Page 10 of Bound by Blood

Boris Grekov never failed to rattle her. It infuriated her. He was her prey. Not the other way around. She should be deadly cool in his presence. Stalking him, like the predator she was raised to be. Yet he rattled her composure, made her burn up inside in a way that she had never experienced. It was very annoying. Usually Laney killed things that annoyed her. It was a good thing Boris was her target. She only awaited the green light from the Master.

Laney swiftly brought her focus back to her current, and most difficult, task: walking in heels up an aisle with two other women. Not a direction she ever saw her life going in when she was a girl learning the difference between offensive and defensive weapons. But her mother had taught her to adapt and embrace change. To have a good heart, even if she had to hide it.

As if sensing her discomfort, Addison ran her fingers along Laney’s forearm in a soothing manner. Laney squeezed Addison’s elbow in acknowledgement and held her carefully between herself and Anya as they approached the flowered arch at the front of the aisle. She had been careful not to look over at the chairs and had no idea where Boris was sitting, though she could still feel his eyes on her. If lust were a physical presence, she would be in it’s embrace at that very moment. She could feel the heat rolling off of him from wherever he was sitting.

Laney blushed. She sincerely hoped it was her imagination and no one else could see how much the giant man wanted her. He made very little secret of his obsession for her. It was like his pride meant nothing in the face of his overwhelming need to possess her. Which was going to make things very awkward when she finally had to kill him.

Laney glanced up when the guests fell silent and turned in their seats to look toward the doors of the ballroom. Everyone stood as Claudia appeared. She was truly stunning in a Vera Wang wedding dress. It kissed every inch of her tall, curvy showgirl frame from the sweetheart neckline, across her full breasts and over her hips and thighs to her satin shoes. Her parents stood beaming proudly on either side of her.

They had flown in from Canada two days before and thrown themselves into the wedding planning, though they were clearly somewhat stunned by their soon-to-be son-in-law’s wealth. For almost a year they had believed their only child dead, a victim of the worst elements of a Las Vegas lifestyle. They’d been overjoyed to learn that Alicia, now named Claudia, had not only survived but was engaged to be married to a man that clearly worshipped the ground she walked on. It had taken a while for Claudia to explain why she needed to disappear from their lives and to convince them that she was truly happy, but her bond with her parents had finally won them over.

The look on Claudia’s face as she reached for Tyson at the front of the aisle told them everything they needed to know. Claudia and Tyson would never be separated.

Still, Laney could feel Boris’ unwavering stare on her alone.

***

“Laney!” Anya yelled breathlessly, running up behind her and shoving her headlong into the arms of a burly man before she could launch a protest with a bladed weapon. “You haven’t danced at all tonight and bridesmaids have to dance. It’s our sacred duty. Laney, meet Sergei. Sergei, meet Laney.”

Laney looked up into the bluest eyes she’d ever seen and a grinning face. One hand landed heavily on her waist and another on her wrist as though anticipating a protest. The man, clearly Russian based on his name and the tattoos littering the visible parts of his body, swept her onto the dance floor and began shuffling around the other couples with Laney held tightly in his arms. She thought about seriously maiming him and then remembered Claudia’s bridezilla threat.

He held her closely, intimately against his gym-hardened body. He oozed sexuality. She couldn’t stand him.

“I wanted to meet you,” he said with a heavy, guttural accent.

Glaring at him suspiciously, she said, “I don’t know you.”

“Do you know everyone here?” he asked.

“Of course. I had to help vet the guest list for security. You were not on it, Sergei,” she spat out his name as though it were an insult. His grin widened and he glanced at something over her shoulder.

“I believe Mr. King allowed my employer, Mr. Sitnikov, to bring three of his own security detail besides Boris Grekov, who is guest also. Is this not so?”

So, he was a Russian thug.

Laney ignored the question. Her sharp mind began to wonder why Anya would push her into dancing with this man when she felt a very large, very annoyed presence at her back. An answer to her question. The diminutive troublemaker knew that it would piss off Boris most to see Laney dancing with one of his own men. She was really going to shoot Anya this time. Maybe in the soft fleshy part of her arm so it would hurt a lot and bleed like a bitch, but she would survive. It wouldn’t do to actually murder the Sitnikov girl and piss off her cage fighter husband and mafia brother. Besides, Laney secretly liked the little brat despite her never-ending shenanigans. The grin slid from Sergei’s face and he stepped away from her, melting into the dancing crowd. Laney knew without turning exactly who stood behind her.

She quickly stepped away, intent on losing herself in the wedding revellers the way her less-than-brave dancing partner had. Hard hands fell on her, pinning her. He pulled her backward, into the heat of his large body. With her heels, she still barely reached his shoulder. He had to bend into her body to speak in her ear.

“You avoid me all day, but dance with another? Let him touch you when I cannot?” His voice was an incredulous growl. As though he was trying valiantly to tamp down on the fury rising up within him.

She tried to push away, but he turned her in his arms and pulled her against him. She gasped as every inch of her much smaller body moulded against him. Thick arms wrapped around her back and clamped her against the thick muscles of his chest. She moaned low in her throat and closed her eyes as he held her. It felt like heaven and hell all at once.

“Why would you make me watch another man touch you?” he asked angrily.

Laney was surprised. His feelings for her had grown and she didn’t know what to do. She’d done nothing to encourage him. She wanted to shout at him that he was stupid to feel this way, that she would only break his heart. Or put a bullet in it. Whichever came first. Yet her own body felt weak in his arms. She responded to him in a way she couldn’t explain.

“It was Anya,” she finally said. “She said I had to dance, she pushed me at him before I could say no. I didn’t want to ruin the wedding by stabbing a guest, so I danced.”

He nodded his head, his bruising hold loosening a little. He moved with her in a more natural way, though she could tell he didn’t really dance. “That woman is a menace,” he muttered.

Laney nodded feelingly. “The worst.”

He chuckled and his hands smoothed down her back to grasp her waist. She shivered in the circle of his arms. She knew, even in the midst of all those people, that there would be no escape if she chose to run. She was his captive in that moment. He splayed his fingers across her back and she shivered in his hold, both aroused and alarmed to notice that his long fingers touched every part of her back from her ass up. He pulled her in tight against him, pushing the side of her face against his chest.

“You feel this thunder of my heart, yes?” he bent to say in her ear, his deep voice even more thickly accented than usual. “It beats this way for you only.”

The breath caught in her throat. No one spoke to her this way. Not ever. She tried to shove him away, but he refused to let go. He ground his hips against her belly, forcing her once more to feel the power of his lust for her. His cock was like a hot, thick brand against her belly and there was nothing she could do to escape it.

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