Cruel Paradise - A Mafia Romance Chapter 95

I scoot a little closer and balance myself on one elbow as I look down at him. “What happened?”

He doesn’t open his eyes. “We had to shut down the launch and send everyone home. It was the worst thing that could have happened. And of course, Sergey has disappeared into thin air and I have no clue if he was taken or he chose to run.”

I’m surprised that he’s talking about it at all. I start tracing my fingers along his arm. “Who’s Sergey? And why would he choose to run?”

“He’s my lead chemist. He has complete control over my formula. If he chose to alter it before the launch…”

“But why would he do that?”

“Because someone offered him more money than I did.”

A little shiver runs over my body. This is the first time we’ve really spoken about his other life and the work it involves. I’m getting a sense of just how huge it all is.

“So you had him invent a… a drug?”

His eyes finally open. They veer to me, more gold than amber right now. “Venera is a drug, yes, but it’s meant to be a poppable aphrodisiac. We conducted months of trials to ensure that its effects weren’t harmful or addictive. We were so thorough. Except now, five people are dead and my whole venture is over before it even started.”

I’ve never heard him talk like this. The defeatist attitude is not him. I move even closer, cup his face with my palm, and force him to look at me.

“Nothing is over,” I insist. “You’re Ruslan fucking Oryolov. There’s nothing you can’t fix.”

“I can’t bring people back from the dead.”

My face drops. “Right. No, of course not. I’m sorry—that was a stupid thing to say.”

He doesn’t smile but his expression softens, just a little. His eyebrows relax and his mouth isn’t quite so severe a straight line.

“How much trouble are you in?”

His jaw sets firmly. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

“Now, there’s the Ruslan I know.”

He laughs bitterly and I keep running a hand over his jaw, his arms, his abs. I’m not quite sure what to do in this situation but I do know that now is not the right moment to tell him about Remmy. I desperately want to. But it’s too much in one night. He needs the peace of this apartment.

Maybe he even needs me.

“Can I get you anything?” I ask softly.

His eyes graze over my face. “I have everything I need right now.”

Then he kisses me. Soft and slow, his lips feel like they’re caressing mine. I always seem to lose myself in him, but this is the first time I feel like he’s trying to lose himself in me. I try to memorize how it feels, smells, looks, sounds.

I have to remember it all.

Growling into my lips, his hands scour my body, tugging at my panties before he’s even gotten my shirt off. He buries his face between my breasts, kneading my nipples with his tongue while he slides his fingers in and out of me. I cling to him, intoxicated by the strength in those arms that still manage to be so gentle.

I writhe on his hand, desperate for the orgasm he’s promising. But tonight, I want to give him what he gives me. I want to erase all possibility of thought from his head until it’s just him and me—two naked bodies minus all the noise.

I have to push him off me. His irises are dilated, his gaze intense. But before he can pull me back against him, I slide down to his waist and pull his boxer briefs off. I slide my tongue over his tip, lapping up the drop of pre-cum.

Cupping his balls, I run my tongue down the length of him, honing in on the most sensitive parts of him that I’ve discovered over the last few months. I like knowing what makes him moan, what makes him sigh, what makes him stiffen and buck and bite his lip. I suck him slow, deeper and deeper, inch by inch.

“Fuck,” he moans. “Fuck—Emma…”

I don’t let up. Even when tears bead up in the corners of my eyes, I keep going. I swallow his cock as my hands work him up and down until his twitching intensifies, his breath shortens, and then he comes.

“Fuck!”

He explodes in my mouth and I swallow every last drop until he has nothing left to give. Wiping my lips, I rise back up and catch my breath. His chest rises and falls, little droplets of sweat dancing along his pecs. I climb on top of him and start licking each one of them off.

His eyes flutter closed as he lets me tend to him. Then, when his breathing has steadied, he grabs me unexpectedly and flips me to my side while I let out a sound that’s halfway between a gasp and a squeal. He tucks me underneath one arm and wraps the other around my waist.

I feel his lips at my shoulder and then, seconds later, his breath tickling my neck. “Ruslan…?”

But I already know he’s asleep. That’s another first, another indication that he’s getting more comfortable with me. He never falls asleep first.

A part of me is relieved. But an equally big part of me is terrified.

I’ll tell him about Remmy first thing tomorrow.

No excuses.

71

RUSLAN

I’m jolted awake by a pinch on the arm. I jerk up and spot Kirill at my bedside. Emma is draped over me, so I have to move slowly and carefully to untangle myself from her and the sheets before I can get out.

Kirill backs off to the doorway while I pull my boxers on. I check to see that Emma is still sleeping and then I follow him into the living room.

“What are you doing here?” I growl.

“Sorry. I tried calling, but you didn’t pick up.”

“Did you find Sergey?”

“Man’s still missing. But the security team did find something else that I think you’ll want to know about.”

Kirill’s lips are pursed together. He’s also cracking his knuckles a lot, which is a sure sign that he’s got bad news for me.

“What is it?”

He clears his throat and gestures towards the thin brown envelope sitting on the dining table. “I’m sorry, man.”

Those are ominous words. I rip off the top half of the envelope and pull the contents out. It’s a sheath of photographs. The first one is a blurry picture of Remmy Jefferson leaning against a very familiarlooking wall. Just beyond is a woman with her hair pulled up in a bun. The picture quality is low but I recognize Emma immediately.

I glance up at Kirill. “What the fuck is this?”

“It looks like Remmy visited Emma last night.”

Last night? Is that why she was so frazzled? She was borderline hysterical. Goddammit, why the fuck hadn’t I just slowed down for two seconds and let her say what she’d called me to say?

Oh, right—five dead bodies.

I move onto the next photograph. It’s more of the same. Remmy standing in Emma’s apartment, the two obviously engaged in a conversation. Of course, there’s no way to know the nature of the conversation. But the fact that it took place in her apartment is troubling.

When I look up again, Kirill is staring back at me with wary eyes. “I hate to say it, brother… but I think she might’ve conned you.”

I shake my head. Even in the face of photographic evidence, I’m willing to give Emma the benefit of the doubt. Pictures can be doctored. And even if they haven’t been, there has to be another explanation.

“She wouldn’t do that.”

“Look at those pictures, bro.”

“I’m fucking looking, bro,” I snarl. “And I don’t fucking believe them. I trust her; she wouldn’t—”

“That’s not all.”

I feel like I’m turning to stone. “Go on.”

He cracks his knuckles again. His tendons must be shredded to nothing at this point. “Our contact in the newsroom gave me a call this morning. He wanted to give us a heads-up. They’re getting ready to run a story about you soon. He preempted the conversation by saying there was nothing he could do to stop it.”

Just like that, my heart drops. “What story?”

Kirill shuffles from one foot to the other. “A story that involves a sex contract between you and your assistant.”

Breathe.

Fucking breathe.

One.

Two.

Three…

“FUCK!”

Kirill takes a step back. “I know this is a lot but we’re gonna have to get in damage control mode real fast. It’s bad enough we have the botched Venera launch to deal with. But a sex scandal on top of that…”