Bad Russian 04 Read online

  Her eyes spark and flicker. She’s as smart as a whip. As the door slams shut behind Jesska, Margot looks back at me.

  From the next booth some idiot is whining. “Some of that drink got on me.”

  “Think yourself lucky.” My eyes don’t leave the waitress. I’m drinking in every luscious inch of her. “It’s a great martini. You consider yourself to be honored.”

  My gaze wanders down the curve of her throat for another look at the rise and fall of the badge on her marvelous left breast.

  The whiner in the next booth drones on, “You should be buying me a drink. I’m soaked.”

  I growl, “Fuck off back to your mommy,” still looking at her. “Do it before I come around there.”

  She says, “Please, don’t talk to the other customers like that.” Her eyes smile. My pulse hammers.

  I shrug with my eyes. Tilt my head. “Is there more in the shaker? Is that why you brought it?”

  “Yes. Would you like some more on your shirt, too, or maybe your hair?”

  “It’s a great martini. I want some in a glass. Just for old times’ sake.”

  Her professional focus and concentration fascinate me as she pours from the shaker.

  “Have some yourself?”

  “I don’t drink.”

  “How do you know how to mix cocktails?”

  “I only know a couple. My daddy taught me.”

  “He does drink, presumably.”

  “You could be wearing another drink yet.”

  “My English. I didn’t mean that the way that it sounded.”

  “It’s okay. And, he doesn’t drink.” She holds my gaze. She is electrifying. Eventually, she tells me, “He did.” She could have strung out that stare for another hour or two. I wouldn’t have minded.

  I have to have her.

  I say, “I understand.” I want to check. I’m pretty sure I do. She means her father drank and decided to stop. Stopped, but he had the discipline to be around alcohol. Taught her how to be around it. Serve it.

  Did I really get all that from the look in her eye and her tone of voice? Looking at her, I think I did. To check, I ask her, “Do I? Do I understand you?”

  A moment passes. She looks steadily in my eye. Nobody has ever looked at me that way before. Not and had this effect. I’m straightening. Lengthening. Enlarging. She is having an effect on me that I am completely unprepared for. In this moment, I think that just by looking at her, I can understand everything, all that matters in the world. The universe. I need to look at her a lot more.

  She nods but only with her eyes. “Yes.” Her voice is like honey. “I think you probably do.” My cock swells and aches.

  Urgently, I want to undress her. I want to feel every inch of her with my hands. With my body. I need to open her up. Feel the wetness of her soft walls close and grip around my cock. Bury myself in her heat. Pound my seed, deep inside her. I want to make little reproductions of her.

  I never thought about making babies before. Now, looking at her, it’s going to be hard to think of anything else.

  I realize immediately how it can work. With a firm control of my voice and my emotions, I tell her, “You will be my muse. Come with me.”

  Her head tilts toward the door. “Is that what you told her?”

  “Jesska?” A laugh explodes in my chest. “Are you kidding? No.”

  “Oh. So you weren’t trying to get into her pants.”

  “Nothing would interest me less.”

  “You’re not interested in women.”

  “I’m very interested in you.”

  Her chin juts. Amusement pulls at her smile. “Because you think I might be less challenging? You think I’m a pushover?”

  “I’ve made monumental sculptures that would push over more easily than you.”

  “Have you?” her eyelids drop. She looks up at me. I’m feeling her. Through the eye contact alone. I feel her breathe. My body feels her warmth. I feel her heat. Right now, I catch her scent.

  My chin lifts as my nostrils flare. My eyes are locked on hers. And hers on mine. Her chin tilts up, showing me her throat. The air between us thickens and crackles. Behind her lips, her tongue presses out. Her lips peel open. Her perfume rises, hot.

  Instinctively, I beckon her. Hand out, palm up, I raise my fingers. Closing. Like taking a gift. She sniffs a long breath in. Her mouth tightens. Then she steps toward me.

  I reach for the back of her head, Her eyes widen. I pull her closer. She blinks.

  Her scent, from between her breasts, the taste of her breath. This is the woman I have to have.

  “You can’t…” the silky whisper of her breath makes my cock surge and spring, huge and demanding. I pull her closer. I can taste her breath on the air. The peachy sweetness of her lips. The heat in her pussy warms the front of my pants.

  Holding her so near, but still inches away is an agony I never dreamed of. Her voice is barely a whisper. “So what was the argument about?”

  “She wanted to get me into her pants.”

