by Rie Warren
Maksim headed to the door first.
Then he halted.
He pivoted and stalked straight back to me.
For the kiss?
No such thing.
He shoved his index finger under my nose and ordered brusquely, “Stay put and try to behave.”
Then the men were gone.
They even took most of the soldier contingent with them.
Most.
Maksim would never leave me unguarded, as if us little women had no clue how to take care of ourselves.
Typical.
Grigor, a newly appointed brigadier and Jo’s personal guard, remained in charge, but I was not pleased.
After pacing around the space for all of a few minutes, I stood in front of the semicircle of ladies that included Lucia, Valeria, Baba, and Jo. “I don’t know about you, but I am sick and tired of being left behind and told what to do. I say we go to The Sickle too. Anyone game?”
Jo’s hand shot into the air even while she struggled to tip herself off a chair and onto her feet. “Hell yeah to that, my sister.”
Everyone’s eyes landed on her. Luckily, Grigor was too busy exchanging super-secret hand signals with his squad to grasp the rebellion that was about to take place.
Buuuut, Jo?
Really?
My eyebrows arched as I stared at her until she very slowly lowered back down to the seat.
Then she flipped me off. “I know, I know. I’m a jazillion months pregnant so no fun for me tonight. Boo.”
“Lucia?” I asked.
Arkady had trained her in gun use so, like most of us, she wasn’t at all helpless. I’d take her into battle any day of the week.
She gave me the same are-you-demented look she’d laid on Jo. “Hell no.”
Baba grumbled her displeasure in Russian and then Valeria tried to waylay me with gentle persuasion.
I was having none of it.
Dropping my voice, I squinted at the worrywarts. “Fine. I’ll go it alone.”
Lucia stepped in front of me. “What do you think Maksim’s going to do when he finds out? I love you, but you’re being foolish, Sasha.”
“Maksim?” I snorted. “Now that we’re hitched, he wouldn’t lay a finger on me like that.” Yes, I saw the flaw in my own reasoning but I was just so damn tired of being made to feel useless.
Turning to Jo, I wheedled, “Keep Grigor busy?”
She was the only one who could distract Grigor long enough for me to make my escape.
“Great.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s not bad enough I’m so preggers I might never see the tips of my toes again and I can’t go with you, and now you’re asking me to be the fall guy?”
“Please?”
“Well, at least I’m pregnant. Kirill can’t kill me for this.”
Awesome.
Waltzing to the bar where I’d hidden my Glock pre-wedding, I grinned inwardly. Maksim wasn’t the only one in this marriage who packed heat.
“Just getting some more fizz to go with the cake,” I chirped loudly while sliding the gun into the back of my pants.
“Grigor!” Jo hollered. “I think the contractions have started again!”
Beautiful.
“Should I call Kirill or the hospital?” He rushed over to her, his face a mask of concern.
All the remaining soldiers scurried to her side too, leaving me an open opportunity. Silently hustling to the side door, I turned the lock and stepped into a slice of freedom.
The night sky lit by Boston’s ambient lights, a warm June drizzle started as I shut the door behind me.
Inhaling the fresh scent of the approaching rainstorm, I curled my hand around the keyring I’d lifted from behind the bar along with my gun. I hit the key fob, and the Mercedes SUV’s lights flickered across the mostly empty parking lot.
Sweet.
With my heels clicking on pavement, I dashed to the vehicle, not even considering the danger I might be putting myself in. I just wanted to get out.
I barely made it to the SUV, fingers poised on the handle, when headlights suddenly careened into the area, the bright beams pinning me in place.
Oh god. Am I the first line of defense?
I thought about making a mad dash back to the club, but then I’d be out in the open, a sitting duck with a great big bullseye on my back.
My hands shaking, I pulled out my gun.
“Sasha!” Grigor’s yell reverberated from the vicinity of The Hammer, and another shaft of yellow light illuminated me, making me the perfect target.
Fear froze me to the spot. Lucia was right. I was so, so stupid to even attempt to leave.
Then, as the vehicles drove closer and I willed my gun hand to stop trembling, Grigor called loudly and distinctly, “They have returned.”
That might’ve been worse than me being ambushed by the enemy in the middle of the lot.
The closest vehicle veered off to the left and parked directly in front of Grigor at the club’s door.
I spun slowly to see Papa lumber from the passenger side of Arkady’s SUV. Then I wanted a damn sinkhole to open up and swallow me whole because the thunderous grumble of Maksim’s Harley joined the rest of the vehicles entering the compound.
The sound of the motorcycle’s engine echoed the frenzied beat of my heart. I tried to swallow, but my mouth was too dry. A loud crash-boom rent the night sky as heavy-rain clouds burst open.
Rain spattered first in little warm droplets.
I stood rooted in place, my Glock still raised.
Thunder rumbled. Lightning streaked.
The air was laden, humid, muggy, expectant.
I couldn’t form a single word of explanation.
My father walked into the club without so much as glancing in my direction.
The soldiers at his flank ignored me also.
Kirill and Arkady invisi’d me to the point I wondered if this was all a dream.
