Her Hitman: An Instalove Possessive Older Man Younger Woman Romance Read online

  “Life isn’t a movie, Dakota,” he says. “What happens now is we go and get my dog, Sparky. And then I take you home to your folks.”

  “I don’t have folks,” I murmur.

  Something passes across his face, an emotion I can’t read.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” he says. “But you must have somebody.”

  “Not really,” I admit shakily. “Not many of us did. I guess that’s why they targeted us because we wouldn’t be missed. I was reported missing, I’m sure. But without anything tying me down …”

  “It’d be easy for the police to chalk it up to you just skipping town.”

  “Yeah, exactly.”

  He sighs with a husky sound.

  “So I guess you’re stuck with me, huh?” I say, meaning it to come out as a joke.

  He glances at me briefly, icy eyes blazing blue flames.

  “You shouldn’t joke about that,” he snarls. “Maybe I’ll take you seriously.”

  Something sizzles over my skin, up my thighs, over my belly, and around my nipples. I feel them tweak and harden and bite down to fight it off, all of it, the overwhelming craziness.

  “I’m nineteen, by the way,” I murmur into the silence.

  “Eh?”

  “You told me your age, so I think it’s fair you know mine.”

  He nods shortly. “Good to know, Dakota. But you’re wrong.”

  “About my age?”

  “No,” he says, with that infuriating, magnetic smirk. “About you not being missed. I find that hard to believe. I think—shit, I don’t know. I think a person like you would make an impression.”

  I grip onto my thighs, trying to puzzle out his words. His tone is so husky, so deep, so damn unreadable. He stares ahead, seemingly wanting the conversation to end there.

  I turn back to the night and rest my forehead against the cool glass, the pitch black drifting by.

  But then my over-taut mind begins to warp the darkness into impossible shapes.

  I see Damian standing at an altar, wearing a suit the same color as his hair, his eyes lighting up in delight as the music welcomes me down the aisle, his smirk shifting into a true smile.

  Get a freaking grip, I tell myself. You only just met the guy.

  But it doesn’t feel that way.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Damian

  This is a first for me—having a throbbing hard on as I drive away from a job.

  I try to take deep, slow breaths to calm myself down, but her natural scent is too close and all-consuming.

  The way she sits is making me sneak looks at those thighs, my mind swimming with thoughts of grabbing them and massaging them, bending her over and tearing a hole in her tights and revealing her wet hot …

  Get it together, I roar in my mind. You only just met the woman.

  But it doesn’t feel like that, not one bit.

  It’s not just my body rioting at the reality of her, either.

  “I don’t have folks,” she said, and I felt a twinging in my chest that’s difficult to identify. I can only name it as an enhanced version of what Sparky makes me feel … human, perhaps.

  Yeah, maybe this woman makes me feel human.

  In the lights of the car, I see ridiculous vignettes, like this gorgeous dark-haired woman all sweaty and deliriously happy from childbirth, our offspring cradled to her ample breast and a wide smile on her heaven-sent face.

  We did it, I imagine her saying. We really did it, Damian.

  I try to tell myself to let her go, to drop her off at the nearest police station, but then my mind catapults into a future where another man tries to lay claim to her, and murderous fire surges through me.

  I can never let that happens.

  She fucking belongs to me.

  “Where are you from?” I ask.

  “Why do you ask?” she sasses.

  Her eyes are dry now, but her cheeks still glisten with the memory of tears.

  “Just making conversation,” I snarl. “No need to bite my damn head off.”

  Maybe if I put up a wall of steeliness between us I won’t give in to this overwhelming hunger. That’d put the mother of all spanners into my plans, derailing the whole thing.

  Get Sparky—head to the West Coast and start my life on the property there.

  Meeting a woman with heavenly curves and hellish hot sassiness was not part of the damn plan.

  “You’d think you’d show more gratitude after I saved your life,” I go on, unable to stop myself, my chest getting tight and my fists clenching tighter.