  “Really.”

  “I only wanted to get into her gallery.”

  Our lips are almost touching. Shaping to meet. Ready. Open. I watch her mouth as her head tilts.

  “Couldn’t you just buy a ticket?”

  My heart pounds. I look from her eyes down to her wet, parting lips. She’s trying to keep it light.

  “My art.” I tell her, “I create the art of the future.” As I talk, I taste her breath. My voice drags lower. I feel the heat of her mouth. “Art that speaks. Directly.” I look back up into the gleam of her eyes. She looks like she’s listening. I’m not. I say it on autopilot. It’s the gallery speech, the intro I worked out for bloggers and journalists. “My art bypasses the conscious mind and talks straight to the soul, the living core. Without artificial language.” Her lips begin to part. “Only the language of the raw, untamed spirit.”

  “Oh.” She drifts a fraction of an inch closer. “Do you?” My heart jumps.

  The oaf out of the next booth lumbers around. He’s big. Slow. But he must weight two hundred and sixty pounds. “Buy me a fucking drink. Asshole.”

  Standing next to the raised booth, his mouth is right by my ear.

  Margot moves back. Lifts a hand. So much the wonderful diplomat. If she hadn’t timed that so perfectly, my fist would have shot straight out, sideways. It would be buried in the cocksucker’s face.

  Ignoring her, his fist bangs on the table. Everything flies into the air as the table collapses. A glass somersaults, turns slowly end over end. Arcs of martini spray around before the glass shatters among the splintered fragments of the table.

  Seeing him disrespect her like that makes me furious. I have to contain my anger and channel it. Before the glass lands and shatters among the splinters of the table, my flat hand slams over the man’s ear. His eyes pop wide and his face reddens with the pain as he’s deafened. With my other hand, I grab his hair. Yank his head back.

  I jump out of the seat, swinging a fast punch into his kidney. It’s an awkward turn, so there’s not much force. My aim is rock-solid, though. The blow doubles him over. He crumples to the floor on his elbows and knees, groaning on the rug.

  I sit back in what’s left of the booth, to let him know that I’m giving him one chance to get away.

  Lazily, I ask him, “Still want to fight about it, or will you take your chance and run?”

  Scrambling from his knees, first on all fours, then at an awkward, hobbling run, he hurries for the door.

  My Margot still looks as cool as a long drink. I tell her, “Shame about the table.”

  The whole booth is kind of wrecked.

  She shrugs. “It happens. The furniture here is designed to be easily replaced.

  “How many more trials of Hercules do I have to endure before I get a taste of your perfect martini?”

  Margot breathes hard. Her neck and cheeks are flushed. Her eyes are serious, though. “That customer, he’ll probably never come back.”r />
  “He’s someone with a small mind. I believe that he can learn. Maybe he will.”

  “He probably learned not to come in here again.”

  I shrug. “What does it matter?”

  “About five bucks in a tip, three to four times a week. He’s at least half my college book bill.”

  I shrug again. “I’ll make it up to you. Money doesn’t matter.”

  “The only people who say that either have it by the truckload or they have none at all. Since you bring your curators and big business meetings into a cocktail dive, I’m guessing you’re of the ‘have none at all’ variety.”

  “And you’d be right. Of course.” I pull a wad of bills from my pocket. “This is all that I have.” I hold it out to her like it’s a handkerchief.

  Her eyes pop. “Woah! That’s like a couple of thousand dollars.” She looks around. Pushes it back toward me. “What are you doing flashing that around in a place like this?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Anyway, it’s yours now.”

  “I’m not taking that. Put it away.”

  “I thought money was important to you.” I’m still holding out the cash. “You grow more interesting. The more I see of you, the more certain I am. You have to be my muse.”

  “Okay, that martini was nothing like strong enough to make you that crazy, and you didn’t get to drink enough of it anyway, even if it was. You, dear customer, are seriously cracked.”

  She pushes my hand. I feel her cool flesh, the inside of her palm against my hand. It’s like I was standing in a dark and empty field when a whump of stadium lights burst on, flooding light all over me and all around me.

  I’m still looking in her eyes. I know that she felt it too. With less conviction she tells me, “Put the money away.”

  “I lost you your tipper. Take it. In case he really never comes back.”

  “No.”

  “I’ll hold on to it for you. Come and be my muse.”

  She turns and runs to the back of the bar.

  I call after her, laughing, “Are you going to fight and struggle every step of the way?”

