Dark Desire, Lauren Smith [reading well TXT] 📗

to let him pick her clothes. She drew the line at letting a man tell her what to wear.

Dimitri kept his distance as Elena shopped. He had seen at once that she was a woman who desperately needed to control something in her life. He had insisted they shop here, but that was the only thing that he would make her do. As much as he enjoyed buying clothing for a woman and seeing her wear it, he knew that even most submissives needed to choose their own clothes when not in the bedroom.

Dimitri cursed inwardly. He had to stop thinking of Elena as his submissive. She wasn’t and could never be. He had to content himself with only fantasies of what he and Elena could do, but even those left a bitter taste in his mouth. After everything she had been through, even if she healed, she wouldn’t want the kind of physical relationship he needed.

Elena pulled several silk blouses and some button-up shirts off a few racks and glanced at him. “I’m going to try these on.”

“I’ll be here.” He kept an eye on her, making sure she went into the changing room alone. He wasn’t sure why, but he’d woken this morning on edge. His intuition had warned him something was wrong, and the niggling worry at the back of his mind wouldn’t go away. Something about what Leo had said . . .

He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed Leo on the secure line.

Leo answered almost right away. “Dimitri.” Leo was the most reliable of his three friends when it came to phone calls. Nicholas was usually busy bedding any pretty woman he could find, and Maxim went dark sometimes—not even Leo could track him down during those black periods.

“I mailed that blood sample. It should be to you within twenty-four hours.”

“Good, I’ll run it through our database and prepare a full profile—” Leo suddenly went quiet. There was a beeping sound in the background.

“What is it, Leo?” Dimitri asked.

“Sorry, it’s an alert. Viktor Ivanoff is in Los Angeles. He triggered the facial recognition software I have running in the TSA’s system. He is using a fake passport, of course, but I still found him.” Leo snorted. “These Russian agents never learn. You must use prosthetics for your nose and ears—that’s the only way to fool my software.”

“Why is he here?” Dimitri asked.

Viktor Ivanoff was one of the Kremlin’s top agents, assigned to track down White Army operatives. But as far as Dimitri knew, his cover was intact. He given money he had stolen from the Russian party leaders back to them as donations, and therefore he stayed under the government’s radar. Ivanoff had been chosen by Putin to continue to resist the development of a democratic system in Russia, and he was also involved in jailing Putin’s political opponents, including the free press. Russia hadn’t had a fair and free election in twenty years. If Ivanoff was in Los Angeles, it was for a very serious reason.

“I don’t know yet, but I’ll find out,” Leo promised. If anyone could discover what the man was here for, it was Leo.

“Tell me the moment you do.” It wasn’t unusual for Russian agents to come to the United States, but Dimitri didn’t like the timing of this. “Leo, make sure you scrub my activity again.”

“Do you think you might be compromised?” There was the sound of typing on Leo’s end of the line.

“It’s always possible. He’s exactly the sort of bastard who would be sent after me if the Kremlin believed I was part of the White Army.”

“I’ll scrub everything by tonight. I’ll put an alert on my hacked feeds and the CCTV in your area as well. You will get a text alert immediately when he’s sighted and where.”

“Thanks, Leo.”

Leo hesitated. “Dimitri . . .”

“Yes?”

His friend cleared his throat. “It may be possible that you need backup.”

“You mean the three of you coming to LA?”

“Yes.”

Dimitri’s gaze roamed around the shop. He spotted Elena emerging from the dressing room. He would feel better having his brothers-in-arms with him, but could she handle four Russians under her roof?

“Let me think on it a day or two.”

“Very well. That will give me a chance to run Elena’s blood first.”

Dimitri mumbled his thanks before he hung up and waited for Elena to approach him.

“I thought these were nice.” She held up several lovely blouses and colorful cotton tops, along with a few pairs of shorts. “What should I choose?”

“You like all of them?” he asked.

“Yes, but I can’t—”

“You can.” He waved a clerk over, and the young woman rushed to collect the clothes from Elena’s arms.

“Did you get a swimsuit?” he asked.

“No, why would I?”

He gave her a bemused look at her failing to see the obvious. “Because there is a beautiful ocean a few hundred feet from our patio.”

She blushed, the delicate pink in her cheeks utterly bewitching him. “I’m not sure if I feel like swimming . . .”

“Go on,” he encouraged. He put a hand on her lower back to give her a gentle nudge toward the swimsuit section. She didn’t panic, nor did she acknowledge the touch. She simply walked away toward the rack of suits. Given that it was winter, there wasn’t much in the way of choices and styles, and the water was honestly probably a little too cold to actually swim. He hoped the thought of buying a suit and lying in the sun on the balcony outside her room or on the beach on the warm sand sounded tempting. He wanted her to relax, to let her tension fade a little.

Dimitri handed the clerk his credit card and chose a pair of sunglasses he was certain would look good on her and added them to the stack of clothes. Elena joined him and shyly put a modest one-piece suit on the counter.

“You really need to let me pay for something,” she began. He shot her a quelling look. “Fine.” She exhaled dramatically, and he sensed she