  “Fair enough,” she says a moment later. “Thank you, Damian. I really am grateful. Do you think they’ve found his body yet?”

  I glance at her briefly, taking in the luscious green of her eyes, wide and frantic as though she’s still living in a world of shock … maybe only now starting to climb out of it.

  “What?” she murmurs. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  I turn back to the road. “Like what?”

  She laughs, a low sweet sound, a sound I could listen to for a hundred years. “Like I’m some specimen on a freaking lab table and you’re examining me.”

  No, Dakota, I want to say. You’re not a specimen. You’re a goddamn treat. And I don’t want you on a lab table, but I reckon it’ll do when you’re naked and the curvaceous beauty of your bare flesh is waiting for me to indulge in.

  Grabbing those hips, sliding my hands up to the big fleshy globes of those breasts, sliding my hand down her belly and then her mound and feeling the slick wetness there …

  Fuck, it’d be perfect.

  “It’s just civilians don’t normally take stuff like this so lightly,” I say after a pause.

  “I … I’ve seen people die before.”

  “Oh,” I mutter.

  “My parents,” she goes on in a rush. “When I was a kid somebody broke in and they killed them right in front of me and I saw the whole thing. And I guess then I sort of tried to harden myself. Maybe that’s why I always found it hard to make friends and … And anyway, I’m sorry. I’m oversharing. I’m just so tired. I hardly know what I’m saying. I’m sorry, Damian—”

  “You have nothing to be sorry about,” I snarl fiercely. “Not with me, not ever.”

  Stop, this is too damn much.

  I let out a growling sigh and stare hard at the empty country road, telling myself that I won’t look at her again until I’m telling her she has to leave. I’ve got plans with Sparky, plans of solitude and isolation and forgetting about the rest of the world.

  Just quiet. Just nothing.

  I almost laugh at the thought.

  To think that I could abandon her now is madness.

  “I’m sorry about your parents,” I murmur. “I lost mine, too. When I was young.”

  “Oh?”

  Quiet, man. Why are you sharing this?

  “Yeah, they were involved in a plane crash when I was four years old. I hardly remember them.”

  She reaches across and places her hand on my arm, the simple touch sending sizzling need down my arm and through my body and right to the base of my manhood. I feel it stiffen even more than it already is, and suddenly I’m sure I’m going to pull the car over and maul her right here.

  My business is all about control, and here I am teetering on the edge of abandon at a simple touch.

  I shrug her hand away. Otherwise, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop, kissing her neck, tasting her, palming those grab-me-now breasts and making her beg for my hot manhood to slide into that pouting mouth, getting it nice and slick, and then between her breasts, fucking them hard, and then fucking her sweet tight pussy hardest of all …

  “It’s fine,” I grunt, shrugging so that she removes her hand. “Like I said, I barely remember them. No big deal.”

  “Fine,” she snaps, placing her hands in her lap. “What about his body, though?”

  “I don’t know,” I muse. “Probably not. Dobry would have told his men to leave him
alone so that he could …”

  Flames hiss in my chest and I wish I could kill the bastard all over again.

  “So that he could rape me,” Dakota says coldly.

  “Yes,” I say, just as coldly.

  “It’s kind of beautiful out here,” Dakota says a moment later, gesturing at the countryside, the night darkened fields all around us. To the west, a lone tree stands, a granite pencil drawing, only its shape visible. “I mean, if we were just on a casual drive, you know? Then it would be beautiful.”

  “I know what you mean,” I tell her.

  “What’s going to happen to the other women?” Dakota asks.

  “Dobry’s older brother, Andrei, will most likely come from Moscow to arrange his brother’s business. I imagine he’ll stake his claim on them.”

  She shivers. “Is he better than Dobry? Is he less cruel?”

  A part of me wants to lie to her, but something inside of me recoils sharply at the thought. As long as I live, I will do my best to never lie to this woman.

  Even the thought is fucking insanity. I shouldn’t be thinking things like this about a woman I only met less than an hour ago—a woman I met on a job, no less.

