by Nicole Fox
The sales assistant, Louisa, puts dresses in my arms like they’re babies. While I told her my preferences, she seems insistent on basing my choices on my body frame, skin tone, and hair color. Her latest one is a short dress that resembles a rose with its color and layers.
I glance at Lev. He’s sitting on one of their sofas while intently focused on his phone. He could be intentionally ignoring me or merely plotting someone’s death. It’s completely possible that he’s doing both.
I go back into the dressing room. Three sides of the room have massive mirrors that cover their walls. There’s also a stool, where I set my clothes after I undress again. I’m a little less self-conscious compared to the first three times I’ve changed but there’s still a feeling that I’m not like the other women who walk in here—the thin, tall, ex-model arm candy of rich husbands. I couldn’t even get the first dress over my hips. These dresses are for women who don’t need a police chief father in order to find their way to Lev’s bed.
I pull the dress up, taking a breath as I manage to sneak it past my hips.
So Lev is part of the Bratva. He’s capable of killing people. In all likelihood, that man he killed in front of me was not the first man he ever killed. He didn’t hesitate at all when the man was completely defenseless. The only reason he didn’t shoot him right away was because I interrupted him. If he’s willing to kill a defenseless man, is he willing to kill anyone? Everyone? Or is it only people who try to hurt him?
I take the dress off. It pinches at my waist and I hate the prom-esque look of it. I get dressed again and take the dress out to Louisa.
“It’s just not right,” I tell her. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be so picky.”
“That’s fine.” Louisa waves away my concern. “This one might be better for you. With your pale skin and your hourglass body, it will make you look gorgeous. I believe that, one hundred percent.”
I take the dress from her, but I’m focused on Lev, who is talking to someone now, his lip curled up in a small snarl. I try to hear what he’s saying, but he’s keeping his voice quiet. His lips form a few curses.
Louisa’s eyes are on me, waiting for me to try on her dress. I retreat to the dressing room and shed my clothing again.
Can I be that critical of Lev for the murder he committed after what I did? They were both in self-defense. And, in the murder he committed, he was protecting me. It was a life for a life and I can’t be ungrateful that the life that was spared was mine. If he’d hesitated for a second—if he was inexperienced in killing—a mortician could be dressing me instead of me dressing myself.
I pull the dress up. It fits. I check myself in the mirror.
My throat swells. My legs fill with lead.
It’s a simple white dress. The ruffles on the skirt make it look like a waterfall.
It’s not exactly like the dress I was wearing on the night of the car crash—the stitching is a lot more intricate on this one and the other one had a top that resembled a corset while this one is looser—but I can see myself in that dress that night. I remember putting it on and believing it was going to be just another fun night.
I remember the blood staining it. Being certain some of the blood wasn’t mine.
I crouch down. I lean my forehead against the mirror. My breath steams the glass, though it feels like it’s getting trapped in my chest.
I see the other car coming closer and closer. I start to scream, but it’s not soon enough for Lily to swerve.
Sweat drips onto the mirror. My chest feels like it’s cracking open—maybe because we hit the sign so hard that the seat belt left bruises I could still see long after they faded.
I open my eyes. Julia is crawling into the car, her words soothing, though they’re not making sense to me. There’s a drop of blood clinging to the edge of my eyelid. It’s obscuring my view. I turn to look forward. I see Lily in the rearview mirror. Her head is lolling back.
I can’t see her clearly, but I know she’s dead.
I’m shaking.
Julia is talking to me.
Lev is talking to me.
His arm is around me, pulling me away from the mirror. He must be kneeling because I feel his legs on either side of me. His hands rub my arms, moving over me like his touch might skim off the ache.
“Is she okay?” Louisa’s voice asks.
“She will be,” Lev says. “We need a moment.”
“Of course, absolutely. Take as much time as you need.”
High heels click away. Lev caresses my hair. There’s a sense of tranquility that sinks from my scalp to the rest of my body. I rest my head on his chest. My breathing calms; the memories scatter. I listen to his heartbeat.
Even as a child, I never felt truly secure. I was anxious, worried about my dad getting hurt while working. But with Lev comforting me, all of that washes away. I still care about everybody, but it doesn’t grip me to the point that it’s constantly on my mind.
It makes no sense because he has brought an immense amount of stress in my life and I don’t think I can trust him. The lingering threat of what he could do to me and everyone I love is how he keeps me under his thumb.
“You’re someone I would never hurt,” Lev says, as if reading my mind.
I have no reason to believe him, but he says it with the same conviction as when he told me he was in the Bratva. Still, I have to wonder who else he would hurt. It’s not me that I’m most worried about. I dug my own grave.
