Russian Lullaby Read online

  “No, of course not,” the professor backpedaled.

  “Do you think that—”

  “Vitaly, no, please,” Gia pleaded softly, setting her other hand on his arm.

  He glanced down at her, seeing the reminder in her eyes: You promised. No threats.

  He clamped his mouth shut and subsided, giving her hand a light squeeze. He nodded toward the other man, eyes narrowed and aiming an icy glare that made the professor turn pale even as he gamely held his ground. Gia tugged on his hand and they exited the house. Walking back to the car, Vitaly leaned down and said in a low tone, “If the professor fails you, then you will simply retake the course.”

  Gia nodded with a little bit a relief. She didn’t want to take the course a second time, but neither did she want the professor intimidated into giving her what she had not earned.

  “Thanks, Vitaly.”

  “Let’s go home. You have a paper to write.”

  She nodded.

  Vitaly occupied himself with domestic tasks while Gia worked on her paper. She just knew Dr. Cormier would give it a failing grade, especially since she’d approached him to beg leniency. She sighed and rubbed her forehead in a futile effort to forestall the headache that throbbed dully beneath her skull.

  “Come eat, Giancarla,” he called softly.

  She looked up from the computer, the monitor casting an unflattering blue glow over her drawn expression.

  “I need to finish this,” she said with a weary little smile on her lips and gratitude in her eyes.

  “You need to eat,” he insisted and entered his home office. He took her cold hand in his and drew her toward him. “Come. Eat. Then you can get back to your paper.”

  She sighed already knowing that resisting Vitaly was nigh impossible. Between her grandfather and husband, she was surrounded by well-meaning, ruthless men. How in the world had her own father turned out so differently?

  Sitting beside her husband at the table, she complimented him on his cooking. A pleased look flickered across his face. To be complimented for something creative like cooking warmed his heart. Usually the praise he received was spoken when he hands were still wet with someone’s blood.

  They ate in companionable quiet, neither feeling the need to fill it with inane chatter. When she finished, Vitaly shooed her back to the office while he cleared the table.

  The phone rang. Vitaly looked at the display and recognized the number.

  “Da.”

  “We found Carmen.”

  He sighed and said in Russian, “Maksim, you gave me this week off duty.”

  “Are you whining at me, Vitaly?”

  “No, of course not.” He paused and quelled a sigh, knowing his duty even if he did not particularly want to do it. “Do you have her?”

  “Nyet. I have Bogdan and Zakhar tailing her. They overheard part of a conversation she had with one of her contacts. She knows about the Culebras’ error and that you claimed the girl as yours.”

  Vitaly nodded, his stomach sinking to his feet with the implication of what Carmen Montoya might do with that information. Twin brothers, Bogdan and Zakhar were the best hunters that Maksim had. Carmen could have auditioned for the part of Marvel Comics’ Black Widow; she was that uncanny in her capabilities. It would require Maksim’s best men to keep her in their sights, although it might take a few more of their brethren to actually lay hands on the woman to capture and hold her. “All right. Let me know when she’s actually in hand and I will interrogate her.”

  “Of course. You will get the information I want.”

  “I will get the information she has,” Vitaly corrected grimly. He really detested interrogating women. Some sick fucks in the organization enjoyed brutalizing women, but he wasn’t one of them. The very idea of anyone doing any such thing to his Giancarla filled him with deep anger.

  “Khorosho. Ya ponimayu,” Maksim said, indicating his approval and understanding. “Enjoy your honeymoon. Olivia sends her regards.”

  Vitaly shoved the cell phone back into his pocket, barely resisting the impulse to slam it onto the countertop and shatter the device. He glanced toward the office and thought to himself that he was going to have to hire a bodyguard for his wife. If Carmen Montoya got her sharp fingernails into his Giancarla, the younger woman wouldn’t survive.

