Page 116 of Stolen By the Billionaire
Sarah shook her head. “Bely means white, like the color. That’s why Marvel named Pugh’s character Belova. Scarlett Johansson played the Black Widow, and Pugh’s character’s name was Yelena Belova, which means Helen White. So, black versus white. Get it?”
“Right,” Blaze said. His brain was now zipping with energy, making connections, as he pulled into the blazing lights of the hotel’s porte-cochere. “So, Bell means white in Russian, like the White Russians.”
“I don’t know,” Sarah said. “That friend of yours, Aaron Savoie, said something about the guys who were after us in Iowa being called the White Russians. I thought it was funny because of the Bell/White thing, but I didn’t think it meant anything.”
In the half of Blaze’s life that he’d known his best friend Logan Bell, Logan had never mentioned that his surname meant white in Russian.
Or that he was Russian.
Not even during the last year when their mutual friends Twist and Micah had both run afoul of the White Russian organized crime syndicate.
The back of Blaze’s neck itched, and he rubbed it while he drove.
The square towers of downtown Cleveland rose from the earth around them like missiles leaving bunkers, and then they were at the hotel.
This revelation would have to wait.
Blaze didn’t want to get arrested for kidnapping that night.
He reached over, took Sarah’s chin in his fingers, and turned her head around to face him. He dropped his voice again. “Kitten, we need to talk.”
Her dark eyes widened like a fawn’s. “What?”
He needed to prime her attitude so if she tried to narc on him for kidnapping, she’d be too busy giggling to be taken seriously. “If you make a scene of any sort while we’re checking into the hotel, I will lock you in that suite with me, whip you with my belt until your ass is raw, and then fuck you until you’re a pile of goo on the bed. Got it?”
Her tiny gasp sounded like a shocked hamster, and she blinked. “I’ve never done that.”
“Never been beaten with a belt? It’s not like a sexy spanking for fun. If you try to pull a fast one at the reception desk, I will punish you, and I will mean it.”
“Not that. My dad beat me with his belt lots of times. I mean the—other thing.”
That was a veritable hornet’s nest of a statement.
“So, your father committed child abuse, and you’re a virgin?”
“Well, yeah. At my high school, the crazy rebellious kids were the Mennonites, and I’ve been living with my parents on a farm in the middle of Nowhere, Iowa and nursing them while they died. I don’t get out a lot.”
Shame weighed on his heart. “Oh, kitten. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You didn’t need to know that! It was none of your business until you threatened—that!”
“Right. No need-to-know. I understand that. I might have been a little more gentle this afternoon when I had you on the roof of my car, though.”
“No, that’s okay,” she said quickly and stared at her hands in her lap. “You shouldn’t change what you were doing at all.”
He allowed one corner of his mouth to pull up because his cheek might have cramped. “I wasn’t too rough?”
“No, you were—it was—you shouldn’t change anything about that.”
Blaze’s chest nearly puffed out as he tried to keep the grin off his face. “I’ll keep that in mind.” Blaze kept that half-smile but lowered his chin and stared directly into her eyes because he needed to make himself clear. “Then here’s the deal for tonight: If you’re a bad girl while we check in, I’ll send you straight to bed early without any room service dessert. I assure you, you don’t want to miss the Ritz’s chocolate mousse.”
In the light from the thousands of clear bulbs shining through the windshield, Sarah’s dark eyes softened, and she seemed a little less panicked. “And if I’m a good girl?”
“You’re my dessert.”
31
Only One Bed!
