating sparkle like he can read my thoughts.

  A straightening bulge in front of his pants sets off alarms inside me. I want to grab that and shake it, too.

  I stifle a sigh as I tell him, “You need to see someone at the front desk. They’ll page the person you’re meeting with. Then they can come and find you in reception. You can’t be up here without an escort.”

  His eyes sparkle and a sly grin pulls at one corner of his mouth. “Why don’t you escort me?”

  “You aren’t my guest. Anyway, I don’t have that kind of seniority.” I don’t have any seniority, in fact. Here in the State Department Annex, I am the lowliest intern in the building. Maybe in the whole department. I suspect the Roombas outrank me.

  Besides, nobody can take a visitor to the archives. Here in the Annex, the archives are the inner temple of secrets. I’m on my way there because I saw the Deputy Secretary headed that way, and I have to go and tell him that even he’s not allowed in there. Not unless he’s accompanied and supervised by somebody with clearance.

  I tell the gorgeous hunk who doesn’t have an accent, “I’ll have to call an elevator for you. Your card will only open a fire door.” I lead him along the hallway, wondering how he got to be up here on his own in the first place.

  I call an elevator and wait with him for it to arrive. The doors slide open. His eyes gleam like the edges of knife blades as he says, “Until we meet again.” He reaches for my hand and plants a kiss. In my palm. My stomach drops through the floor. He turns my hand over and looks in my eyes as he strokes the inside of my wrist.

  A shock like a bolt of lightning pounds through me as his fingers touch my skin. I wonder what he meant.

  He steps back into the golden glow inside the elevator, but he keeps his arm out so the doors stay open. He waits for me to leave, and I hurry away, toward the archives, before my knees give way completely.

  I’m shaking inside and breathing hard. I stop for a breath. It takes me a couple of slow breaths before the flutters in my chest begin to subside and calm down. My thighs tingle and I’m damp in my panties.

  Chapter Three

  Him

  I never saw a woman like her before. All of my life, I knew that the perfect woman was out there, waiting for me. I believed that I would find her sooner or later, and I waited. Always I was sure that it would happen, but after all the time that I worked for my fortune and then my work for my government, maybe I believed it the way that people believe in great myths or ideas of political utopias.

  Like it’s something they believe that helps them keep on going, but they don’t ever really expect it to happen.

  I never lived my life that way, but when I see her now, I know that I had all but given up on the dream. I light up inside. It’s like I’ve come back to life. Risen from a coma.

  Here she is. As beautiful and as perfect as I always believed she would be. Curvy, lovely, and fragrant. Even from ten paces away, I know that. She reacts to me, but my feelings are so strong, I can’t even process her reactions. I have only instinct to drive me.

  Instinct tells me that she is perfect in every way. She is the one. And the moment that I have found her, the timing could not possibly have been worse.

  Not only do I have a mission to complete, but I am on hostile territory. Even speaking to her is a ridiculous risk that I should not have taken. Still, it’s done.

  She shows me to the elevator like the good little woman. She seems young to be working in the State Department. She may be twenty but I doubt it. I would guess that she is nineteen. She could pass for eighteen easily.

  She has poise. I like that. It’s a sign of character. She leads me to the elevator with authority and dignity. I shouldn’t be here and she is directing me, putting me in my place. I want to put her in her place, right now. I want us to wait for the elevator together. As it arrives, I want to drag her into the car after me. Push her into the corner.

  Hold her chin so I can look into her eyes. Press myself against her. Into her. Take her in the way that she needs. Give her all that I have.

  Stretch an arm back to hit a button on the panel. Pick a floor, any floor. As soon as the car moves, jam the emergency button. Look into her eyes. Hold her by the throat and take her lips with mine. Breathe her. Breathe me into her. Explore her with my tongue. And my hands.

  I can’t do any of that. Not now. And it’s making me mad. There will come a time. I will make it happen. But it’s hard to wait. Especially when she’s so close that I can feel her heat. Breathe the perfume from between her breasts.

  When I step into the car, she leans in past me to swipe her card. I have to hold myself back.

  She looks up into my eyes as she presses the number 1. As she stretches across me, her scent curls into my nostrils. An inexpensive ring hangs on a simple silver chain at her throat. The ring looks old. Something sentimental.

  Her heat sets my brain on fire. It would be so easy to pull her into the car with me. How would she react? Would she struggle? Scream? Would she fight - Oh, that thought isn’t making it any easier. I need all of my training and professional discipline now.

  As she’s pulling back, out of the car, I reach out and take her hand. She’s startled. I put a kiss on the backs of her fingers. Then I pull her hand toward me. I could pull her into the car so easily. I don’t know where I find the strength and determination not to do that.

  I stroke her wrist, and a chemical shock bangs between us. From her skin to mine and from me into her.

  She lets out a sigh. Her breath almost bursts out of her.