KRAIT MC STORIES
MOSCOW 1995
Chapter 2
STAY
Kait turned sharply.
The man beside her was close to her age, perhaps a couple of years older. Pale skin. Black hair combed back. Dark blue eyes fixed on hers with an intensity that made the people around them seem suddenly distant.
He was beautiful.
Not softly. There was nothing soft about the way he held himself.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” then he whispered, “just play along.”
Kait stared at him.
His hand tightened slightly against her side.
“Come with me,” he said, too quietly for anyone else to hear.
“The fuck?”
“Now.”
Scar Lip spoke from the table.
The stranger answered him in Russian without releasing Kait. His tone remained respectful, but there was something final beneath it.
Scar Lip leaned back in his chair. He said something else, this time with a faint smile.
The stranger didn’t smile back.
He guided Kait away.
She stayed beside him until the table disappeared behind the crowd. Then she pulled free and turned on him.
“What the hell was that?”
He glanced over her shoulder.
“Keep walking.”
“Who are you?”
“Just keep walking.”
Kait looked back.
Scar Lip was watching from across the room.
She faced forward again.
The stranger led her toward the far end of the bar, where the crowd blocked them from the table. He stopped there and removed his hand from her waist.
Up close, Kait could see the edge of a tattoo disappearing beneath his collar. More ink covered part of one wrist before vanishing beneath his sleeve.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m trying to find someone.”
“So you walked over to that guy?”
Kait looked toward the pillar.
“Who is he?”
“Someone you shouldn’t approach.”
She studied him.
He didn’t fidget beneath her stare or fill the silence. He simply waited, his face serious and unreadable.
“I’m looking for this woman…”
She said digging up the picture and setting it on the counter.
“My mother, Katya Dragunov.”
He put his hand over the two pieces she had put together.
“Dragunova.”
Kait frowned.
“Her name would be Dragunova… Dragunov is the masculine form.”
“Fuck, no wonder no one knows what the fuck I’m talking about… Do you know her?”
“No.”
Disappointment must have shown because his gaze remained on her for another moment.
“But I know the name,” he added.
“You do?”
He looked past her toward Scar Lip’s table.
Kait noticed he was very aware of his surroundings. His eyes wouldn’t stay still.
He was checking the entrance, the dance floor, the tables, the balcony… the bar… then her.
“Yeah, and they’re not the type of people who like to be found.”
“Please, I’ve been here for days. Anything will help at this point.”
The music surged around them. Broken pieces of a man’s voice surfaced through the beat before disappearing again. White light swept across the stranger’s face, catching the blue in his eyes before leaving them dark.
Kait realized he was still watching the room even while speaking to her.
“What’s your name?”
“Kait.”
His eyes moved over her face.
“Kitty?”
“Kait”
“Yeah.”
She didn’t push it.
“Jora.”
“Hi.”
Jora glanced toward the bar. “Would you like another drink?”
“Yes.”
He signaled once.
The bartender saw him immediately.
Two glasses appeared without Jora having to repeat the order or reach for money.
Kait noticed.
“You work here or something?”
“No.”
Jora poured vodka into both glasses.
“He just knows who I work for.”
“And who would that be?”
Jora looked toward Scar Lip’s table.
“Same man he works for.”
Kait followed his gaze.
Scar Lip was no longer watching them, but one of the men beside him was.
Jora lifted his glass.
Kait picked up hers.
“So, you came here alone. You don’t speak Russian. You’ve been asking strangers about a woman connected to a name you clearly don’t understand…”
Kait drank.
The vodka burned less this time.
“I had an address, but it led nowhere.”
“You can’t call her?”
“I don’t have a number for her. We’re not exactly close.”
Jora watched her carefully.
“And you came all the way from America with a picture, an address, and no plan?”
“Denmark, actually.”
“You sound American.”
“It’s complicated.”
Jora waited.
“Maybe you know my grandfather, Konstantin Dragunov?”
That changed something in Jora’s expression.
“You know him?”
“I know who he is.”
Kait leaned closer. “Any clue where I can find him, then?”
Jora looked at her for a long moment.
“You don’t.”
“What?”
“That isn’t a man you find by walking through Moscow with a photograph, especially of his daughter.”
Jora poured another drink for himself but didn’t touch it.
“Well, I have no choice but to find him. I need work. I probably have one more day here.”
His eyes lifted to hers, and he let out a dry, humorless laugh.
“You don’t know what he does, do you?”
“I know enough.”
“No.” Jora’s voice remained calm. “I don’t think you do.”
Kait held his gaze.
“Well, thanks for the drink and for saving me from Scar Lip over there.”
