Page 15 of The Enemy’s Defector (Ivanov Syndicate #3)

KATERINA

O ver the course of the next couple of days, Nik and I erased that awkwardness from before. There was no longer any gap between us. Distance was a thing of the past now that we’d reached a truce.

A sexual one.

We’d formed a strictly physical compromise.

In the vein of intimacy, we were as close as two people could ever try to be.

Unlike how we barely cohabited at the previous safe house, we were together here. Sleeping in the same bed. Showering as partners. Touching. Kissing. Fucking.

If we weren’t sleeping, we were exploring each other’s body with an impatient, relentless, frantic need.

Nik was an insatiable man, and I wasn’t going to deny how badly I wanted him, too.

I’d never felt this wanton, this eager for his caresses and the delicious stretch of him in my pussy, my mouth, and even the beginning forays into my ass.

Perhaps it was nothing more than celebrating life. That we’d turned this safehouse into the scene for a marathon of sex. A fuck fest to chase away the trauma of being so close to danger on our way to get here.

But I wasn’t deluded into thinking this was any grand sign of those happily-ever-afters I had started to daydream about.

I wasn’t that na?ve, perceiving that this “truce” was only physical, like we both had to vent ourselves after years of wanting each other but never truly having the chance or courage to go for it.

It seemed that life-or-death scenarios were a hell of a way to prompt us to pursue each other in a now-or-never sense.

I lay in bed with him, keeping my eyes closed as he held me tucked against his side. His fingers stroked up and down my upper arm, and that light sensation—so different from his rougher style when we fucked—almost tricked me back to falling asleep.

Over and over again, I replayed Nik’s strong words that he’d growled at me a couple of days ago, that first day we were here and he’d expressed how much he wanted me. That he’d never hated me.

He’d spoken so forcefully, so full of harsh longing, that I believed him.

That charge of attraction and awareness had always been an undercurrent connecting us.

Yet, I doubted his capacity to hate me. An unspoken tension lingered between us whenever I started to concentrate on what could happen between us next.

I also struggled to convince myself that he wouldn’t hate me if I admitted that I was carrying his child, too.

Each time we came together, I had a secret little nagging thought in the back of my mind that he never cared about not using protection.

It didn’t even come up. We were both too in the zone and addicted to each other that we hadn’t mentioned it.

Then he can’t be that mad that he’s knocked me up, right?

If it’s a big deal to him, then he would’ve used a condom the first time.

While I couldn’t see Nik being mad that I was having his baby for the sake of his not wanting a child, I could definitely see him being aggravated with me for hiding that news from him.

Nik was a spy. He spent his whole life seeking and finding intel.

Uncovering secrets was what this man lived for, and I was keeping a huge one from him.

How do I bring it up now, though?

How can I tell him?

We weren’t glowering at each other or relying on cold-shoulder treatments anymore, but I had to be delicate about sharing this news with him.

Having sex was a good sign of our being close, but each time I wrangled with the guilt of not telling him about the baby, I felt more stressed and anxious about the fact that I’d kept it from him this long already.

He shifted on the bed, probably easing more to his other side to accommodate his injuries on his still-healing body.

Moving with him, I snuggled closer and tipped my head up more to face him.

And I consequently got lost in the intensity of his brown gaze locked on me.

As if I were all he truly wanted and needed—in every sense.

Staring each other down wasn’t intimidating.

That was how familiar we were with each other.

The longer I watched him, though, the clearer his worry started to show.

Leaning closer to kiss him, I sighed against the possessive brush of his lips over mine. It would never get old. It would never fail to stun and excite me that after all these years, despite the separation between us, we’d come together like this.

Even if it didn’t last, we’d always have these few days. Because that was one thing I’d never be na?ve about. Nothing ever lasted forever, the good or the bad, and I’d learned to try to live in the moment as much as I could.

Which is so not happening with a baby on the way. I had to think ahead and plan there.

I cleared my throat, tired of the guilt over keeping this secret from him. Before I could speak, though, he opened his mouth and cut me off.

“He’s got a hit on you.”

I blinked, then furrowed my brow as I studied him. “What?” That had come out of freaking nowhere.

“Anton.” He sighed, hugging me closer again. “He’s got a hit on you.”

“What…?” I shook my head, not liking the direction of his thoughts. He’d seemed pensive, lying with me like this as we woke up slowly, but it was sobering to realize he’d been mulling over my threats.

“When we left that other safehouse. Didn’t you hear them?”

“No.” I hadn’t, really. I had tunnel-vision. Or tunnel-hearing, super-focused on moving and escaping.

“They said to get her . Not him . They showed up there to get you, Katerina.”

“Probably because they knew I had to be there with you. It was a Kozlov safehouse.” I scooted back a bit to face him more fully. This wasn’t a cozy topic at all. I was on edge, not relaxed. “The same as this being an Ivanov safehouse. If someone were to track us here, they’d target you.”

“Maybe. But you can’t change my mind about Anton putting a hit out on you.” He kissed me and tugged me back down to lie with him. “You already said you were done with him, that you’d cut ties.”

“Yes, but…” I sighed, pressing my cheek against his chest. He was right and there was no way to argue it. “I was so focused on the fear that he’d have a hit on you, to get you back since you escaped.”

“I have no doubt he does want me dead.”

I furrowed my brow again. “But you were alive in captivity.” He’d told me that to use as a means of getting him out.

“For now. They wanted me alive. I realized that early on. But until I know who was behind kidnapping me, who is behind all this hell my family is facing, I can’t figure out what their game is. I need to know who the player is, who the mastermind is.”

“Anton is involved,” I replied.

“But is he working alone? Is he the only one I need to go after? I need to settle this from the top, the very top. If Anton’s just a contributor, I have to focus on taking down whoever is calling all the shots.

That’s my mission, Katerina. I have to figure this out before going home and letting anyone try to take me or someone else from my family again. ”

What about me?

What would you say or think about the fact that I’m carrying part of your family now?

Without letting go of me, he reached over to grab his slim phone off the nightstand. I watched as he sent that one line of code to the program that his brothers would detect and see. This was his way of proving he was still alive while he saw through this mission.

“Has anything else happened to your family since you’ve been gone?” I sat up, too awake to relax any longer. “I hadn’t heard anything. I mean, not after the rumor that you had been taken. I was focused on finding that video and looking for you.”

“I would have no way of knowing. The contractors who took me and moved me around didn’t let much slip.

Only at the end, one said they’d plan to take someone else from my family, but that specific contractor was killed.

I have to assume that taking me was only one step of the plan to bring my family down. ”

News of more potential threats and strikes against his family chilled me. I was already nervous about my future, and I was skeptically hopeful that I could have a role in his. But that would be living with him and taking a leap of faith that the Ivanovs would let me into their family and home.

But how safe would that even be?

If I could go with Nik to his family, if I could be welcomed there where I could raise my baby, would it even be safer than this?

Or should I go for good? Run away and start a new life on my own, far from him and all of this drama and violence?

I lowered my gaze, afraid he’d see how close I was to tears at that idea. I had no one. I had nothing. My father was killed. My uncle ruined the organization.

I couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing Nik again.

Nowhere seemed safe, and I dreaded the possibility that for the sake of my life and that of my baby’s, I would need to leave him and strike out truly on my own.