by L. L. Ash
He paused there for a moment as if waiting for my answer, then he moved again, sinking to his knees on the ground. His hands gripped me behind my knees and he pulled with one swift tug until my ass was dangling dangerously on the edge of the bed, but then he put one of my knees over his shoulder which stopped the slipping feeling.
Strong fingers dug unceremoniously into the band of my white lace panties and he dragged them down my thighs, catching on the knee he put over his wide shoulders.
“Shit,” he murmured, shifting my leg off him again so he could get the panties off.
I giggled a little, not feeling like such an idiot against this god of a man while he was fumbling with just my underwear.
With a sharp rip, my expensive panties were torn and went flying across the room, then my knee was back on his shoulder and he leaned in.
I didn’t have to wait long until I could feel his breath against my thighs, soft lips grazing my skin there and gentle bites making me shudder as he made his way to my mound.
His tongue, hot, wet and slightly rough drew up my slit, making my whole body arch to the feel of him there.
But then he paused again, his forehead pressing into my pelvis while he muttered to himself in Russian, cursing and growling and moaning for a moment before he was back between my legs, mouth and lips breathing me in. His tongue worshipping me with short, gentle strokes at first. Then they grew longer, stronger, more insistent as I writhed and panted and groaned, jerking into his mouth while I reached the first waking orgasm of my life.
Arms flying over my head, I gripped the sheets behind my head as the sensation ripped through me, waves of heat and pulses of pain that drew out into exhausted euphoria. I gasped in a breath when my body unclenched and went lax on the bed.
So that was what they felt like. I’d woken a few times from hot, wet dreams right on the tail end of an orgasm, but it had never felt like that.
Max’s head eventually moved from between my thighs with one more greedy stroke of his tongue, and he looked at me, licking his lips as our eyes met.
Intense heat stared back at me from his expression, but he didn’t move to do anything else, and I was annoyingly useless to ease that desire radiating from him.
My mouth watered as my eyes drew down the buttons of his shirt, but any thoughts of reciprocation, no matter how ignorant and unpracticed I was, were stopped when he stood, holding his hand out to me to help me up.
“I need to get you to your room or I won’t stop with just my mouth,” he told me, slipping his hand around my chin before pulling me in for a long, languid kiss.
His hand dragged down my neck and chest until he was cupping my breast, eliciting a soft moan from his throat.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said eventually, lips moving against mine as he murmured. “And you taste…like nothing else.”
His words weren’t exactly what I might have considered a compliment, as I’d been praised for my beauty before, though, not my taste. But the way he looked at me when he said it, it was like a simple, undeniable truth uttered from his lips. Lips still coated in the taste of me.
Moments later he tore himself away with almost physical pain, like ripping off a bandage. He dropped down and picked up both parts of my dress.
“I’m sorry about your panties,” he said, not looking sorry in the least.
“You can keep them,” I told him, which put a smug smile on his face.
“How generous. Luckily they’re not past their time of usefulness. I’m sure they’ll get some use tonight.”
The innuendo in his simple statement had my breath picking up.
That smirk grew into a grin as he watched me dress.
“When will I see you again?”
“You want to see me again?” I asked, pausing with my hands behind my back, trying to zip up the back of my bodice.
His smirk eased to a half smile as he took my shoulders in his hands and spun me slowly before taking the sides of my dress and zipped it for me.
“Why wouldn’t I want to see you again, Mila?”
My heart pitter pattered in my chest, but it was a relief to not have to look in his eyes while he asked such a simple, beautiful question. Neither did I have to face him to answer.
“Because I can’t...” Pausing, I choked a little on my words when his hands got tighter on my shoulders.
“Do you think that’s why I spend my evenings with you? For sex?”
Wasn’t it?
His strong fingers turned me until I was facing him again.
“I find you curious and interesting and I love the spark of mischief I see in your eyes that’s been smothered for far too long. Come with me tomorrow. To breakfast.”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t. I’m meeting with...”
Well, I couldn’t very well say I was meeting with my intended, so what could I say?
“M—my brother.”
Amazing. That’s so believable.
“Fine,” he agreed easily enough. “Dinner then.”
I grinned and nodded.
Walking the last few steps to the door, he placed his hand on the handle and hesitated.
“May I walk you to your door?”
“No. But you may kiss me one more time before I leave.”
He huffed under his breath, that smile breaking back over his face again before he dipped down to kiss me thoroughly once more.
“Goodnight, kisa.”
“Goodnight, pisoiaș.”
He chuckled and opened the door. Stepping outside, I faced him, waiting until he finally closed the door behind me so I could keep a semblance of privacy and mystery about where I went when I left him. In reality, I took a few more steps and dug into my bag, getting my room key and letting myself in.
Noone waited for me this time, which left me exhaling a long breath in relief. I didn’t want to find Daniel in my room again.
