by SR Jones
Ilya draws back and punches him in the gut twice—controlled, powerful, and quick. The man doubles over, and when Ilya lets go, he falls to the ground like a sack of potatoes.
He’s wheezing and gasping and writhing.
“Is he going to be okay?” I move toward the man. I might think he’s a total douche, but I don’t want him dead on behalf of me.
“Totally,” Ilya says. “I simply winded him. He’ll have a bad stomachache for a few days.”
“Oh, good.” I turn to him. “Thank you. I’ll go get my cab. Thanks.”
“Come with us,” Ilya says.
Oh, shit. No. I tell myself. Say no. Do the smart thing.
“Where?” I ask.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
“We’re going for a nightcap at Allyov’s restaurant,” Andrius tells me. “You can come with us, get a taxi from there. It will be safer.”
I doubt it because despite him being very bad, and proving how much so by incapacitating a man with two controlled punches, I like Ilya. I don’t think I’m going to be smart about this.
A car is pulled around to the front, and Andrius climbs into the driver’s side. Lucien takes shotgun, and Ilya holds the back door open for me.
I don’t know much about cars, but I know an expensive one when I see it. Murdering people for Allyov must pay well.
Christ, I’m in a car with a hitman, a mob boss, and God knows what Lucien is.
We glide through the night streets, and I’m hyperaware of Ilya next to me. His big body emanates warmth, his scent wrapping around me.
God, he’s delicious. Why does he have to be so delicious?
The men in front start chatting in Russian, and Ilya turns to me. “How did you end up dancing?” he asks.
I bristle a little at the question. I always feel as if there’s judgment when someone asks in that way. As if being a dancer is a shitty life choice. Maybe it is, but not for me. It gives me freedom to do what I want in the day and money. I know a lot of girls don’t do as well. There’s a ton of badly run clubs, and there’s lots of well-run clubs where you can’t earn more than a hundred pounds tops a night. Most strippers do it to top up student loans, or to enhance other earnings. For a few of us, though, we make enough for it to be our full-time work.
“I enjoy it,” I tell him. “I teach classes twice a week in the day, fitness pole dancing.” I smile. “And at night I dance in the clubs. Twice a year, I head to the coast for the conference season, and I make enough money from that to not work for three or four months if I wanted. But instead, I put it away. I won’t be able to do this forever. I sucked at studying mostly, and I hated working a nine to five. I have obligations like we all do, one of which is a useless brother who is always getting into debt. This helps me keep him out of trouble too.”
“But you have to put up with idiots like the fucker outside just now, no?” Ilya cocks his head as he regards me.
“You won’t believe me probably, but that sort of thing is quite rare. I don’t get much trouble. Sure, you have to know how to handle yourself, it’s no job for a shrinking violet, but I rarely get hassle.”
The car pulls up outside a glitzy looking restaurant. Not glitzy as in flashy, but expensive looking. Too rich for my blood. We head inside, and Andrius asks a petite waitress to bring us drinks.
She appears flustered at his order, and he regards her with impatience, the tightening of his jaw and narrowing of his eyes sure-fire giveaways. Clever girl that she is, she doesn’t argue but scurries away. Andrius leads us to some comfortable chairs in an area outside the dining room, and we sit on the exquisitely soft fabric, the chairs curled around a low table. I imagine this is the waiting area guests get seated in if they are early and their table isn’t quite ready.
As we all seat ourselves, the men placing jackets over the back of chairs, and me putting my handbag to one side, I notice the waitress over at the bar. The barman looks our way, and his expression is panicked. Good Lord, the sway Andrius has in this world.
What’s surreal about this situation is before I became a full-time dancer, I had studied a year of anthropology, and one of my essays had been on tattoos in the Russian prison system. Now, I’m sat with genuine Bratva men, and part of me is itching to ask about their ink.
“What are you thinking?” Andrius asks.
Ilya smiles as I start and turn to the men, snapping out of my daze.
I go with the truth; I don’t want to lie to him. Something tells me Andrius can sniff out a lie like a shark with blood.
