Page 9 of Flames

My mouth falls open. Forty million! I am lost for words, simply staring in wonder and outrage at the man before me.

He reaches out, caressing my bottom lip with his thumb. “Close your mouth, Princess, before I get ideas about what you’re wanting me to put in there.”

I snap my mouth shut and narrow my eyes in annoyance. “You are absolutely the most infuriating… rude… tasteless…”

“Man you can’t seem to quit?” he interrupts me, and I nearly lose my cool and smack the damn smirk off his handsomely chiseled face.

I let out an annoyed huff that seems to make him even more pleased with himself if the deepening dimple on his cheek says anything. I return his smirk with a scowl. He’s undeterred by my seething anger, his fingers gently caressing the curve of my waist, as if he can’t stop touching me. The urge to lean into his warmth and whiskey smell is dizzying but I resist. Whiskey and a winning smile doesn’t make up for a forty million dollar loss.

“I have a proposition for you, Princess,” he says coolly as he leans to sit on the edge of the table, spreading his legs and positioning me between his open thighs. His hand slides lower onto my ass through my tight jeans and he glares at someone over my shoulder, a low growl rumbling through his chest. The heat of his body rises to a level that makes me want to sigh in warm contentment. I turn my head to see who he’s glaring at with such venom, but when I do, his hand reaches out, fingers wrapping around my chin and gently pulling my face back towards him. “Glaza na menya, moya pŭtěnĭcĭ.”

I stare at him for a moment, his warm honey eyes blazing with possessive fire as his arm wraps back around me, pulling me closer into him. “I don’t speak Russian… or asshole.”

He smirks again, and I catch myself smiling back.

Damn it, Marisa.

“What’s your proposition, Pyro?” I ask him with a cock of my hips.

“Did you just give me a nickname?” he asks as he squeezes the flesh of my hip hard enough to leave a mark. Fuck, the thought of this man covering me in bites and bruises… maybe even some other marks, sends a shiver down my spine. “You do like me.”

I roll my eyes, refusing to participate in his nonsense.

“If you have nothing for me, then I’ll just be on my—”

I start to pull back but he immediately hauls me backwards. “I have a lead,” he whispers conspiratorially. “A mobster named Zmeev, Volk, is moving a painting reported to be worth millions through the city this next week.”

He raises his brows expectantly, as if waiting for me to reply.

“So?” I ask him, waiting for him to get to the point already. I hate when men realize they have something worth saying and drag it out for as long as possible in an attempt to keep our attention on them. Women are far too busy for that shit.

“Best thief wins,” he states with a mischievous glimmer in his eye that should have me running for the hills. “Unless you’re worried you’ll lose… again.” He clicks the matchstick against his teeth, drawing my attention back to his mouth, and his tongue, and the inappropriate thoughts about what he could do with that tongue.

“And what do I get if I win?” I ask, trying desperately not to squeeze my thighs together to relieve some of the growing ache building.

As if he can sense my arousal, his nostrils flare and his pupils widen. His fingers grip tightly into my waist.

“If you steal the painting, you can have half of the forty I just got paid,” he offers, and my mouth falls open in shock. I quickly snap it closed, not wanting to play that game with him again. “Plus what the painting is worth.”

I’m a street kid, born to a junkie who abandoned me early on for whatever drugs she could get her hands on, leaving me to fend for myself. I’ve been used and played more times than I can count in my life, but each of those has been a lesson—trust no one, only rely on yourself. I can smell a trap being laid a mile away and this plan reeks. Plus, no one just gives away twenty million dollars.

“And if you win?” I counter, waiting for the inevitable lure to be set.

He surprises me, though. With a swiftness that’s near inhuman, he spins me, laying me back down on the table in one rapid move. I let out a small, shocked gasp as he looms above me. His dark eyes glow with fire as he takes me in. My breaths come out in choppy pants, drawing his eyes down to the swell of my heaving breasts, which are about to spill from my tight tank top. His tongue darts out to wet his lips, the stare of a predator assessing his prey falls over his face.

“If I win… I get you.” His hand wraps around my throat as he tilts my head up until our gazes clash. I’m struck by just how dangerous, how monstrous, he looks in that moment—and how badly I like it. “All of you. Any way and every way that I want you.”

It’s a foolish bet. Especially when the man looks like he wants to devour me whole. But a part of me is infatuated by the idea that he’s so unhinged, unbridled, wild for me. He’s desperate, and that desperation is a rush in of itself. Perhaps this deal is a win-win for me.

“Deal,” I tell him before I can think it through too much, and I swear I see fire fill his eyes.

“Game on, moya pŭtěnĭcĭ.”

FIVE

PHOENIX

Asmart man would leave it alone—leave her alone. Patient, stoic, aloof, distant, that’s what cool and attractive men are supposed to be when pursuing a woman, right?