Kait looked across the room. Scar Lip had turned toward them again.
Jora noticed.
He finished his vodka and set down the glass.
Kait started to turn away.
“Hey. Wait.”
Jora stepped in front of her, but he didn’t touch her.
“What?”
He looked at the photograph still clenched in her hand, then at the backpack hanging from her shoulder.
“You’re clearly lost.”
“You think?”
His mouth shifted as though he was trying not to smile.
“You said this may be your last night in Moscow…”
“It’s looking like it.”
“Then why not have a good time?”
Kait glanced toward the door.
Jora leaned back against the bar. Some of the severity had left his face. Without it, he looked younger. Not harmless, but more relaxed than he had a few minutes earlier.
“You came all this way,” he said. “At least have one fun night in Russia before you leave.”
“With you?”
“If you want. Otherwise, you’ll go back to Denmark or America, and remember Moscow as cold, expensive, and full of assholes who won’t help you.”
“That’s accurate, except for you. You did help me.”
A crooked smile pulled at the corner of his mouth.
“See? That means your last night in Moscow is already getting better.”
He raised two fingers toward the bartender and he served them two more shots.
Kait should have left.
She knew nothing about him except that the men behind them listened when he spoke. He knew Katya’s name, but he wouldn’t say why. That alone should have been enough to keep her sober and get her out the door.
Instead, she slid her backpack from her shoulder and placed it between her boots.
“One drink.”
Jora nodded.
“Just one.”
The bartender filled their glasses.
By the third shot, Kait had learned that Jora was twenty-two, had lived in Moscow his entire life, and spoke English because his mother had insisted on lessons when he was a boy. He had hated it until foreign movies started making sense without subtitles.
He learned that Kait had grown up in Texas, lived in Denmark, and had come to Moscow with one address and no plan.
“You crossed Europe for an address you weren’t sure was real?”
“It was real. But she wasn’t there.”
“So no one was at the apartments and now you have almost no money left.”
“Yes, and that’s why this is more than likely my last night here.”
Kait looked at him over the rim of her glass.
The calculating look remained in his eyes, but it no longer consumed his entire face. For a moment, he was simply a young man in a crowded club, drinking with a girl he had no reason talking to.
“So what do you do?” Kait asked.
“Different things.”
“Like…”
“Like the kind you don’t talk about.”
She laughed before she could stop herself.
Jora watched her.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re staring.”
“You blame me? You should see the view from here.”
The smile faded from Kait’s face.
“I guess the vodka’s getting to you.”
“Don’t be modest. You know you’re beautiful.”
She wasn’t sure if it was the complement or the vodka that made her cheeks burn.
She kept feeling the music pressed against her chest, too loud for thought. Around them, bodies shifted beneath bursts of white light, disappearing and returning in different positions each time the room flashed.
He got up and went up to her.
She felt the air change immediately.
So did he.
Neither of them pretended otherwise.
Kait looked up at him.
Jora’s eyes dropped to her mouth, then returned to hers. He waited.
Kait pulled him down.
The kiss landed harder than she intended.
Jora recovered quickly. His hand tightened at her waist, drawing her against him while the other came up along the side of her neck. Kait tasted vodka and cigarettes. The music drowned everything else… The crowd, the questions, Katya’s photograph folded inside her jacket.
Kait slid both hands beneath his jacket.
He made a low sound against her mouth and drew back just enough to look at her.
His thumb moved once along her jaw. He backed her against the bar. Her back arching as his mouth moved along her jaw, then returned to kiss her lips.
She caught a fistful of his soft black shirt.
Jora stopped.
His breathing was unsteady now. He rested his forehead briefly against hers, eyes lowered between them.
“Why don’t we skip to the part where I take you home with me.”
There was no promise attached to it. No effort to disguise what he wanted.
Kait kissed him this time.
He smiled.
“Is that a yes?”
“Lead the way.”
The door had barely clicked shut before Kait grabbed the front of Jora’s shirt and pulled him down to her.
He stumbled into her with a surprised laugh that disappeared against her mouth.
Her backpack slipped from his shoulder and struck the floor. Neither of them reached for it.
Jora crowded her against the door, one hand braced beside her head while the other found her waist beneath her jacket. Kait could still feel the club inside her—the beat pulsing through her blood, the vodka warm beneath her skin, his mouth tasting like both.
She shoved his jacket from his shoulders.
It caught around his elbows.
Jora swore and tried to pull free without letting go of her. Kait laughed into the next kiss, and he finally tore the jacket off and dropped it somewhere behind him.