  The kitchen clean, he adjourned to the living room to watch television while his bride worked on her paper. He heard the light tap-tap-tapping of her fingertips on the computer keyboard, the occasional muttered oath, the nearly silent turn of a page as she consulted her reference books and those few notes that had been kept at her old apartment. After a while of watching the news, he rose to fix them both a pot of hot, strong, Russian tea. He brought a mug of the dark, liberally sweetened brew to his wife and set it on the desk.

  “How is it coming?” he asked, taking care to keep his tone neutral.

  “Slowly,” she groaned. “I lost too damned much. There were notes from studies and experiments in my book bag that were crucial to this paper.”

  He wished he’d been able to save her research. But it was no use wanting what as irrevocably lost, so he simply gave her shoulder a light squeeze of reassurance. He loathed seeing the defeated expression on her face. If she needed to repeat those experiments, then he would make it so.

  “Do the best you can, dorogoy,” he said softly.

  She lifted her face and asked him with gentle curiosity, “What did you just call me?”

  He bent down to brush his mouth lightly against hers and translated, “My dear.”

  Her cheeks flushed a pretty pink at the affectionate term. “I’m going to have to learn to speak Russian. Then I’ll understand all the things you say to me.”

  Heat blossomed in Vitaly’s gaze at the thought of his lovely bride understanding all the dirty things he said to her when they were in bed.

  “How much longer?” he asked, his voice having gone just a bit thick.

  She sighed. “Probably another two or three hours. The paper won’t be as long as it ought, because I don’t have the information I need. I’ll just have to go with what I have and hope that Dr. Cormier will give it a passing grade.”

  “If not, then you will take the class again,” he reminded her. “I regret that the professor’s stubbornness might delay your graduation, but you will graduate and I will be by your side throughout all of it.”

  Gia wasn’t sure what she had ever done to deserve such unwavering support, but she was grateful for it. She raised her hand to his face, the sensitive pads of her fingers trailing lightly over the stubble on his cheek. “You’re too good to me. I don’t deserve it.”

  “Da. You do deserve it,” he said, then captured her hand in his and kissed the palm and added, “Ya napolovinu v lyubvi s vami uzhe.”

  She inhaled sharply, then sighed. “What did you say, Vitaly?”

  “That I care for you, dorogoy,” he lied. He’d said that he was half in love with her already, but didn’t want to expose his heart so soon.

  She gave him a small, soft smile. “I care for you, too.”

  He bent down again to give her a light, barely-there kiss. “Come to me when you’ve finished and we’ll go to bed.”

  She nodded and turned away to return her focus to her work, but her concentration had been well and truly shattered. She wondered if, now that she’d been introduced to marital pleasure, she’d respond so readily to any man who flirted with her or if it was just Vitaly who stirred her blood so. She picked up the mug and sipped at the scalding tea until she could discipline her thoughts once again and ignore the dampness between her legs.

  Nearly three hours later, she leaned back and stretched in celebration of having clicked on that SEND button, winging her finished paper to her professor six hours shy of the 8:00 a.m. deadline. She rose from the task chair and yawned so hugely her jaw cracked. She turned off the computer and blinked against the room’s darkness. She took of her glasses and rubbed her eyes. Setting her glasses back on
her face, she walked to the living room where Vitaly quietly read a book. He looked up at her arrival.

  “All finished?”

  “Yeah, finally.”

  He marked his page, closed the book, and set it aside. Rising from the chair, he extended his hand to her.

  “Come. You need to rest.”

  She nodded as another yawn tried to drag her bottom jaw to the floor.

  “Sorry,” she apologized sheepishly.

  “You’re tired,” he acknowledged and swung her up into his arms.

  “Vitaly!” she shrieked as her feet left the ground and the world tilted.

  “I will take care of you,” he vowed as he carried her up the staircase. When they reached the bedroom, he reluctantly set her back on her feet. “Wash up. I’ll find you a nightgown.”

  She nodded and yawned again and padded into the bathroom. When she returned, he helped her undress with gentle care as though she were a small child. He settled one of her old cotton nightgowns over her and drew back the covers.

  “Get in, Giancarla.”

