“I can’t, Vassily. I can’t do it.”
“I don’t think you want it to be her. She won’t be nice about it.”
I leave him, hunched over the table and shaking. Love will do that to you.
hrough the whole interrogation, I sat by Caterina. Her face hardly moved. She didn’t make a sound.
Vassily is coming out of the room where Medved is slumped over the table. Bruno struggles as Vassily walks past. His chair topples back. Walking toward the camera, Vassily does nothing to stop Bruno’s fall. He shouts when his head bangs noisily on the stage.
Vassily is heading into the room. Caterina lifts a phone and presses a button. “Medved?”
On the screen, Medved slowly picks up a phone from his table. He looks at it before he puts it to his ear. His head is still on the table.
Caterina tells him, “You better be quick. Before I change my mind.”
The elevator dings. the doors swish open. A pair of heels click-clack across the floor.
On the screen, a slender silhouette strides in to stand over Bruno, on his back, still tied in the chair. His voice is a mix of surprise and confusion. “Irina!”
Irina looks down at him and shakes her head. She says, “No, don’t get up.”
“Irina. You have to understand…”
“Understand?” She takes something from her purse. “You think there might be a way to look at it where I might forgive you?”
“Irina.” An edge of desperation dries his voice. “You know how much I love you.”
“And that’s going to make it okay? Killing my father? Petrov and Jakob were part of our family. Mischa, Leo, and Pyotr and Oleg, they were my friends. They were my friends since I was little.”
“It’s the life, Irina. It was just business.”
“Yeah? Well, this isn’t. This is fucking personal, you little turd.”
There are two flashes. Bruno’s body jerks twice. Medved runs out, into the showroom. Seeing Irina standing over Bruno’s body, he freezes, and his face is hollow.
Irina with her arms loose, the gun hanging in her hand, looks up at Medved and she shrugs.
“Don’t blame yourself, Medved.” her voice has aged a decade. “We all saw the signs. We all hoped he’d change. That somehow it would turn out better than this.”
ew York shines in the bright sun. Irina rides with me in the back of the limo. We have on cream silk dresses in matching styles. I have a lace veil.
When we arrive in front of the cathedral, I’m breathless. I tell her, “I think I’m in love with him.”
She laughs. It’s a treat now when she laughs. Her smile is bright as she asks, “You don’t know?”
I’m stepping out of the car, looking up at the bell towers and the arched cathedral doorway.
I shrug and ask her, “How do you tell? I’m empty when we’re apart. I think about him all the time. I think about what he’ll say or think about everything I see, or I think about how we can share it.”
“Those sound like the usual symptoms, Katya. It’s my considered opinion that you’re in love.”
“Shouldn’t I know, though? Isn’t it supposed to be something unmistakable?”
We reach the doorway and a hush descends on the congregation. My eyes are still adapting to the lower light. Sun streams in through the stained glass all around. Flowers spill over every surface.
Even with Carmine’s help, I can’t believe that Vassily has pulled an event like this together in just a few short weeks. Carmine even offered to lead me up the aisle.
Marco offered, too. Marco isn’t a bad man, he’s just a man who does some bad things. I’ve known enough men to know the difference. Vassily wasn’t so forgiving, though. I had a job persuading him to let Marco come at all.
Everyone rises as the organ pipes stab out the first trumpet fanfare of the Wedding March.
I can’t see well enough yet to judge how many people are here. It seems like a lot. All of their faces turn to me as I walk up the center of the long church, with Carmine holding my arm and Irina by my side. Vassily, tall and achingly elegant, his silhouette dominates the middle of the church, his black suit bathed in the golden glow. Everything seems to be in slow motion. When he turns, the glint in his eye makes me want to shout and run. I am in love with him. That’s the moment that I realize it.
There’s no mistake. It’s true and it’s the most wonderful sensation on Earth. I’m in love with the hottest man. My boy soldier. My Russian killer. The ethical gangster.
At the front of the congregation, Caterina Konstantin holds her head high, and Medved and his wife sit by the aisle on the opposite side. Carmine Monreale lined his whole family along one front pew. Marco’s stable of girls sit in the other front pews with Marco himself on the end. Many of the same people attended Irina’s wedding. It seems so long ago that I was apprehensive about walking in front of them all.
Mikhail stands next to Vassily out in the front of the church.
With Irina as my matron of honor, I stride with more confidence than I feel up the flagstones and over the mosaics of the cathedral aisle. When I pass Marco, he smiles, anxious, and I’m touched. Nearly enough to forgive him having bought me in the first place and thinking that he could sell me. If he hadn’t done that then I never would have met the beautiful man I’m about to marry. So maybe I can forgive him completely. In time. Perhaps.
