by Rose, Bella
“Dude, you were the guy the other night.” Tyrese snapped his fingers. Then he turned to Kaylee. “Girl, you really know how to go for what you want.”
“You know me,” Kaylee quipped.
Tyrese glared at Pershing. “And I’m with Ivan here.” Then Tyrese glanced at the rest of the bar patrons still monitoring the scene. “And I’m pretty sure I speak for everyone else too, Pershing. Get your lumpy law enforcement butt out of our pub and don’t come back. We’re tired of you bullying everyone just because you can.”
Ivan watched in amusement as Pershing began glancing around. There were nods across the pub. Even the disinterested students at the end of the bar seemed invested. Apparently Pershing’s behavior was universally disliked.
“You can’t throw a detective out of your pub,” Pershing protested. “What will Sammy think? He’s the owner. He knows which side his bread is buttered on.”
Kaylee cocked her head. “Maybe I’ll just buy the pub from Sammy.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Ivan mused. “You’ve certainly got a way with people.”
“Oh certainly,” she shot back with a sarcastic grin.
Pershing blinked in shock. “Wait. Buy the pub? You can’t…”
“You’re the one who pointed out that I’m a Krachenko, Pershing,” Kaylee reminded him. “So I believe I can and I think I will.”
“This isn’t over,” Pershing said to Ivan. “Don’t think it is.”
“Oh believe me, I look forward to finishing things between us.” Ivan forced himself to remain relaxed as if he saw no threat in Pershing’s words at all.
Pershing opened his mouth, but seemed to change his mind at the last second. Without another word, he left the pub. The door jangled closed behind him and everything inside went back to normal. The pub patrons returned to their individual conversations. The hum of low voices punctuated by the occasional laughter resumed and Ivan saw Kaylee visibly relax.
“I’m sorry,” Ivan told her quietly. “I did not intend for our arrangement to put a target on your back.”
Her expression grew thoughtful. “Don’t flatter yourself. I had a target on my back the moment I said no to going out with Pershing. He’s been on my case for one thing or another ever since.”
“Flatter myself?” Ivan chuckled at her choice of words. “With you I don’t believe I will ever be in danger of such a thing.”
“Meaning I’ll keep you humble?”
“Perhaps.” Ivan tilted his head, trying and failing to read the truth beneath the mask she presented to the world. “I must admit that I feel absolutely no sense of humility in the moment I slide my cock into your body.”
Her eyes widened, pupils dilating and telling him without words that his erotic statement aroused her. She swallowed. “So what you’re suggesting is that fucking me makes you overconfident?”
“It makes me feel like I could take on the world and win,” he admitted honestly.
She bit her full lower lip. “I think that’s the weirdest and most flattering thing anyone has ever said to me.”
Ivan leaned over the bar until he was close enough to whisper in her ear. “Tonight I’m going to make you mine all over again.”
“Really,” she murmured. “Is this your attempt at recapturing a proper wedding night?”
“I can’t imagine why either of us would want there to be anything proper about it.” He brushed the tip of his tongue over the lobe of her ear.
She licked her lips in unconscious response. “The pub doesn’t close until midnight.”
“That still gives me hours to show you exactly what it means to be my wife.” Ivan felt a thrill of anticipation slide down his spine. “There will be a car out front when your shift is over. I’ll be waiting.”
Chapter Six
Kaylee would be the first to admit that when she had agreed to trade her hand in marriage for a million dollars, she hadn’t exactly considered all the details. She had been thinking mostly of the difficulties she’d been having paying for her mother’s care in the nursing facility. It had crossed her mind that she was tired of living hand to mouth, month to month, and pretty much being broke every second of every day.
As she gazed up at the four story Beacon Hill brownstone, she began to wonder if she should have thought things through just a little more thoroughly. The home was beautiful. It was in a posh area where the average price of a single family home was well over a million dollars. It also looked nothing like something she would have expected a supposed crime lord or mob boss to live in.
The front door swung open and Kaylee found herself staring up a flight of steps at Ivan. He cocked his head to one side, half his face hidden in shadow and the other half lit by the carriage lights.
“Well?” he prompted. “Are you going to come inside?”
Kaylee wasn’t one to back away from a challenge, even when her instincts demanded she sprint in the opposite direction. Taking the steps two at a time, she entered the house and tried to keep her mouth from dropping open.
“I deal in antiques,” Ivan said by way of explanation. “So you’ll find the furnishings change from time to time as I sell the old and buy new stock.” He sounded as if this was normal. “If you ever find anything you particularly like, tell me and I’ll take it off the list of items available for sale.”
“I couldn’t tell an antique from a dime store special,” Kaylee murmured. “But you do seem to have an excess of stuff.”
Ivan led her into a den with a full bar at one end. “Would you like a drink?”
“Yeah, better give me a bottle.”
He didn’t comment, passing her the bottle of vodka and two shot glasses. “Would you do the honors?”
Kaylee poured, the action reminding her of something. “So, were you serious about me buying the pub?”
“Would you like to buy the pub?” Ivan didn’t seem particularly concerned about it.
“I think I would, but I have no idea how much money Sammy would want for the place and I need to be careful with my nest egg, you know?” Kaylee swirled her shot before throwing it back.