Undoing my dress for the second time in as many hours, I let it drop to the floor, my fingertips dragging against my sensitive skin. But it wasn’t like his hands. No, his touch felt hot and strong and electrifying. My own hands felt dull and simply...lonely. I wished more than anything I could have let him inside me. I wished I could have crawled into his bed and not left for days. I certainly wished that I could have found out what he sounded like when he reached completion, but no. Only my panties would know that sound.
Dropping into my bed naked, I slid against the silken sheets and groaned, wanting him so much. I could still smell him around me; the scent of his cologne clinging to my skin.
With a deep breath, I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but all I could do was remember how the coarseness of his cheeks felt on my thighs, or the immensely titillating and satisfying sensation of his tongue entering me where no man had ever been before.
No, I would get no sleep, and I would have to stare into the eyes of my intended, knowing that the man I craved was not him, and would likely never be him.
Even if I never saw him again, I would always crave Max, the intelligent, handsome Russian man who stole my beating heart with a single orgasm.
Maxim
The moment the door closed behind her, I flipped open my laptop and watched her enter her room through the hidden camera above my door. She was safely in her room and I had time to gather my own wits.
Never in my life had I gone so fucking insane, craving a woman despite knowing she was the target. And her flavor...fuck it was beautiful. The moment my lips drew around her clit, my brain pretty much shut down. How did Serge do that for a living?
Moving away from the computer, I lifted the mattress and assured myself that my guns were still there, lying out in perfect order the way I’d left them. The Ruger was still in my side drawer and I pulled it out, the cold plastic and metal in my hand helping to ground me a little.
This is what I am. Guns were just another piece of my body; an extension of myself.
Checking the barrel to make sure it was loaded, I let the slide snap back in place b
efore setting it down on my pillow and removing my tuxedo.
Flashes of her pale skin and the cherry red of her sex passed through my mind on repeat until I was naked and turning to the scraps of panties that had ended up in the corner. Going to them, I picked them up before sniffing carefully. It smelled like her. It smelled like my chin still did after savoring the honey between her thighs. And fuck it was good…
With a straining cock and blue balls starting to set in, I gave myself permission, just once, to imagine just what it might have been if not for the Brotherhood or the mob or her father or my job. If I was just a man, and her, just a woman.
My fingers turned the knobs in the shower and I stepped in, the panties still in my hand as the other wrapped around my cock.
Yes, just one time. One moment of weakness was all I would allow, then I would get back to business with my head on straight.
Chapter Eight
Mila
It was bright in the morning when we were in the car and headed to the Brotherhood compound to see my intended. Tată had a meeting with Nico and of course, Danny was sitting beside me, a grin on his face as he talked to another man who rode along with us for security. Bishk was his name, but I didn’t know any more than that about him.
We got through the security gate without much issue then parked in front of the stately manor that housed the Popovs. Kir was on the porch waiting for us, but Nico was nowhere to be found.
“Stay with your sister,” Tată said to Daniel before he got out and greeted the mobster’s son.
“Looks like we’re going to be attached at the hip today, soră!” Daniel said as he climbed out of the SUV and held his hand out to help me down.
I dropped to the ground in a tight dress, only stumbling a little as my heels wobbled on the gravel drive.
“Mila, come,” Kir said, dismissing Tată as if he hadn’t just been talking.
What an incredible insult.
“Ah, no my son,” came a feminine voice from the doorway. “I’m afraid I must talk to your intended about her wedding dress. You’ll have to wait for us to finish before stealing her away.”
Kir’s nose scrunched as if the words were particularly distasteful, but then he just turned on his heel, leaving all of us to stare at the newcomer.
“Come, come! I must see the woman who will be my new daughter!”
So this was Kir’s mother. Zoya Popov.
“It’s my pleasure to meet you, Mamă,” I said to her as I approached, kissing her on each cheek as we greeted each other.
“You are a stunning beauty,” she said with a long, pleased sigh. “My Kir is a very lucky man indeed!”
The softness of her icy blue eyes surprised me. I had expected all of the family to be strong, cruel and brusque. But this woman stared back at me with kindness in her expression, all framed in fiery red hair that made her look far too young to be a mother to a full grown man.
“Come! You must see what we have put together for you!”
I was ushered up two flights of stairs, Danial following at a respectful distance until we were in what I imagined was a tailors room. Fabric was strewn everywhere and three women waited with measurement ropes and notebooks with a full set of tea standing by near a velvet sofa in the corner. It all seemed like something out of a fairy tale.
“You must wait out here,” Zoya said to Daniel and another guard.
“I’ll come inside,” Danial said with a sharp smile to Zoya. “I am her brother.”
“No. We require privacy. You wait here.”
The morph that happened on Zoya’s face was almost startling. She suddenly seemed a meter taller and her gentle eyes began to shoot shards of bitter glass toward the men.
They looked a little surprised themselves and reluctantly agreed. Daniel met my eyes as if to ask if I was ok, so I nodded quickly at him, which seemed to settle his mind over the whole thing.
“We will wait at the door,” he said to the woman before turning his back just as she shut the door.