  And yet it’s there, as undeniable as the way she makes my heart pound like a war drum.

  “No,” I say. “Andrei is a monster. Maybe more calculated than his little brother, but a monster all the same. He’s the main boss in the Bratva. Dobry was his second in command.”

  “It’s not fair,” she whispers. “Why should I be here and not them?”

  “Do you want me to take you back?” I snap.

  She shoots me a look, pure sass. It makes me want to grab her by her shoulders and drag her into my lap, to grind my entrapped manhood against her ass cheeks and watch as her sassiness explodes even more.

  Goddamn, she’s a sexy sassy fucking queen.

  “Do you always have to be such an asshole?” she says.

  I smirk. “Nah, just most of the time.”

  She giggles, and then clamps her hand over her mouth. “I didn’t laugh,” she says quickly. “Because I’d never laugh at anything you said, Damian. I just sneezed.”

  “Sounded pretty damn strange for a sneeze,” I banter, unable to stop myself.

  Despite everything, she’s smiling, I’m smirking, and I feel as if an invisible rope has coiled around us and is slowly tightening, making it so I’ll never be able to break free.

  But even that’s a damn lie.

  I don’t want to break free, that’s the truth.

  Finally, I pull into the parking lot of the motel, my eyes scanning the building, some of the rooms quiet and others beaming yellow electric light into the lot.

  And then I hear it, the high pitched yapping.

  Sparky.

  My eyes focus on my room.

  The door is open.

  A man stands out front, a tattooed, Bratva man, his hand near his hip.

  “They’re taking my fucking dog,” I snarl. “What the fuck? How did they find me? What the fuck is happening?”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Dakota

  Damian’s rage fills the car like an odor, his eyes flaring and his fists gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turn white. He grinds his teeth from side to side, staring across the motel parking lot.

  “This is wrong,” he snarls. “This is bad.”

  I almost flinch when a cellphone starts to ring, and instinctively I reach for my pocket before remembering that they took my cellphone when they took my freedom.

  Damian takes out a burner cell and answers it, but never takes his eyes off the motel room.

  The dog’s yipping has become high pitched and one of the men is shouting, clearly trying to wrangle the dog. I’m guessing these men want to use Sparky as ransom or bait.

  Fire floods into me at the thought. I may never have met Sparky – I may have just met this man – but I saw the way Damian’s face changed when he realized what was happening.

  Just for a second, the gruff shield fell and pain lanced into his features.

  “What the fuck?” Damian snaps into the cellphone.

  A pause, and then Damian explodes.

  “You’re sorry? You sold me out, Jenkins. You sold me out and now you’ve put the life of an innocent animal in danger. Wait—Jenkins, Jenkins. Motherfuck.”

  “What?” I gasp.

  He looks coldly at me, clenching his teeth.

  “They killed my contact,” he murmurs.

  “Who did?”

  “The Bratva,” he says. “Andrei, Dobry’s older brother. Jenkins betrayed me and then they killed him, but not before tracing my damn call to this motel. They’re going to take Sparky because they know it’ll force me to come to them.”

  “Well, then,” I say fiercely. “We better not let that happen.”

  For the briefest moment, he smirks, but then he becomes deadly serious.

  “Stay here,” he says. “I’ll handle this.”

  “Wait,” I say quickly, placing my hand on his arm again, which feels far more natural than it has any right to.

  “I want to help. Please, let me. You saved me. Now let me help save your dog.”

  Damian considers me for a moment, and then Sparky’s yipping gets even louder.

  “Okay,” Damian growls. “But you have to run and get far away from here if anything happens to me. You have to get to safety. I can’t let anything happen to you.”

  Why, Damian? Do you feel for me like I feel for you?

  I beat that thought down.

  Even if this wasn’t the craziest scenario ever – even if we were just two regular people in a club – he’d never go for me, this seven foot tall silver haired giant, this alpha among alphas. He could have any woman he wanted, so why the heck would he pick the curvy girl with the messed up past and the hopeless future?

