by Holly Bargo
“Yeah.”
“Now go tell your boss that whatever plans he had for my wife are ended.”
The man turned a sweating face to Iosif and whispered, “He’ll kill me.”
Iosif shrugged and replied, “Not my problem.”
“Fucker’s made of ice,” the man muttered as he slowly rose to his feet and left the building.
Iosif debated returning to his car, but decided to stay where he was instead. He picked up an old magazine and flipped through it with desultory interest until Latasha walked past the reception desk. He set the magazine down and rose to meet her, immediately concerned by her ashen complexion.
“Are you all right?” he asked as he met her halfway across the floor and wrapped an arm around her.
“I thought you were going to wait in the car.”
“I got bored,” he lied and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Now, what is wrong?”
“Judy got a little… intense,” she said, wringing her hands.
“Shall I have her apologize?”
Latasha gulped air and shook her head, “Oh, God, no, don’t do that. I’ll never work in this town again if you do.”
Iosif forbore to state that she’d continue to work in Cleveland, just as a private nurse rather than in a hospital regardless of what this Judy might say or what rumors she might spread. His Latasha was upset and not thinking straight.
Instead, he pressed another kiss to her head and murmured, “Come. Let’s get you home.”
She nodded and allowed herself to enjoy the security of his embrace as they walked back to the car. Sensing her need for continued reassurance, he retained hold of her hand while he drove. That simple touch warmed her, reminded her of the incredible passion they’d so briefly shared. Her breasts began to feel swollen and achy and her sex moistened and pulsed with need, need for him. Only him.
Once inside the house, he ushered her into the kitchen where he began to take out pans. With a deft twist of his hand, he turned on the flame.
“Two slices of bacon or three?” he asked as he pulled out a package of bacon from the refrigerator.
“I don’t want food.”
He turned off the flame and set the skillet aside. Slowly turning around, he asked, “What do you want, Latasha?”
Eyes huge in her face and her body trembling with unrealized passion, she forced the words out, “I want you, Iosif.”
Iosif exerted extreme control over himself to keep from launching across the kitchen and fucking her on the table. His tongue felt thick and clumsy as he spoke to make sure she meant what he desperately hoped she meant. “How do you want me, Latasha?”
She swallowed, nervous, and whispered, “Naked. Inside me.”
He crossed the floor, every step deliberate. His features sharpened, as though sculpted from granite. His body moved with coiled strength and predatory purpose. Yet his hand was gentle as he ran the back of one knuckle over her cheek, then cupped her jaw.
“Do you mean it?”
She nodded.
“You’re trembling.”
“I want you,” she reiterated. “I’m scared, but I know you can make it good. Make it good for me now.”
Coming to a snap decision, Iosif saw that she needed him to take charge. When her confidence had been restored, perhaps she would boss him again. But her recent helplessness had deeply damaged her.
“Go to the bedroom and take off your clothes,” he ordered. “Then lie down and wait for me. Don’t touch yourself. Your pleasure is mine.”
She opened her mouth in a soft gasp. His hand cupping her jaw held her still for the moment it took to brush his mouth against hers, a soft, tender touch when she might have expected him to crush her lips beneath his. He dropped his hand, and she walked on unsteady feet to the bedroom.
Iosif groaned and rubbed a hand over the erection that strained painfully against his zipper. He knew he had to give her a couple of minutes to obey his order. He also knew he wanted her to watch him disrobe, to take pleasure in seeing his body and know that it would be dedicated to giving her bone-melting pleasure. So, he poured a glass of water and slowly drank it, and then returned the bacon to the refrigerator.
Iosif entered the bedroom. Latasha saw a gleam of moisture on his lips and wondered if he’d licked them or if the moisture came from some other source. She watched him when he stopped in front of the bed. He toed off his shoes, bent down to remove his socks. When he straightened, he locked his eyes upon hers and unbuttoned his shirt. Latasha’s mouth went dry as he slowly—too damned slowly—opened his shirt to reveal the incised definition of his muscular torso. The mat of hair on his chest could not obscure the muscular perfection beneath. Her breath caught in her throat as he shrugged off the shirt.
