Russian Mobster's Forbidden Mistress Read Free Page B

good. Josef could tell. “Nowhere you would find interesting, I’m sure.”
    “Oh really?” She put one delicate finger in the center of his chest. The touch burned. “That sounds like a challenge.”
    “Not a challenge,” he said quickly. “Although I’m getting the feeling that you like to turn just about anything into a dare of some kind.”
    “Maybe I do?” She abruptly turned and walked away.
    Josef started to follow, almost as if instinct would not allow him to let her walk away. Then he realized that she was merely retrieving the bag she’d dropped earlier. She held it up, making a big show of unzipping it and examining the contents.
    “Hmm, I wonder if I have any clothes in here that might be acceptable in the stuffy old clubs frequented by your kind.” There was a good deal of mockery in her tone, but none of it struck him as mean.
    “My kind?” He tasted the words, wondering when he’d become that sort of man. “You say that as if I’m already your father’s age.”
    “Oh not quite that old.” She waved her hand dismissively. “Certainly closer than I am, though.”
    “Yes, by a whopping two years, as I recall,” he said drily.
    “All right.” She dragged a garment of some kind out of her bag and shook it out. “Since you’ve managed to ruin my plans for the evening, you get to provide me with new ones.”
    “Excuse me?” His gut tightened with what he was pretty sure was panic.
    She waved her hands. “Well go on, go back inside and make your excuses to my brother for skipping out on the rest of your evening. Then get your butt back out here and take me to the sort of place you hang out.” Even in the near dark he could tell her expression was pure mischief. “And don’t worry, while you’re inside I’ll be changing into something a little more appropriate.”
    “Appropriate?” He was aghast.
    “Well, perhaps,” she mused. “Or it might possibly give you a heart attack. I don’t know.”
    He muttered a pointless plea in Russian and then turned to go back inside the house. Even as he let himself back in through the door and entered the kitchen, he was wondering if he had lost his mind.
    The poker game was still in full swing. Boris and Vasily were yelling at each other, both on their feet with their fingers pointed at the other. Mikhail was laughing so hard that there were tears in his eyes. It looked as if none of them had missed Josef on his exceptionally long smoke break.
    “Ah!” Vasily crowed. “There he is! Did you smoke the whole pack of cigarettes, my friend?”
    “Only half,” Josef shot back. “I don’t suck them down as quickly as you do.”
    “Because Vasily sucks like a woman!” Mikhail joked.
    There was another round of ribbing at Vasily’s expense. Josef was beginning to wonder if they had always been this juvenile and he simply hadn’t noticed. It was like being back in middle school. All they lacked was a stash of pilfered magazines featuring half-naked women.
    “Since all of you are having such a good time,” Josef said casually, “I’m going to call it a night while I still have enough money to pay my rent.”
    “Loser!” Boris shouted. “That’s right, old man, go home and cry to your mother!”
    Mikhail took an irritated swipe at Boris and the room dropped into an eerie silence. Josef sighed. There was no subject guaranteed to shut things down as efficiently as the topic of Josef’s mother.
    “Apologize,” Mikhail snapped at Boris.
    “ Da , da, ” Boris said eagerly. “I’m sorry, Josef. I meant no disrespect.”
    “I’m sure you didn’t,” Josef said quickly. “My mother’s condition is certainly no doing of yours.”
    “Go home,” Mikhail told him with a nod. “See your mother and give her my regards.”
    Josef felt a twinge of guilt when Mikhail stood up and gave him a firm hug as though they were brothers. What would his friend say if he knew that Josef wasn’t going home, but intended to take Daniella away from