From Russia With Claws (16 page)

She released him, raising her hand to his shoulder. He shouted into her mouth, his whole body driving forward as he plunged into her. Galina writhed against him as his cock pulsed deep inside her, his climax ripping through him suddenly. He sagged against her, and she reached back to hold the top of the headrest to keep them both upright.

“God,” he murmured, pressing his forehead to hers. His voice was shaking.

She smiled, carding her fingers through his hair with one hand. “That’s a proper fucking,” she whispered, nibbling at his earlobe. She felt good all over, slow and lazy like a big cat after a feed. “Although I despair for the state of your tuxedo pants.”

“I really don’t give a fuck about my pants right now.” Andrey pulled her closer and she felt him slip out of her. Her dress was probably ruined but she couldn’t bring herself to care.

Andrey held her against his chest, her head tucked on his shoulder, stroking her hair and back. His head was thrown back against the head-rest, eyes closed. Galina thought he’d fallen asleep, so she lifted a hand to lightly trace his lips. His hand came up and grabbed hers, holding it loosely so she could pull away if she wanted to.

She didn’t want to.

His blue eyes cracked open. “Mmmmmm,” he hummed, sounding exhausted and pleased. “I should go to the ballet more often.”

Galina laughed softly and snuggled against him.

When in Doubt, Send Pastries

G
ALINA
L
OOKED
U
P
from the catalog she was perusing at the sound of a knock at her door. A delivery man stood holding a clipboard and pen.

“There’s a delivery you need to sign for.” He held them out to her.

“Art shipments are usually signed for at the loading dock,” she told him, getting to her feet.

“It’s not an art delivery,” he said. “It’s personal. For Galina Sudenko.”

Galina cocked her head, as if she didn’t comprehend what he’d just said. Who would send her something here? While she was signing for the delivery, he lifted a huge urn of two dozen roses so dark red they were nearly black. Interspersed among the stems was aconite and wormwood. She peeked among the leaves for a card, finally finding it tucked into a particularly dense knot of aconite. When she opened it, she broke into a smile. Written on the card was one word:
Yours
.

Staggering a little under the weight of the arrangement, Galina she set the urn atop a bank of filing cabinets that lined one wall and picked up her phone to call Andrey.

“You got the flowers then?” His deep voice sent a shiver through her. She remembered how his voice sounded in the car last night: broken, wanting.

“I did. They’re beautiful. And the aconite and wormwood are nice touches.” She couldn’t keep the smile from her voice.

“I’m glad you like them.” She heard voices on the other end of the line. Andrey said something she didn’t catch to someone with him, then said, “I have to go. I will see you later.”

“I’m counting on it,” Galina answered. “And thank you for the flowers. You didn’t have to do that.”

“Yes, I did.” He hung up.

Galina spent the rest of the day arranging exchanges of collections from other museums, trying to track down a painting that had been on loan for over a year, and gathering information about several pieces likely to be up for private auction in a few months. But every time she looked up and saw the flowers from Andrey, she smiled to herself.

She locked her office behind her and made her way to her car, only to find Alexei leaning against it. Galina looked around for her security detail, but her brother must have sent them away. She narrowed her eyes, stopping some distance from Alexei. He pushed himself up from the hood of her car and folded his arms across his chest.

“I know what you’re up to,” he began without preamble.

Galina kept her face neutral, but her mind went into overdrive. Did he suspect she was looking for the stolen shipment? There’s no way Irina would have told him about what she’d discovered in Sergei’s office. Had he heard of her discrete inquiries? When it came to Alexei, she had no illusions the depths he would stoop to in order to get what he wanted. That’s why Nikolai was so busy all the time; he was the one responsible for cleaning up Alexei’s messes.

“And what would that be, besides leaving work to go see our sister?” She kept her voice level, spearing him with her gaze.

He moved closer to her, a stalk rather than a walk. Alexei was powerfully built and she had no doubt if angered he would do something stupid. Having witnesses had never bothered him before. Papa would be furious with Alexei if he really hurt her. Then she recalled the snarl on his face when he’d chased her through the woods. Perhaps Papa’s anger was no longer a deterrent to Alexei.

