“Man, thanks again,” Dora said as she stood outside the passenger side of Danil’s car. “I’ll pay you back right now, my checkbook is in my car.”

Danil said nothing. He just surveyed her over the hood of his car. His face lined and sooty in the morning light. He had an overnight beard and bedhead. Dora’s mouth absolutely watered. She knew that she probably looked terrible. She didn’t have bedhead, she had jail head. Which basically consisted of thirty minutes of scattered shut-eye leaned up against the wall of a holding cell.

She could’ve kissed the cop who’d known Danil’s phone number when she’d mentioned his name. She had no idea who else she could’ve called at that point.

Still, Danil said nothing. Dora found herself talking to fill the silence.

“Like I said, I’m really grateful. I told them they didn’t have to call you in the middle of the night. I was happy to wait until morning. And I didn’t expect you to come all the way out here so early, you know?”

He looked at her as if he were carved out of stone.

Okay. He was a real tough cookie apparently. Although cookie was the wrong word. There was nothing sugary about this man. He was more like granite. Or a thick strip of leather. Well, she must really be sleep-deprived because even her thoughts were rambling.

“Why are you standing at my car?” he finally said, biting off the words as if they tasted bad.

“Oh,” Dora laughed quickly, realizing that she hadn’t been clear. “I need a ride to my car.”

Danil muttered something in what Dora assumed was Belarusian, as he cast his eyes toward the sky. She pursed her lips. She didn’t want to grin and press her luck here, but the whole angry Belarusian thing was really frickin’ cute. Especially when he was in a rumpled t-shirt and jeans. He was even more attractive all casual than he had been in his suit.

He didn’t say anything more, simply unlocked his car and got in. Dora dove in as well, thinking that if she didn’t move fast enough, he might damn well leave without her.

She told him where her car was and he slanted a strange look at her. They were silent for most of the drive, his hands tight on the wheel. He shifted in the seat, apparently unable to keep silent.

“You are journalist,” he said, his accent thicker than she’d heard from him before. He cleared his throat. “You are a journalist,” he corrected himself.

Dora said nothing, just raised an eyebrow at him. He didn’t seem to notice. Or care. He tumbled on. “But you’re not affiliated with any paper right now. You’re famous for investigating. For uncovering corruption. You were the one who exposed the CEOs who were extorting their undocumented household workers. But you haven’t written anything in a few years. Your real name is Pandora. Like the box. The curious woman who opened the box.”

Dora ignored the pinch in her gut. She hadn’t written anything in four years. Since her dad died. She swallowed against the sharp pain that those thoughts always rode in on.

She put a smile on her face. One that she knew softened men right up. “Well, somebody had themselves a little party on Google last night.”             

Apparently Danil Malashovik was immune to the smile. He stared blandly back at her.

“So. You’re investigating something now. In Spokane.” It wasn’t a question. He pulled up behind her rental car which she’d parked in a stand of trees off a lonely highway about a mile from the site she’d investigated last night.

Dora shrugged, nonchalant. “Like I said. I just moved here. I’m just getting the lay of the land. I like to get to know my neighborhood.”

“You’ve been arrested for trespassing three times in two days,” he said blandly. “You’re terrible at exploring your neighborhood.”

Dora pursed her lips again. “Must be.” She unbuckled her seatbelt. “Anyways, thanks for everything. The bail and the ride. Let me just grab my checkbook and we’ll be even-steven.”

She had her hand on the door handle when she felt his on her shoulder. His palm was warm and unexpectedly calloused for a lawyer. She had her suspicions that he wasn’t just a lawyer, though she wasn’t thinking about that now. She was thinking about his warm, gold-brown eyes that were currently lit sideways by the rising sun. His face, harsh and handsome, was more serious than she’d ever seen it.

“Pandora, why was I your phone call?”

Huh. The real question was why didn’t she want to answer that question? She cleared her throat, shot for an easy-breezy voice. “You’re the only person I know in Spokane.”             

It was the truth, of course. But there was a touch more vulnerability in her voice than Dora would have liked to hear from herself. She wasn’t lonely. She liked her lone wolf life. But as she sat across from this man, his morning pine scent filling the car, something was creeping in at the edges that she hadn’t even known was there.