“I used to study anthropology; only one year, I had to leave after that, but I wrote an essay on tattoos and their meaning in the Russian prison system.”
Ilya laughs, and his eyes warm. Andrius merely shoots me a half-disgusted look.
“Officially, I am Ukrainian,” Andrius mutters. “And I have none of these gang tattoos you speak of.”
“Oh.” I flush.
Ilya sighs. “Ignore my friend. He doesn’t get out much in the company of ordinary people. His social skills, they have … worn away? Is that how you say?”
I nod because I understand what he means.
“I have tattoos, but not like the ones the Bratva used to get. You know what I am, right? You are not stupid.” Ilya gives me a serious look.
The heat in my cheeks only gets worse, and nerves join the excitement creating a storm in my stomach. I nod again.
“Don’t worry, Amber. You have nothing to fear from us. We have a very strong code. Not like the Armenians.” He practically spits the words out. “We have a brotherhood, and many of us, the elite of our world—myself, Allyov—most of what we do now is legal. Some of it … is not.” He shrugs as if this is a mere minor matter. “What can you do? But mostly it is. I don’t go around shaking down innocent business owners. I don’t push people off their land and take it for myself, like those bastards in Italy still do. We aren’t that way. Me? I run…a few things—cigarettes, and very exclusive goods such as hard to find cigars, vodkas and the like. Also, some furs.”
I’m vegetarian, and the idea of him selling furs isn’t exactly warm and fuzzy, but I don’t say a word.
“I also bring certain things into Britain that can’t easily be found here. I have a friend who does similar things as me, Stamatis, and he is Greek. I don’t have an Andrius in my life because I don’t need one. I am feared enough myself, but I don’t go looking for trouble. I don’t go around killing people, and I don’t have stars inked on my shoulders, okay? I’m not that man. I’m not a good man, but I am not a bad man, and now you know more about me than most of my acquaintances. So … tell me about you. How did you go from wanting to be an anthropologist to stripping for a living?”
I could refuse to tell him, but quid pro quo, right? He’s just told me a lot, and I feel I ought to return the favor. I sigh and blow out my lips as I think about the reason why I am doing this job. “My brother,” I say simply. “He has a habit. A gambling habit. He gets into all sorts of trouble. I kept bailing him out, and in the end, I needed a bail out. Except there was no one to bail me out. Our mum passed a few years ago, and we don’t know our dad. I had to bail myself. I got a job dancing. But it’s not a sob story.” I pull my shoulders back and lift my chin. “I’m not a poor downtrodden woman being forced to do something she hates. I know a lot of girls in the industry don’t like it, but I do. I have my own thing, my own style, and it means I normally earn good money because my act is a bit different. I’m good at it too, so it pays well for me, and it gives me freedom.”
“Good at dancing?” he asks.
I glance over at Andrius and Lucien, but they’re having a low-toned conversation in what I presume is Russian. Or maybe Ukrainian; I can’t tell.
Looking up at Ilya from beneath my lashes, I smile. “Good at being sexual. Anyone can dance if they have the natural talent and the training. There are girls who are a million times better up on that pole than me, but they don’t earn half of what I can in a night because their f
ace gives it away. They’d rather be anywhere than there, and they see the punters as disgusting. Not me. I don’t see them as anything other than men, and when they are there to watch me, that’s a rush for me. I enjoy it.”
Shit. Will he think I’m a slut now?
“Do you always enjoy it to the degree you did with me tonight?”
He isn’t being a dick; his tone is genuine, searching.
I flush and look down at the table. “No,” I say honestly. “I like dancing, and I can do a very good act of being turned on. It’s an act, a … persona. Tonight was real, and no, I never feel that way during a dance.”
Warm fingers reach under my chin and tip my face up as his eyes search mine. “You are the sexiest woman I’ve seen in years,” he says, voice low and rough.