A very bad dream due to another of my very bad decisions.
Only Maksim was left.
And me.
I lowered the gun to my side, my entire forearm shaking.
The Harley roared to a stop right beside me. He dismounted, an incandescent shock of lightning revealing him for one tense second.
He was big. He was grim. He was silent. And I’d been abandoned to his stone-cold fury.
Rain began falling in sheets like sparkly glass, and he advanced on me steadily, dangerously.
“In case you were wondering, it was a false alarm.” Even through the roar of the sudden summer storm, I could hear the low intensity of his voice.
Mine shook when I asked, “Are you sure?”
The rain turned into a torrential downpour. Neither of us sought cover. Booming thunder and crackling lightning tossed up around us, but we remained absolutely still.
A jagged white light from the sky lit up his harsh features. “The real question is where were you slipping off to, wife?”
Busted.
He stepped closer.
I fought the urge to back away.
His hands looked as big as cement blocks when he balled them at his sides. “Did you think you could get away with slinking off on another one of your assignations with another of your boy toys?”
What?
Shaking my head quickly so water bounced off my cheeks, I implored, “I just wanted to help you.”
I knew that was the wrong answer, that there was no right answer for my hairbrained scheme, when his voice hit me like ice. “You are in severe trouble.”
He grasped my upper arm, slung me around, and marched me across the parking lot to the door I’d escaped through minutes earlier.
Soaked to our skins, he pushed me ahead of him.
The sting of shame combined with the burn of anger at being handled like I was nothing more than a piece of property.
Once in the main area of The Hammer and the Sickle, he roared, “Party is over!”
Utter silence met his pronouncement until Lucia
took pity on me.
Her tone soft, she said, “Remember, Maksim, it’s your wedding night. It’s supposed to be special.”
“Wedding night? Ha! This is going to be her worst nightmare.” He pointed at me, all but bellowing.
Not bothering to wait for the club to clear out, he whipped me ahead of him and shoved me toward the stairs, and I knew better than to look for help from anyone else.
He unlocked the door to the apartment.
He thrust me inside and barged right in behind me.
He pivoted me back around and snatched the Glock I’d forgotten I was holding from my hand.
I shoved wet strands of hair from my face and burned him with a glare. “That is my gun.”
After efficiently emptying the bullets, he flipped open a wall safe and secured the firearm with a combination I didn’t know.
He stalked back. “Perhaps I will return it. At some point. Provided you behave better than you’ve already demonstrated.” Then he grumbled lowly, “It’s clear you usually know how to use it.”
Water slicked off of my white leather combo, and I stared at him. “You’re damn right I do.”
“Not without my say-so in future, Mrs. Krasnova.”
“Taciturn asshole!”
“Spoiled fucking brat! I left you for all of fifteen minutes and you hatched an escape plan. Blyad! Sashenka.” His chest heaved as he read me the riot act. “You are fucking impossible.”
“And you are the worst man I could ever have been shackled to!”
His hand snapping out, he squeezed my cheeks hard.
I tried not to flinch, but his grip was vise-like.
Maksim lowered his face to mine, his gunmetal irises just this side of demonic. “I really will beat your ass if you ever attempt to go out on your own again.”
“Do it!”
Releasing my face, he yanked me into his unyielding embrace. His mouth crashed over mine with a fury I’d never tasted before.
I struggled, kicking at anything I could reach.
He speared his tongue into my mouth, wildly claiming what he thought was rightfully his. Holding me caged against him, he drove a hand into my hair, angling my neck, trying to conquer me.
I let out a strangled growl then let the rage and arousal explode out of me.
Wrath, lust . . . I despised him.
Desire, rage . . . I wanted some part of him.
Maksim grunted when I licked between his lips, drawing me up his body so we collided in all the right ways—for once.
We kissed so ferociously, clawing at each other, practically tearing into one another to get some kind of upper hand out of this pure madness.
And still the heat roared.
We broke apart just as forcibly as we’d clashed together, both of us breathing hard.
“I hate you with every single fiber of my being,” I scathed.
“That makes two of us.” A hard sneer crossed his lips that had just been slanted across mine.
Then, Maksim struck.
He grabbed both sides of my blazer and ripped it open. Buttons popped off, pinging across the room. I looked down at my ruined leather jacket just as he tore if off my back.
Breasts thrust against the corset that remained, I saw him through a haze of red when he slung the jacket aside like it was no more than a piece of rubbish.
I launched back to smack him right across his face, but he captured my wrist in an iron grip.
He towed me inexorably against him again, and all my feral instincts went into meeting his wild kiss.
A loud groan thundered from his chest when I rolled my tongue over his then nipped at his bottom lip. His hands roved from my arms to my ass, and he cranked me right against his undeniable erection, which threw me back into that heady spiral of hate and lust.
His sculpted features came slowly into focus when he drew back.
A filthy grin the likes of which I’d never seen played across his lips that—goddamn him—had felt perfectly voracious against mine. “Shall I tell you what I’ve been thinking about?”
“What?” All the breath caught in my chest, my voice emerging raspingly.
