by Amanda Hough
I fished a twenty out of my handbag and slipped the cash and a note that I’d taken the beers for the records.
As Brian walked toward the bar he laughed, shaking his head.
“What’s so funny, doc?” I asked with a grin and took a pull from Meg.
“You are, Toni. You’re not on duty, but you still stand behind that bar.” When he gave me a smile like I hadn’t seen from him before and beckoned me to come around the bar and join him.
With a shrug, I slid my bottle across the high-varnished wood and walked around to join him on the other side.
We sat in silence for a moment with our drinks until finally he sat his bottle down, took my beer and did the same.
“Did you enjoy our last dinner together, Toni?” I looked at him, puzzled. Then it dawned on me that he knew my plans. I was going to end it tonight and he knew. I felt like an ass. Why couldn’t it be the sweet guy I loved? Maybe I should keep trying. Maybe I just wasn’t used to normal.
“Oh, Brian. Look, you are a—”
“Toni,” his voice warned. “Don’t do that.” He got up and stood in front of me, swiveling me on the bar stool to face him. My back to the bar. “Toni,” he whispered. “Do I get a kiss before hearts are broken?”
With a small smile I nodded and waited for the kiss.
The Dragan
The police called as I was washing out my paint brushes. The alarm at the bar had gone off and they were going to check it out. I’d bought a house in Old Enfield, no more than ten minutes from the bar. So when I got home from playing cards with Toni’s mom, I’d put on old clothes and started stripping and staining the red oak of the staircase rail.
The cops couldn’t tell me what was going on so when I logged into the system and saw Antonina behind the bar talking to her date, I decided to head over and ruin their fuckin’ night. So I jumped in the shower to get the turpentine fumes on my skin off, dressed and headed over.
When I arrived, police and ambulances were already there. It was good to know the EMTs got there so fast in the event there was an emergency.
I parked behind a big black truck, realizing too late that my brother Sergey was standing by The Booth’s front doors. The ice didn’t hit my blood until I saw his face.
Toni
I actually saw stars when the back of my head hit the bar. The hands were around my neck before I could gasp from the pain.
My eyes were closed when his lips touched mine. And though I opened them the moment his hands went around my neck, the hit to the temple made it hard to focus.
He was straddled above me, sitting on my stomach. His fingers, tight around my throat. I could feel the manicured nails of his thumbs biting into the soft flesh around my windpipe. My nails scraped and scratched at his hands but I seemed to hurt myself more than him.
His weight on my middle was taking a toll and I felt my lungs and brain protesting the lack of oxygen.
Without lessening his grip he lifted me to his face and spoke.
“You wanna know why you’re goin’ die bitch?” he gritted between his teeth.
I tried to open my mouth to speak but my lips didn’t move. At least, I don’t think they moved. A numb confusion was weaving into my mind, defusing the sparks I needed to think.
He didn’t seem to care that I didn’t respond and continued, “Know why I was late for our first meeting at the hospital? I’d just been told my dad and brothers were dead. Dead!” He yelled, bouncing my head hard on the floor then bringing me back to his face.
He didn’t look like the same man. The easy, handsome face was replaced with skin botched red, his lips peeled back to reveal his gums.
“He killed them. So I am goin’ to kill you. I’m going to squeeze the fuckin’ life out of your body and lay you out on his fuckin’ bar.”
Finally my lips worked. “Dragan,” I whispered.
He screamed into my face. “Yes, you cunt! Dragan Mikhailov! That family has messed with what I loved for too long. So I am going to kill what Dragan loves. And then I’m going to go to your fucking friend who leaves with that pig cop and slit her fucking throat.”
The Dragan
“What’s goin’ on, brother?” I started to walk past him and his hand stopped me. I looked down at it in warning. He wasn’t intimidated.
“Drago, listen to me. You walk in that fuckin’ bar I need you to promise me you won’t lose your shit.”
“Sergey,” I warned.