With agonizing deliberation, he unbuckled his belt and slid it free of the belt loops. He coiled the strip of leather around his hand and then let it fall to the floor. Latasha felt her thighs fall open. Iosif’s gaze left hers to take in the gleam of her arousal. He returned his eyes to hers and again locked her gaze as he unbuttoned the waistband of his trousers. With excruciating slowness, he slid the zipper down and eased the pressure on his rampant cock. A spot of moisture darkened the knit fabric of his underwear where his arousal leaked in eagerness to fill her.
Latasha noticed that wet spot and her mouth watered. She moaned.
“Spread your legs,” Iosif ordered.
She obeyed, displaying all of herself to him. He inhaled, scenting her arousal, musky and sweet on the air. Still moving slowly, he crawled up the bed and settled his broad shoulders between her open thighs, bringing his face within inches of her core. He took a deeper breath and then blew softly across the wet flesh, already pink and swollen for him.
She gasped and moaned his name.
Iosif inched forward and licked the length of her slit. She squealed and her hands latched onto his head, fingers curling into his hair. Her hips bucked and he complied with her nonverbal demand.
Latasha’s eyes rolled back in her head as she quivered beneath her husband’s talented tongue. The gentle rasp of his flattened tongue gave way to a warm, wet probe that sought out her swollen clitoris. She could not help but mewl as pleasure reverberated through her body. She cried out when Iosif’s lips delicately closed around her clit and he suckled the tiny nub.
Latasha’s eyes fluttered shut. Her back arched. Her hands clenched in Iosif’s thick hair. White heat surged through her body, a hot flash of lightning that wrenched a cry of orgasm from her throat as Iosif’s big, warm hands clamped down on her thighs, holding them open and down as she strained to press the core of herself against his face. His tongue lapped at her without mercy, savoring the taste of the honey that poured over it.
When the spasms of climax subsided into soft shudders of aftershock, Iosif sat back and smiled at her, his face wet and shining with her moisture. Latasha wanted to blush with embarrassment for having squirted all over him, but he surged up her body and crushed his mouth to hers, sharing the taste of her passion coating his lips and tongue. His hands moved from her thighs to stroke her belly and breasts, thumbs and fingers pinching her dusky nipples which furled to tight peaks. Latasha’s hands untangled from his hair and stroked wherever and whatever they could reach, fingertips digging into the unyielding muscle beneath the satin of his skin.
Iosif’s hips settled in the cradle of hers, the hot steely length of him probing at her wet and swollen sex. His hips rolled, rubbing his cock against her body, renewing his body’s excitement and eagerness.
“Mne nuzhno byt' vnutri vas,” he rasped, having lost his English in the throes of passion.
“Yes,” Latasha answered and did not resist as he folded one of her legs back, and then the other, opening her fully to his possession. “I need you inside me.”
“Slava Bogu,” he groaned as he surged forward, spearing her upon his cock in one driving stroke.
Latasha mewled, the sound going straight to his heart and then arrowing to his gr
oin. She felt him swell within her, stretching the already tight sheath that enveloped him with slick heat. Iosif, balanced above her on his forearms, bowed his head to touch his brow to hers.
“Ne dvigaysya,” he growled.
Latasha understood. Don’t move. Her body quivered beneath him as she strained to hold still, to not undulate, to not force the delicious drag of his flesh moving within hers. She understood that Iosif struggled for the control to make their lovemaking last, understood that he was dangerously near to ejaculating.
She wanted him to climax within her.
Clenching her hands over his shoulders, she took control and moved. The undulation of her body broke the frayed threads of his control, and he began to plunge in and out of her body. The wet, slapping sounds of vigorous copulation filled the room and mingled with his harsh grunts and her incoherent cries.
Iosif buried his face in the juncture of her neck and shoulder and bit down on the tender flesh as her body rippled and spasmed around him. Incited by her climax to his own, he drove into her as deeply as he possibly could and filled her with his essence. He rested, body boneless and trembling, for a long moment before he could muster the strength to roll aside so he wouldn’t crush her slender frame beneath his greater size and weight.
