by Bella Rose
It had been two weeks since what she thought of as the “casino incident.” Now as she climbed the stairs to her master suite, she considered her options. She had wanted Mikhail’s attention. And she most definitely had it. Sort of.
She went right to the bathroom and ran herself a hot bath. Her pussy was starting to get sore from all the sex. She’d never thought that was possible. Especially not since she was perpetually wet for her husband. She loved fucking him. She loved being fucked by him! But sometimes she was starting to wonder if he was just using her as an elaborate form of stress relief.
Pouring a good helping of Epsom salt and bubbles into the water, Tori started to remove what was left of her clothing. She had given up wearing panties or actual pants around the house. It was easier to wear a casual dress of some kind. Mikhail was almost constantly propositioning her. It didn’t matter where it was, he would crook his finger, kiss her senseless, and then fuck her on whatever flat surface happened to be available. One time she had even bent over with her hands on the floor while he took her from behind in a hallway.
“How does the man have any sperm left?” she mused as she sank down into the warm water.
The blissful feeling of the water helped her relax. She was tired. She wasn’t sleeping. Whenever Mikhail came to bed, he would gently nudge his way between her thighs and slide his cock right inside her body without even waking her up.
“I don’t really mind, though.” Tori couldn’t seem to reconcile that. She loved it that he wanted her. The sex was incredible. But there was something missing, and she couldn’t seem to figure out what.
Mikhail was obviously into her, but she felt more like his call girl than his wife. Was this a real relationship? He never talked about work. In fact, they never talked about anything other than sex. It was like she had one purpose in his life, and she only needed a pussy to fulfill it.
“No brain required,” she muttered. Picking up a handful of bubbles, she blew them out of her hand and watched them float gently back down into the bathtub. “I’m like a live blow up doll. So what happens when I get used up or worn out?”
***
MIKHAIL GLANCED UP when Dimitri walked into his study. The clock on the wall said one thirty in the morning. Mikhail couldn’t imagine why Dimitri would be here this time of night, but it likely wasn’t good.
“You asked me to look into any past heirs to the Vasilievs,” Dimitri began quietly.
“Yes.” Mikhail gestured to the clock. “Although I hardly think that task requires you to report back at this hour.”
“You might be surprised,” Dimitri muttered. “You know that Stanislas has a son. Correct?”
“Alexei. Yes. I believe we all know.” Mikhail didn’t want to talk about Alexei. In truth, Alexei should have been the heir to the Vasiliev syndicate. The thought made Mikhail uncomfortable.
“I found him in a bar down near Boston College.”
Mikhail raised his eyebrows expectantly. “And?”
“He says he wants to speak with you in person.”
“Now?” Mikhail was starting to get irritated.
“Yes.”
Mikhail stood up, putting his keys and wallet into his pocket and rubbing his eyes. “I’d rather go upstairs and join my wife for the night.”
“Ugh!” Dimitri growled. “Spare me the details of your sexual satisfaction and wipe that look off your face, please.”
Mikhail laughed. “I’m certainly lucky in my choice of wife. That is for certain.”
“Just come and get in the car so we can be done with this. I’m getting too old to run around Boston this time of night.” Dimitri yawned.
“If I didn’t know better, I would think you were jealous!” Mikhail laughed. “But I do need to run upstairs and tell Tori I’m going out.”
“Pussy whipped,” Dimitri grunted. “Hurry up!”
Mikhail headed up the stairs, catching the sound of water and feeling his cock get hard once again as he imagined Tori fresh from her bath, bent over the bed and waiting for him to sink his cock into her heat. But there was no time for that. Not now. Besides, he’d already had her less than an hour before.
Tori was wrapped in a towel, gently applying lotion to her legs, when he walked into the bathroom. She looked up. Her eyes were wide with surprise, and she was obviously startled. “I didn’t think you would be coming to bed this soon.”
“I’m not.” He paid little attention to what he was saying. He was too busy drinking in the sight of her golden skin and shapely curves. “I’m going out with Dimitri to meet with a—contact.”
“Contact?” Two lines appeared between her eyebrows.