His smirk widened. He paced backward a couple of steps. Without taking his eyes off mine, he removed his tie. With a shift of his strong hands, he unbuttoned his shirt from top to bottom. A shrug of ropey shoulders, and he eased the material from his muscular tattooed torso.
Then his fingers—the ones that had bit into the fleshiness of my ass—dropped to his trousers.
The belt slithered and hissed like a snake when he removed it. He stepped out of his shoes, toed off his socks, went for the closure of his pants.
His voice the same gruff timbre as always, he unzipped, saying, “I have been thinking about my cock in your mouth, Sashenka.”
Oh god.
My eyes only flitted from the dark line of hair bisecting his abs to his groin after he’d shucked everything off.
Everything.
My mouth gaped open. Maksim was pierced.
Oh my god.
Right through the huge swollen head of his impossibly hard cock.
A Prince Albert.
I certainly hadn’t made out that sexy detail in all the times I’d watched him strut around in his briefs that strained to contain him.
He wrapped a big fist around that fat shaft, precum forming a large teardrop shape at the opening through which the stainless-steel piercing ringed.
Black stainless steel . . . black, like our rings.
Licking my lips, I watched as he handled himself.
He wasn’t gentle with that veiny stalk of flesh but practiced.
“On your knees, wife,” he ordered in a thick tone.
One heavy hand fell to my shoulder, pushing me down.
I didn’t stop him.
Didn’t think twice about getting on my knees in front of such a bold, virile display. To be so crudely desired, coarsely used by a man who knew exactly what he wanted . . . I was hot for him.
I was panting because of him.
Maksim.
My breasts quivered, nearly falling out of the corset when I hit the rug.
Up close, the smell of him was raw, addictive, dark.
The hair surrounded the base of such girth was as black as the hair sprinkled across his brawny thighs and down his legs. Below the pulsingly erect shaft, even his smooth sac was weighty.
Another drop of precum welled from the tip, slid across the PA, then dripped down the side of his cock to where his fist tightened. Veins bulged. The shaft strained. I felt thirsty for a taste.
Above all, the naughtiness of that black piercing sucked a gasp out of me.
The sight, the absolute masculine onslaught was temptingly, shockingly erotic.
Maksim invaded my senses.
I could still hate him and love sucking him off, right?
8
Maksim
AT LAST, THERE WERE no snappy comebacks from Sasha. Just a throaty moan when she sank so submissively to her knees.
“You’re pierced.” She reached out hesitantly, like she couldn’t believe my size and the Prince Albert, and wasn’t that an insane turn on?
“Da.” I wanted to gag her on my cock.
More precum slithered down from the tip, and I slowly rubbed the wetness over my dick until the entire length shined.
Sasha moaned again.
She licked her precious lips.
Fisting the base, I levered my cock so the head angled toward her pouty mouth. “I hope you’re ready to suck.”
She looked up, and her eyes appeared glassy. “Let me touch you.”
When I removed my hand, she took hold of the root of my cock, another feminine moan drawn enticingly from her throat.
She stroked me, placing both hands around my shaft as more precum spilled out to add to the twisting slipperiness of her palms.
My jaw clenched. My hips kicked forward.
My mind blitzed.
Never had I imagined her acquiesce
nce, her ardor and eagerness.
My glutes were already tight. My heartbeat rat-a-tat-tatting away. My balls swollen.
My head kicked back on my shoulders, but my eyes never left Sasha as she fisted all the way up to the shiny purple helmet then back down to the hefty base. Each time she slicked her way to the top, her knuckles brushed against the PA.
She knocked blood-red lust through my veins.
My cock throbbed.
She robbed me of breath, of thought, of almost all of my control.
Then Sasha did something I’d never experienced before. She formed a cage with her fingers and pulsed that soft barricade up and down over my thick domed cockhead and the piercing. Over and over again.
“Blyad.” My voice nothing but gravel, I groaned and ground up into her teasing touch.
Still plying me within the loose vise of her fingertips, she began running her velvety tongue all over my shaft.
She traced along the surface, wetting me in trails of saliva and lapping up my preejaculate like the clear precursor to cum was the tastiest ambrosia to ever meet her tongue.
Those fucking beautiful rings on her fingers twinkled at me, and the ruby was the exact color of her so-red lips when she finally switched her grip back to the base.
Sasha pursed that ripe ready mouth right over my rock hard dick.
I shouted, shutting my eyes for a second, when she took me into her mouth.
The hotness inside was pure bliss. My cockhead stretched her lips. The shaft made her cheeks swell.
Clasping both sides of her face, I felt the imprint of my cock moving in and out of her mouth, the sensation both inside and outside enough to blind me to anything else.
The fact that this was Sasha—Sashenka—giving me head made every nerve in my body scream with male dominance.
I drilled into the silky wet heat.
I watched as her lashes fluttered down, creating sooty shadows on her cheeks.
I moved my hands back and let her suck me at her will simply so I could better appreciate the sight of her on her knees in front of me.
And the sounds and the sights just kept getting better and better.
The exquisite corset cinched her in.
The upper crests of her tits wobbled over the top.
