We’re sitting at the edge of the pond, lily pads floating across the surface, the magnolia tree showing its pink petals proudly as Bullet runs around the pond, chasing the birds that occasionally land, his mouth split into a wide magnolia colored grin.
And then, all at once, he leaps into the water with a giant splash and starts paddling to the other end.
“He loves swimming,” Kat explains.
We sit in silence for a time, and then I say, “I’m an orphan, too, Kat.”
She blinks in wonder. “Woah. Really?”
“Yes,” I say. “My parents, they passed away when I was very young. I don’t remember them at all, in fact, just stories.”
“Were they good stories?”
Your parents were fucking junkies, a particularly cruel case worker had snapped at me once, when I was twelve years old, just to hurt me, to wound me. He’d been fired a few months later. And, to be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if you die just like them. In your own piss and shit. Just another junkie OD’ing.
“No,” I whisper, blinking back a tear. “Not really.”
“It’s okay,” Kat says, reaching across and pawing at my cheek. “You don’t have to be sad. You got me now.”
I smile and take her hand, and then both of us turn as Bullet leaps from the water and sprints at the hedges behind us.
Erik strides out into the clearing, raising his hand so that Bullet stops and then immediately sits.
“Uncle Erik doesn’t let him jump on him when he has to go to work,” Kat whispers.
I stand up, unsure of what to do with myself. I put my hands in front of me, interlocked, but that feels strange, too formal. And yet when I let them drop I feel ungainly. I’m wearing pants that suddenly feel too tight-fitting, making me feel ugly.
Erik is dressed in a suit again, this one dark blue, open at the collar to reveal a hint of hard muscle.
Work, Kat said.
And what work is that?
The Bratva.
I know that, of course, but part of the agreement to work for him is to pretend that I have no idea what the Bratva is.
Erik Godunov is a powerful man, and as he stands there, dripping sex appeal like melting wax, I try to remind myself that he’s just my boss and nothing else.
I try not to think about those tree trunk arms wrapping around my body, holding me close.
Those lips, moving closer, brushing roughly against mine.
My body fires and tingles and a thrum moves through me, a compulsive, demanding thrum, as though my womb is screaming at me to run over to him and squash my body against his.
“I’m going to be working until the evening,” he says, looking at Kat, and then glancing at me. His lips tremble. He seems angry. I wonder if he’s going to fire me. “But you two will be okay, I trust? In any case, I’ll be able to keep an eye on you.”
“I’m sorry?” I mutter, confused.
“Uncle Erik has cameras everywhere,” Kat says. “Look.”
She points to the magnolia. I follow the track of her finger and then I spot it, a small black spot amidst the luscious pink, watching.
“I would not leave my dear sister’s daughter in somebody’s care without being able to watch them, of course.”
“Of course,” I mutter, a confusing thrill moving through me at the thought that Erik Godunov has been watching me.
Not like that, I have to remind myself. There’s nothing sexual in his surveillance, just work, just taking care of his niece.
“Erin,” he says after a moment. “Walk with me for a minute.”
I swallow a ball of nervousness. It lodges in my throat and for a terrifying moment I don’t think I’ll be able to speak.
But then I mutter, “Okay.”
Erik turns without a word and strides to the other edge of the pond, near where the hedges break into a long, wide open field. This place truly is ooj. He waves a hand and Bullet obediently stands up and turns to Kat, padding toward her.
I follow Mr. Godunov as we stroll around the field, the high fences standing in the distance, the hills rolling away and the city a promise on the horizon. I still have to remind myself that this is real, that I’m here, not on the streets or a grubby halfway house.
Erik walks close to me, his shoulder almost brushing against me.
I can smell his musky cologne and, under that – I’m almost sure – his scent.
It smells primal.
It smells – oh, Jesus – it smells like his seed.
These thoughts are so silly and foolish.
I’m probably about three dress sizes too large for this man.
And even if I wasn’t, I’m nineteen years old and utterly inexperienced when it comes to that sort of thing. Nothing like the models and debutants and society women who must fall at his feet like sacrificial lambs the moment he so much as steps into a club.
“I want you to come to my office when I return from business this evening,” he says after a long pause.
He stops and I do the same.
He stares into me with those greyish eyes, seeming to look right through me. Something pulses in his throat. His strong, vice like hands twitch, and for a fearful moment I wonder if he’s going to grab me, hurt me.
And then that moment passes, and I see him grabbing me, taking me, instead. I feel his hands all over my body, squeezing my nipples, gripping onto my thighs.
I imagine him bending me over and grinding the groin of his pants against me.
He’s dangerous.
He’s intoxicating.
I want him.
I can never have him.
He’s just my boss. Nothing else. Focus on work. Don’t be stupid.
I’m the plus size girl, the ignored girl, the street girl, the naturally curvy girl. I’m the girl most people don’t even realize is there. I’m the shadow drifting through the corridors of high school.
“Um, sure,” I whisper, my pause far too long.
“Good,” he says.
Suddenly, Kat and Bullet appear, Kat with her hand resting on his head.
“Erin, can we go paint now? Uncle Erik, did you know Erin is going to be a famous painter?”
