by Holly Bargo
“Oh?”
“Da. Something to do with Giancarla’s parents. He didn’t elaborate.”
“They’re somewhat estranged, aren’t they?”
Vitaly shrugged. As far as Giuseppe Maglione was concerned, the Bratva owed him a favor for ridding Cleveland of the Culebras. A family dinner had witnessed the very unusual and eerie spectacle of the usually dour mafia don laughing and calling himself the St. Patrick of Cleveland. He’d had to look that one up to understand the reference.
A shiver ran through Gia’s body and immediately she immediately occupied his whole attention.
“What’s wrong, vozlyublennaya?”
“I’m queasy,” she muttered, breathing shallow, rapid breaths.
With murmured excuses, he left the small group and steered his wife toward the restroom.
Pyotr glanced at Iosif, who shrugged. “She’s pregnant, but hasn’t decided to tell anyone yet. I think she’s waiting for a family gathering.”
Pyotr’s imagination immediately segued to the picture of his fair, plump Cecily ripe with his baby nestled beneath her heart. His groin tightened again.
“You need to marry that woman,” Iosif said quietly, sticking to Russian which Latasha hadn’t quite picked up.
“Da.”
“Olivia will have Maksim kick your ass if you don’t. He doesn’t want to lose our best cook.”
Pyotr shrugged and forbore to educate them on the tension within his household, the frequent arguments, the disapproval. Cecily hated the Bratva and wanted him to quit. She mentioned that she felt undeserving of the head chef position at the restaurant because she hadn’t earned it. She offered to pay him rent, because she disliked the idea of freeloading. He refused her money; a man didn’t let a woman support him. The words hurt him more than he’d ever admit, but he could understand the sentiment.
From his older perspective, he acknowledged that Cecily was young and idealistic with a newly minted degree in the culinary arts burning in her back pocket. If Maksim hadn’t purchased the restaurant and practically bullied her to accept the position as head chef, then she would have taken the best opportunity offered to her wherever in the country that might have been.
And Pyotr would have followed her.
Bog, he had it bad.
He glanced across the small dining room where Vitaly stood guard outside the ladies’ room. Vitaly had it bad, too. Maksim’s second lifted his eyes to meet Pyotr’s gaze and he gave a short nod of recognition, one lovesick man to another.
A table of diners erupted into applause. Iosif, Pyotr, and Vitaly looked at the disruption, then relaxed. Cecily had emerged from her kitchen for a tableside presentation of cherries jubilee. With her serene smile and golden hair, he thought she looked like a slightly sweaty angel. The diners exclaimed their delight as she served them their portions of premium ice cream and cherry sauce in pretty, cut crystal bowls.
Then she walked over to where he and Iosif and Latasha stood, waiting for a table. She squealed. Latasha squealed. The women hugged and the men winced. She glanced down at Pyotr’s hands, noticing the swollen and bruised knuckles. Her lips thinned with disapproval. She turned to look at the hostess.
“Catherine, the next available table goes to them,” Cecily directed the hostess.
Other would-be diners glowered. However, being the crowd they were, none dared complain. Maksim’s inner circle received certain privileges. Priority seating at this new restaurant was, apparently, one of them.
“Spasibo,” Iosif murmured a quiet thank-you. “Latasha gets cranky when she’s hungry.”
“Don’t I know it,” Cecily laughed and earned a sharp poke from her best friend’s bony finger. She waved her own plump hands at Latasha. “Don’t poke me, you skinny thing. I still say half our grocery budget went down your gullet.” She sighed and ran her hands over her wide hips, hips that Pyotr found very handy for holding onto while he pounded into her. “I just wish I could eat like you do, but every single calorie goes straight to my thighs.”
“I like your thighs, moy sladkiy,” Pyotr growled, catching her to him and pressing a kiss on her deliciously plump and rosy lips. Despite the arguments, the phenomenal makeup sex convinced him that all was well. Then, just her for ears, he added, “And I like what’s between them even better.”
A red flush rose up her neck and burned her fair cheeks. “Pyotr! We’re in public. Worse, we’re in my restaurant!”