“Now!” Zoya was grinning again, waving toward the other women. “Take her measurements, then we will look at the dresses.”
The women were suddenly a frenzy around me, stripping me to my underthings and measuring every part of my body until they had pages full of notes.
“We’ve basted some designs together already,” Zoya said, holding out a silken robe for me to put on.
I slipped my arms through and quickly tightened it up around me before stepping with her toward the line of dresses hanging on a bar on one side of the room.
The dresses were simple, but beautiful in their conception, with sharp lines and rebelliously low cuts around the neck.
“Which catches your fancy, doch?”
My fingers dragged across the white fabric and tears started to build in my eyes.
I didn’t want any of the dresses, because I didn’t want to marry Kir. Despite the fact that he was her son, I didn’t want to be there, picking out a dress to wear to a ceremony that would seal my fate for the rest of my mortal life.
There were no more delusions. No more hopes or dreams that pressed through every beat of my heart. Those were gone and I knew what I would get when I married the man. I would get power and respect, loathsome loneliness, pain and crushing repression by a mobster husband who would own every single part of me. And I would own nothing in return Not even my own happiness.
Zoya pressed her hands to my cheeks with a whispered hush, then she pulled me into a hug as I began to cry.
“Hush, hush now, doch. It is not as bad as you think.”
She loosened her grip on me and led me to the sofa before sitting beside me and pouring the tea.
“Talk, my girl. Why do you cry?”
“I’m so sorry...” I told her, hiccupping as I tried to inhale the tears back into my chest.
It was so incredibly inappropriate to talk of such things with the groom’s mother.
“Is it the wedding?” she whispered, shooing the women away until the room was empty.
I shook my head, but the tears wouldn’t stop.
Master. I had to be the master of myself. No tears should escape my eyes without permission first from my mind. They couldn’t know the pain or the fear. They couldn’t know or I was doomed.
Zoya stared at me for a moment before whispering, “Is this your choice, doch? Is your father forcing you to marry?”
I blinked away the moisture in my eyes, finally gaining ahold of my emotions before I said simply, “it is my duty”
“Duty, yes,” she agreed. “I was sixteen when I was called upon to fulfill my duty. Nico took me to wife soon after my birthday.”
Oh my God… sixteen?
“You are very lucky to have experienced life before this, but then again, maybe you are unlucky. I never missed freedom because I never had it.”
Zoya cupped my chin in her hand and looked into my eyes. Her fingers combed back a few strands of hair that had fallen out of my bun before she told me, “It is not all that bad. Learn to be as they wish, and you can have a good life.”
“What will they want out of me?” I whispered in a shaky voice.
“Kir will want children. You can provide that easily enough, yes?”
“What else?”
She sighed and looked away.
“He will want your body, doch. And you will give it to him at his pleasure. He will want a strong wife, and you must be that woman.”
She seemed to hesitate before looking back into my eyes with pain riddled in hers.
“And Nico...he may require you as well. And you will give yourself to him.”
The words frightened me.
Zoya, telling me that her own husband would take privileges with his son’s wife.
“Give it to them, girl, and you will live comfortably here. You will get your own space and see them only very little. Only when they require you to show your strength. Are you a strong girl?”
I didn’t even have to think. I simply nodded.
“Then you will survive. Strength, wits, and manipulation are weapons you must wield.”
“I understand,” I told her, even though I didn’t.
I didn’t understand how Tată could do this to me. I didn’t understand how he could throw me to Russian wolves and leave me to my fate. Everything he’d always protected me from, rape, abuse, captivity, he now gave me to willingly. And to far worse men.
“Do not dwell on it, doch. Come, see the dresses. Pick one that makes you happy.”
I wasn’t sure that any of the dresses could make me happy, but I wanted to at least try, for her sake. If anyone knew what I was going through, it was Zoya, and her advice would likely prove imperative to survive my new situation.
My stomach twisted in knots as I pointed to the first dress she pulled out, agreeing that it would be the one.
God, I was going to throw up.
Maxim
“Fuck!” I murmured to myself after stabbing my own thumb with my pocket knife.
I was just screwing the ventilation cover back on after hiding the camera inside it.
It felt pretty wrong to be putting surveillance in her room after what we’d done the night before, but I couldn’t let that stop me from succeeding. Innocent lives were at stake, including a baby; privacy wasn’t as important as that.
Pressing my thumb into my mouth, I stemmed the blood flow as not to leave a trace and put the microphone into one of the large, silk plants in the room.
I wasn’t sure how long they would be gone, but the whole Vasile team had left early in the morning, including an apprehensive Mila, who was trying to hide her fear, but I could still see it on her face from the monitor on my laptop. I knew her tells by now and she was reeking with it.
Slipping out of Mila’s room, I popped the maid’s room card I stole into her cart again before she even knew it was gone.
“Sorry sir,” the maid said when she saw me outside my door.
“Have you finished my room yet?” I asked her, appearing put-out.