His apartment was dark except for a lamp burning farther inside. Kait caught fragments whenever she opened her eyes. Polished wood. Clean lines. Glass reflecting amber light.
Then Jora’s mouth moved down her neck, and she stopped looking.
He pushed her jacket open.
Cold hands slid beneath her shirt, making her arch away from the door.
“You’re freezing.”
“Not for long.”
His mouth returned to hers before she could answer.
There was nothing careful about it now. Kait caught his lower lip between her teeth. Jora made a rough sound and gripped her tighter, lifting her just enough to turn them away from the door.
They struck the wall.
Something rattled on a nearby table.
Kait looked toward it.
Jora caught her face and dragged her back.
“Leave it.”
She did.
His hands moved over her as if he had been restraining them all night and had finally run out of patience. Down her sides. Beneath her shirt. Around her hips. Kait pulled the shirt over her head, lost her balance halfway through, and nearly took both of them down.
Jora caught her around the waist.
For a second, they stood there laughing and breathing too hard.
Then he looked at her.
The humor left his face.
His eyes moved slowly over what she had uncovered, and the open hunger in them sent heat rushing through her harder than the vodka had.
Kait hooked her fingers into his belt and pulled him close again.
Jora kissed her with one hand buried in her hair, walking her backward through an apartment she still hadn’t seen. Her shoulder brushed a doorway. His hip struck the edge of something solid. They knocked into furniture and each other, stopping every few steps because neither could keep their mouths apart long enough to reach wherever he was taking her.
He pushed her against another wall.
Kait unbuttoned his silk shirt.
Jora peeled it off of him as if it burned.
She looked at him the same way he just did.
A black-and-gray snake stretched across his upper chest, its body twisting over his shoulder before coiling around his upper arm.
She ran her palm over the scales inked across his chest.
Jora watched her hand.
Jora watched her hand.
“What does it mean?”
“It doesn’t matter right now.”
He caught her wrist and kissed the inside of it.
Then her palm.
The unexpected softness lasted only a moment.
Kait pushed him back and kissed him again, harder this time. He answered with both hands on her, drawing her against the heat of his bare chest.
She felt the strength he kept hidden beneath his clothes. Not heavy muscle. Something leaner, built through use rather than display. He moved like he knew exactly where his body was in a room even when vodka had loosened everything else.
Kait lost her balance.
They crashed onto the mattress together and he landed on top of her.
She laughed.
“Got lucky.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Working on it.”
Kait smiled.
Jora caught her thighs and pulled her closer.
Their kisses grew clumsier as they fought with the rest of their clothes. A button flew somewhere into the dark. Jora’s belt struck the floor. Kait tried to pull off one boot without releasing him, gave up, and kicked until it came loose.
The second refused to follow.
Jora sat back and grabbed and pulled it off her.
Jora leaned over her, his hair no longer in place, his lips swollen from kissing her. For the first time that night, he looked nothing like the cool, calm and collected man who had saved her from probably being trafficked.
He looked wild. Excited. Drunk, and wanting her so bad.
His hand moved along her leg.
Kait reached up and touched the side of his face.
Something shifted between them.
His hands all over her body as he positioned himself just right. Kait felt the rasp of his jaw on her nipples and the unsteady pull of his breath on her skin.
“You’re so fucking perfect.”
“So are you.”
He looked in her eyes for another moment.
Kait slid her hand behind his neck and pulled him down.
The room filled with the sounds of unsteady breathing, whispered curses, and the bed knocking unevenly against the wall. They moved without grace and kissed through laughter when elbows and knees ended up in the wrong places. There was nothing polished about it. Nothing promised beyond the night.
Only their bodies.
The city pressing cold against the windows while they burned through every reason they should have stopped.
Later, Kait lay across his chest with one leg tangled between his legs.
Jora’s fingers moved lazily through her hair.
She looked up.
“Should we skip to the part where I leave?”
He smiled.
“No. We skip to the part where you stay.”
“What’s the difference between leaving now or in the morning?”
“I meant you staying here… in Russia, with me.”
She looked up at him.
“Are you crazy?”
He shifted just enough to kiss her.
“Stay and I’ll help you find your grandfather.”
“But I have nothing to give you in return.”
“I beg to differ…”
She looked at him for a moment.
“I’ll never forgive myself if you leave Russia sad.”
“I wouldn’t be leaving sad at all if I left right now, trust me.”
He chuckled.
“I mean it. You’ll be comfortable here.”
“Yeah?”
Kait thought about it for a second and took a deep breath.
“Okay.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.”
He smiled and kissed her again.
Then they settled back into each other.