“Da. And you are queen here.”
“Da,” she repeated, mimicking his tone with perfection. “You get your sexy butt to a table and quit distracting me. I have a kitchen to run.”
“Are you going to let her boss you around like that?” Iosif asked in Russian.
Pyotr replied in his native language, “Like you don’t let your skinny girl boss you? Hah.”
Iosif’s expression turned sly and knowing. “I know how to keep my girl in line.”
Pyotr laughed. He couldn’t help it. Every time the outspoken nurse started spouting off, Iosif kissed her senseless. He could very well imagine what they did in private when she got a little mouthier than Iosif liked. He saw the knowing gleam in Latasha’s eyes and knew that she’d understood every word. Maybe she had caught on to the language better than anyone realized. But he also knew that Latasha ruled that relationship, not stone cold killer Iosif. She’d reel him in when she was ready and he’d find himself in front of a priest before he could gather his wits.
Pyotr just wished Cecily would do the same to him.
Chapter 2
Six weeks later.
Cecily lay snuggled in Pyotr’s arms, her body still tingling from his enthusiastic and skilled lovemaking. She blinked and inhaled the heavy fragrance of their spent passion. Pyotr’s light snore worked like white noise, masking the sounds from outside that wafted through the open windows and the typical noises of a multistory condo minium. She sighed. She missed the sound of crickets and the railroad just a mile from her childhood home. She missed the lowing of the cattle just up the road. She missed the fresh country air, even when it made her sneeze.
Moving from small-town Batesville to big-city Cleveland had been a major adjustment. The excitement of moving to a major metropolitan city on Lake Erie had long since faded. The sounds of city traffic and the impersonal bustle of city life palled.
Cecily disliked the discontent that simmered within her. The restaurant Pyotr’s boss had opened offered a wonderful opportunity. Really, as a new graduate, there was no other way she’d have been hired as head chef anywhere else. She knew that Maksim and Olivia had done so only out of kindness to Pyotr who loved her.
She wasn’t sure how she felt about that love.
Not quite as naive as her roommates assumed, Cecily had originally figured that a passionate fling with the Russian thug would add to her growing collection of life experiences. Grandma Polsen, whose advice was usually good, had recommended that she live fully before settling down to cook, clean, and pop out babies. Then she’d have something worth reminiscing about, stories to tell her children and grandchildren. She had seen what became of her high school friends and close relatives: they never went anywhere, they never did anything, they had no interests beyond their small, routine lives.
She wanted more. She looked at the big hand palming her breast and frowned. She knew what those hands did and their value to a criminal organization that profited from drugs, illegal arms, and human trafficking. Grandma Polsen and her entire family would disapprove. Oh, hell, she disapproved. But Pytor treated her like a queen; it was hard to muster the courage to stick up for her principles.
Listening to the urban sounds beyond the window, Cecily missed the peace of her rural hometown where the birth of twin foals at the Patterson farm featured as the most exciting topic of conversation for weeks.
Cecily wasn’t sure she loved him back.
Oh, he made her body sing, that was for sure. She’d had three boyfriends before Pyotr, one in high school, two in college. They were
ineffectual, clumsy boys compared to her tattooed, Russian thug with his bulging muscles, broken nose, and wicked, wicked tongue.
A delicious frisson ran through her at the thought of just what Pyotr could do with that talented tongue.
But there was more to a lasting relationship than sex and food. She knew that Pyotr’s attraction to her had begun with her cooking. Few men looked twice at her round face, curly blonde mop of hair, and size fourteen body. Pyotr claimed to appreciate those generous curves. He said her full hips were perfect for grasping when he pounded into her. He murmured praise over her large, pendulous breasts.
Not for the first time she wished she were slender and willowy like Gia. When she first met Gia, she’d wanted to hate the brainy marine biologist. But she couldn’t. Gia was just too damned nice.
She’d wanted to hate Latasha, too, but the feisty woman had quickly and firmly ensconced herself as Cecily’s best friend, helping her with the technical aspects of the food science courses and then fiercely defending her when a group of college boys made fun of the “fat cooking school student.”