Her words had him narrowing his eyes. Dora guessed that he was probably weighing the truth in what she said, whether or not he could trust it. And then he was speaking in Belarusian. Cursing from the sound of it. He blew out a long breath. Suddenly, Dora was very aware of just how much of the car he took up. Damn near three quarters. Was it just her or was there suddenly less air in the world than there had been ten minutes ago?

“Ah,” he ripped a frustrated hand through his hair, his eyes still on hers. “My samotna ptuška.”

“What?” she asked, instantly curious at what he’d called her. But for the first time in her life, her curiosity was narrowed down to the size of the head of a pin. Because suddenly his eyes were burning.

She wasn’t sure how, but his large hand was sliding over the top of her hair, tangling in the silky strands, to land at her neck.

He tugged her forward, none too gently, and Dora gasped, leaning over the console.

“Samotna ptuška,” he whispered again, almost against her lips.

For all his dignified presence, the suit, the lawyerly exterior, his calm, icy politeness, Danil was not polite or dignified now. He simply smashed their mouths together.

Dora found herself caught halfway between pushing him away and pulling him closer. The result was a battle-like embrace, her wire-strong arms banding around him as her fingers dug into his back. She opened her mouth and received him. Not in submission, but in a wild, pulling absorption of him. He was anchoring her to him like the string to a kite and she held on. She felt the wild need to both swallow him whole and lay herself over him, touch every inch.

It was like kissing lightning, Danil thought, as he absorbed her extending, flashing energy. She was whip strong and demanding, twining the two of them together like they were two strands of the same rope. But she tasted surprisingly light. A delicate flavor that grabbed him by the throat. The juxtaposition of her strength and her flavor had his mind spinning; he didn’t, couldn’t understand how one woman could be both.

Urgently, as if the second their lips had touched for the first time, someone had started some cosmic countdown, he dragged his hands over every inch of her. But the world, the console, the two seats, her fucking leather jacket, all of it kept getting in the way of what his hands really wanted to touch. Needed to touch. Were born to touch.

With a frustrated huff, Danil pulled back from her and Dora felt as if she were resurfacing from the bottom of the ocean. The light of the sunrise was suddenly so watery, so blurry, her pulse raced in her ears as she dragged her tongue over her bottom lip, catching his flavor. Dimly she felt Danil tugging at her coat, sliding it off her shoulders.

She sat in his front seat, her shoulders and neck creamily exposed in her deep green satin camisole.

Danil gripped her by the shoulders, his thumbs rubbing underneath the thin straps of her shirt.

“This is all you wear for shirt?” he asked, his Slavic accent taking over his speech. “Just this silky underwear?”

“I like how it feels on my skin,” she replied, foggily fighting to pull the words up from her depths.

Danil’s eyes were heated, heavy with touching her, and for some reason her answer to his question seemed to enrage him. Because he was scooping her up around the waist and shoving her back into the back seat.

Dora’s mind tried to kick back into high gear. But it was in a low gear and cruising uphill fast. She revved but wasn’t going far. She wasn’t used to this feeling. To the complete shutdown of her faculties. But here she was, unable to string two words together while an enormous man wedged himself into the back seat of the car.

It was only when Danil’s weight landed on top of her, when his mouth instantly fell on her neck like an animal that hadn’t eaten for weeks, when his hands somehow found their way under the silky slide of her camisole that Dora’s words came back.

“Wait, wait,” she murmured. But nothing came next. And with the curious interest of someone who studies life, Dora was amazed at the crushing disappointment that raced through her when Danil’s hands stopped their journey across her stomach. “I need…”

“Tell me what you need, samotna ptuška,” Danil said, his voice stretched thin with impatience.

But the problem was that she didn’t know what she needed. She knew what she wanted, which was to fuck, wildly, this half-stranger who’d just bailed her out of jail. She had no problems with that. But the other part of her, the part that wasn’t touching a stranger, was touching Danil. Danil whom she somehow already knew. Danil who had come when she’d called him for help. Danil whose hands were on her like they belonged there. That part of Dora was screaming for her to slow down. That part of her knew that this was about to get messy for her.