“How about I buy the pub and give it to you?”
Kaylee was fairly certain she looked like a moron with her mouth hanging open. There had been a lot of that lately. “Why do you do that?”
“What?”
“That thing where you just throw money at something and think everything will work out.” Kaylee slammed back another shot. At this rate she’d need the whole bottle. “It isn’t that I don’t appreciate the offer. Really. But I want to do this on my own. And do you really think Pershing will leave the pub alone if you’re the owner of record?”
“I wouldn’t be the owner of record,” he argued. “I would purchase the pub for you, and put it in your name, because it would be yours. Not mine.”
“Until you wanted to use if for some nefarious criminal purpose,” she protested. “No way.”
“Meaning that you believe I don’t do anything without an ulterior and apparently evil purpose?” His expression suggested she’d actually managed to piss him off.
“I suppose I don’t really know you, so how would I know what you do or why you do it? I’ve only got my gut to go on.” Kaylee had to admit that her gut had been pretty much wrong about Ivan from the beginning. He constantly surprised her, unlike everyone else in her life. It was just that her past experience with people connected to the mafia hadn’t been particularly positive.
He strode around the bar, closing the distance between them at an alarming rate. “Then maybe you need to get to know me better.”
Before she could breathe, much less protest, Ivan slammed his mouth on top of hers in a kiss of utter possession. His lips moved against hers. His tongue slid inside her mouth, and he flooded her senses so completely she forgot any notion of protest.
Kaylee whimpered in desperate need. She’d been sexually attracted to Ivan from the first moment she’d seen him. Perhaps she’d sensed the explosiveness they would
have together. Or maybe she’d just wanted a man who would hold nothing back.
He tasted divine, like liquor and male spice. She stabbed her fingers through his hair and molded her body against his. Hungrily devouring his mouth, she pushed back with her tongue until they were both fighting for dominance.
“Not here,” he muttered against her lips. “I want you in my bed.”
She gently bit his lower lip. “We didn’t get that far with the tour.”
Ivan swept her right off her feet and held her against his chest as though she weighed nothing. “Then allow me to give you the abbreviated version.”
“Which would be?” She automatically slung her arms around his neck and began nuzzling him just to see if she could get a reaction.
“God, you feel good,” he groaned. “I’m going to come before we even make it upstairs.”
“Are there other people in the house?” she asked suddenly. “Are we going to be screwing on the stairs or something and wind up with an audience?”
“Not tonight.”
“Wedding night. Right,” she remembered.
Ivan tromped up the gleaming wood steps without even getting winded.
“What about the tour?” She craned her neck to see down the darkened hallways on the second and third floors.
“The abbreviated tour only includes the fourth floor which is made up entirely of my bedroom suite.”
“Whoa,” Kaylee breathed. “You have the whole fourth floor?”
“No,” he said. “We do.”
They hit the top step and soft yellow light flooded the wide open space. A massive four-poster bed sat at one end of the room. There was a sitting area, a chest, a dresser, and then she could see a door that opened into a master bathroom bigger than her entire studio apartment.
The whole set up stank of luxury. Kaylee couldn’t help but give herself a little mental high five. She was starring in her very own rags to riches story.
“And that’s our bed,” Ivan told her in a tone harsh with arousal.
Kaylee cupped his cheek. “I think I’m okay with ending the tour here.”
IVAN PUT KAYLEE on her feet beside the bed. He began to undress her. Her T-shirt came off first, and then he unfastened her jeans and slid them down her legs. The sight of her in her socks and shoes made him smile.
She followed his gaze and laughed. “I think I’d like to take those off tonight.”
Squatting down, he encouraged her to steady herself on his shoulder. Gently taking her ankles one at a time, he pulled off each sneaker and sock. “That’s definitely better. And you have adorable feet.” He lifted one and placed a kiss on the smooth top.
“You’re kissing my feet now?” Her sassy tone pleased him.
On his knees now, he kissed her belly. She dug her nails into his shoulders and her breathing grew ragged. Ivan hooked his index fingers into the elastic sides of her panties and dragged them down over her thighs. The warm, feminine smell of her was intoxicating. He kissed the rise of her mound where the dark hair formed a triangle between her legs.
Once she’d stepped free of her panties, he rose to his feet. He reached behind her. It took one twist of his fingers to unhook her bra. The straps fell down her arms and he pulled it off. She was completely naked and utterly perfect.
“Your turn,” she told him. “Shirt. Off!”
Ivan chuckled, but did as she requested. He tugged the shirt off over his head and threw it aside. Kaylee unfastened his pants. She shoved them down over his backside, letting her nails graze his skin on the way. He groaned. Her touch was electric.
“Sit on the bed,” she ordered. “No man gets in bed with me wearing his socks.”
“Well that’s a relief,” Ivan teased.
She tugged off his pants, and then his shoes and socks. He reclined back on his elbows, watching the way her breasts bounced enticingly as she moved. “This marriage might be a business arrangement,” he told her. “But I am a very, very lucky man.”
Her gaze came up, brow furrowed in an expression of confusion. “That’s actually a really nice thing to say. Thank you.”