Kait listened to his heart gradually slow beneath her ear. She intended to close her eyes for only a moment.
The last thing she felt was Jora pulling the blanket over them.
Morning entered the apartment through a wall of tall windows.
Kait opened her eyes slowly.
Her head hurt. Her mouth tasted stale, and one of her legs had gone numb beneath Jora’s.
She moved carefully, trying to pull free without waking him.
His arm tightened around her waist.
“Where are you going?” he murmured.
“To find water.”
“Great idea.”
He released her.
Kait sat on the edge of the bed until the room stopped shifting. Her shirt was nowhere in sight, so she picked Jora’s up from the floor and buttoned it twice.
She spotted one of her boots beside the bed.
The other was probably on the other side.
Kait stepped out of the bedroom and saw the apartment properly for the first time.
The building had looked ordinary from outside. Large, gray, and plain, with soot darkening the stone above its windows. She had expected the apartment to resemble every other place she had seen since arriving in Moscow, cramped rooms, peeling walls, pipes that complained about everything, furniture kept since the cold war…
Jora’s apartment looked nothing like that.
Dark wood covered the floors. The furniture looked expensive without being tacky. Leather, wood. He even had a few plants around. A glass cabinet held bottles with labels Kait couldn’t read. Oil paintings on the walls. Books filled one side of the living room, the spines arranged with enough care that she doubted they were there only for decoration.
Looks like Jora was an old soul.
A stereo occupied a low cabinet beneath the window. The equipment looked better than anything Gregor owned.
Nothing was out of place.
Except for the trail of clothes they had left behind.
Her jacket lay beside the front door. Jora’s had landed halfway down the hall. Her beanie hung from the edge of a chair, and the button torn from her jeans rested in the middle of the polished floor.
Kait picked it up.
The apartment looked like Jora.
Controlled. Refined. Expensive.
As though he had already begun living the life he intended to earn.
She found the kitchen and opened several cabinets before locating a glass. The water from the tap ran clear and cold.
“Do not drink that.”
Kait turned.
Jora stood in the doorway wearing only a pair of pajama pants he hadn’t bothered fastening. His hair had fallen loose over his forehead.
He was even prettier in the morning.
“No?”
“No…”
He said opening the fridge and taking a jug out. One of those glass jugs with a filter.
Kait emptied her glass in the sink, and he grabbed it from her.
She noticed the red marks across his chest.
She looked at them remembering exactly how he got them.
“You bruise easy.”
Jora glanced down.
“You fight dirty.”
“I wasn’t fighting at all.”
He huffed and passed her the glass.
“You look really good in the morning.”
She drank almost the whole thing.
“So do you.”
He took the glass from her and drank what remained before setting it beside the sink.
“Yeah… Especially in silk.”
Kait ran her hand on the fabric.
“You have good taste.”
He looked at her from head to toe.
“I’m well aware.”
They just smiled and looked at each other.
Jora got closer.
“How you feeling?”
“Like I hate vodka.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
Kait leaned back against the counter.
“You’re not hungover?”
“I’m Russian.”
Jora’s eyes moved over her in his shirt. He stepped between her knees and rested his hands on the counter on either side of her.
“Your eyes are incredible, you know that?”
“Yours ain’t too bad either.”
He kissed her slowly.
It was different from the night before. No music. No vodka driving them forward. No crowd, or yelling.
Kait felt every second of it.
Jora drew back first.
“I’m glad you’re still here.”
“You asked me to stay.”
“And you always do what you’re told?”
“Last night was the exception.”
“For both of us.”
Kait watched him.
She couldn’t tell whether he meant it.
He moved his hands under the gray silk shirt and ran his hands down her sides.
They kissed again and Jora picked her up and put her on the counter.
He hooked her thighs and brought her a little more to the edge.
Kait was already holding on to him.
She almost spontaneously combusted once he was inside her and saw the face he made.
A wince and a smile at the same time. Quick wrinkle of the nose as he clenched his teeth.
She knew that beautiful face was going to get her in all kinds of trouble.
But she felt it too, what made him make that face. That perfect combination of pleasure and pain after a wild night.
When they were done, she had added more marks on his chest and him on her neck.
They got dressed after some coffee and a bowl of fresh fruit.
Kait was sitting on the couch, tying her boots when her eyes moved toward the living room. Her backpack rested near the front door, where they had dropped it.
“I need to go back to the hotel. I gotta get my passport.”
“Sure, I’ll take you.”
“Thanks.”
Jora nodded once. “No problem.”
He offered his hand and helped her get up.
“And then you come back here, right?”
Kait looked at him.
“For one more night?”