My mouth is dry. I lick my lips. God, I want to crawl right onto his lap and have his big hands on me. I don’t have much sex. Not having a boyfriend means any sex I have is casual, and I don’t do that often. My trusty toys and Pornhub are my outlet most days. I think Ilya will be a better outlet. And he goes home tomorrow. I can have one wild night with the bad boy and then never see him again.
“I want you.” He leans in close and whispers in my ear. “But it would be wrong.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Because you are young. What are you? Twenty-two, twenty-three? Me, I’m forty-three. More than twenty years older than you. I fuck hard, and I fuck dirty, and you’re so untouchable in your old-school glamor; it feels like it would be sacrilege to mess you up, but God I want to.”
I want him even more now. Hard and dirty. Just how I like it. I squeeze my thighs together, trying to ease the ache, and his eyes dip down as he follows the movement.
Clanking has both our heads turning.
I thank God at the approach of the small waitress because damn I need a drink.
The tray looks like it weighs more than her! I don’t know how she’s balancing it. As she nears us, she trips, and I watch in horror as she falls at our feet. The heavy tumblers fly everywhere, and the bottle of whiskey smashes against the table leg as glass and alcohol spray over our ankles and feet.
Andrius is staring at the girl and the mess as if he can’t quite believe his eyes. The barman rushes over and orders the girl to get a cloth. She casts a terrified glance our way before scuttling off to do as he says.
“I am so sorry, sir.” The barman is almost bowing at Andrius.
Andrius shakes his head. “Not your fault.”
“She’ll be sacked, I promise you.” The barman shakes his head.
“No,” Andrius says. “She won’t.”
“Oh, of course, whatever you wish, sir.”
Jesus. I’m surprised the barman hasn’t crawled over to Andrius and started licking his shoes.
Another waitress rushes over at the barman’s clicked fingers. “Get another bottle of whiskey, a good one!” he orders.
She does as he says, while he carries on apologizing to us.
The original waitress, the girl who caused all this mayhem, is back with a cloth in her hand, followed by an older woman carrying paper towels and a spray bottle of cleaner.
The girl bends down and starts dabbing at Andrius’ leg. “I’m sorry,” she says.
“Leave it,” he snarls, and his tone makes me flinch, never mind the poor girl.
She must be nuts because instead of leaving it she keeps dabbing.
“But … y-y-your t-t-trousers are wet,” she stammers.
Dab, dab, dab, she goes, not helping at all. It’s then I see it. The outline of something under the expensive material covering Andrius’ lower leg.
Holy shit, he’s carrying.
I want to be sick. I want to escape.
“I said leave it,” he growls as he swats the girl away.
She falls backward, and I wince as her ass lands in glass and whiskey. That’s got to hurt. I’m halfway out of my seat to help her when Andrius mutters a curse and pushes up from his seat with enough force to knock his chair back.
Is he going to kill her? I don’t know why such a crazy thought shoots through my mind, but it does.
Instead, he bends down and picks her up.
She gives a tiny squeak of protest, and then he’s striding through the restaurant, carrying her.
“What’s he going to do to her?” I ask, voice shaky.
“Do?” Lucien frowns. “Probably clean her up, make sure she’s okay, and then fire her.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Did you think he was going to take her out,” Ilya whispers in my ear.
I turn to him in alarm to see he’s laughing at me.
“No,” I lie.
“You have an overactive imagination.”
Maybe, but Andrius has a fucking gun under his clothes. Probably more than one. Ilya might too. This is Britain, and men carrying guns is not normal. It is highly illegal.
“Do you have a gun?” I ask, my voice ultra-low.
He moves his jacket to one side, and I see the edge of the holster and look away. I don’t want to know anymore. I need to go home.
“I think it’s time to be getting home.” I fake a big old yawn. “Tired.”
Ilya laughs, and it’s a low, deep chuckle. “Or scared?”
“No,” I say. I am, though. With good cause. I like bad boys, but these boys? They are a step too far.
“Don’t worry, little lamb, we won’t hurt you.” Lucien smirks at me as he takes a sip of the whiskey he’s finally been poured.