Pyotr would have pummeled them and then offered to string their teeth into a necklace for her. Latasha just flayed them with her sharp tongue. The threat of sending her gang-member brothers after them hadn’t hurt, either. Cecily did not know whether Latasha’s brothers would have “put a hurt on” those idiots, but she liked knowing that Latasha would offer their violence to protect her.
She didn’t need them anymore, she reminded herself. She had Pyotr and Pyotr had Vitaly, Gennady, Iosif, Bogdan, and others she’d yet to meet. Wrapped in Pyotr’s possessive embrace, she felt cold when thoughts of Vitaly and Gennady crossed her mind. Sure, Vitaly had fallen in love with Gia and she with him, but she imagined that the big man had been sculpted from an iceberg. That man was cold, with a cruel twist to his mouth and that thousand-yard stare that promised death and worse to anyone who so much as irritated him. Gennady, she’d heard, broke women; Pyotr had mentioned he put the “sadism” and “masochism” in the S and M part of BDSM, which made her think of those naughty BDSM romances she tried to read after Fifty Shades of Grey came out in movie theatres. She quickly learned she didn’t like the kind of stories wherein the so-called hero was a sadist and the heroine enjoyed being hurt.
Cecily didn’t like pain. She wasn’t sure how any woman could. Pyotr occasionally gave her plump bottom a light slap, but he didn’t spank her until her skin turned red or do anything else to hurt her. For a man who looked like a brute and often performed brutal acts in service to the Russian mob, Pyotr treated her gently. His grizzly bear size made her feel dainty and feminine. His compliments made her feel beautiful. He did not criticize her occasional lack of understanding. Of course, neither had Gia or Latasha, but she’d noticed the occasional glances they shared when their sharp minds quickly caught on to a scientific concept that she just could not quite grasp.
She did not need to know the exact science behind why one patted a steak dry before setting it in a skillet for a good sear. She just needed to know that a dry surface seared better than did a wet one for locking in the juices and flavor.
Feeling a bit too warm and more than a little sweaty, she rolled over. Pyotr’s arm slid aside, leaving his hand splayed over her mound. The man was always touching her, even in his sleep.
Cecily didn’t know whether she liked his possessiveness.
Her mind racing, she gently rolled out of bed. With his military-trained awareness, Pyotr awakened immediately.
“Chto ne tak?” he asked.
“Nothing’s wrong,” she replied, keeping her voice gentle. “I just need to use the bathroom.”
“Otlichno,” he replied and went back to sleep with nary a pause.
True to her word, she did go to the bathroom and took the opportunity to wet a washcloth and wipe her skin clean of saliva, semen, and pussy juice. Their copious fluids made for terrific sex, but not so much the afterward. At least Pyotr didn’t make her sleep in the wet spot. He was considerate like that.
Cecily decided she’d gotten too comfortable here in Cleveland, here in Pyotr’s apartment. She was settling down before she’d even lived. Tomorrow morning when he went back to work, Cecily decided she would use that time before heading to the restaurant to sign up with some job search websites, search through Craigslist, see what restaurants in other cities were hiring. She wanted to travel, see New York, experience Austin and Savannah, swelter in Honolulu and Las Vegas. She wanted to tour the Sonoma and Napa regions and taste grapes still warm from the sun. She wanted to explore the flavors of regional cuisine cooked by experts in those regions.
She wanted to get away from the brutality of the Bratva. She wanted Pyotr to choose her over the criminal brotherhood. She wanted to earn her place as a professional chef. Cecily looked into the mirror and disliked what she saw.
Mistress.
Freeloader.
Criminal accomplice.
She looked down at her hands, absently noting the nicks and small burns from grease spatters. She wished she knew when she’d lost her self-respect.
Looking back up at her reflection, Cecily found the word she was looking for. She felt restless.
Chapter 3
Cecily woke to Pyotr inexorably coaxing her body to yet another stupendous orgasm. God, she loved waking up that way! While she lay in bed shuddering from the aftermath of having pure pleasure liquefy every bone in her body, Pyotr kissed her and then left to fix breakfast.