Vassily’s face is a picture. A portrait of masculine adoration as he watches every step that takes me nearer to him, closer toward our marriage.
Under the gown of cream silk, on my thigh I wear a blue garter. My simple antique pendant is the only thing that I have possessed since the night I was taken from my father’s house. I wear it with pride and some sorrow on a new flat silver chain.
Vassily insisted on lending me a small gun that belongs to him. I feel it pinch against my leg. He gave me a garter holster, too, but I hate it. I just have the gun jammed in my stocking. It chafes my skin. So, there’s that, too.
When I protested and told him, “Nobody will dare attack your wedding, Vassily,” He held me tight and insisted, “I’m not worried about me, but I’m not taking a chance of anyone attacking you, my darling.”
His face is granite when I reach the altar. I don’t believe anyone but me can see the smile in his eyes. But it’s so hot, it makes me shudder in my silk panties.
When the bishop asks him, “Do you take this woman,” the breath rises in my chest as I look into Vassily’s eyes, and I struggle to suppress the moan when he declares, “I do” before the priest has even finished the ritual question.
He slips the ring onto my finger. Then his voice rings out through the body of the great church with the words, “With this ring, I thee wed. With my body, I thee worship.” and my mind leaps forward.
Later I know that he will do exactly that and more. The anticipation courses around my body like a wildfire, flashing through all of the places where I know that he will go. Where he will hold and caress me, where he will himself against me. The parts he will open. The folds he will caress.
~~
Marco gave us the reception as a gift. He took over a beautiful riverside restaurant with a dance floor, an orchestra, and lights in the trees outside. It was beautiful. The guests all clustered after Vassily to pay him tributes and congratulate him. I am always amazed at how much everybody loves this bad man of mine.
Mikhail gave a speech that ribbed Vassily pretty hard about his wilder days. Everybody laughed. Carmine proposed a toast. All of the speeches paid compliments to me, enough to make me blush.
Standing close to Carmine’s side, Caterina seemed happier than she had since she lost Konstantin. It looks like Carmine has taken on the responsibility for looking after her. Not that she can’t take care of herself. But he’s looking out for her. Keeping her attention on the positive side. They make an impressive couple.
Irina seemed like she was spending a lot of time with Mikhail, but I may have been imagining that. Putting two and two
together and making five, maybe. I know I wasn’t mistaken about the glow on her face when she was listening as he delivered his speech.
Pierce and Princess are a beautiful couple and they were on great form, and so were Luka and Alexa. She runs a small piece of mob business herself. I’m surprised at how women are stepping into what would have been the men’s shoes.
Hunter and Vesper were there. They really are chalk and cheese. She’s a Special Agent with the Bureau. And he’s, well, what he is. Man, though, they can dance.
And I saw a guy who looked a little out of place, I felt like I might be rescuing him. Nice looking guy in a leather jacket, lost at the bar and hemmed in a crush of bodyguards and henchpersons with his pretty little wife, Jackie. Turns out he met Vassily just a few weeks ago. Apparently Vassily liked his car so much he had it re-covered inside and got the bodywork all restored.
I come away thinking what a really good man my husband is. And, at the same time, looking forward to discovering the other parts of that story, because I don’t believe it for a minute. Not at face value. There’s something more to it than there seems on the surface. But, with Vassily, there always is.
Then, after all the music and toasts and cake and dancing, I get to go home with the king of the New York clubs. Caterina wasn’t the only person who called him that.
inally, we get to Vassily’s apartment. It’s not a long drive from the club. We enter the building from the riverside and the whole entrance is decked with flowers. Staff applaud us as we arrive and Vassily introduces me to everyone.
Alone for what seems like the first time in too long, we kiss in the elevator. I ask him, “Do you own the building?”
“No. There are fifty apartments here.”
“Do the staff turn out like that whenever one of them gets married?”
“I expect so.”
His apartment is the penthouse. He leads me to the big black polished double doors. “There’s an American tradition, too.”
“Oh?” I feign innocence.
“Do you know of it?”
I shrug but I can’t hold back a smile. He opens the door. Floor to ceiling windows make up one wall of the double-height room. The view over the Hudson of the glittering Manhattan skyline takes my breath away. I squeal as he sweeps me off my feet and carries me inside. “My beauty, my Russian doll, now you are queen of my heart and of all that I have. My bride, my wife, my Katya,” and he kisses me, “My love.”
He turns, slowly spinning me in his arms then he puts me down with his back to the window. “I want you to get the view.”
We kiss again. Warm, deep and long.
I put my cheek against his chest. Then I kiss his pecs through his white shirt. I turn us around so my back is to the window. “Don’t you worry that people could be looking in?”
