Mafia Hitman's Daring Lover (The Karzhov Crime Family Series Book 2) by Leslie North

and causing his body to harden even more. He grinned at her struggle, and she struggled even more. He was more than a foot taller than she was and outweighed her by over a hundred pounds. She’s not going anywhere until I say so!
    “You think this is funny? Let go of me!” Desi struggled to remember any piece of her self-defense training that might help her in this situation, but she came up with nothing.
    “No.”
    Desi pulled once more, only succeeding in pulling their clasped hands over into her lap. His knuckles brushed against the tops of her thighs, sending shards of pleasure straight to her core, adding to her confusion. She shivered in reaction, and when he let go of her hand a moment later, she tucked it between her thighs, trying to still her reaction.
    Grigori watched her from the corner of his eye and inwardly grinned at her reaction. She wasn’t immune to his nearness, and even though she’d protested him keeping hold of her hand, he’d felt her body’s reaction to his touch. She’d like having me touch her. Liked the danger and excitement of struggling against my hold.
    That thought started his mind wondering what she was like in bed. Would she get excited if he pinned her down? Or would she become the aggressor, fighting him for control? Grigori could find pleasure in both. He’d often mixed a little kink in with his physical relationships, the slight edge of danger and the forbidden adding something to the mix that he found fascinating and highly enjoyable.
    Grigori steered the Humvee into the back parking lot of the hotel and backed into the parking spot next to the dumpster. Turning the engine off, he turned to see her looking at the hotel with a light of battle in her eyes.
    “We are going to quietly go inside and up to my room. Once there, you and I are going to have a chat.” Grigori leveled her with a stare, trying to inject a little fear in her, enough so that she would obey and not put up more of a struggle. He didn’t want to scare her, but he also didn’t want to draw a lot of attention to the fact that he was bringing a woman back to his room in the wee hours of the morning.
    Desi shook her head and then glanced at her watch: 4:45 a.m.  God, she was tired!  “We don’t have anything to talk about.” She resisted the urge to reach up and rub the bump on the back of her head. It had now been six hours since she last took some aspirin, and it was beginning to throb once again.
    Add to that the slight throbbing that had begun in her nose and between her eyes from hanging upside down and the bruises she would most certainly see on her ribs come morning, and she was not in the mood to accommodate anyone’s wishes but her own.
    Reaching for the door handle, she almost got it open before Grigori hit the automatic lock. Glaring at him, she demanded, “Open the door.”
    “Only once you’ve agreed to come inside with me.” Grigori crossed his arms over his chest, causing the sleeves of his long black T-shirt to ride above his wrists. Desi’s eyes were drawn to the tattoos barely visible, and it was several moments before she could make herself look somewhere else.
    “Desi?” he inquired when she simply stared at his arms blankly. She looks exhausted. He narrowed his eyes as he perused her face, then asked, “How long has your head been hurting?”
    “All day,” she murmured without thinking. When she raised her eyes to his own, she realized what she’d said and blushed at the look of censure on his face. “I’m okay.”
    “You needed medical attention this morning.”
    “No. I didn’t.” A yawn worked its way into her jaws and she struggled to keep it hidden. “I need to get going. It’s late.”
    “Precisely. Let’s go,” Grigori told her, exiting the vehicle and waiting for her to follow suit.
    “Look, Greg—”
    “Not Greg.” Grigori wasn’t sure why he felt the need to tell her the truth, but she seemed fragile, and after watching her interaction with Dennis,