I'd chosen my flight based on one criterion. It departed, like, now. I just had to hope that this passport would work.
I stifled a sigh of relief when the man handed it back. "Mademoiselle, you'll have to run to make your plane."
"Thanks!" I called over my shoulder. Run? In heels and a demi-cup bra? Beautiful. My heels clicked along, boobs bouncing--to the delight of a pair of males I passed. This is why I preferred to wear minimizers!
As I rushed down the concourse, I called Jess.
She answered on the first ring. "How'd the splinterectomy go?"
"I left him to die on the table." I darted glances around me, wondering how much time I had before Sevastyan noticed I was gone. "I'm at the airport right now." Leaving him was for the best. I needed to go home, to see my friends and my mom. To sort through everything that had happened to me. To get back to my old self.
"He'll come after you?"
"You have no idea--"
A text chimed on my phone. With a grimace, I read it.
Get your ass back here or I will whip it raw
"Shit, Jess! He knows I'm gone. He's going to assume I came here and follow me." To catch me and bring me back.
How had I gotten myself into this monumental mess? This had all started because I'd wanted to find my biological parents. Both were dead, and now I was saddled with a fortune that was still in the rinse cycle--along with a lying, stalker ex-boyfriend, who also happened to be an assassin.
Fuck!
"You've got a good head start on him, right?" Jess said. "And there's got to be security everywhere."
"If I can get away now, do you think we could hide out at your parents' lake cabin for a couple of weeks?" Months? Years?
"Hide out? Nat, what did he do to you?!" She sounded on the verge of skull-fucking something.
"Nothing like you're imagining. But he isn't who I thought he was."
"Skeletons in the closet?"
"Boneyard. And I still don't know the half of it. He told me he had no family, but I just met his brother a little while ago! A big-shot politician. And their family is rich."
"I thought you said Sevastyan was a street kid."
"That's what he led me to believe. You can imagine my shock. Jess, I didn't even know his real name."
"Holy shit, that's serious. So to the cabin we go. I'll make Jell-O shots for our trip, pick you up at the airport, and then we're off. Quick question of no particular import: was the brother hot?"
"Jess!" I slowed, swiping my palm over my nape. The first night I'd met Sevastyan, I'd had a sense that I was being watched; I had that feeling again.
Wary, I surveyed the terminal--
Sevastyan! He was here, on the other side of the security checkpoint, charging through milling travelers.
God, even now I found him breathtaking to behold, with his powerful body and determined demeanor.
His intense golden eyes swept the area. Because he was hunting.
For me.
"Gotta go. Fucker's here." Click. How had he found me so quickly?
Our gazes met. Confusion flashed over his face. As if he truly had no idea why I'd left?
Too bad, Sevastyan, I am done.
I had to hope that he couldn't get through the long line at security. What were the odds that he'd already bought a ticket--and lost his ever-present pistol?
His confusion was turning to fury. His body language said he would murder anyone who got between him and me. For me, his eyes were filled with warning. Don't you dare run.
My expression told him, This dumbass can finally read neon signs. I gave him a pilot's two-finger salute, then made my way toward my distant gate. They were boarding! If I could just get on the plane . . .
I was out of breath by the time I filed into the slow-moving line. "Excuse me," I said to a group of sweet-looking elderly ladies in front of me, "do you mind if I skip ahead?"
They gave me bitch, please looks.
Out of the corner of my vision, I spied the crowd parting for a very tall black-haired man. Shit--he'd cleared security! My line snailed forward. . . .
Panicked, I scurried away from the gate down the terminal, knowing how this would go down. He'd catch me and I'd have to scream and fight.
And then he'd still never let me go.
When I had nowhere else to run, I spun around, squaring my shoulders.
His eyes were crazed as he stalked up to me. "Come." He snatched my upper arm.
"Let--me--go." I tried to wrench free of his viselike hold. "I'm not leaving with you."
"Natalie, now."