“There’s nobody on this side of the river with a view in here. From the far side, you’d need a hell of a long lens.” He holds me close for the next kiss. As his hands slide down my back, I’m melting into him. I pull him closer. Pressing my mouth against his chest again, I feel his heartbeat against my lips. “My husband.” I look up. “My boy soldier.” He smiles as I open his pants. I find him inside the soft silk boxers. “My Russian killer.”
He holds my breasts. I think of the thing I’ve been meaning to tell him all day. But it can wait a little longer. The surprise will only get better with time. At least, I hope it will.
Reaching to grab his marvelous ass, I pull my hips hard against his. The beating pulse of his hard cock, standing high and thick and ready, makes my breath jam in my chest. I’m suddenly tingling hot between my thighs.
Deliberately, unhurried, he unzips my dress. I lower my arms to let it slip and float to the floor. After he unhooks my bra, he lifts the straps from my shoulders. The look he flashes into my eyes lights a fire in my panties. Then his head dips. He holds my face as he plants fluttering kisses down my neck, slowly, teasingly approaching my breasts.
As his lips caress the tops of my breasts and his tongue trips out to tease me, I’m shivering. I know that he’s coming for me and I feel like I’m almost ready to come for him. By the time the soft wet ‘O’ of his lips is near to the edge of my nipples, they’re swollen and aching hard. When he takes the first one between his lips, he clamps it softly. He knows exactly what I need. He’s going to make me wait. I grab his head and my hands claw in his hair.
He sucks, gently. The harder I pull his face into my breast, the softer he sucks on my reddening nip. And he lets his teeth brush it. Turns his head to make the lightest velvety sawing around it. His lips spread in a grin.
Bastard.
My groan finally makes him take pity on me. He grips the end of my nipple with his teeth and he pulls.
I’m almost crying, “Yes. Go on. Please!” and his teeth tighten. And pull. He holds my breast and squeezes it. And he tugs more. “Yes,” I shout. “Harder.”
Then he does what I need. He squeezes and bites and pulls. Hard. Still not hard enough. But hard. He holds my nipple in his thumb and forefinger. And he pinches. “Yes! Harder!” My voice rises. He twists. My legs wrap around his thigh. My fingers claw in his hair. He moves to the other breast.
Now he has one nipple in his hand, one in his mouth. He alternates. Soft, gentle teasing with hard twists and pulls. One rough, one gentle. I clamp my thighs around his, dragging my lips, my clit along the tense bulge of his clenching muscle. Rocking hard. Slow. And harder.
“Well, wife.” His evil chuckle makes me ready to come. My panties are hot and soaking. They droop, heavy and awkward. My own scent intoxicates me. I want to pull his cock out. I want to climb onto it. Impale myself on it. I want to ride it. But while he tortures my breasts, I can’t do a thing. My arms won’t do anything but wrap him and pull him to me. My fingers just flex and curl uselessly. My hands flap. He bites again. A waterfall cascades inside me.
I shake and spark inside. When his hand slips into my wet panties, I fell his grin around the bite and I tremble, clenching and quaking with crackles and sparks from my core all the way out to my limbs. Twisting my nipple and barely touching the wet lips of my dripping pussy, he chuckles, and I shake like a flag in a gale.
I rock my hips up. Wrap my legs around his hard trunk.
I moan, “Get your fucking clothes off.”
He stands, tall, with me wrapped around him, clinging tight. Shaking. Trembling. My lips fall on his neck the scent of him sends me over and I jam my pussy on his hand, rubbing hard and fast against his cruel, teasing fingertips.
He lifts me. Picks me up by my ass and raises me up to his eye-level like I’m a cake. Hauls me up, onto his shoulders. His mouth fastens onto my pussy. The nimble length of his tongue darts straight into my panties. He licks at my juice and flattens his tongue to press on my lips. I claw in his hair and squeeze his head.
I’m just about to groan, “Take off your fucking clothes,” before the tip of his tongue snakes around my pussy, delving at the hood of my clit. Pressing in pulses at the base. He knows exactly how to move, over my mound, tugging at my flesh so it pulls and tightens. When he drives his sinuous tongue up, into my opening, he rolls the back of it against my hood at the same time.
My back arches and my head rolls. My chest expands and rasping cries and yelps tear up and out of my throat.
When I can’t stand it an instant longer, I jerk my hips, hard. He falls back into a huge, thick chair. I roll. I can’t bear to lose his mouth from my pussy but I turn to face the other way and lower myself onto his lips. As soon as he begins to suck and the cords of electric thrill yank and jerk inside me, I manage to say, “I warned you.”
Vassily: Perfect Pain - a Bad Boy Mafia Dark Romance Page 21