Ivan waited to see what she would do. Then she climbed up onto her hands and knees on the bed. She loomed above him with an impish smile on her face. Slowly, she lowered her lips to his body. She tickled a teasing path of kisses over his chest and down his abdomen. When she reached the base of his swollen cock he hissed an oath in Russian.
“I think your dick wants some attention,” she told him playfully.
“If I beg will you put me in your mouth?”
She brushed a kiss over the trembling tip. “Oh you don’t have to beg.”
Ivan shouted as she swallowed him whole. Her lips settled at the base of his generous erection. Swirling her tongue around the shape of him, she sucked and licked her way back up his shaft. The attention was enough to drive him daft.
The telltale burn of climax began to build at the base of his spine. Ivan fought it down. He wanted to be inside Kaylee. That was the goal. Threading his fingers through her long, dark hair he tugged gently to get her attention.
“Kaylee, I need to be inside you,” he told her. His voice sounded like shards of gravel.
She gazed up the length of his body. Releasing his cock with a soft pop, she gave it one last lick. The action made him shiver with anticipation. Holding his gaze with hers, Kaylee swung her leg over his hips and climbed astride his body. Ivan held his breath as he waited for that inevitable moment of heat and friction.
Lowering herself slowly onto his cock, Kaylee threw her head back and moaned. Ivan grabbed her hips and held on. It felt so damn good. Better than he’d remembered. She was hot and tight and so unbelievably wet. When she was fully seated, she began to move.
The rocking sensation of her body grinding against his was exquisite. Ivan watched her move. The bounce of her breasts and the way her tangled hair fell over her shoulders was all part of the fantasy come to life. He had never imagined he would have such a thing to call his own.
She raised her hands, pushing her hair away from her face and creating the most erotic picture. Ivan encouraged her with his hands. He showed her when to increase her rhythm and when to go slow for the long, languid strokes that drove them both crazy. And when he finally knew he was about to come, Ivan reached down to the place their bodies were joined and gave her clit a tiny nudge.
The little bud was taut and swollen with the blood flow to her groin. Kaylee shuddered and cried out. Then she convulsed and Ivan knew she was there. He let go in one intense rush of sensation. His cock throbbed inside Kaylee’s wetness and he spilled his seed deep within her body.
She gave a few more thrusts with her hips, and then collapsed against his chest. Ivan wrapped his arms around her lithe frame and heard the pounding of his heart in his ears. It fell into perfect rhythm with the thumping of Kaylee’s. Ivan wondered how long this was going to last and how badly he was going to regret the inevitable fallout.
Chapter Seven
At noon on Monday, Kaylee was standing in front of her bank branch. She only got forty-five minutes for lunch and she wanted to see if Ivan’s accountant had been as good as his word. It was a new experience to stand in front of the teller and not be worried that her account was overdrawn beyond all help.
“Can I help you?” The teller gave her a cursory once over.
Kaylee knew her appearance was mediocre at best. Nobody could look particularly attractive while wearing antifreeze blue scrubs from Our Lady. Still, it burned sometimes when people seemed to be looking down their noses at her.
“I need to check my account balance,” Kaylee explained. She handed over her account card. “There was supposed to be a wire transfer today.”
“There’s a fifteen dollar fee for incoming wire transfers,” the teller warned.
“Yeah, that’s okay.” Kaylee almost laughed out loud. So that would leave nine hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and eighty-five dollars left. She could deal with that.
>
The teller shrugged and then typed a few numbers into her computer. Her nails appeared freshly manicured and they made an annoying clacking noise on the keyboard. Kaylee exhaled impatiently. She really needed to get back to work. She was simply hopeful that she’d be able to take a check for her mother’s next month of fees to the business office after her lunch hour.
“Oh.” The teller looked in danger of choking. “Yes, ma’am. There was a transfer.”
“Can I have the balance please?”
The teller froze. Her glance traveled over the other customers as if she didn’t want to say it out loud. “I’ll write it down for you, ma’am.”
Kaylee sighed. It was a little less than she’d thought just because Kaylee’s account had been so far in the red to begin with. Still, it was a hell of a lot more money than she’d ever imagined she would have at once.
“Can I get a cashier’s check for this amount please? Make it out to Our Lady of Peace Nursing Facility.” Kaylee wrote down another, much smaller number on the paper. The check would cover three months of her mother’s care in full.
“Of course.” The teller kept throwing surreptitious glances in Kaylee’s direction as she put in the necessary information for the check.
It felt as if the process were taking forever, but Kaylee had never been through such a thing before so she wasn’t certain if this was the normal procedure or not. Then the front door of the bank opened and Detective Pershing walked in. Kaylee caught the teller glancing guiltily toward Pershing and realized that the bank must have notified him that she was there for some reason. Why?
“Hello, Mrs. Krachenko,” Pershing sneered. “I can’t wait to tell immigration that your marriage is just a sham. Ivan Krachenko got a wife. You got a million dollars.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Kaylee glared at the teller. “Can I have the cashier’s check please? Otherwise I’d like to close my account and I’ll find a bank that isn’t so obviously on Pershing’s payroll.”
