Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 75209 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75209 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
“I’m a modern woman, you know,” she says with a little huff, but the slight flush to her cheeks tells me she’s a little flustered by being manhandled. Is she, now?
I’m arranging all our bags on a cart to take them inside when she tries to march away from me. Apparently, her little Russian tutorial failed to teach her the Russian way of telling me to fuck off, which makes it a lot easier for me to ignore her.
Instinctively, I grab the cart handle in my left hand and reach for her with my right. My fingers tighten on her slender arm, not too hard to hurt but enough to stop her.
“Let go of me!”
I don’t bother to try to communicate but snap at her in Russian. “Ne uhodi ot menya v aeroportu!”
Do not walk away from me in an airport.
Jesus, what is she thinking?
Of course she doesn’t understand a word I say, so I only keep my grip on her arm and repeat what I said.
“I’m just getting one of those things for the luggage,” she says, pointing about twenty feet away to a stack of trolleys. I scoff and shake my head and get one myself.
“Well, this is gonna be fun,” she mutters under her breath. “An overprotective bodyguard I can’t talk to?”
What kind of bodyguards has she had?
We stalk in tense silence to check-in, where I plunk our bags down beside the kiosk and glare at her.
“Fine!” she snaps. “I won’t pick up the bags, okay?”
Guess I communicated that clearly enough. Good. She’s damn lucky she isn’t mine with an attitude like that.
I shake my head and scan our boarding passes. I notice her stiffen beside me.
“Um. You cannot take that on a plane,” she whispers.
I look up in surprise to see she’s looking at my back. The gun I’m carrying is secured in the waistband of my jeans at the small of my back.
I shrug. She leans in closer to me, laying her hand on my back.
Christ.
My skin heats at how near she is, a flare of warmth from her touch, and the faint, lingering smell of warmed toffee and spice surrounds me. Her mouth gets near to my ear, and she tries again, repeating herself. “You can’t take a gun on a plane.” She presses it into my back to emphasize her point.
Oh yeah? Watch me. I only smile at her and shake my head. It’ll be fine.
At security, I head immediately to the security guard Aleks told me to go to. I’ve been in touch with the Ivanov security team but they’ve given me minimal instructions. Why am I not surprised?
The security guard smiles at me when I turn my arm over and show him the tattoo that marks me as Bratva.
“Hello, sir. This way, please.” Behind closed doors, I discreetly hand him the cash we agreed on, and he swiftly moves us aside and down a VIP aisle to get past security to get to our gate.
“You did not just do that,” she says, shaking her head. “Jesus, I wish you’d speak English. I’d tell you that was, like. . .” Her voice trails off when she realizes I’m not responding. “Hot,” she says to herself. “No, on second thought, I wouldn’t tell you that.”
An interesting observation.
We’re early for our flight but comfortable in a VIP lounge we’ve secured beforehand.
“Okay, so this is nice,” she says as she walks to a snack station with complimentary drinks and snacks. She points to the food and then her belly. “I’m starving. You?”
I have no idea how long it’ll be before we eat again, and I have no intention of sleeping on that plane, so I join her. We feast on sandwiches, chips, and fruit, and when she helps herself to a cookie, I decline.
“Watching those macros, huh? Of course you are. You can’t be built like that and eat carbs all day long.” She sighs. “I, on the other hand, couldn’t care less about macros.”
She isn’t wrong. I don’t eat that shit.
I keep my face deliberately impassive, but she’s quirky and kind of cute, so it’s getting harder to do.
“Macro shmacro,” she says, happily munching on a second cookie. “I’ll happily sleep, seduced into a sugar coma.”
I pretend to busy myself on my phone, but I’m checking the mirroring app on hers. I have no idea how anyone can function with twenty apps open at a time, but she’s moving from one thing to the next seamlessly – Russian translating app, a website with “must-know Russian phrases,” a little jewel matching game, and an app for reading. Interesting. I have to work extra hard to school my expression when I see the titles. I’d call it. . . eclectic and telling. What can you learn by the titles someone reads?
Dominated by the Billionaire Hitman
The Future of Medical Biometrics