“Drobski had a nephew. He was lookin’ to even out the blood debt. He’s of the mind that you hit his father and brothers. Now I know this to be untrue ‘cause you’ve been right here in Austin, weren’t you.” He paused then, to see if I was followin’. I was about to lose my mind.
“Sergey, I get it. I’ve been in Austin. Don’t know nothing about Drobski’s family. Now tell me what the fuck is goin’ on.”
Sergey nodded and took a breath. “The nephew is Brian Felton. He hurt Toni, my brother.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
NEED
Toni
Evie was telling me that they were coming from Brenna’s when Sergey heard on the police radio that The Booth’s alarm had been tricked. When they arrived uniforms were already present and Brian Felton was being taken into custody. She was sitting on the floor next to me, her hand on my leg. But I couldn’t feel it. The EMTs wanted me to go to the emergency room but they could fuck right off. I didn’t need a doctor. I looked up to tell Evelyn to go home and rest when what I needed busted through the doors.
The Dragan
The color red was my only thought when Sergey told me about Toni. My patience had officially run out and I pushed him from the doors to get inside.
When I swung the open door, my eyes immediately went to the two women seated on the floor in the center of the room. Evie was next to her. A hand on Toni’s knee but my woman didn’t acknowledge it. Seconds after her eyes hit me, her body did.
I swept her up and into my arms. I could feel her body shudder and the tears started to escape. I held her, walking her around the bar, kissing her hair until her weeping started to slow.
Finally I knew I could trust my voice to speak so I carried her to the bar and sat her on the edge. “Sweetheart, let me see you, okay? I need to see that you’re all right?”
She hiccupped a sob. “I’m okay,” she answered. Her voice was hoarse and I leaned down to examine her neck. The blood had surfaced in asymmetrical patterns on the front below the chin. Doubtless were Felton’s thumbs had been.
Her eyes were puffy and speckled in red, both from tears and from the near suffocation. I swallowed my need to find him and kill him. My desire to get my woman home and safe was stronger.
I turned to Evie who was seated down the bar waiting with a glass of water, a shot of ochre-colored liquid and a white hand towel.
“What did the paramedics say, Evelyn?” I asked.
“She has a bump on her head and they suggested she go to the ER but she declined.” She walked toward us and gave a little smile. “Drink this,” she ordered, handing me the shot of amber. My nose recognized it as Old Bushmill and it made me love sweet Evelyn more. She asked Toni to sip the water and took the damp towel to wash her hands.
Some of her nails had broken in the struggle and were cut to the quick.
Toni did as she was told and drank the water. “Not gonna do the ER thing guys,” she croaked.
Before I could reply the door opened again and David Ross and Marcus Newland entered. David looked panicked. The District Attorney looked pissed.
“Toni, girl,” David called coming to us. He offered me a jerk of his head and got between my woman and me. “What the fuck happened? Who the hell did this?” He took her chin and moved her face side to side to check out the injuries.
“David,” Marcus and Sergey warned simultaneously.
“Fuck you, two. I’ve had these girls’ backs for over twenty years. I give ’em up to the Mikhailov brothers and this shit happens.”
Ev
ie stepped in then. “David, back off. Toni’s hurt and she needs looked at. Dragan will take care of her. Sergey is going to take me home after the hospital visit. Someone needs to go to Patsy and let her know about Toni. That someone is you. See to her tonight and I will be over in the morning to help her wash up and dress. Understood?” She eyed him and then burned everyone else with her glare. “Am I freaking understood?” she yelled.
We all nodded in agreement.
Toni
Thanks to the police escort that walked into the ER with Dragan and me, I was seen, given an X-ray and sent on my way with Tylenol and codeine. I’d be sore for a few days but no real damage. Not even a concussion which Evie said proofed her two-decade theory that I was hard headed.
