Page 7 of The Enforcer’s Pawn

“My mother,” he says. “She says goodnight.”

“That’s annoyingly sweet.” I stay where I am, suddenly unsure what to do with myself.

“She would deny this.” His thumb moves fast over the screen.

“Of course. Can’t have anyone thinking Russian mothers are cute.” I glance toward the car, wondering if this is the part where he remembers he has somewhere better to be.

He flicks the phone dark and slips it into his pocket. The softness is gone, but the amusement stays in his eyes when he looks back at me.

“You should go,” I say.

“I should.” He opens the side door for me.

His eyes lift to mine.

“With you.”

2

CARA

Aman like Dmitri Antonov shouldn’t be delayed by a woman he met an hour ago at my brother’s criminal cocktail party. It’d be more fitting for him to be delayed by bullets, border issues, or whatever men like him call a Tuesday.

I climb into his car.

Dmitri slides in beside me. The driver pulls out of the garage without asking for directions, which tells me he’s already received the memo. “So,” I say, settling back against the leather seat, “do all your excellent mistakes come with drivers?”

I hear what could be something between a snort and a grunt before he shakes his head. “No.”

At the hotel, he doesn’t touch me in the lobby. He walks beside me, close enough that every nerve in my body starts filing incident reports. The clerk takes one look at him and forgets how to blink. Dmitri gives a name that isn’t his, pays in cash, and says very little. I add identity fraud to the evening’s list and decide I’ll be morally outraged tomorrow.

In the elevator, I check the mirrored wall, the buttons, the emergency panel. Dmitri notices. “Clocking the exits, are we?”

I bare my teeth. “Habit.”

The elevator opens before he can come up with something clever. I make it three steps inside the suite before the silence gets honest. Dmitri closes the door, locks it, and stays there, waiting. That does more damage than grabbing me would have.

I turn slowly. “You’re being very polite for a man who brought me to a hotel.”

His gaze drops to my mouth. “Come here, Cara.”

The walk across the plush carpet feels like wading through deep water. I stop inches from him—close enough to feel the heat coming off his chest.

“I don’t usually take orders,” I say, my voice a notch lower than it was in the car. “Even from men with very nice suits.”

Dmitri reaches out and tucks a stray lock of hair behind my ear, his knuckles grazing the sensitive skin of my temple. His hand is massive, callused, and steady as a rock.

“Is that what this is? An order?” His thumb traces the line of my jaw, dragging slowly until it rests at the corner of my mouth, pressing against my lower lip until it parts. “I thought it was an invitation.”

“You’re very confident for someone who hasn’t even asked my middle name.”

“I don’t need your middle name to know how you breathe when I look at you,” he murmurs. He leans down, his mouth hovering just over the shell of my ear, his lips brushing the sensitive skin.

“Your heart is hitting your ribs like it’s trying to escape. Are you going to let it out, or should I come in and get it?”

A shiver, violent and unbidden, racks my shoulders. “You’re a predator, Dmitri. It's a very cliché look on you.”

“And you’re a liar,” he counters, his breath hot against my neck as his mouth slides down to the pulsing vein there. “You’ve been dissecting me since the moment you saw me near those windows. You didn’t come here to be safe. You came here to see if I’m as bad as Patrick says I am.”