Mikhail

30 (R)

A dark and silencing glare was directed at me and I shrugged, unfazed. His disapproval couldn't trump my need to escape everything, just for a moment distance myself from our impending doom.

I had sided with the enemy and was left virtually alone. Even Mikhail the ferocious wouldn't be able to fend off each threat, as much as he had planned to do so for the sake of keeping the both of us alive.

I slipped underneath his stretched arm to situate myself between his front and the edge of the counter, dreamily gazing up at the dangerous man. I offered him a shy smile, heart thudding painfully in my chest.

"We have a better chance of surviving if we leave," I informed him quietly, melting under his fiercely dark eyes.

My hand gently placed itself on his hard chest, and the rifle was returned back on to the counter which I leaned back against.

My father would either hold off on any possible support, or arrive with our men to kill Mikhail and take me back to the estate. I hadn't heard a peep of Mogilevich, but assumed he held the same stance.

The unbinding of our informal peace treaty would leave the world in flames, and thousands would die fighting for a rivalrous war spanning generations.

"Neither of us is dying today," he gruffed out firmly, large hands placing themselves on the edge of the counter as he inched closer, towering over and trapping me delightfully.

My touch trailed up along the concrete of his pectorals until I was able to caress his distractingly tightened anvil of a jaw.

"I say we wait until the shooting starts before thinking about it too much," I all but purred, peering up at the delicious man through my lashes, "we're both professionals, we have weapons."

To work alongside Mikhail meant butting heads and bickering over opposing styles of getting things done. He was ruthlessly calculated, in control and obsessed with his little plans. I had and would forever abide by my instincts, opposed to planning anything too far ahead. Instead of now aiming to change his ways, I desperately craved to submerge myself in all that was him and forget each and every daunting concern.

I had come as far as to admit and accept my ever-growing feelings for an enemy and, even after finding out his family name, leave him alive. The wildest possibilities I dared hope for were close enough to reach, yet so easily destroyed by a simple bullet.

"Was that your plan," I furthered, seductively brushing the pad of my thumb over the light stubble on his jaw, "to just sit around and wait?"

His darkening eyes harshened and I smiled softly, feeling for the man who was all too focused on us somehow surviving this. All the while I grew more doubtful by the minute and frightened of how realistic losing him was becoming in my mind.

Mikhail's hard front pushed against mine, a heavy exhale escaping his invitingly parted lips. The edge of the counter dug in to my lower back painfully, but the feel of his rough hand moving over the curve of my hip to tug me to him blurred out every other sensation.

My heart raced and my ability to breathe grew significantly more laborious, the tips of my fingers itching to grab at him desperately.

With a low grunt he all but threw me up on to the side of the counter, fiercely darkened eyes staring me down and sinful hands hooking underneath the waistband of my leggings.

The guns clanked against one another on the hard surface, pushed away by my intruding frame. Heat washed over me, forced to bite down on my bottom lip to stifle the blissful moan threatening to escape at the ravenous sight of him.

"This plan, my sweet girl," the deep and gruff words rumbled from his chest and vibrated down my spine in a delightful shiver, "will allow me keep you."