Page 8 of Toxic Temptation
But Kovan says “backup,” as if these two men—or so I assume—whom I’ve never met and never would’ve wantedto meet are the answer to all the prayers I couldn’t bring myself to whisper aloud.
Osip. Pavel. Kovan.God, yes, these are dangerous names. I feel that certainty in the pit of my stomach—and the pit of my stomach is never, ever wrong.
As I’m going through my downward spiral ofoh-shit-I’m-gonna-die-heredespair, Kovan is shaking his phone and snarling angrily at it like he might be able to intimidate it into working properly.
“What’s wrong?” I squeak out.
“No signal.”
I gulp. “It happens sometimes. The cell reception gets crossed with all the medical equipment.”
He clicks his tongue in distaste. The phone disappears. Out comes the gun again. “Then I guess we’re going out there blind.”
I swallow and taste only bitterness.
Kovan snaps his fingers in my direction. “Get behind me.”
I notice he doesn’t have to instruct Luka as to what to do. The kid has already disappeared behind him. He looks utterly unbothered. Just another day in the life, I suppose.
What kind of life that is, I am terrified even to ask.
I fall into line behind the two of them. It’s strange to look at Kovan from the back once again, after all the madness of the last few minutes. This was the first view I had of him. I was deep in my own head then, still thinking about Jeremy and Shana and vicious revenge fantasies.
Funny that the universe brought me the exact kind of man I’d like to sic on them. Someone massive and violent, someone unpredictable. I can’t help but imagine Kovan cornering Jeremy in his office and brandishing that gun until the snub-nosed shithead pissed his tailored slacks. God, that’d be a sight to see.
Instead, I’m getting a taste of my own medicine, no pun intended. The broad-shouldered devil is here for me. Not for Jeremy, not for Shana, but forme.
And yes, I’m scared. How could I not be? I’m a rational, law-abiding citizen, and “workplace shootouts” are not something they prepared me for in medical school.
But what’s scaring me even more than my fear are all the parts of myself where that fearhasn’tgone yet. The pit of my stomach, for example. The same part of me that says that Kovan is dangerous is sensing him and feeling something else in his presence.
Something I haven’t tasted in a very long time.
Desire.
He whips around and catches me gawking. Suddenly, it’s not the endless span of his back I’m staring at, but his face. Evergreen eyes, jaw clamped tight as hell. That proud, straight nose, high cheekbones, the rasp of a few days’ worth of beard growth.
His lips are obscenely beautiful. Maybe the most beautiful part of him, which is really saying something. Thick and full, always caught halfway between a sneer and a smirk. I wonder what they’d look like if he ever laughed. Something tells me that’s a blue moon kind of event.
“Whatever happens,” he breathes, “do as I say.”
I hesitate.
He arches a brow. “Do you understand me, Vesper?”
It’s the way he says my name that dooms me in the end. Whereas his name is a buzzsaw in my mouth—Kovan, Kovan,so brutal on the tongue—my name passing those lips of his is sinful, decadent, bordering on pornographic. I’ve never been so aware of the texture of my skin, of every point of contact.
You know that joke kids tell each other on the playground,I’m naked underneath my clothes?That’s how I feel right now. Painfully aware that it’s only a few, easily ruined layers of clothes that separate my body from his.
Vesper.Like an invitation to make those layers disappear.
Vesper.Like a promise that that’s exactly what he’ll do.
I swallow past the rich sweetness of lust in my mouth, look up into those emerald eyes, and nod.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “I understand. I’ll do anything you say.”
4
