by Alyssa Cole
Salomeh reveled in the sensation.
I’ll take this over antidepressants any day, she thought as she clung to him, matching his fervor. Theirs was the embrace of two people who understood what it was to lose something vital. There was something beautiful and desperate in the way they fell into each other, seeking the possibility of respite from their woes.
His hands roamed over her body, sliding over her back and then to the nape of her neck, clutching her there as he kissed her senseless. His tongue was warm and sure as it dipped into her mouth. There was no hesitation, no artifice in his kiss. It had only one purpose: to create pleasure. Julian was more than adept at that task. Salomeh squeezed his arms, feeling the play of muscles as he explored her curves once again, slower this time, as if he were luxuriating now that they were in private.
Lips still fused to hers, tongue still tasting her mouth as if it were a delicacy he’d never have again, he reached beneath her dress to caress her thighs and ass. Salomeh felt him exhale sharply against her mouth, and took the opportunity to tear her lips away, relocating them to the sensitive spot beneath his earlobe.
“Salomeh,” he groaned, and in one swift motion he hiked her dress over her head. She stood before him clad in only a pair of lacy black underwear. She made no move to cover herself this time, simply stared as her breath hitched. She felt no need for self-consciousness with him now. His kisses and touches and that delectable hardness in his pants showed he wanted her, and she had no reason to imagine that he would suddenly balk.
Julian’s eyes glinted dangerously before he swept her up in his arms and carried her the short distance to his bedroom.
“Caveman style, huh? I like it,” Salomeh whispered into his ear, feeling the mischievous streak that had overtaken her earlier in the night return with her passion. She ran her tongue along the contour of his neck as he carried her, and scraped her teeth over his jawline. Julian said nothing but smiled wickedly at her as he placed her on the king-size bed that took up most of the small bedroom.
“I see where most of the apartment’s furniture fund was spent,” she said, and the chuckle she elicited from him excited her too. She liked making him laugh.
“The sheets are a whole two hundred thread count,” he said as he patted the bed beside her. “You’re in the lap of luxury tonight, sweetheart.”
She knew that he used the endearment in jest, but it still warmed her.
She settled against the cool black sheets and watched him move away from her and quickly pull his clothes off. When he stood in nothing but his tented boxers, the first coherent thought she had was, If a god came down from Olympus, this is what he would look like, which she realized was hyperbolic but not entirely inaccurate.
His body was perfectly proportionate, long and lean and muscular. A patch of thick chest hair tapered down in a thin trail that led into his boxers. When his cock pulsed against her as they danced, Salomeh had felt that he was large, but now she had visual evidence. The black fabric barely restrained his rigid member, which seemed like it was fully capable of bursting through the seams.
“Are you going to pose there all night or what?” she asked as she leaned back into the pillows, her legs spread suggestively. Something about Julian made her feel completely comfortable, free to be as naughty as she wished.
She had barely finished speaking before he was on the bed and hovering over her.
“You weren’t kidding about being bossy, were you?” he asked as he slid into the space between her legs and pressed his lips hard against hers, cutting off her rebuttal.
The sensation of his bare skin against hers felt so good Salomeh couldn’t contain the loud moan that was smothered by his kisses. His cock was thick and heavy against her, and just the thought of what he would do to her with it made her skin tingle with anticipation.
He kissed her lips one more time, much too softly for her liking, and said, “I’ll be back.”
She was about to object to him going anywhere when she realized what he meant.
He kissed a trail down her neck, paying special attention to how her body responded and lingering when he heard her sigh or moan. He licked his way down the valley between her breasts, teasing at the sensitive skin that other men usually ignored. He moved his mouth over her abdomen, nipping and sucking. Areas that Salomeh had only thought of as ticklish were now revealed to be erogenous. Her pussy clenched in response to his kisses, the intensity of her response a surprise. Salomeh gasped loudly at the spiral of pleasure that coursed through her body as he nipped across her belly, arching her back and thrusting her fingers into his thick hair.
