Found (6 page)

The combination, it was too, too much. "No, please, no!" She twisted, it was unbearable.

Then, he covered that one spot, sucking long and hard. "Nikky!" She arched, right off the bed, her world exploding.

What had he done to her? That ass. "Nikky, Nikky, Nikky," she sighed as she collapsed.

Those last Nikky's sounded dazed. As they should be. Her first orgasm. Nik grinned, pleased with himself, stroking through her dampened hair. Frizzy there too, like the hair on her head. He moved up her body, to better see her face. Her cheeks were flushed, a trail of tears from her closed eyes. The covers around her were in delightful disarray. She was a passionate woman, his fiancee. "Do you respect me now, Brat?"

One eye opened. "I'm beginning to appreciate you more."

He laughed. She wouldn't give him anything he hadn't earned fair and square. He liked that.

He caressed her small breasts, so soft and responsive. He liked her. She touched him, also, gently at first, then more aggressively, lower and lower. "Would you like to show that appreciation?" he asked as he pulled down his boxers.

Tatyana spun around in his arms. She was naked. He was naked. And snoring, sprawled out, his arm thrown over her waist. "Are you going to sleep all day?" It was nearly seven a.m.

He groaned, lifted his head from the pillow, looked at the alarm clock. "Let me sleep, Brat."

Buried his face in the pillow again.

He was wasting precious moments of living, idiot man. She slipped out from under him, padding around the hotel room naked. There it was. She picked up the pen and paper, returned to the bed, leaned back, and used his bare ass as a head rest. "Do you have health insurance?" Did crime families have health insurance?

Something mumbled. Sounded like yes.

"I'll need a copy of it." If it wasn't adequate, she'd top it up. Plus, she'd require the information to check him in. She stroked his hairy legs. He couldn't pass for a Tatyana. No, not at all. "Do you have any medical conditions paramedics should know about?"

He placed her pillow over his head. "Sleep deprived."

That must be a no. He did look, and Tatyana remembered last night, her toes curling, act like a very healthy man. "What's your blood type?"

"B Negative." He groaned, rolling onto his back, an arm covering his eyes. Dislodging Tatyana. She snuggled into his shoulder, instead.

B Negative. "That's fairly rare." She bit her lip and he was a big guy, he'd need a lot of blood.

"I'm O Negative." A universal donor. "In a pinch, I could donate." She had before. Not that it helped.

"Units set aside," he mumbled.

Very smart. Tatyana nodded, more optimistic. "I'll need that information, too." She tapped the pen against her lips, thinking. This was a rare opportunity, knowing her next victim so well. Maybe, just maybe. "I don't want you to die, Nikky."

He placed his arm around her. "I'm not going to die."

She thought about that. "When death comes..."

"We'll work something out. Death and I are old friends."

"You need some new friends." She hated death. Hated it. Death took away everyone she cared for and she was sick of it. "Do you have a will?"

His body tensed. "No."

He didn't think one was needed. She hoped he was correct. "You should have one. Everyone needs a will." To ensure loved ones got a piece of them, so they wouldn't be forgotten.

"I don't." He sat up, bouncing her off of him again, and swung his legs over the side of the bed. "Because I don't own a damn thing." He didn't own anything? But he gave the impression of wealth. He walked to the bathroom. "Order breakfast, Brat. Tell them I'll have the regular." He shut the door.

He didn't own a damn thing. Nik still fumed over that, hours later, as he moved through the casino. Everything he had was doled out to him by Grandfather. Like a damn dog, waiting for his bowl to be filled.

A dog on a short lease. What he was doing prowling the floor, he didn't know. Normally, he'd be at the office, working through mounds of paperwork, but today, he was restless.

He should be exhausted due to his early start. Seven in the fuckin' morning, with her asking twenty questions, chipper as anything. He had to get the brat on Vegas time or he'd end up killing her himself.

"Heard from Boris, Boss." Pavel joined him on his aimless walk.

Boris, Tatyana. "They still at the boutique?" He sent her back for casino appropriate clothes.

Something black, sophisticated, expensive, he told her. That should be specific enough.

"They left there." The big man's mouth worked silently as though he didn't know what to say.

"Spit it out." What was the brat up to now?

"They're performing time trials of different routes between here and Sunrise." Sunrise Medical Center was the nearest emergency room.