Dragan took me back to his new house in Old Enfield. Walking into the American Colonial, even as the prescribed narcotic I’d taken in the car was starting to dull my thoughts, my breath caught when he powered the lights. The foyer, in black and white marble, was bigger than my whole house.
Without getting an option, Dragan carried me up the winding staircase to a bedroom. I was out before my ass hit the duvet.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
MINE NOW
The Dragan
I had her in my bed. I had her and she was all right. I kept saying that to myself because I had to fight the urge to call in a favor or two to have the fucker who laid hands on her taken out.
But I’d made a promise to Sergey not to act. And for him I wouldn’t. What made the drumming pressure at my temples slow, was waking up with Antonina Hume curled up against my body.
The medicine did its job and she’d slept for ten hours.
The proof that I really was an asshole was that I’d had a hard-on for the better part of an hour watching her sleep.
I’d undressed her in the dark last night and put one of my T-shirts on her. Her hair was loose and covering her face. I took a finger and moved some of her blonde locks to see her expression. Her eyes still had a shadow of darkness under them and the bruising at her neck stood out against her white skin.
I let my eyes wander to her shoulder and down the length of her slender arm.
“Is it bad?” she croaked.
My gaze went to her face. Apparently I looked confused.
“My face, my neck…does it look really black and blue?” she explained.
For a moment I thought she meant my erection and I was almost ashamed of myself. Almost.
I shook my head and moved more of her hair from her face, sweeping it off her forehead. “No, sweetheart, it’s not that bad. You’re bruised but your eyes are clear and bright. I took my finger and touched the thin skin under her eyes. Then around to her eyebrows, her cheeks, her forehead, tucking the hair behind her ears. I bent down and kissed the point of her chin and smiled. “Even bruised you’re so beautiful it hurts to look at you.”
Her hand came up and cupped my face. Leaning up on an elbow she rolled me on my back, her own body coming with me, she lay atop me now. “Did you really get this scar because you called a woman a cunt?”
I laughed. “Yeah, sweetheart, I did. But in my defense, she was a cunt.”
Now she laughed and sat up, straddling my groin. She traced the scar near my nipple. “Was this from a bar fight too?”
My dick twitched when her tongue swiped across it. “No, I got it in prison when I was seventeen.”
I watched her face when I said the words, waiting for a grimace. She frowned. “Why did he stab you?” she asked instead.
“Because I’d beaten his brother to death so I could steal my food back,” I answered truthfully.
There was the look. And then she leaned down again and kissed the scar. More of the world shifted.
She wasn’t done asking questions. “And the big one on your shoulder? Where’d that one come from?”
“Toni.” I didn’t want to say.
“Where, Dragan?” she replied.
“Some men broke into our apartment when I was about fourteen-years-old. They were looking for my father. When they didn’t get the answer they wanted, one of them ripped the antenna off a TV and beat me with it.”
“Where was your father?
“Don’t know. He’d disappear from time to time. Probably doing grunt work for Irina to earn the right to come home.”
“What does that mean, Dragan? Earn his right?”
I hesitated. I didn’t want Toni to know the ugly from my past.
“Dragan, tell me what that means.”
“It means Irina ordered my father to return to Moscow after she had to do what he refused to do. The consolation she offered was that he got to take Nico and me with him. He wanted to come home. Back to the U.S. So a telegram would show up. He’d read it and leave. Come back maybe a day later, or maybe a month later.”
“What was he doing?”
“Don’t know. Never asked.”
“What was it that he refused to do?”
Here it was. I closed my eyes tight and I felt her lips on my lashes. “You don’t have to say it Dragan. It’s okay.”
I opened my eyes and looked up at Toni. She was crying.
“Sweetheart,” I chuckled. I brought her face down to me and kissed down the salty wet streaks on her cheeks. “Don’t cry for me, baby. You’ve had a tough few weeks and you’re hurt. Don’t waste tears on me.”