People were staring at us, whispering behind hands. Under my breath, I snapped, "Why can't you just leave me alone? You've been doing it for weeks!" At least during the days.
"Fight me, and I go to jail. Because nothing short of that will keep me from you."
Damn it! I'd seen his body language, promising pain to anyone who got between us. In the banya, he'd told me he'd do murder to possess me.
I didn't want anyone to get hurt. And I didn't want him to go to prison. Again.
"Interpol would love to take someone like me into custody."
I glanced past him, saw a gate attendant reaching for a red phone. To alert security?
Talk about making a major decision under pressure: My freedom for his?
I recalled how Sevastyan had been last night, in our bed. My dream man.
Damn, damn, damn! It seemed I could leave him--but I couldn't send him to prison. Not after everything he'd done for me.
This man saved my life.
His grip tightened, and his frenzied gaze pinned mine. His pupils were blown, his eyes appearing almost black. "I won't be taken from you. Do you understand me?"
I swallowed, hoping very much that I did not understand him. I had a flashback of what he'd done to Gleb, and pitied any guard who confronted this enraged enforcer. I had no choice but to go with him. For now. "Let go of my arm, and I'll come with you."
Instead, he dragged me along, my wishes ignored yet again.
"You can't do this!"
"Doing it."
Okay, so he could force me back--didn't mean I'd stay. He couldn't watch me every hour of the day and night. I promised him, "Short of your locking me in a cage, I will return to Nebraska."
"I'm not above using a cage."
"You dick!" As soon as we were outside the airport, I launched the toe of one of my pointy heels at his calf, booting him as I had his car back at Berezka.
He didn't seem to feel it whatsoever. So I kicked his ankle.
Nothing. And then he was tossing me into the back of his limo, signaling for the driver to go.
Apprehension overwhelmed my anger. The privacy window was up; I was at Sevastyan's mercy.
What was he going to do to me?
As if even a foot was too much distance between us, he yanked me across his lap. He squeezed me against his chest, those massive arm muscles rippling around me.
On the way back from the club, he'd held me like this. Never had I felt more cherished and protected.
Now? I'd never felt more conflicted. Had some traitorous part of me clamored for him when he'd scanned the crowd for his woman? Had some part of me thrilled earlier to hear myself called his fiancee?
What is wrong with me??
As I sputtered protests, he stripped off my messenger bag and coat--still too much between us?--then he clasped me harder, inhaling the scent of my hair, like we'd been parted for ages. In a distant tone, he asked, "Why would you leave?"
"You know why! I didn't sign on for a one-sided relationship, didn't sign on to be treated like a thing. You don't confide in me, you order me around, and you lie to me!"
As if he hadn't heard me, he grated in Russian, "You're not to leave me, Natalya. I'll never let you go."
"My God, are you hearing me at all? You sound like a freak! You can't keep me if I don't want to be kept!" I managed to draw back a couple of inches to glimpse his face--then wished I hadn't.
A professional hit man had fixated on me, and now seemed to be experiencing some kind of mental break because I'd left him. It was as if he couldn't make out my words because some bomb blast was repeatedly going off in his head.
Realizing how futile it was to try to communicate with him, I fell silent. But he wasn't done.
"For now, I'll discipline you."
I swallowed. "Putting the D back into BDSM?"
Against my hair, he said, "I told you that if you ran from me again, I'd catch you. I told you I'd spread you over my knees and whip your ass until you knew better."
His text had said he'd whip it raw. At the thought, I tensed even more in his iron embrace.
"And don't I always do what I say I will?"
Chapter 42
Sevastyan kept me trapped in his arms as he climbed the steps to our suite. He only let me go to slam the doors behind us.
As his threat replayed in my mind, I wondered if I should make a dash for the safe room. Yet even now I couldn't manage to be afraid of this man.
"Never run from me again!" He couldn't seem to catch his breath. "The thought of not having you . . ." He punched the wall near the hole from his last show of fury. As his fist made impact, he loosed a short, violent yell. Like an animal in pain.