“I-” she struggled with the words but she was just so damn foggy.

“Pandora,” he growled and had her eyes snapping to his with the unbridled authority in her voice. “I will not fuck you in back seat like a teenager at prom.”

As he spoke, one of his hands journeyed up, just to the southern edge of the lace of her bra. His other hand went down, to dip just the smallest inch underneath the band of her jeans.

His eyes held hers captive, her spirit bucked, and she could feel her own electricity shock him, but he held onto the reins still.

“But I am going to touch you, Pandora,” his voice was a husky growl. “Before both of us lose our minds.”

Whatever words she was going to say were swallowed on a gasp as he did just that, touched her. Why were his hands so strong, so calloused? He was a lawyer for fuck’s sake. But then her racing mind was off like a light because his mouth was at her throat and one of his enterprising hands had finally found her breast.

Dora’s spirit rose up again, arched her body like an animal rattling at the bars of a cage. His thumb raked across her nipple and his mouth nipped and sucked its way down her chest. He pulled her shirt and bra down, bunching it around her middle and freeing her breasts. Dora’s skin bunched and pebbled against the cool morning air, and then his mouth was there, warming her. He sucked one of her nipples into his mouth and tugged. A corresponding tightening pulled at Dora deep inside of her body. She shifted her legs restlessly. Needing. Needing.

Danil tugged at her breast roughly, he was needing something himself, and unlike Dora, he knew exactly what it was. He needed to bury himself so deep inside her that he’d never get out. But he ripped the beast inside him back on a chain. He was not going to one-off her in the back of a car right now. Not when he’d gotten his first honest glimpse of emotion from her. Not when he was the only fucking person she knew in Spokane.

So instead he decided just to throw himself off the insanity bridge. He tugged again at her breast and she bucked against him.

She was as silent as a sunrise and it was driving him nuts. All that restrained, restless energy beneath the surface of her. He wanted, needed her to cry out for him. So instead of concentrating on his pounding cock, he concentrated on that.

Instead of giving her time to get in her own head, Danil decided to go as fast as he wanted to. To please them both. He was already teasing himself just by touching her, he didn’t need any more fucking footsie. So he reared back, unsnapped her jeans and ripped them down to her boots. He growled. Took ten seconds to rip those off too and then she was laying, her chest heaving, her breasts out, and nothing but a swatch of black silk covering her from him.

Danil allowed himself just one small moment of looking. He propped one of her feet up on his shoulder. He bit at her ankle, almost as an afterthought, as his eyes raked over her gorgeous body. He really had never seen a better-looking woman in his life. She was as curvy as a mountain range. So soft he could barely see straight. And her face was carved and angular like a model. The early morning shadows slashed across her, darkening her eyes that were smudged with yesterday’s makeup. It made her look like he’d been fucking her all night.

Instead, she’d been in a jail cell, he remembered with a growl. Well, that was over. And now it was time for her to moan for him. He was done with the fucking appetizers.

Falling forward, Danil threw her other leg over his shoulder as well. Her eyes burned as she fell still, watching him. Her breath gasped out of her parted lips, but still, she was silent.

Danil kept his eyes on hers as he lowered his head. He wanted to watch her every expression. But his own eyes slammed closed of their own accord, when he caught the scent of her. It was the same light flavor of her mouth, but intensified, finally concentrated enough for him to get a fucking handle on it.

He often went slowly with a woman, savored her like he might a piece of dark chocolate. But that wasn’t in the cards for them. He fell on her, ripping her panties aside ruthlessly. His mouth was devouring her before he could slow himself. She was a piece of ripe fruit. Her flavor burst through him. Warm and plentiful and everything he’d ever wanted.

Dora was no longer on earth. Maybe she was dead. Maybe that animal in the woods really had gotten her last night. Because she’d never felt a feeling like this. Danil’s mouth was stroking and nipping and sucking her into oblivion. She’d never felt a feeling like this before. Like every nerve in her body was straining toward the heaven of his mouth. She wasn’t racing, she wasn’t building, she was in a cloud of the most intense pleasure of her life. And when she came, it was a complete surprise. She was falling through the air like the entire earth had given way beneath her.