After a quick shower and donning a bathrobe, she joined him in the kitchen. He kissed her cheek, squeezed her bottom, and placed a plate of scrambled eggs, toast, and bacon on the table.
“What’s all this for?” she asked as she forked a bit of steaming hot egg.
“Today, I cook for you before you cook for everyone else,” he said simply as he filled his own plate and carried it to the table.
“Juice?” she offered. At his nod, she poured him a glass. It was cute, really, the way her big, bad Bratva-man shunned coffee and drank herbal teas and juices instead. She set the pitcher back down and asked, “Are you going to the gym this morning?”
He grinned at her and flexed his muscles. Since he’d yet to put on a shirt, the display impressed her. As always. She grinned back at him.
“You like my muscles, yes?”
“God, yes,” she blurted, then glanced down at herself, the way her muffin-top and breasts bulged. “Perhaps I ought to start working out, too.”
“Nyet. I like you soft. You’re built like a woman should be,” he said, his tone brooking no denial. “A man wants to sink into his woman’s softness, not clatter against a skeleton like your skinny friends.” He thumped his chest. “A man should be hard, opposite of a woman, strong to protect her.”
“I’m not weak,” she protested.
“No, but your strength is different.” His eyes glinted. “You will make such beautiful babies.”
“Babies!” she spluttered, spraying bits of egg.
He leaned back in his chair, gaze assessing her. “What? You did not think I invited every woman whose body I enjoyed to live with me?”
From the darkening expression on her face, he could see that he’d not expressed himself well. Cecily set down her fork with a distinct clink.
“That’s all I am to you? A body to enjoy and an incubator for your babies?”
Not much scared Pyotr, but this cold, hard expression on his beloved Cecily’s face did. Thus far, he’d managed to keep her bound to him by virtue of a job she loved and frequent, amazing sex. However, dread churned his belly as she rose from the chair.
“Thank you for breakfast,” she said with chilly politeness and left the table, her food mostly uneaten.
“Cecily!” he called after her.
She ignored him and disappeared into the bedroom.
He rose from the table to go after her, but his cell phone rang.
“Da.”
There was no polite inquiry as to whether that was a
good time, only the command, “Come, you are needed.”
There was only one possible response: “On my way.”
Wishing he could pursue Cecily, apologize, and explain what he really meant, he heeded Maksim’s call. Instead, he poked his head into the bedroom and said, “I must go.”
Cecily, tugging on a comfortable pair of jeans, nodded her acknowledgement without turning to look at him. The snub stung.
Pyotr left.
When dressed, Cecily stood in the room, completely unsure of herself. Slowly, she walked to the nightstand where her phone lay plugged into recharge. She unplugged it and dialed.
“What’s up, Cece?”
“Latasha, are you busy?”
“Girl, I am always busy, but never too busy for you. What do you need?”
“I—I need to talk.”
“Did that big, dumb Russian hurt you?” her friend growled.
“Er, no, he wouldn’t hit me.” She knew that for truth. The big, brutal Russian treated her with utmost care. Gennady hurt women, not Pyotr, and liked it.
Latasha’s sigh seemed to hit her ear with a long-distance gust of air. “You working tonight?”
“Yeah.”
“My shift doesn’t end until four o’clock. God, hospital hours are crazy. Anyway, I can meet you during your break tonight or…” The silence lasted about three seconds. “No, no, that won’t work. Tell me now, girl, what’s got you so upset.”
“It’s Pyotr.”
“Well, duh. What did the big oaf do?”
Tears welled up and ran down Cecily’s cheeks as she blurted, “He said he wants me for sex and babies!”
“Whoa, there,” Latasha cautioned. “Are you sure that’s what he said?”
“Yes, I’m sure! He doesn’t love me. He just wants a warm, soft place to stick his dick and an incubator for his babies.”
“Oh, honey, all men want that. How can you be sure he doesn’t love you? You’re still living with him, aren’t you?”
“Not after today.”
“Cece, I’m all for pounding an idiot man into the ground, but I don’t want you acting too hastily.”