“Lamb?” My heart rate is spiking now. This is turning out a lot darker and weirder than I thought it would. There’s an odd vibe. An air of danger. A frisson that I should have picked up on a long time ago, but didn’t.
“So, in this scenario, I’m the lamb, and you’re what? The wolves?” I try to keep my voice calm as I shake my head. “Well, sorry, gentlemen, but I don’t want to get eaten tonight.”
Lucien laughs, and I realize the double-entendre as my face heats.
His phone goes, and he takes it out of his pocket and starts talking loudly in his language.
“Ignore him; he’s being a dick,” Ilya says. “Anyway, if you’re the lamb, I’m not the wolf.”
“What are you then?”
“The guard dog.”
His words are serious.
“I protect those I like, and I like you.”
“You’re going home tomorrow, and I don’t need protecting.”
“I want you.” His eyes burn as he watches me. “I’ve not said that to any other woman since I lost my wife.”
He’s so much older than me. He’s dangerous. A smuggler, probably a killer. He is grieving his lost wife.
The ways this is about to be the worst decision I have made keep on mounting, yet something keeps me here. Stuck in the orbit of his charisma.
Lucien snaps his phone shut, as Andrius stalks back to us.
“Is she fired?” Lucien drawls.
“No,” Andrius snaps.
“She got away with that shit? You told her to leave it, and she didn’t.”
“She’s a mess,” Andrius says, but a small smile plays on his lips. “I told her she ignored me again and I’d put her over my knee and spank her.”
“What?” The word is out before I can stop it.
“What, what?” Andrius turns to me, and he’s got a new expression, one I’ve not seen before. Not his usual boredom; more like a cat looks when it’s about to play with the mouse.
“Nothing.” I sip at my drink, thankful for the burn.
“No, do go on. I’m intrigued.” Andrius watches me, and Ilya makes a low noise in the back of his throat.
I don’t know what that noise means, but I don’t want them arguing.
“You could get into trouble for that sort of thing, is all. It’s not legal to threaten your employees with a spanking.”
I sound so prim and proper.
Andrius watches me for a moment, then he busts out laughing. I have to blink at the way th
e laughter transforms him. He’s utterly gorgeous when he laughs. As in, drop-dead, stunningly handsome as hell.
“She doesn’t work for me,” he says, still chuckling. “And I think a harassment suit would be the least of my worries so far as law enforcement goes.”
I’m scared of this man, but I stand up to him because I’m more worried about that girl than my own fear. “Still, you shouldn’t have done that. She’s a scared mess. You’ve probably scared her even more.”
“She’s a mess, alright. Not sure if she’s scared. She’s an enigma. She also liked it.”
“Liked what?” I’m confused for a moment.
Andrius leans forward. “The human body has tells. Ways it gives away what the person inside the skin sack they’re wearing is feeling. You, for instance, are nervous as hell, but trying to front it. There are some things that might seem similar to the untrained eye. Anger and arousal, for instance. A lot of people are shit at recognizing what someone else is feeling. Except for disgust. Most people can recognize disgust really easily. Probably a protection mechanism to stop us eating bad food or some shit. Me? I can read people like books. And little Violet, liked it. She got off on me telling her I’d put her over my knee. She might not have wanted to like it, but she did.”
I want to tell him he’s an arrogant pig and walk out, but I daren’t. I’m seething for the girl, Violet.
How dare he play with her this way and make her so scared, then tell us all she liked it. Presumptuous bastard.
He chuckles.
“I won’t do it anyway. I’m just fucking with her. Wanted to see how she’d react. See, she’s a bit of a mystery to me, and I don’t like mysteries. I’m going to crack that little girl wide open like an egg and see her insides before I’m done. Metaphorically, I hasten to add. I don’t literally want to see her insides. I like the outside far too much for that.” He smirks and sips at his drink.
“Okay, cut it out, Andrius.” Ilya picks up his glass and raises it. “To us. To an auspicious partnership between our organizations, and to beautiful women.” He dips his head at me, and I can’t help but internally roll my eyes at the cheese.
“Sir, I am so sorry.” The older woman is back. “If there is anything…”
