The Double

But that was nothing compared to who he was. That knowledge was like a cold blackness pushing in from every side, sapping every bit of strength and warmth from me. After years of anonymity, of staying safely at a distance, suddenly I was in direct contact with everything the FBI fought against. His branch of the Russian Mafia had the wealth and power of a small country and he could bring the entire weight of it down on me. My death would take a mere wave of his hand. I was too scared to breathe.

And then I looked into his eyes.

At first, all I could see was cold. He was glowering down at whoever had dared disturb him and the chill in those gray eyes made my chest contract. He’s looking at me. After two years of watching him, he was looking at me. I couldn’t speak. I just stood there staring up at him from behind my glasses.

Then he blinked, just once, as if surprised. His eyes crinkled. Confusion... then fascination. At that moment, his eyes didn’t look completely gray. There was just the faintest hint of pale blue.

Suddenly, I could breathe again. And when I inhaled, the air carried the heat of his body and the clean, rich smell of him. I’d always been so far away, I’d never imagined him having a scent, but it was amazing. Vanilla and something I couldn’t identify, sharp and citrusy and cold: I imagined bright red berries that grew only in Russia, frozen solid in a fierce winter and then crushed to extract their essence.

What’s going on?

I fought it, but my eyes were darting helplessly over him. For two years, I’d had to gauge his body under suit jackets and coats. Now, his jacket was gone and he’d undone a few buttons on his shirt, his bow tie hanging loose around his neck. There was a tantalizing triangle of smooth, tan skin, with just the hint of the tops of his huge pecs. I could follow the shape of them as they pushed out his shirt, and there was just enough light in the dim hallway to make out the shadows of his nipples. There were other shadows, even darker, just below his collarbone: Bratva tattoos. My eyes roved lower. There was a hint of alternating dark and light: the ridges and valleys of his abs. Then the dividing line where soft white shirt disappeared into the black of his tuxedo pants. God, his waist was so tight, and the way he flared out, his hips and quads loaded with power….

The blood was rushing in my ears, my heart pounding. That look in his eyes had made the fear drop away just enough... it was still there, but it had disappeared beneath a tidal wave of raw, hot need.

I knew I was attracted to him. But through the lens of the camera, he’d been toned down and abstracted, a faded photocopy. Now I was getting the real thing.

I swallowed, breathless, and looked up at his face. I was seeing a million new, tiny details now. It was as if my senses had been starving for him all this time, surviving on just distant glimpses, and now they were gorging themselves. I’d seen that strong jaw a thousand times, but I’d never noticed how the dimple set off all the iron hardness: I had the crazy urge to run my finger down his chin and press it. And that pouting lower lip, so arrogant…. I’d thought of him as looking like a king but I’d never appreciated just how much: there really was something regal about him, something grand and imperious. King didn’t cut it.

I felt myself teetering on that cliff edge again. And all I wanted to do was step out into space.

He stared at me, his face hardening. But his eyes kept that faint hint of blue, that tiny touch of warmth, however much he tried to frown it away. I swallowed. Emperor. That described it better. Konstantin was like a Roman Emperor, lord of the entire freakin’ world. And when he looked at me like that, there was some deep, shameful part of me that piped up and I’m just a lowly…

I pushed the thought away. I had not just thought slave. But the twisting, thrashing, squirming hot mess I was inside said otherwise.

“What?” he asked. Just one word but in that amazing Russian accent I knew so well from listening to his phone calls. It was even better in real life, an aural kiss, the long w like a press of the lips and the sharp t a lash of the tongue.

I pushed my glasses up my nose. My voice ran on autopilot. “I’m really sorry, but I have the room across the hall and I went out to go to the ice machine and the door closed behind me and I don’t have my key. Could you please call reception for me?” I gestured down at my bathrobe. “I don’t want to go all the way down there like this.”