Mikhail could hardly tell her that he was meeting with her stepbrother. He had no idea if she’d been keeping in contact with Alexei or not. They’d never talked about it. In fact, they really hadn’t talked about much at all.
“We don’t talk much, do we?” Mikhail said suddenly, frowning. “Why is that?”
She looked him straight in the eye. “We don’t talk because you never stop fucking me long enough to want a conversation.”
***
TORI COULD NOT believe she had just said that out loud. It felt good! Perhaps he would get the message. Maybe they would start talking, or go on a date. Maybe he would tell Dimitri that they would have to do this another night.
Mikhail shrugged, looking unconcerned. “You’re probably right. It’s hard to talk when I’m so crazy to be inside you.” He leaned over and gave her an absentminded peck on the cheek. “Sleep well. I may not be back until quite late, so I’ll just crash in my study so I don’t wake you.”
“Unless you want sex,” she clarified, feeling dumbfounded and maybe just a little shell shocked by his remarks.
“That’s true.” Mikhail smiled at her. “If I can’t wait one second longer to sink inside that sweet pussy of yours, I’ll come to bed.”
“Don’t bother,” Tori said sweetly. “I wouldn’t want you to miss out on your rest.”
“Thanks, my love.”
Mikhail didn’t speak another word. He just turned and walked out of the bedroom, leaving Tori standing there with her mouth open in shock.
She bit her lip, refusing to cry. It wouldn’t do any good. After all, it was becoming increasingly obvious that her idiot husband didn’t even realize there was a problem, much less what that problem might actually be. In Mikhail’s world, things were great. He was satisfied and felt close to his wife because Tori was pretty much at his beck and call. What man wouldn’t think things were awesome? After all, if a woman was having sex with a guy, it must mean she was happy and things were good, right?
“Ugh!” Tori threw a balled up towel at the door. “He is so stupid!”
Still grumbling, she found clothing and pulled it on. All of it, even her bra and panties. Then she headed out of her bedroom. She would go stay with Jamie for the night. Maybe that would teach Mikhail a lesson in—well, in something! Last time she’d needed a change in their relationship, she had had to resort to the same sort of behavior. It was sad, but then Mikhail was the most emotionally oblivious person that she knew.
There was nobody to even question her leaving the house at one thirty in the morning. Mrs. O’Connell was long gone from the house by now. Tori was all alone. Were there even any guards watching out for her, or did Mikhail consider her not worth the manpower? What was that about? She should have to be sneaking out as if she were locked up in Fort Knox.
Tori marched out the front door and locked it behind her. She headed down the sidewalk. It was only a few blocks to Jamie’s apartment. Her friend was a night owl anyway. She would probably be glad for the company. And if Tori got accosted by thugs on the way, maybe it would serve as some kind of reminder to her idiot husband that he should try caring just a little more.
Chapter Thirteen
When Dimitri had said he’d discovered Stanislas’s son hanging out in a bar by Boston College, he’d failed to specify that it was a gay bar. Not that Mikhai
l had any problem with someone’s choice of sexual orientation, but he didn’t much enjoy frequenting this type of place.
The place was filled with mostly men, and the few women that Mikhail could see appeared to be men dressed in women’s clothing. Apparently the Hot Rocks Bar catered to a very specific clientele. The dance floor was packed, the DJ was playing popular tunes, and the atmosphere in the bar was upbeat. Considering the amount of cash Mikhail watched being handed back and forth across the bar for drinks, the place pulled in plenty of capital.
“Thinking of starting a place like this to get a piece of the action?” Dimitri teased as he led the way through the crush.
“Oh, you know me,” Mikhail said caustically. “I’m all about equal opportunity as long as it involves earning money.”
Dimitri stopped at the far end of the bar and gestured to one of the bartenders. “There’s our guy.”
Mikhail hadn’t seen Alexei Vasiliev in nearly six years. That hadn’t prepared him to see the young man as he was now. Alexei wore skintight leather pants and a flowing shirt that laced up the front and sported ruffles at the cuffs. His hair was blue instead of blond, and there was a diamond stud in his nose.