“Your little ‘business.’ That’s cute, by the way.” He circled her, and Galina turned to keep him in her sights. “I know you’re trying to replace me as father’s choice for head of the family.”

She didn’t try to deny it, but she wasn’t going to openly antagonize Alexei when she wasn’t in a position of power. “I just asked Papa to let me start a new line of the business. That’s it. Don’t go getting all paranoid about it.” She took another step toward her car.

Alexei blocked her, his bulky body and barrel chest intruding into her personal space. She didn’t appreciate being crowded. “You asked for a seat at the table,” he growled, eyes narrowing as he leaned in even further. “Women don’t get a seat at the table.”

In heels she was taller than Alexei, a fact which she was certain he didn’t like. She raised herself up to her full height on the stilts she liked to wear and said, “I’m not just a woman.” She was a purebred Alpha female and a prized commodity.

“You’re a bitch whose only purpose is to breed pups,” he snapped, lips pulling back from his teeth in a human version of a wolf’s snarl.

Galina jerked her head back as if he’d slapped her. He did
not
just say that to her. “Wow, Alexei,” she began, keeping the bone-shaking rage out of her voice, “with that kind of sweet talking it astounds me that you don’t have a bevy of women vying to be your wife.”

His hand lifted as if he were actually going to backhand her across the face. Galina raised her head high, her eyes daring him to touch her. “Go ahead then. Do it.”

They glared at each other, neither willing to back down. After several minutes of silence, Galina smiled coldly. “By the way, what was all that stuff you told Irina about her painting the world with all the colors of her soul? That doesn’t sound like the kind of thing a brother would say to his
sister
.”

Alexei snarled again, turned on his heel, and loped off to where his car waited. Galina watched him go, surprised to feel her knees shaking. She waited until his car pulled out of the lot and disappeared down the long, winding drive that led from the museum. “Dickhead,” she muttered before getting in her own car to go see Irina.

When Galina rang the doorbell, Irina answered it so quickly that she wondered if her sister had been waiting in ambush for her. She was dragged inside unceremoniously, only managing to get out a, “Nice to see you too,” before Irina shoved her down on the couch.

“Explain.” Irina sat down and stared at her.

“Okay, so there are clearly some developments we need to talk about,” Galina said reasonably.

“Explain,” Irina said again.

Galina smiled. “I can draw diagrams if you need visual aids,” she offered. When Irina gave her a dirty look, she put up her hands. “Okay, okay. What do you want to know?”

“How about you start when you met Andrey and end when you climaxed in the coatroom?”

Galina’s lips quirked at her sister’s choice of words. Galina had always been a fan of alliteration. “I’m going to assume you mean meeting Andrey this year and not when we were kids.”

Irina shook her head. “You met him when you were younger? Where was I?”

“Training to be a cosmonaut. I don’t know!” At Irina’s frown, she got to the point. “I saw him the night Sergei was shot—he was at Katya’s party. We kind of hooked up in the kitchen.”

“Galina!”

“Oh, don’t act so scandalized, Miss Funeral Fingerbang. We didn’t get too far because Sergei getting shot sort of killed the mood.”

Irina scowled. “Do you actually hear the words coming out of your mouth?”

Galina shrugged. “Sorry.” She leaned back against the couch cushions, sinking into it like it was made of marshmallow. “We’ve kind of been seeing each other on and off.”

“So when you say you’re seeing each other, what you really mean is seeing each other naked, right?”

Galina deadpanned, “Yes, Irina. We fuck. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. It’s what we do.”

Irina rolled her eyes. “Well, that might be a little hard to
continue
to do since Papa wants me to marry your boink-buddy. Hence the family outing from hell.”

“I highly doubt Andrey’s going to let that happen.” Galina smiled, remembering the car ride from the previous night.