  She obeyed, wanting nothing more than to sleep. Her eyes, however, refused to drift shut as Vitaly busied himself undressing. She admired his naked ass as he walked into the bathroom and her eyes widened witnessing his half-aroused penis swing with every stride on his return trip to the bed. She swallowed and blinked. That thing was huge. Fully erect, it was massive. And she’d had it inside her. Good grief, how had her body accommodated that thing?

  “If you want to sleep, you’ll have to quit looking at me like that.”

  She gulped, blushed, and squeezed her eyes shut, although the sight of him remained burned on her brain. She felt the bed dip as he crawled in beside her and did not resist when he snuggled her into his embrace. He was big and solid and very warm. And he made her feel safe. She relaxed and quickly drifted off to sleep only to wake when the alarm buzzed.

  Vitaly sent her to the bathroom while he made his way to the kitchen to brew coffee. By the time she joined him, he had breakfast ready.

  “Thank you, Vitaly. You didn’t have to do this.”

  “It is my honor and duty to take care of you.”

  “I don’t want to be a burden more than I already have been.”

  “You are not a burden,” he said, his tone emphatic. “Now eat or you will be late to class.”

  “I have laboratory work today.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that I have to collect more samples from the lake and go back to the lab to analyze them.”

  “How long will that take?”

  She shrugged. “At least two hours, maybe longer. It depends upon what the analysis shows.”

  Vitaly disliked the lack of specificity.

  “I will go to school with you today, and to the lake,” he decided.

  “What? No, you can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re not a student.”

  “So? I’m not going there to study, but to keep you safe.”

  Giancarla gnawed at her lower lip and reined in her temper. Trying for a reasonable tone, she said, “No one is going to kidnap from a classroom. I’ll be fine.”

  “And what about the walk to and from the building where your class is held? What about going to the lake? Will you not be vulnerable then?”

  “I’ll ask one of my classmates to accompany me?”

  “No schoolgirl can protect you.”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of a male classmate to escort me.”

  “No!” Jealousy ignited in a flash. “No other man puts his hand on you.”

  “Jesus, Vitaly, I won’t be asking him to take me bed.”

  “You’d better not. No, I trust none of your puny college boys to keep you safe.”

  “And just how do you know they’re puny?” she retorted hotly, temper flaring. “Any one of them could have a black belt in karate for all you know.”

  He merely cocked an eyebrow at her.

  “Come on, Vitaly. You’ve got better things to do than shadow me all day long.”

  “No, actually, I don’t.”

  Gia’s shoulders sagged in defeat. “Fine. Accompany me. You’ll be bored out of your mind and you’ll see I’m perfectly safe on school grounds.”

  He nodded and cleared her empty plate. She rose to go upstairs and brush her teeth.

  “By the way, don’t mess with my lab partner,” she warned.

  “Lab partner?”

  “Yes. Jeremy’s a nice guy, really smart, and a great lab partner. Do not mess with him.” She emphasized that last command by carefully enunciating each word.

  He raised his hands as though innocent of all wrongdoing. “As long as he speaks and acts respectfully to you, then he has nothing to fear from me.”

  She shook her head and chuckled a bit ruefully. “Vitaly, your being there will intimidate him. Jeremy’s bright, not brave.”

  “Then you don’t want this boy?”

  She gaped. “You think…me and Jeremy…oh, God, no!” She laughed. “He’s definitely not my type and I’m not his.”

  “He does not think you’re good enough for him?”

  “Get a grip, Vitaly. He’s gay. He bats for the home team. He likes boys. Not everyone’s an oversexed stud like you.”

  Vitaly smirked at her. “You think I’m a stud?”

  Gia huffed, acknowledging that she’d stepped right into that one. “You’re a pain in the ass.”

  And, suddenly, there he was, right behind her with his big hands rubbing and squeezing her posterior. “The pain will be brief. When I take your ass, you’ll scream with pleasure.”

  Gia’s cheeks went bright red and she bounded upstairs.

  Vitaly smiled, a dangerous, feral expression, and sternly ordered his dick to go back down.