He hooked his index fingers into the waistband of her underwear before sliding them down her legs, and then she felt his ragged breath against her thighs as he settled between them. Julian studied her folds before taking a long, slow lick. And then another. He teased her, lapping at her clit with such exaggerated care that she was forced to take her own initiative.
“Julian,” she panted, lifting her hips to further press her clit against his tongue. The desire that built at her core was almost painful in its intensity. Her inner muscles squeezed, innately seeking the fullness that Julian could provide her with.
He gazed up at her from between her legs, his eyes hooded with passion. “Can I help you, Salomeh?” he asked before taking another torturously slow lick.
She ground herself against his face. “Please, I want you,” she moaned, frustration and pleasure making her voice sharp.
He slipped a long finger inside her tight pussy, finding a spot that made her buck against him. “You mean like this?” he asked with a smile, but his voice was hoarse with strain. He slipped in a second finger, working both of them inside her. “You want me to fuck this tight pussy of yours, Salomeh? Is that what you want?”
His words combined with his motions nearly undid her. She tried to lean forward and reach for him, but his other hand came down against her stomach, holding her in place. The restraint only heightened her pleasure. She was breathing hard, and every nerve in her body felt as if it were in sync with his fingers sliding in and out of her.
“Yes,” she gasped, “I want you to fuck—” And then she let out a loud cry as her orgasm washed through body, overtaking her unexpectedly. Her ass pressed down into the bed, her climax exerting its own gravitational pull for a brief ecstatic moment. The waves of pleasure were still rolling through her when she heard the sound of foil ripping, and then Julian’s weight was on her. She opened her eyes to look into his.
“What were you saying?” He nudged the head of his cock against her opening and slowly slid his length inside her. For a second, it seemed that he simply wouldn’t fit, but he pushed forward with a gentle but inexorable force. When the thick head was finally fitted snugly into her pussy, they both groaned with the pleasure of it. He muttered something she couldn’t understand as he worked his way into her with short, sharp thrusts, something foreign and most decidedly impolite.
Salomeh was momentarily paralyzed by the delicious fullness of Julian inside her. His every movement stimulated the sensitive places inside her and slid against bundles of nerves she hadn’t known existed. Her back arched up, bending with the pleasure that animated her entire being. Julian’s coarse chest hair scraped her breasts, and when his nipple brushed over hers, he bucked into her hard and hissed out an expletive.
Salomeh reached between them and gently tweaked the smooth, flat discs. She slid her palms over them back and forth, hoping he liked the rough friction of the motion.
“Dammit, Salomeh,” he ground out, a thread of desperation in his tone that sent a pulse of desire through her. She pinched them between her thumb and forefinger, exerting a bit more pressure, and Julian swelled inside her, his thrusts becoming rougher and more uncontrolled.
“God, yes, fuck me just like that,” Salomeh said, trying out some dirty talking of her own. Her hands slid to clutch at Julian’s shoulders as he pounded into her. His cock moving inside her was the only thing she
could focus on, the bliss of it paramount.
Her words seemed to spark some newfound fervor in him. He lifted her legs so that each ankle rested on one of his shoulders and began pistoning in earnest, moving his hips in wide circles that rubbed his groin against her clit. He was now stimulating her inside and out, and Salomeh could feel another orgasm pushing its way to the forefront. Her whimpers turned into moans, and then into shouts. She couldn’t contain herself, and she didn’t want to.
She chanted incoherently, unable to form a sentence because her mind was so overwhelmed by the sensations flooding her body. Julian drove into her with no mercy, his face set into a mask of pleasure that seemed to border on pain. Salomeh reached for him, digging her fingers into his back as he sent her over the edge. Her eyes squeezed shut, and her pussy clamped around his throbbing rod as she was buffeted by a storm of euphoria.