“I wish I could be free of it all,” Irina sighed. “Franny has asked me, over and over, why I don’t just walk away, making a life away from Alexei and Papa and…everything. I’m not pack, not subject to Alpha influence. I’m an adult. I have a degree, skill and reputation enough to get a job anywhere I want. Franny doesn’t understand that no matter where I go, no matter how many layers of false identification I put up as protection, Papa would send his goons after me and drag me back. There’s no escape, nowhere to run.”

Galina allowed Irina to have her moment of misery. She figured her sister deserved a bit of wallowing, but there were limits. “I noticed that you didn’t include ‘abandoning your fabulous baby sister to a pack full of misogynist idiots’ on your list of reasons not to leave.”

Irina snickered, letting Galina nudge her with her shoulder. “Oh, you would be fine without me and you know it. You’ve always been the strong one, Galya.”

“I think you’re going to surprise yourself someday, Rina.”

Quirking her lips, Irina said, “I suppose there has to be some mettle in me, if I survived walking in on both Sudenko siblings mid-coitus.”

“Wait, who else did you walk in on besides me and Andrey?” Galina thought for a second. “Oh god, did you walk in on Alexei with one of his cocktail skanks?”

“No, it was Nik.”

Galina furrowed her brow. “Who did Nik—
Konstantin!
Holy crap, he got it on with Konstantin!”

“I know, it’s huge. Nik could be starting a real relationship instead of geographically convenient hook-ups,” Irina said, smiling. “I’m so proud of him, even though it’s a huge risk and it could go badly at any moment, but really…good for him. I feel like we should get him a cake or something to celebrate this momentous occasion. What kind of baked goods do you get for someone to say ‘congratulations on getting a blow job from a person you’re going to see regularly’?” She thought for a moment. “Italian cream?”

Galina shook her head. “Cannolis.”

Irina frowned. “I gave you this idea. I had that coming.”

The sibling dessert war escalated quickly. Nik’s return salvo was a gift bag filled with English fruit puddings for each of them, and message telling them to “Eat a bag of spotted dicks. Love, your brother.”

Galina returned serve to Nik with a box of éclairs and a note that read, “Cream filled, just the way you like them. Love, Galina.”

He sent her a frangipane tart, and his message was, “Since you are one. Love, Nik.”

She and Andrey shared it over coffee at his condo. “I do not understand you and your siblings,” he said around a huge mouthful of it.

“I forget, you didn’t grow up with brothers and sisters.” She smiled at him over the rim of her coffee cup.

Andrey shook his dark head, shoveling another piece of tart into his mouth. “No, but I have many cousins.”

“That can be kind of the same thing.” She wiped her mouth on a napkin. “What’s to understand anyway? We like giving each other a hard time, that’s all.”

“You do not treat Alexei like this.”

Galina frowned, tossing her napkin onto the table in disgust. “Alexei doesn’t
want
to be treated like this. He’s never had much of a sense of humor, even when we were kids.” She paused to look up at Andrey. “Well, you remember what he was like.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “He has gotten worse as he has gotten older.”

“He wants to be an Alpha so bad,” Galina agreed, tapping her fingernails on the table. “Thankfully for the family he’ll never be one.” She shuddered. “Can you imagine what he would do if he was one?”

Andrey reached across the small table and took her hand in his. “Your father is still backing him, Alpha or not.” He tilted his head, giving her a curious look. “You and Nik are both Alphas. It’s odd that it skipped Alexei.”

Galina shrugged. Her oldest sister, Elena, hadn’t been an Alpha either, but she didn’t want to bring her up in conversation. Elena had married someone Papa didn’t approve of and it hadn’t ended well for either of them. She swallowed around the sudden lump in her throat.

“Let’s just be thankful it did.” She sighed when Andrey lifted her hand to his lips and pressed kisses to each of her fingertips.

“I have to go to work,” she warned even as heat began to curl in her pelvis.

“The museum can wait,” he said, eyes turning a silvery blue with lust. He nipped at her knuckles.

She pulled her hand free. Galina would love nothing more than to drag Andrey across the table and have ridiculously mind blowing sex with him. But she couldn’t today. “But million dollar smuggling deals won’t.”