“Is that so?” he asks, the suggestion of a smirk toying with his lips.
“It’s more of a hobby,” I stutter, feeling a pang inside of me that I’d so easily downplay my biggest aspiration in life. “Well, maybe a bit more. Just a silly dream. It won’t distract me from my work.”
“By all means,” Erik says, “paint. And don’t forget to visit me later.”
“Okay, Mr. Godunov.”
He nods and turns away, walking back towards the hedges that lead to the garden and then the house.
Visit me later.
But why?
What the heck does he want with me?
About a million unhelpful thoughts flit through my mind, ranging from the criminal to the murderous. And there’s one, a really silly one, that tells me the second I walk through that door he’s going to bend me over his desk and pull down my pants, he’s going to pull out his manhood and tease me with it, pushing it against my wet hole, and then, and then …
But no.
Of course not.
It’s time to go paint.
CHAPTER THREE
Erik
Later, I sit in my office, hand idly clicking between the different security feeds in the house.
The Irish have been kept at bay for now, but every time I leave for the city, I feel them trying to impose upon my territory, making plays they have no business making.
Soon, I fear, soon it may come to something drastic.
But that is the price of doing business.
And those are concerns for tomorrow.
For now, I switch to the second living room, which Erin and Kat used earlier today as their studio, and then to hunker down and watch some Disney movies. I watch as Erin, alone – Kat is asleep at this late hour – bends over the couch and reaches down for something.
She stands up with a paintbrush, a light smile on her face, eyes bright.
She’s changed into sweatpants and a hoodie, and my cock could not – could fucking not – be harder as my eyes track her ass in those pants.
She tidies the rest of the room, leaning down to clean away the newspapers they put down to protect the rug earlier today, and now I can’t stop myself.
I don’t want to stop myself.
I reach down and undo my pants, loosening my belt, and then – glancing at the door to make sure it’s locked – I take out my cock and grip it at the base, watching those gorgeous thick ass cheeks shifting as she scrunches up the paint smeared paper.
It would be so sweet to walk up behind her and drag the tip of my rock solid cock along those cheeks, leaving a trail of precome on the fabric of her sweatpants, making her shiver and sigh in anticipation.
“I’m going to fuck you like the fucking queen you are,” I’d tell her. “But that doesn’t mean I can hold back this beast inside of me. This monster, it needs to ravage you, to thrust into you hard and fast and feel your wet cunt clinging tightly onto me. I’ll leave you shivering and gasping for more.”
Those words bounce around my head as I slide a dollop of precome down my massive cock, my balls like two hot stars firing flares up my shaft, begging to release my seed.
I need to peel down those pants and grind my palm against her wet pussy until I can feel how soaked she is through her panties, and then tear them loose and savage her, take her like the wild fucking animal I am.
I keep my beast in a cage inside of myself.
I stay cold for business.
But with Erin—with Erin …
I pause, a note of perturbation striking in me as I watch what she does next.
After tossing all the crumpled-up newspapers into a bag, she crosses over to the fireplace and reaches for a photo of Bullet as a puppy. My sister, Yekaterina, was the one who took that photo, my sister who was so senselessly taken in a car accident, sliding on an icy road and colliding with a tree.
“It’s just so cute,” she’d giggled, handing the photo, gold framed, to me over dinner one night. “You’ll display it, won’t you, Erik? Promise me?”
“Of course,” I muttered.
Now I watch as Erin takes down the photo and looks around conspiratorially, and then tucks it down her hoodie, hiding it.
I gasp and let go of my manhood, watching in disbelief.
This is not who she was meant to be, my queen, the woman who has finally made me feel something for the opposite sex where so many have disappointed. My interest never normally has a chance to flag, because it’s never up in the first place.
But now she walks from the living room like a thief, a guilty expression streaking across her features.
I hurriedly put my manhood back in my pants and sit up, gripping the edge of my desk until my knuckles turn white.
This complicates matters.
A thief.
In my world, stealing is a sign of disrespect.
And in my world, disrespect cannot be tolerated under any circumstances.
If word ever got out that somebody had stolen from me and I’d allowed them to get away with it …
I sit back, taking deep breaths, calming myself in the way I’m practiced in.
In my life, I’ve experienced all sorts of drama, the sort of events that would make other, weaker men wilt. But I never do the same. I’ll have to confront Erin, though, which was not why I told her to meet me here in the first place.
No, my plans were far, far different.
But now everything has changed.
The knock at the door comes only a few minutes later.
“Um, Mr. Godunov?”
I feel something weakening in me at the soft sound of her voice, a voice that could so beautifully sing lullabies to our little ones … after I’ve hammered them juicily into her womanhood, her womb, of course.
“Come in,” I growl.
The door opens slowly and in steps my queen.
In person, there is an even more animalistic urge in my body, a roaring to take her, every part of her, paint her with my tongue and then find the needy nub of her clit and work it with my hand until her squirting gushing lust drenches my hand.
I stand slowly and nod at the seat opposite me, across my imposing, oak desk.