“Alexei!” Dimitri called, waving. “Got a minute?”
Alexei looked over and raised a brow. Then he turned back to his comrades. “Hey guys, I’m taking a quick break.”
“Fine, but you better hurry your sweet ass up!” The sassy tone of the other bartender only seemed to make Alexei laugh.
“Be back in five!” Alexei gestured to Dimitri and Mikhail. “Come on back here. We can chat a little more privately.”
Mikhail couldn’t help but stare. This man was supposed to be Stanislas Vasiliev’s heir. No wonder Stanislas wanted nothing to do with his son. In the Russian mafiya culture everything about Alexei was totally unacceptable.
“I see you staring,” Alexei said. He still carried the hint of a Russian accent. “You are wondering how I can possibly be Stanislas Vasiliev’s son.”
“Maybe.” It was all Mikhail was going to allow.
“I know that everyone thinks I ran away because I couldn’t hack it as a mafiya man.” Alexei made a scoffing noise, waving his hand in the air. He actually looked irritated. “You have no idea how much that pisses me off. To think that people are looking at me and assuming I’m too weak because of my sexual preference? It’s ridiculous. Being gay has no affect on my trigger finger.”
“Yet you left,” Mikhail pointed out.
“Ah.” Alexei was smirking now. “Ask yourself why I would do that. A man who had just made his first kill, become a full fledged member of the syndicate, and given no small amount of blood to do it. Why would I walk away?” He leaned back again the wall, putting the sole of one boot up on the cinder block wall and looking almost smug. “You’re my father’s heir now, isn’t that what Dimitri told me earlier?”
“Yes.” Mikhail shrugged. “So what? I’m not a coward.”
“No. You’re not.” Alexei pointed at Mikhail. “But I bet you’ve noticed a change in the way Stanislas treats you. Yes?”
Mikhail thought about speaking, but closed his mouth. Nothing he said would have any affect on Alexei. It was time to listen, not speak.
“My father is a paranoid old bastard.” The bitterness in Alexei’s tone said far more than his words did. “Everyone thinks I’m weak. They think because of what I am—because I’m gay—that I can’t be mafiya. But that’s not true. It would be different, yes.” Alexei waved his hand dismissively. “But I would have been happy enough to rip out any tongues that were wagging.” He paused for a moment, as if he were gathering his thoughts. “Then, my father started having me followed. He wanted me with him every second of every day. I was running errands like a child. He would rant and rave every single day about all those he thought were conspiring against him. Then, he accused me of trying to have him killed.”
“Did you?” Mikhail asked quietly. He could barely hear his own voice over the noise in the bar. “It wouldn’t have been the first time things were hurried along in such a way.”
“No!” Alexei looked affronted. “I loved my father. I would never hurt him. That’s why I left. I packed up one night and left a bullshit note.”
Dimitri picked up the thread of conversation. “I was there that night. You wrote your father and told him that you were gay and were going someplace where you would be accepted for who and what you are.”
“But that’s not really why I left,” Alexei snapped. “I left before my father could have me killed. One of my friends had already come to me, worried, because my father had approached him with a contract on my life. My life! He wanted my own best friend to kill me.”
“What happened to this friend?” Mikhail wanted to know.
“Aloysha,” Dimitri supplied. “He was declared a traitor. Stanislas had him executed.”
There were tears in Alexei’s eyes. “He was more than just my friend, you know. My father knew that. I told Aloysha not to go back. I wanted him to come with me. But he wanted to make sure that I was safe, that my father believed the note I had left.”
Dimitri’s expression was grim. “Stanislas didn’t waste any time. Aloysha was killed the night after you left, Alexei.”
“I know.” Alexei exhaled a ragged breath. “And if you are wise, Mikhail, you will remember my story when you are wondering why my father cannot seem to believe you when you say you are not plotting against him. You will remember me, and you will run.”
***
“YOU KNOW THE last time you tried to run away, things didn’t necessarily work out in your favor,” Jamie pointed out.