“For as long as you need.”
The answer quieted something in her.
She pulled her hand free, not because she wanted him to release her, but because she didn’t know what to do with the feeling.
“You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know enough.”
“No, you don’t.”
Jora glanced toward her jacket.
“You came to Moscow alone to find Katya Dragunova. You have no money, no Russian, and no idea who you’ve been asking about. I know that if I let you walk out alone, you’ll go back to showing her photograph to men who might sell you before they answer.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“I’m sure you can.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“You don’t know where the danger is.”
Kait thought for a moment.
“Yeah, you’re right.”
Jora studied her for a moment before kissing her.
“Your mouth is fucking magical.”
Kait smiled.
The landlord’s expression changed the moment he saw Jora.
He had been shouting before Kait even reached the desk, pointing at her and then at the stairs. Jora answered him in Russian without raising his voice.
The landlord stopped shouting.
They exchanged several sentences. Jora placed one hand on the desk and leaned closer.
The older man looked toward Kait.
Then he unlocked the drawer beneath the register and removed a portion of the money she had paid him.
Jora picked it up and handed it to her.
“What did you say to him?”
“That you were leaving.”
“He gave me money back because you told him I was leaving?”
“Not quite.”
Jora said something else to him and the landlord handed her passport over without saying anything else.
She took it slowly and that was that.
They ate at a small restaurant where Jora ordered enough food for both. Hot bread. Potato dumplings he called Vareniki, soup thick enough to hold the spoon upright.
Kait ate everything.
Jora watched her finish the last piece of bread.
“When’s the last time you ate a decent meal?”
She huffed.
“Denmark, probably. I’ve had nothing but those… what did you say they’re called?”
“Pirozhki”
“Right.”
“Well, I’m going to make sure you eat right.”
Kait put her hand over his.
“Thank you for helping me.”
He smiled.
“Thank you for letting me.”
Afterward, Jora took her shopping for some essentials and warmer clothes.
They returned to the apartment a little before dark.
When she came out of the shower, in her new pajamas, Jora was on the phone speaking Russian too quickly for Kait to follow. She sat on the edge of the couch listening for the only names she understood.
Katya.
Konstantine.
Dragunov.
Each one changed the voice on the other end of the line.
She sat quietly as he made more phone calls.
Some conversations ended abruptly. Others grew quiet. Jora wrote names and numbers in a small notebook, then crossed most of them out.
When he finally replaced the receiver, Kait was standing beside the window.
He came over and hugged her from behind.
“That should be a good start. Put a few fillers out there, my guys will spread the word.”
She put her head back.
“Thank you so much.”
“My pleasure.”
Kait looked out at the city.
“I’ve already been here almost a week and got nothing.”
“You were searching blind. Hopefully we’ll hear something soon.”
Kait turned within his arms.
“I owe you big time.”
“Yes.”
His answer made her pause.
Jora’s hand moved beneath her waistband.
“But I think I’m getting the best end of the deal.”
Kait kissed him before he could smile.
The weeks that followed fell into the same reckless rhythm.
Vodka. Nightclubs. Drugs. Sex. Sleep. Food.
All in an addicting, delicious, and exciting loop.
They woke in the afternoon and returned home near sunrise. Jora took her through Moscow one club at a time, into basements and warehouses where the air shook and nobody seemed to care what happened beyond the doors. They ate from street kiosks when they were drunk and from quiet restaurants when Jora wanted to impress her. Some nights they danced until Kait’s legs gave out. Others ended before they reached the bed.
Then Kait convinced him to buy a Polaroid camera.
After that, pictures started appearing everywhere.
On the refrigerator. Tucked into the mirror. Between the pages of books. Scattered across the dresser.
Jora asleep with his face buried in a pillow. Kait wearing one of his shirts. Jora stretched across the bed with the snake winding over his bare chest. The two of them crowded into the same frame, laughing because neither had managed to aim the camera properly.
Some were taken in bed, tangled in sheets and barely dressed. Others caught them drunk, half awake, kissing or doing absolutely nothing.
They kept all of them.
Even the bad ones.
Especially the bad ones.
Within weeks, the apartment that had once looked entirely like Jora had begun to look like both of them.
Jora continued searching.
He made calls, followed names, and disappeared for hours to meet people who refused to speak over the telephone. Kait learned to recognize failure by the way he entered the apartment. He would remove his coat, place his keys in the same dish, and shake his head before she asked.
Every lead ended with another address, another random name, or another person who claimed Katya Dragunova had vanished years ago.
Kait remained.
At first because Jora was helping her.
Then because leaving him began to feel harder than staying.