She jerked her face from my hands and raised up. “Bullshit, Dragan. Maybe if someone had been crying for you and Nico, you wouldn’t have the scars. I can’t do anything about the scared, hungry kid that you were, but I’ll be damned if I let the past keep hurting you.”
The tears came again and this time they were fueled with anger. “I’m not weak. I can take whatever you need to say.”
I sat up and brought my hands around to her ass so her body went flush with mine. “Anything?” I asked, rubbing her against the length of my cock.
“Anything,” she replied without hesitation.
I smiled. “Well, I’m going down on you ’cause I can smell that pussy and I am hungry for breakfast. And then I’m going to fuck you until you admit you need me as much as I need you.” I laid her on her back and pulled the sheets from around us. Ripping off her panties when she lifted my T-shirt to give me access to her tits. “And then, I’m goin’ to make you come so hard, you’ll promise never to call me by my last fucking name again.”
It was Toni’s turn to smile and she did. Luminous. Mine. Fucking beautiful.
“We’ll see Mikhailov,” she challenged.
Toni
I felt fucking good. No! Scratch that. I felt fucking great. My body thoroughly used.
When Dragan and I finally managed to get out of bed, we took a bath. The tub was huge and we were in every inch of it.
Once or twice, I caught him staring at my neck. An expression of menace I didn’t want to tag marred his face. But I would soothe him with words and my lips. Soon he was my Dragan again. I smiled and his hands skimmed up my tummy to my chin so he could study my face.
“Why the grin, Antonina? You ready for more?” His mouth bent to take a nipple. He sucked hard and the soreness between my legs didn’t seem so bad after all. But…
“Shouldn’t we get out of bed? I have a bar to run, boss man. And I need to talk to my mom.”
“Taken care of sweetheart. Your bar will be fine for the day with other staff runnin’ shit. David’s parents are with your mom. And I called her this morning. She wants you safe, knows I will handle that so she’s good.”
“Yes, but I think—”
His mouth covered my nipple again, drawing it in and across his tongue. He yanked the covers away so my body was exposed and swung his leg between my legs to bring my knees apart.
“Mikhailov,” I growled as his lips left my breast and trailed kisses down my abdomen.
I raised my legs in surrender, spreading to give him access. His tongue flicked over my clit and my thighs shook. He sucked on the nub, licked and then blew cool air over my exposed fles
h.
“Mikhailov please,” I pleaded. He was teasing me.
“Who’s my woman?” he asked.
I chuckled and tried to grind myself against his mouth.
“Who’s. My. Woman? he demanded.
“Who’s my man?” I demanded back. Unwilling to give in. I watched him work me. And he raised his head.
“Your man’s where he wants to be, Toni.” He went back to his feast.
My lips spread into a grin and I sighed. “I’m your woman, Dragan.”
Epilogue
Bennett Lynette Reynolds
April in Austin is the perfect time of year for a wedding. Even when it gets hotter than hell, it’s still the best city in Texas. But today was particularly lovely.
The house on Woodhaven Lane in Old Enfield was decorated with garlands of white gardenia. The purple wisteria crept of the sides of the main structure giving the house a lavender hue that seemed magical.
Or maybe it was all in my head. I can be a bit of a helpless romantic.
I swung my legs out of my car and had to gave my butt a wiggle to help my form-fitting skirt back down around my hips. It was my favorite skirt, and just because I had to hold my breath in to zip it didn’t mean I’d give it up. And since I had a pretty cream-colored short sleeve sweater to match and said sweater covered my zipper, it was my little secret.
I was about two hours early for the Mikhailov wedding. I had offered and Toni had readily agreed to have me come to the party early and help the girls get in dresses. Make sure make up was just so. That sort of thing.
I sashayed my way up the stone path and to the front door. I admit my walk was less because I was in the habit of swaying my junk and more because my darn dress was so tight.
I rang the bell, popping my compact open for one more look at my nose before I snapped it shut. The door was opened by one of the best looking men to ever draw breath. That was not hyperbole ya’ll that was scientific fact.
