Page 35 of Frequency of Attraction

Almost.

With as high as she soared that time, the crash back to the ground almost killed her. She let out a growl as the pleasure faded into nothing. “Putain de merde!” One of the hottest moments of her life and she still couldn’t come? Vadim stopped his movements with a sigh. His disappointment hurt almost as much as her own.

But Quinn refused to let their flames dwindle. Trapped against the wall, she turned to face blue fire. For the first time ever, she slid her hand up his cheek. His jaw ticked as she kissed along its sharp angles. She dropped down to his neck, where she branded him the way he’d branded her. Except with the vibrant tones encircling his neck, you couldn’t tell. She palmed his cock while she tasted the salt on his skin.

Satisfied that she’d paid him back, she put a hand on his chest and pushed him backward until he was again perched on the edge of her desk. With her eyes on his, she worked to free his cock and shoved his clothing to the floor. Her hand gripped his shaft. And he talked aboutherbeing wet. She rubbed the wetness on the tip around with her fingers and watched him try to fight the urge to react.

He gave up when she leaned forward to take him in her mouth. He pushed to standing, forcing Quinn to kneel on the floor. She braced against his right leg as he pumped in and out of her mouth. She noticed a scar running the entire length of his thigh. It had been hidden by the ink.

“I do want to fuck you,” he confessed, as Quinn marked his leg with her nails and worked his cock with her mouth. “In every room, in every language, in every way I know how. But you’ve gotta come for me first.”

So that was his plan. Dangling a very big carrot. Fine. Quinn would play that game.

His pace quickened and moans replaced his words before he let loose a cry and a curse so loud it could be heard back at the bar.

“Blyat, Quinn. You’re amazing.”

She offered a smile as she stood. Desire thickened her blood. “I know.”

She let him get situated before asking about his leg. “How’d you get that scar?”

Vadim didn’t answer. She opened her mouth to repeat the question when he said, “My brother.”

“Pardon?” Not the answer she’d expected. She thought he’d say something like a thresher or hacksaw. The injury was gnarly.

He shoved breath out of his lungs and closed his eyes. “You really wanna hear that story?”

“I do now.”

He leaned against her desk, hands gripping the edges so tightly his knuckles would have been white had they not been covered in black ink. His finger tapped multiple times. Quinn was dying of suspense by the time Vadim started speaking. Family drama was typically her area of expertise.

“One day, I think he was about sixteen, my brother came home wearing a watch.”

She blinked. A watch?

“There was one winter we didn’t have shoes. When our last pair got stolen, that was it. We wore as many socks as could fit and hoped we didn’t get frostbite. My pants were always up to my ankles. My sister learned to sew at age six so she could fix the seams that would rip in her shirts. Watches were a luxury.”

Quinn’s heart splintered. She couldn’t picture this giant, confident man as a scared, cold little boy.

“He started wearing nicer clothes and bringing home things we hadn’t had in a long time, like a TV. I got curious. He wouldn’t answer questions, even for my mother. So, me and a buddy followed him one day. We ended up at the edge of the village in some abandoned warehouses. I figured we’d find stolen cars. Adrik had always been mechanical. Sometimes he’d break things just to fix them again.”

The creases in Vadim’s forehead were deep enough to hide treasure.

“What did you find? Drugs?”

“Women,” he whispered. He hadn’t looked up from the floor. “Girls. Dozens of them.”

She stopped breathing.

“I knew right away I was going to turn him in. Cars I would have let slide. But girls? They were on cots, so dirty, some of them tied with rope, some weren’t even conscious.” He shook his head, eyes haunted. “I had to tell someone.” His sigh came from the depths of his soul. “But, like a fucking movie, my friend knocked over the pallets we were standing on. My brother found us trying to run away.”

Quinn’s blood chilled. “What did he do?”

“He stomped on my leg. Broke my femur in three places.”

“Merde, Vadim. How old were you?”

“Fourteen. Would have been worse if his friends had caught me. I knew what he was doing. He was trying to punish me, scare me, and save me all at the same time. My friend dragged me home, I guess. I went straight to the hospital for surgery.”

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