They both panted and shivered as cool air wafted over their sweating bodies. Iosif shifted to draw the bedcovers over them and gathered his wife close. He pressed a lingering kiss to the perspiring surface of her neck and she whispered, “I love you.”
“Ya lyublyu tebya,” he returned, professing his love for her in his native language because he still hadn’t regained use of his English.
They napped.
When they woke, they made love again. That time passion rose gently, slowly. Their final climax rippled and surged in unending waves of bliss that left them utterly wrung out and ravenous for food.
Giving in to the demands of their bellies, Iosif ordered fast food delivery. The refrigerator was nearly empty, but for a few items that would not spoil during the ten days they’d scheduled for their honeymoon.
That evening as they snuggled on the couch and more or less ignored the movie playing on the television, the doorbell rang. Iosif groaned and muttered an expletive that Latasha didn’t need to translate into English, even as he gently lifted her head from his cock. Dazed with passion, she blinked several times and wondered why he’d removed her mouth from the thick, meaty, musky treat of his erection.
“Someone’s at the door,” he explained, his accent thick as he managed to summon the English words. “Get dressed. Stay in bedroom.”
Nodding and suddenly sober, Latasha dashed to the bedroom while Iosif yanked up his sweat pants. He turned on the porch light and peered through the window. Opening the door a scant two inches, he asked, “What do you want, Leroy?”
Latasha’s brother twitched on the front stoop, the whites of his eyes practically glowing against his dark, sweaty face.
“Latasha here?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder, fingers flexing as though barely restrained from grabbing a weapon.
“What do you want?” Iosif repeated coldly. He noted the pinpoint pupils of the younger man’s eyes, knew Leroy was high on something. Meth. Heroin. Crack. It didn’t matter. What did matter was why his wife’s degenerate brother asked for her and what he intended to do with that knowledge.
“Just want to see her,” Leroy replied, gaze darting aside and then back, never focusing on any one thing for more than a second or two. Twitchy. “Make sure she’s okay.”
“You never bothered to see her in the two years since she moved in with me,” Iosif pointed out with cold logic. “Why now?”
“Need… need help.” Leroy glanced over his shoulder. Nervous sweat beaded on his face. The sour smell of it rose from his body.
“You need help?” Iosif asked to force the drugged man to clarify.
“Yeah. Need a safe place.” He looked over the other shoulder and twitched some more while Iosif debated the wisdom of letting that poor excuse for a man into his home and anywhere near his wife. Perhaps the paranoia was induced by whatever illegal substances the idiot had been shooting, snorting, or swallowing.
“Who’s after you, Leroy?”
“Colombians.”
Iosif sighed. Latasha would never forgive him if he did the smart thing and turned her brother away in his time of need. But he was loath to bring Leroy’s problems into his home. Latasha had been exposed to more than enough ugliness.
“Come in,” he invited, his voice cold and clipped. As soon as his brother-in-law stepped inside, he shut the door and turned the lock with one hand while grasping the thug’s upper arm with the other hand.
“Hey!” Leroy protested and jerked, but the Russian was bigger, stronger.
“To the kitchen,” Iosif said and pulled his wife’s brother along.
“Where’s ’Tasha?”
“She doesn’t need to see you like this,” Iosif said and shoved him into a chair. “Sit. Don’t move.”
“You gotta protect me.”
“Protect you from what?”
“C-c-can’t pay, man. Told ’em ’Tasha would pay.”
“And?” Iosif prompted, his expression turning icy and forbidding, an expression that many other dangerous men had seen immediately before they died.
“She works in a hospital, man. She can get drugs.”
“Who did you promise, you piece of shit?” Latasha’s voice snapped. Both Iosif and Leroy looked up, neither expecting her to be standing there.
Leroy’s lips peeled back in a gruesome parody of a smile in a futile effort to ingratiate himself into his sister’s good graces. “Hey, ’Tasha. I just need a little help. Get me out of a spot of trouble. Then I won’t bother you no more.”