With a harsh yell of his own, Julian came hard, shuddering against Salomeh for a long while, his head nestled in the crook of her neck. They both breathed heavily in the sudden silence of the room, unable and unwilling to speak. Salomeh felt completely unmoored. She wanted to touch him, to hold him close, but what had happened between them was already much more intimate than she had anticipated. The sex had been wonderful, but beneath the blissed-out afterglow she felt another emotion burgeoning, one that had no place showing up after a one-night stand. One that had no place in the world of a woman with a broken life and a tarnished reputation. She let her hands rest awkwardly on his back, unsure of how to proceed without falling deeper down the rabbit hole.
Salomeh sighed, the sound loud in the quiet room, and Julian chuckled, misunderstanding the emotion behind it. He dropped a kiss on her chin before rolling over to dispose of the condom in the trashcan next to the bed.
“So I guess it was good for you too?” He pulled her against him as he lay back down, the motion natural and easy as if she belonged there. She rested her head on his chest, tentatively sliding her leg over his to settle herself more comfortably.
“I don’t want to give you a big head,” she said. “But if you really need to know, you should ask your neighbors; I think they can tell you.”
She felt his laugh reverberate in his chest. His hand moved in soothing circles over her back, pulling a huge yawn from her.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” he said, his voice drowsy.
Salomeh knew she should get up and go home, but the real world was lurking outside the door. Even if she knew nothing more could come of this, she wasn’t quite ready to give up the fantasy yet. She held Julian tightly and tried to memorize everything about him: the feel of his warm skin against hers, the way his chest rose and fell beneath her, the soft snore that signaled he was drifting into sleep. Come tomorrow, those memories would be the only thing she had left of him.
Chapter Eight
The inconspicuous black sedan cut through the sultry summer night, hugging the asphalt of Ocean Parkway while maintaining a speed that wouldn’t draw any undue attention.
Bardhyn shifted gears, glancing at the man in his passenger seat from the corner of his eye. The employee was trying his best to look cool and unaffected, but sweat beaded at his temples and his breath came in shallow gulps.
Bardhyn found that keeping those who worked for him on edge elicited the best results and also gave him the greatest pleasure. Pushing people mentally and physically was among his favorite pastimes. Forging passports, trafficking girls in several countries, running guns, and, of course, managing drug operations were immensely stressful jobs, and everyone needed a hobby. As long as his men were faithful to him, they had nothing to fear really.
The man in the passenger seat had reason to be afraid.
“Është në rregull gjithçka, Eltjon?” Bardhyn asked in Albanian. “Everything okay? You seem nervous.”
“No, just hot,” Eltjon said, his neck stiff and his jowls trembling slightly as he inclined his head to Bardhyn.
A spike of adrenaline or endorphin or some other hormone that felt damn good dispersed into Bardhyn’s system. “I’m sorry, the air conditioner in this hunk of junk is broken,” he said. “And the nice car is in the shop. I have to make sure everything is perfect before the meeting, not that these men have the most discerning taste.”
“Those camel jockeys don’t know shit,” Eltjon said, eager to please.
“Camel jockeys?” Bardhyn asked. “You forget what they called the Albanian Muslims when they tried to wipe them out? Think before you speak, durak.”
Eltjon blinked rapidly before glancing plaintively out of the window. “Sorry. You’re right, I wasn’t thinking. You need me to talk to this Mustafa dude again?” he asked. He seemed to be trying to convince himself that this was a viable reason for why they were barreling down a highway in Long Island in the middle of the night. For a work debriefing. In the end, people would grasp at anything.
A movement in the backseat made Eltjon jump. Alexi. Many of the men in Bardhyn’s organization resented the presence of the Russian, thought he could never be as faithful as an Albanian, but Alexi served his purposes. Bardhyn didn’t discriminate on the basis of ethnicity or creed, whether it came to employees or the girls he sold. Besides the Russian followed him around him like a smitten puppy dog who thought he was in the same league as the Doberman whose ass he kept sniffing. Bardhyn could depend on him.
“Relax, Eltjon,” Bardhyn said in a voice that wouldn’t help anyone to feel at ease. “Alexi means you no harm. Now, tell me again what you said to these guys.”
Bardhyn’s fingers flexed on the steering wheel, the leather creaking under his grip.