Tori relaxed on her back. She was lying on a fluffy beanbag in the middle of Jamie’s floor, just staring up at the ceiling. She laced her fingers behind her head and sighed. “That sort of depends on your definition of ‘working out in my favor.’ I’m tired of this crap! I shouldn’t have to put up with it.”
“So,” Jamie began slowly. “Before, you were pissed because he never touched you and your sex life sucked. Now you’re pissed because you’re having sex all the time?” She pressed her face into a couch pillow. “Pardon me for saying it, but I just can’t feel sorry for the woman who’s having stellar sex with a super hot guy because he can’t get enough of her.”
Tori turned her head, giving her friend a dirty look. “I want a relationship. Not just sex. The guy is treating me like a call girl. I’m not kidding! The only thing that’s missing is that lame pick up line where I ask him if he wants to party.”
“Ooo, or where he asks what your name is and you ask what he wants it to be!” Jamie was rolling on her back, cackling with mirth.
“You watch way too much television.” Tori opened her mouth to say something else, but the words never came out. Someone was knocking on Jamie’s front door. Tori stared at her friend, feeling a shot of adrenaline in her bloodstream. “Were you expecting someone? It’s three in the morning!”
“No.” Jamie got up and walked to the door. She put her eye to the peephole and then swung back around to face Tori. “It’s some guy. Looks like one of your mobsters. I think it’s that guy you were talking to the other night at the casino, you know?”
Tori got up out of the beanbag and walked to the door. “Who is it?” she called out in a firm but quiet voice.
“It’s Antonin Orlov. Open the door, little cousin, please?”
Tori recognized the voice, but there was no way she was opening the door. “It’s three in the morning, Antonin. Come back in the morning.”
She could hear his sigh through the door. “I have to tell you something.”
“So tell me.”
“It’s sort of private to be shouting through a door.” He didn’t sound annoyed, but Tori wasn’t taking chances.
“Meet me somewhere tomorrow then,” Tori suggested. “You can tell me then.”
“Fine.” He paused, ostensibly to figure out someplace to meet. “You know that restaurant called Little
Kiev?”
“Yeah. It’s Orlov run.” Tori also knew that there were very few civilians who ate at that place. It was very carefully guarded.
“Be there at ten o’clock in the morning.”
“Ten?” Tori groused. “That’s awfully early.”
“Fine.” Antonin was muttering in Russian. “Noon then.”
“Better. See you then.” Tori turned to Jamie, waiting until she heard Antonin’s boots at the other end of the hallway. “Guess I’d better get some sleep.”
“I don’t think you should go,” Jamie whispered. “What if it’s some kind of trap?”
“What trap? He is my cousin. What good would it do for him to trap me somewhere? What would he have to gain?” She bit her lip, thinking that she hadn’t seen her stepbrother in awhile and maybe it was getting to a point where she should find him and have a little chat about whatever the hell was going on.
“What?” Jamie pointed at her. “You’re doing that thing where you come up with all sorts of reckless things you’re going to do, but you don’t really have great reasons for putting yourself in danger.”
Tori pinched her friend in the arm.
“Ow!”
“There, apparently you’re not dreaming, so stop saying crazy things that make no sense.”
“That was mean, Tor.” Jamie rubbed her arm.
“Don’t you have to work in the morning?” Tori asked suddenly. “I just realized that you’re up all night and you actually have a job.”
“Yeah, but I work remote. Sometimes if I’m really sleepy I just nap on the couch and sort of half listen to conference calls or wait for the phone to wake me up if someone calls and actually needs something.”
“You’re lucky,” Tori grunted. “That sounds like the best job ever.”
“Says the woman whose only job is to get laid,” Jamie teased.
Tori knew her friend was just having fun and trying to lighten the mood, but the words stung a little. It was her job to have sex with her husband. It wasn’t as if she didn’t enjoy the work, but she wanted a little more in life. She wasn’t some empty headed bit of fluff that couldn’t handle the tough stuff. And she was starting to think there were a lot of things that Mikhail was keeping from her. The kind of things that could bite her in the ass just as badly as they could him. That meant that he was trying to keep her ignorant of what was happening in her own life. Tori didn’t want that at all. No matter how good the sex was.