She heard a desperate moan escape her lips as she arched and tightened and ricocheted off the face of the planet. He brought her through. All the way to the other side. She was vaguely aware of him lapping at her gently, small rivers of pleasure coursing softly through her to him.

She was limp as water, her eyes slowly coming back into focus. Vaguely she watched him sit up. He leaned forward, gave a very satisfied kiss to each of her breasts before he straightened her bra and shirt back up.

Her panties though, he slid down her legs all the way.

“What are you doing?” she heard herself ask as she propped herself up on her elbows.

Danil arched an eyebrow at her, stuffing her underwear in the front pocket of jeans that were quite obviously straining around his massive erection. “I’m keeping them.”

“You’re keeping my underwear,” she repeated blankly.

He cocked his head sardonically at her as he started to put her legs back into her jeans, yanking them back up her legs, none too gently. “You have others, yes?”

“Yes, of course, I-” Dora pushed in frustration at her hair that kept falling across her brow. She needed to stop fucking stuttering and say what she meant. He was just so discombobulating. “Does that mean that we’re done here?”

She waved her hand between the two of them.

“For now, yes,” he told her, buttoning her jeans and locating one of her socks. “I told you I wouldn’t fuck you in the back of a car like a teenager.”

“Oh,” Dora said, flopping back and letting him slide her socks and then her boots back on her feet. “I just thought that meant you were going to fuck me in the back of the car like a grown man.”

Danil let out a surprised chuff of a laugh. Dora felt the pleasure of having made him laugh, something that she suspected was quite rare.

He leaned forward, a look of arrogance and pride crossing his face. It was one that Dora was beginning to recognize quite well. “Trust me, ptuška. You are not ready for me to fuck you.”

Now Dora was the one laughing, shaking her head at his pride. “Whatever you say, lawman.”

He reached forward in the car and handed her her leather coat. He wasn’t even close to being satisfied, Dora could see the evidence of that in the fit of his jeans. But he was swinging out of the car, crossing to her door and opening it for her. She supposed he was the kind of man who really knew how to be patient. She inwardly shrugged. She wondered what that was like. She was the kind of person who needed everything now.

She folded herself out of the car and stretched tall, letting the cool morning air wash over her face.

“Well,” she said, stretching one arm and then the other. “Despite the lack of sleep and the night in jail, I actually feel like a million bucks right now.”

That arrogant look swept over Danil’s face again. “This does not surprise me. Are you sure you can drive? You look a bit drunk. Satisfied and drunk.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “I’ll drive just fine, Belarus.” She glanced at her watch. “But I should get going.”

Something crossed Danil’s face. Something slightly annoyed. Like he didn’t want her to go. But then he was stepping back from her. “Me as well. I’ve got to be in court in an hour.”

“Well,” she said, falling back on her natural charm, the thing that had gotten her through so many moments. She rose up on one toe and put her arms around his neck. Jesus, he was tall. “Thanks for the wake-up call, sailor.”

She smiled up at him, expecting him to grin back, to pick up the thread of her lighthearted tone. But he didn’t. He stared down at her, his eyes suddenly that same intensity that they were when she’d first met him. “You are welcome, Pandora.”

He scuffed her hair over her forehead. She was making light of the moment, he could easily see that. And he supposed he could join her there. But he didn’t want to. He wanted her to see that to him, it wasn’t a joke. He wasn’t sure what it actually was. But he was damn sure it wasn’t a joke.

Leaning down, he caught her in a quick kiss. He didn’t let it spin out, the way he wanted to, but it was still deeply personal. He kissed her with the knowledge of someone who had tasted her everywhere. He knew her flavor. And now he knew the sound she made when she let herself dissolve into pleasure. It was one that he kept close, inside. He replayed it in his head as he watched her get into her car. She hit the gas, jolting the car onto the road in exactly the kind of reckless driving he could have predicted from her.

Danil watched her drive away, and still he just stood still. Simply replaying her gasping breath. The way she’d said his name. She’d been pleading with him. Asking him for something that he hadn’t even known he could give her.