Eltjon’s gaze darted about, as if he were trying to recall what he had told Bardhyn nearly an hour and three drinks ago. “So I heard that they was trying to pull something big, something that would get them attention. Now that Bin Laden is dead, they want to be the new jihadists on the street or some shit. I told them that if they were trying to sneak some dudes into the States, they needed an Albanian. And if they needed the best of the best, they needed to go to Birdie.”
“You didn’t tell them any more than that?” Bardhyn asked. “Because they started trying to talk me down on my price, trying to tell me they had an offer from the cartel in Michigan, and that you’re the one who set up the connect. That you said those rrot kari motherfuckers in Detroit could do the job better and cheaper than me.”
Eltjon’s flabby face went sallow, his eyes wide.
Bardhyn studied him from his peripheral vision. He did enjoy watching how different people reacted in these moments. Would the man cry, convulsively sobbing like the shopkeeper in Tirana who had been the first of many to fall at his hand? Or would he try to be stoic? Would he try to fight back? Bardhyn was still surprised at how few people took the last option. Apparently the will to live was overestimated.
The man started to splutter a denial but then shook his head. “You know, my girl told me not to work for you. She heard about all that crazy shit you’re into, but I told her you was cool. Women are always right in the end, aren’t they?”
Bardhyn thought of Linda, his most prized possession and most astute advisor. “I’ve found that’s often the case,” he said.
Eltjon sighed. “Damn. Can I at least get a cigarette?”
He asked this with an acceptance that was surprising. No denial or ugly scenes. Bardhyn felt a hint of fatherly pride as he took out a platinum cigarette holder from the inner pocket of his suit jacket and flipped it open with one hand.
Eltjon dropped the slim white cigarette on the first attempt. Alexi laughed in the backseat but quieted when Bardhyn shot him a quelling glare in the rearview mirror.
As Eltjon lit the cigarette with shaking fingers, Birdie rolled down the windows. The salty breeze blowing in from the Long Island Sound filled the car.
Briefly Bardhyn thought of a trip to the sea with his parents before they lost everything, back before he learned that a good life was only guaranteed to those who took opportunity by the thro
at and squeezed.
He let the moment play out for longer than it had to, absorbing the thrumming tension from the passenger seat like beams of sunlight. Keeping one hand lightly on the wheel, he pulled his gun from the holster that rested snug against his cigarette case and pointed it at Eltjon’s head.
“Open your mouth,” Bardhyn said.
“Birdie, I’m sorry—”
“Open it,” he ground out. Of course the fucker hadn’t learned to simply do as he was told. That was why he was in this situation in the first place.
When the man hesitated a moment too long, Alexi reached from behind him and turned his head, holding tightly until Eltjon parted his trembling lips. Enamel chattered against metal as Bardhyn thrust the gun in, and tears rolled from the man’s eyes as he whimpered around the muzzle.
“Have you learned your lesson?” Bardhyn asked, gaze flitting between the man and the road.
Eltjon nodded quickly.
“Have you realized that talking about those idiots in Detroit like they’re on the same level as me is disrespectful?”
Eltjon nodded again, hiccupping around the gun.
For a second, Bardhyn considered pulling the gun out and letting Eltjon off with a warning, but there was something within him that needed more, needed the man to pay for even thinking of disrespecting him. He thought of Julian, back from the dead and stirring up shit he had no business involving himself with. You couldn’t trust anyone, and anyone who betrayed his loyalty deserved whatever came their way.
He pulled the trigger.
“Fuck!” Alexi spat, rubbing at his lips. “My mouth was open! Why didn’t you say something first?”
“Keeping your mouth closed is a sign of higher evolution. I shouldn’t have to instruct you on that,” Bardhyn said as he pulled over onto sand and scrub grass.
“Dump the body here, and then we’ll take the car to Vinnie to chop,” Bardhyn instructed, pulling out a cigarette as he critically eyed the dark chunks splattered down the passenger side of the car. “And wipe the car down, too.”