Latasha’s expression darkened with disgust, even as her heart cracked with disappointment. “It’s never just once with you or your crackhead friends, Leroy,” she muttered. “And even if I still worked at the hospital, I wouldn’t steal drugs for you.”
“You don’t work there no more?” he rasped.
She sighed. “No. I have no drugs for you, and I’m not going to get any for you. Go back to Mama, Leroy. She’ll put you up until you’re back on your feet.”
“Mama kicked me out,” he blurted in a strange mixture of shame and resentment.
“Leroy, you’re thirty years old. Grow up and take some responsibility for yourself,” Latasha snapped, annoyed at the thought of having to rescue her brother yet again.
Leroy shot a disgruntled glare at Iosif, who absorbed his anger with impassive nonchalance. “You know I can’t find no job. The Man—”
Latasha made a slashing motion with her hand and interrupted. “It’s not ‘the Man,’ Leroy. It’s your own stupid self. You dropped out of school. You’re higher than a kite. You’ve got a rap sheet as long as my arm. ‘The Man’ didn’t force any of that on you; you did it to yourself, and I won’t be party to it.”
Leroy lunged and grabbed his sister’s arm with a cruel yank. He had just enough time to shout, “Bitch!” before dropping to the floor with a scream of pain. Iosif squatted down and grabbed his wife’s worthless brother by the collar and snarled in impeccably enunciated English, “You sleep here tonight, and tomorrow morning you leave and never come back. And if you touch Latasha again, I’ll do more than hit you. I’ll kill you. Understand?”
Cradling his injured arm, Leroy nodded. Iosif stood and roughly hauled up the younger man with him. With a rude shove, he said, “Bathroom’s that way. Clean yourself up.”
He looked toward his wife and, as quickly as he had struck and dropped her brother to the floor, he gathered her into his embrace. She trembled, so he held her until the shaking stopped and the color returned to her face.
“Are you okay now?” he asked, his voice soft, filled with concern.
“You’re lethal,” she whispered, eyes wide and a little fearful. She’d known he was dangerous, but that fast, brutal display of mart
ial prowess scared her. She knew it was that skill that had rescued her in Costa Rica, but to see it demonstrated so… effectively… made her realize at long last just how dangerous her husband really was.
“You never need fear me. Never.” He pressed a gentle kiss to her head and hugged her close again. “You, I will shelter and protect. Always. Ya lyublyu tebya.”
Latasha relaxed against his body, reassured by his declaration of love. He held her a moment longer, then reluctantly stepped away.
“I’ll find something for Leroy to wear tonight. Will you throw his dirty clothes in the wash?”
Latasha nodded, just barely managing not to wrinkle her nose. She didn’t necessarily mind being asked to wash Leroy’s dirty laundry; she simply didn’t want to touch his soiled clothing. From the way her brother stank, he hadn’t bathed or changed into fresh clothing for several days. It made her wonder just when Mama had thrown him out of her house.
She turned her attention to ridding the spare bedroom of anything valuable that Leroy might think to steal and sell to buy more drugs.
Chapter 10
After feeding Leroy breakfast and seeing him off the next morning, Latasha drove to the Maglione residence for her first day of employment with the Italian mafia. A smiling, gray-haired housekeeper opened the door, asked if she’d had breakfast, and then led her to the kitchen even though she replied that she had, indeed, eaten. The Maglione’s cook greeted the housekeeper, took one look at the nurse, and broke out in a tirade of liquid Italian that sounded less than complimentary as he slammed skillets and spatulas about.
“You’re too skinny,” the plump housekeeper muttered under her breath, immediately before instructing the capo’s nurse to sit down and mangia. An up-and-down hand gesture of fingertips to thumb accompanied the command to eat as the cook set a plate of crepes smothered in fruit, whipped cream, and powdered sugar in front of her.
Somewhat cowed by the woman’s fierce expression, Latasha ate. She smiled to herself, knowing from Gia’s stories of growing up in an Italian family that the matriarch’s command to eat should never be refused. To decline food was a terrible insult and would draw imprecations down upon her head.