She sits down and crosses her legs, looking up at me, biting her lip with her eyes wide. It’s all too easy to imagine my cock squirting onto those full, fresh cheeks, although I doubt I’d ever waste a drop anywhere but in her womb.
But the image causes a surging of solidness in my manhood.
My dream woman is a thief.
“The photo,” I say, staring firmly at her.
Her eyes widen even more and then she lets out a long sigh.
“Oh, that,” she says. “I guess this looks bad huh.”
“Yes,” I growl, my voice quivering.
This is my woman.
I’m claiming her … even if she doesn’t know it yet.
Could she really steal from me?
Could my instincts truly be so wrong?
“It isn’t what it looks like,” she says. “I was going to paint it. It’s such a cute photo, and I really wanted to paint it for Kat. But I guess, I don’t know, I guess I thought you’d think I was cutting into my work time?”
I walk slowly around the desk, having to focus extremely hard not to pull my rock hard pole from my pants and guide it to her mouth, let it open in an O of surprise and then take it, all of it, right to the back of her precious fucking throat.
I reach down and touch her chin, guiding her eyes to mine, her skin unbelievably hot.
“You’d never lie to me, would you, Erin?” I ask her firmly.
“N-no,” she stutters.
I can scent the lust on her.
Like a hunter, I can detect it.
And she’s my prey.
“I just wanted to paint it. I promise. He’s such a cute dog, Erik. Kat was telling me that you rescued him. Is that true?”
With an effort – otherwise I’ll maul her – I let go of her chin and step back, sitting on the edge of my desk.
“Yes,” I tell her. “He was just a runt of a pup when I found him in a crack den. Some people, Erin, some people are truly fucking barbaric. You should’ve seen how they were treating him. I took him in. I raised him. I trained him. And now he’s loyal to me and I’m loyal to him. Did you steal that photo? Or were you going to paint it?”
A flicker of annoyance enters her expression.
“I’ve already said,” she mutters.
“I need to be sure.”
“Why?” she asks.
Because you’re mine.
“Because you’re my employee,” I tell her. “And I will not – I will never – tolerate dishonesty. Look me in the eyes, Erin. Stand up and look me in the eyes and tell me the truth.”
She leaps to her feet, flaring now, vivacious.
“The truth, Erik,” she says, saying my name with a confidence I haven’t yet heard from her. “The only thing that kept me going growing up was art. It was – is – my passion. It helped me to stay sane during the fricking hell that was my childhood. An orphan, moving from home to home, ignored, the poor loser. Whatever. I don’t want pity. But a few art teachers did take pity on me over the years and let me use their supplies. Life is so much easier when experienced through the end of a brush, okay? That’s the truth. I’m not a thief. Even on the streets, I was never a thief, and do you know how insanely hard that is?”
She breaks off, panting.
My firecracker, my hellcat.
Curvy in all the right places.
Fierce in all the right instances.
“I had to ask,” I tell her. “A man in my line of work can never be too careful.”
I move closer to her, feeling her heat, her radiance. I move closer and closer until I’m almost pushed right up against her. I can read her eyes, the lust glinting, the
desire screaming at me to take her right now, take her and never stop.
I wonder if we’ll conceive our first child right here in the office.
I wonder if she’ll cream all over my cock the moment I plunge inside of her, or if it will come after a few minutes of friction laced pumping, if she’ll squeal and writhe as her white juice flows down my thick shaft.
I wonder how her lips will taste.
They look soft, but they form such biting words, and I know there will be prepossessed pressure in them, confident longing.
“And now I have to tell you something,” I growl, leaning down, readying myself for the most important moment of my life—
A pounding.
A pounding at the door, a knock-knock-knock-knock that jolts me from the moment.
My staff knows not to disturb me in this office.
“Who is it?” I bark, even if I’m sure I already know.
“Boss.” It’s Igor. Of course it is. “I’m sorry. But it’s urgent. And you weren’t answering your phone.”
“I’m busy,” I snap.
“I’m sorry, Erik. But it’s the Irish.”
Fuck.
“I have to go,” I tell Erin. “Paint that photo. I’d love to see it. And believe me, Erin, we’re going to finish this later.”
I stride from the office, no longer fearing to leave her around my things.
I have cameras, yes.
But more importantly, I have trust.
I trust her and that could be dangerous, and yet I can’t find it within me not to trust her.
“This better be good,” I growl, bear like, as Igor and I walk down the corridor.
“They’re on the move. They’re making threats. They might even try and hit this place.”
“My home?” I mutter. “You really think Sebastian fucking Crawford is that stupid—”
I almost laugh when the noise blares through the house, the whining siren telling me that an alarm has been triggered. The timing is just so depressingly perfect.
We’re under attack.
CHAPTER FOUR
Erin
“I don’t want to be a baby,” Kat says, “but I’m scared. I’m really scared.”
I sit next to her bed, my hand in hers, the door shut firmly behind us. Bullet sits at the door on his haunches, staring patiently, not growling, not making a noise. But there’s a quiet powerful aura around him.
Bratva Boss's Babysitter: An Instalove Possessive Male Romance (A Man Who Knows What He Wants Book 192) Page 2