  This must be about something else. Maybe it’s as simple as him not wanting a civilian to die on his watch, with all the mess and the questions that’d bring.

  Or maybe it’s more—

  No, I won’t let myself hope.

  “Dakota,” he snaps. “Do we have a deal?”

  “Yes, I’ll be safe,” I whisper. “I promise.”

  I sway past the motel room, veering from side to side as though drunkenly trying to keep my balance.

  The voices of the men come to me, vicious and Russian, with Sparky still leaping around the room and yapping in his agile escape attempts.

  I turn to the man at the door, making sure that I’m standing next to the van like Damian instructed me.

  Okay, Miss Harkness, it’s time to make you proud.

  Miss Harkness was my drama teacher and I try to remember what scant details I can as I raise my voice and call over to the guard. He’s a short, wide-shoulder man with a misshapen nose and an elaborate tattoo covering one half of his face.

  His gaze snaps to me when I call over.

  “What?” he grunts, in a heavy accent.

  “Do you hear barking?” I say, slurring my voice.

  “Yes, it’s our dog,” the man grunts. “Nothing to worry about.”

  “Wait, it’s real?” I say, giggling like a madwoman. “The barking is real?”

  “Yes,” the man snaps, taking a step forward.

  Yes, yes.

  Damian has already started prowling along the walkway, flat against the wall, moving insanely quiet for a man of his impressive size.

  “I was just asking, asshole,” I hiss, raising my voice now. “No need to be so freaking rude.”

  “You little bitch,” the man growls, taking yet more steps forward, creating a Damian-sized gap between him and the wall. “Why don’t you come over here and say that, eh?”

  “Why don’t you come over here?” I counter. “You ugly...pig-fucking piece of crap.”

  The man’s face hardens and he ducks his head, striding toward the edge of the walkway.

  Like a jungle cat emerging from the underbrush, Damian stalks up behi
nd him and wraps his thick arm around his throat, holding him pinned in place.

  Damian turns the man and whispers something in his ear. I don’t know exactly what he says, but I know he’s forcing the man to draw out his friends.

  The man says something in Russian.

  Damian steps toward the door, holding the man close to his chest, as though getting ready to throw him.

  And then he does throw him when one of the other men emerges.

  I suck in a sharp stunned breath as I watch the man fly like a rag doll across the walkway, slamming into his friend and causing them both to go flying to the floor.

  Then I’m forced to stay, fighting the urge to run in there after him and help. I can’t see what’s going on, just hear it—a crash, a yelp, a scream, and then a cry.

  My heart begins to thunder as though this man is my husband, my lifelong friend, my something.

  I grip my hands together as though in prayer, begging silently for Damian and Sparky to be okay. I don’t know if I’ll be able to get back in the car and drive away, if he doesn’t emerge, like he told me to.

  I can’t leave him.

  Bizarre instincts rise in me, out-of-place notions like drawing his lust out of him with clumsy lover’s hands and then guiding it to my sex, sitting down, feeling him drive hotly up between my thighs and then empty himself, oh, God, empty every last drop deep into my womb so that even if something happens to him, I have a piece of him, my man, my savior.

  I shake my head.

  Adrenalin and fear and all that messy stuff is making me crazy, that’s all.

  It’s been one hell of a night.

  That’s all, I try to tell myself.

  But then do I really believe that tomorrow I’m going to wake up and happily leave Damian to live his life without me?

  “Come on, come on,” I whisper, gripping onto the cold edge of the van and staring hard at the threshold.

  Finally, Damian steps out, ducking his head, a white sausage dog cradled in one arm and his other hand gripping a shining silver knuckle-duster, catching the electric light of the parking lot as he moves. The sausage dog has gray and black patches dotted here and there, and he’s shivering as Damian passes by me, nodding toward his dark colored sedan.

  “Come on, Dakota,” he says. He shakes his hand, dislodging the knuckle-duster and letting it clatter on the concrete. Seeing me looking, he grunts, “It wasn’t mine. I might be a hitman, but I’m not a thief. Come on.”