  Soon, her friend, the other waitress, tells me that she left.

  “So,” I murmur to myself, “Do I have to chase you, my peach?”

  Chapter Three

  Her

  THE THOUGHT IS NOT entirely displeasing to me. My cock is harder than ever.

  I shove with my shoulder to open the door of my tiny apartment. ‘Bijoux,’ the rental agent called it. A pile of mail on the brown rug makes the door heavy to open. All of the envelopes are brown, and all the mail is about school fees. All except one from a credit card company. I’m sure they think their card would be the perfect complement to the debts I’m already struggling to stay in front of.

  I am on top of them, but barely. The college bursar’s office wants to remind me about payment dates. The usual college loan parasites are swarming around behind them.

  In the bursar’s office, there’s a poster on the wall guaranteeing that ‘all student information is kept secure and in the strictest confidence,’ so it’s odd that so many student loan companies are able to guess my name, as well as my address, college, and student year.

  By the time Claire calls, I’m all wrapped up in my familiar towel robe, snug after a shower and busily getting myself around the outside of some serious chocolate and vanilla ice cream. I’m a simple girl, I have simple tastes. I just need a lot. On a good day, for a fancy treat, I’ll melt a creamy chocolate bar and pour it over the ice-cream. So shoot me. I love how it sets.

  Today, I went for option B, which is more ice cream.

  “In the art world,” Claire is breathless, “Do you know what he’s called? Are you ready for this? Nikita Tchaikowsky is ‘The Most Important Artist You Never Heard Of.’ It’s like he’s some super-secret hidden treasure. Like a code that no-one can crack.” I hear her bubbly grin in her voice. “Let me read you this, ‘It seems as if he makes the work that the world is waiting for, only we don’t know it yet. But he does.’ Isn’t that mysterious and wonderful?”

  “So, how do you know all of this, and, maybe more important, why? Probably most important of all, why are you telling me?”

  “I found out by a special magic spell that only I know. It’s called Google. Come on, Margot, don’t tell me you haven’t even Googled him. Aren’t you squirming, don’t you love that this mystery man is completely crazy about you, Margot?”

  “He’s completely crazy. I’ll go along with that part. I’m not…” really, Claire seems almost as determined as he is that Mr. Older Russian Hunk and I are, ‘destined for each other.’ She loves that shit. I think it’s cute. For her. In theory.

  Becoming one with a well-formed scoop of vanilla, I tell her, “Well, no, Claire. I haven’t Googled him. Or even thought about him, come to that.”

  Okay, that last part may not be strictly true.

  As soon as I got home, I was desperate to get into the shower. Like, irrationally desperate. I set the water running and hauled off my clothes as fast as I could. I was in such a rush, I still had on my underwear. I got hold of the long bar of creamy soap.

  I was thinking about him then.

  As the water and the lather ran all over my skin, as my buds all stood and buzzed, I slid my hands into the sides of my underwear, hooked my thumbs in to slide them down. Then I thought of him. As one hand slipped over my stomach, down to my wet delta, wet from the shower but already drenched. Hot. Aching.

  I was thinking about him for the next couple of minutes. I thought about his strong hands. The bulging steel cables he had for thigh muscles. I remembered his dark and musty scent. And the merciless gleam of amusement in his eyes.

  My panties sagged, waterlogged, dripping and running wet. I rubbed the soap. Inside. Along my cleft. Over my lips. Around my clit. I couldn’t keep my hips from moving. Rocking. Rolling around and around.

  A cascade of clenching tingles lit up like fireworks, bursting inside me. Then I thought of him. I thought of his heat and his power as the surge spilled over again. And then in the next eruption, too. I thought about the scent of his breath. His lips. And the bolt like an electric charge that banged through me when my palm touched the live heat of his flesh.

  And the next time I crested, I thought about his ass. Rolling. Hammering. Pumping. Unstoppable.

  “He’s too old. And he’s way too big, Claire.” She sniggers as I tell her between scoops, “Anyway, I have my life on track. It’s all ridiculous. Obviously. He’s just an arrogant man who thinks he can have whatever he wants and whoever he wants.” I lick the spoon upside down. “Just because he has those melt-your-pants eyes.”

  “Yeah.” Claire wasn’t giving up, “But he does, though. Right?”

  “So. You have him. Let him melt your pants.” Saying it pulls a twinge deep in my gut. But I ignore it. Obviously. She can have him if she wants. What difference does it make to me? None. Obviously.