  Chapter 6

  Gia averted her gaze from her classmates’ eyes when she walked into the classroom with Vitaly shadowing her. His dark red, long-sleeved shirt concealed most of the colorful ink decorating his skin, but the designs peeked above his collar and below the cuffs. He’d pulled his shoulder length hair back into a stubby ponytail. His jeans were no different than those worn by other classmates, but he walked lightly in the heavy brown boots. In short, the clothes he wore failed to conceal that the large, heavily muscled man who remained close to her was dangerous.

  The professor frowned at this new arrival in her classroom. In an acid voice, she greeted her formerly attentive and conscientious student.

  “Welcome back, Gia. How nice of you to join us once again. What brings you and your friend? You do realize that guests are not permitted to audit graduate level courses?”

  Gia opened her mouth, but Vitaly pinned the older woman with an icy look and spoke first. “I am Giancarla’s husband and here to ensure her safety.”

  “Safety?” the professor spluttered. “How dare you insinuate that any student is not safe within my classroom?” She turned her glare toward her student. “Gia, please remove your husband.”

  “Anyone here is welcome to attempt to remove me,” Vitaly said and leaned back in the desk chair. He nonchalantly unbuttoned his cuffs and began to roll up his sleeves, baring the crowded designs on his muscular forearms. Wide stares and a few gasps met the revealed tattoos.

  “Mr. … Mr.?”

  “Synvolka,” he replied helpfully, one eyebrow raised.

  “Mr. Synvolka, only registered students may attend this course.”

  Vitaly shrugged. “I care nothing for your studies. Giancarla is my focus.”

  “And what makes you think she is not safe in my classroom, Mr. Synvolka?”

  “Experience.”

  “Please, Dr. Jamison, pretend he isn’t here,” Gia begged, finally finding her voice. “I—I was a victim of crime last weekend and he really is here as a bodyguard.”

  “Hey, Gia, I’ll guard your body,” one of the students quipped and waggled his eyebrows.

  Vitaly’s head swiveled
to direct an icy glare at the young man, who promptly grinned impudently back at him, secure in the knowledge that no one would dare take him to task for his rudeness and enjoying the chuckles and giggles from the rest of his classmates. Saying nothing, Vitaly marked the boy for a quick and pointed conversation after class. He amused himself with deciding whether that conversation should involve both of his fists.

  “Mr. Calliwold,” the professor chided with a stern look. “We’ll have none of that in my classroom.”

  She sighed and said, “Turn to page three hundred and sixty-two in your textbooks, please.”

  And class instruction commenced. The professor steadfastly ignored the brooding presence of the unwanted occupant in the seat beside Gia. He, in turn, ignored the professor’s repeated glares of annoyance as he leaned back in the uncomfortable seat and silently kept watch over the classroom with frequent glances out the large windows.

  When class ended and the students received their homework assignments, Gia gathered her books and notepads and pens and walked to her next class only to repeat much the same process as before with another irritated professor. Ben Calliwold attended that class, too, and snagged a seat beside her.

  “So, gorgeous, did you really marry that thug?” he whispered loudly, reaching over to lay a hand high on her denim clad thigh.

  Vitaly’s hand shot out and captured his before he touched her leg. He squeezed the man’s hand painfully until the young man squealed, “Stop! Let go!”

  “You’ll address Giancarla with respect, boy,” the Russian mobster growled into his ear, implying an “or else.”

  “Okay! Okay! Just let me go!” he shrieked.

  Gia put a hand on Vitaly’s arm and pulled back. Her gentle tug did no more than cause his nostrils to flare. It certainly didn’t move his arm.

  “Ben’s harmless, Vitaly. Please, release him.”

  Vitaly’s upper lip curled and he released the student’s hand, reasonably certain that he’d likely snapped a bone or two. The young man curled his injured hand to his chest and sniffed back tears.

  “I could sue you for assault,” he sneered.

  “And I could kill you,” Vitaly retorted calmly, not at all threatened by the young man.