Time trials in a limo and, by the way Pavel shifted unhappily, that wasn't it. "What else?"

"Before she left this morning, she asked me to demonstrate how to apply the hemostatic agent." He paused. "She asked specifically if it was effective with B negative blood, Boss."

His blood type. "She's serious." About this death curse of hers. Either it was real or she was crazy. Neither option was good.

"It appears so, Boss."

He wouldn't take any chances. "Warn your team the threat may not come from Chan." They were already on high alert. "And tell Boris to bring her home." His head of security turned to carry out his instructions. "When she returns, she's not to leave again, not unless I'm by her side, understand?"

Pavel paused. "She won't like that, Boss."

"Tough." Pavel was right. She wouldn't like that. Not at all. But this was sure to be a clothes shedding confrontation and the activities afterward should tap some of his excess energy.

There were advantages to having a fiancee.

He said to stay in the hotel room until he came up and got her at nine o'clock. The hell with that. Tatyana was ready early. Sitting on the bed as she waited would add wrinkles to her skin-tight black leather skirt. Wrinkles were not sophisticated. Nikky wanted sophisticated, he'd have to deal with the consequences. And that meant she waited for no man.

Heads swung around as she exited the elevator, Boris at her back. She wasn't interested in any of those gawking lechers. She hadn't dressed like this for them. Tatyana scanned the crowd. Where was the arrogant ass? "Boris?" she asked the bodyguard.

"The VIP room, miss." Boris motioned in that direction.

Of course. Nikky wouldn't be amongst mere mortals. She headed there. Her progress was slow, hampered by the long skirt, the six inch heels, and the leering men in her way.

"Cousin Tatyana." A short, thin stick of a man approached her, arms outstretched. A cousin.

She didn't know which one. Tatyana dutifully kissed his cheeks, replying to his insincere comments, before continuing. The man fell in place beside her, yapping incessantly about how honored he was to work with her fiance. No wonder Nikky had a fat head, pandered to as he was.

An average-sized, round man was next to block her path. Another cousin, equally ambitious, equally annoying. By the time she reached the tables, she was surrounded by them, all pleading their cases, yelping at her heels like a pack of dogs.

How Nikky could stand it, she had no idea. She

wanted to scream in frustration, to tell them to grow spines. She didn't. Instead, she treated them politely, firmly, with the coolness she spent all afternoon perfecting.

For him. The ass. Wherever he was.

"Dear cousin." Stepan, king of the slimeballs, kissed her cheeks. "You are stunning." His hand rested on her waist with a familiarity she didn't like. "Nikolay is a fool to let you out of his sights."

"Nikky is no fool." She pressed her bright red lips together to keep from adding 'you two-faced bastard'. "He knows I," she placed extra emphasis on I, "can be trusted."

"A woman a man can trust." A smarmy smile. "You are a rarity." Laughter rippled through the cousins.

She didn't answer. Instead, she gave him her best 'who the hell are you' look and turned to Boris. "Have him meet us." The crowd around her was unmanageable. She wouldn't make the room before losing her temper. "We'll be at the penny slots."

"We'll be at the craps table, cousin," Stepan overruled her, putting a clammy hand on her bare back. She moved forward instinctively to avoid him.

"I never play without Nikky." She rarely played, period, as she always lost. Tatyana kept that to herself. Gambling was their business.

"Then you won't play, little Tatyana." Stepan was so patronizing. "You'll be my good luck charm."

That's what he thought. This would be a costly lesson for her new cousin. She stifled a smile. "Only if I can roll for you."

A half hour later, even the joy of pushing Stepan into the poorhouse taxed Tatyana's patience. She was about to call it a night and head back to the room when the crowd parted and Nikky stepped forward. Her breath caught. He wasn't the tallest man at the table, there were men taller. He wasn't the broadest, his man Pavel having that honor. But he had a presence that demanded attention.

And he had hers. Completely. She swept a possessive eye over his black suit, his white shirt, the hint of shadow on that chiseled chin, until she reached his eyes. He stared at her, eyes hooded, intent, his reaction was all that she had hoped for. A little bit of anger, a little bit of amusement, a whole lot of arousal. Her nipples hardened. By the way his gaze dropped and his face darkened, she suspected they were clearly visible in the leather halter top.

Breathe. She had to breathe. Tatyana rolled the dice, achingly aware of him as he rounded the table toward her. The crowd groaned, background noise. Ace deuce was called. Craps.

Nikky sliced into the space between her and the cousin, sliding a warm hand down her back. She shivered, turned, her chin raised.

"Tatyana." He kissed her, smelling of citrus, lavender, wood, man. "Or should I say SuperBrat?" he whispered into her ear.

He was a clever man, villainess was exactly the look she was trying for. "It took you long enough to find me, AssMan," she murmured against his neck.

His chest shook as though he was holding back a laugh. "I thought I taught you respect."

Last night. Her toes curled. "I seem to have forgotten that lesson."

"Can't have that." Nikky kissed her again. She closed her eyes, savoring the thrust of his tongue into her mouth, the taste of vodka and man, his fingertips on her backbone. The man had skills.

A clearing of a throat scattered the moment. "Miss." The grinning stickman offered her the dice.

"No, thank you." She gave the casino employee a sheepish smile. "We're done here." They needed some privacy so they could kiss undisturbed.

"You can't stop now," Stepan insisted a little too desperately, annoying Tatyana. Though, she should be more sympathetic. Thanks to her, he was down high four figures.

"Can't she?" A hint of steel backed Nikky's velvet voice.

The cousin swallowed. Hard. Tatyana played with her engagement ring to cover her amusement. Her bossy fiance. "She's crapped out every single round, every single round, Nikolay," Stepan said like that was unusual. It wasn't, not for her. "Her luck has to turn."

No, it didn't. "I told you." Not that it mattered. None of them paid her warnings any attention. She looked up at Nikky, not even her handsome fiance. "That Nikky has all of my luck." An admonition when the cousin's hands crept a little too close to her breasts. She would not be pawed by anyone other than Nikky.

Her comment drew a shaky laugh from Stepan. "That's not how luck works, dear cousin."

"Isn't it?" How the hell would he know? She squeezed her bright red lips into a thin line.

"Cousins," she addressed the crowd, "You don't mind if we have a new shooter, do you?"

Not standard play in craps but what was the point of owning a casino if you couldn't make your own rules?

Dark heads bobbed around the table. Annoying little yes men. She took two dice from the stickman. "I didn't think so."

Held them out. "Care to do the honors, Nikky?" To prove her point.

Nikky's lips twitched. "One roll." Bets were placed. He shook the die in his closed hand.

She leaned over, brushing her breasts against him and blew on his hand. "For luck." He rolled. Seven. A natural.

She pressed her face into Nikky's chest to cover her gloating smile. "Now, can we go?"

No one would mistake his fiancee for a child tonight. Nikky's skin twitched with every ripple of that form fitting leather. Something black, something sophisticated, something expensive. The combination was lethal to his composure.

Tatyana glanced up from where she huddled with the wives, talking rings and weddings and babies. He wished he could watch her all night. He couldn't. "I'll be back," he mouthed to her. She nodded, a small smile curling her bright red lips.

"Don't leave her side," he instructed her bodyguard, reluctantly moving away. "Oh, and Boris?"

"Yes, Boss."

"Thank you for contacting me earlier." When the wolves circled the brat, looking for weaknesses. Not that she had any. She twisted even her bad luck to her advantage.

To their advantage. She may give him hell in private, but in public, she was firmly on his team. Someone at his back.

"She asked me to contact you, Boss."

She asked for him. That pleased him. Nik moved through the casino, determined. He had business to attend to, the business of protecting a fiancee.

He sat down beside Joey Chan's man at the blackjack table and motioned to be dealt in.

Pavel placed his chips on the table, a deliberate show of strength. A couple of regulars stepped away.

A four showing for the dealer. Under seventeen. She would hit. Nik would also, having a Queen, the Queen of Hearts, and a five. Chan's man sat pretty at a pair of tens.

"I hear you're searching for a woman." Nik kept his voice low. "A woman looking remarkably like my fiancee." There'd been recognition in the man's eyes when he spotted the brat. The discovery would be relayed and Joey Chan would know where she was by the end of the night. "Not my fiancee, you understand, but as they look alike." He shrugged his shoulders as though unconcerned. "I don't appreciate the photo being flashed around." He touched his finger to the table and was dealt a card. A six. "It makes me uncomfortable. You wouldn't want me to be uncomfortable, would you?"