It’s the rest of the people I love. My dad, my mother, and Julia—they’re all innocent.
He must see the conflict in my face and kisses me lightly on the lips. It’s lacking any sensuality or implication. In the logical part of my brain, I know he meant it as a gesture of comfort. It was a way to calm me. But the other part of my brain is filled with ricocheting intensity and needs an outlet.
My hands grasp both sides of his face. I kiss him like a crashing wave. He lets me have full control for a second or two, receiving all of my grief. When his hands sink into my hair, gripping onto it, we become combatants. We clash against each other, our lips exploding against each other.
When he pulls the dress away from my chest, it tears. I stand up, yanking it off the rest of the way and tearing more of it. He stands up. He unbuckles his belt, pulls it out, and lets it drop to the floor. His eyes stay on me, hungry and demanding, as he pulls down his pants.
His erection is barely restrained by his boxer briefs. I touch my mouth, recalling our phone conversation, and stand up, my legs almost shaking.
He steps up to me, his hands cradling my head as he kisses me. The kiss is rushed but still punctuated with intensity. His erection presses up against me.
I pull down my underwear. As I bend over to get it off my ankles, my face comes close enough to his erection that I have half a mind to go through our phone-call scenario. I stand up straight again, a faint pulse between my legs.
As I look down at myself, I see the flaws again. The small breasts, the stomach without the visible abs, and the layer of fat on my hips. Lev mentioned that he’d slept with models. In comparison, I’m a consolation prize, or worse.
I keep my head down, thinking of ways to talk my way out of this. All those models must be much more experienced than I am too. He wouldn’t have slept with them if they weren’t.
There’s movement in front of me. Lev’s shirt has been dropped on the floor. I glance up at him.
He wasn’t lying about the weight training. His chest is a testament to what weight training can do. His body must be pure muscle, every part of his chest and waist firm and defined, run through with rippling veins.
His wound from last night is slightly red but there are also some rough stitches holding it together. It’s not the only mark on his body—there are at least a dozen scars, in various sizes and states of fading.
It could mean a million different bad things and I don’t care about any of them right now.
He pulls down his boxer briefs and kicks th
em off.
I imagined his cock on the phone. Of course, I did. I imagined it to be larger than average with a decent thickness.
I underestimated him.
“Take the stool. Put it up against the mirror in front of you and remain facing the mirror,” he commands.
The stool has an iron frame, but the cushion seems comfortable enough. I pull it in front of me and look into the mirror. I see the two of us. He has to be at least eight inches taller than me. His body looks like a mountain, sturdy and carved of stone, ready to swallow me in its depths.
“Kneel,” he orders. I get onto the stool. I have no idea what he’s planning. The pulse between my thighs is getting stronger and begging for attention.
I watch him in the mirror, approaching me. His cock presses under my ass. I open my legs the smallest bit.
His hands grasp my hips. His cock rubs against my wetness. A small groan slips out of me. He presses his hand against my spine, forcing me to bend forward. My face is less than an inch away from the mirror. The head of his cock presses against my entrance. I reach back toward him, but before my hand reaches him, he plunges into me.
It’s like a spark of electricity shoots through me, ending straight where his cock ends. Blood is as hot as fire as it burns through me. It’s like closed gates were opened inside my body and the only tension is my desperate need for more of him. It’s natural and extraordinary.
He keeps a tight grip on my hips as he pulls out. When he thrusts back in, it’s the same flood of sensations. He keeps a slower pace, teasing me when he pulls out and fulfilling me as he thrusts back into me.
I look up, seeing us in the mirror. His left hand moves up, cupping one of my breasts. I place my hand over his as he massages my breasts. He starts to thrust faster, rapidly increasing in speed. I have to press my hand against the mirror to stop myself from hitting my head against it. As I continue watching us, he locks eyes with me. He kisses the side of my neck before nuzzling his face against the curve of it.
When he looks up again, there’s the slightest smirk on his face. He slows down his thrusts again. His right hand slides down from my hip to the front of my pussy. His fingers circles around it. My body twitches as he comes closer and closer to my clit. When he’s close enough that I’m swaying my hips to get that bit of pressure from his fingers, he flattens his hand. He taps my clit with his open hand. It sends a jolt through me. Before I can recover, his hand rests over the front of my pussy and every time he thrusts into me, my clit jostles against his hand.
For the first time, powerlessness is a blessing.
Lev presses his forehead against my shoulder. His thrusts start getting faster. His breathing becomes more labored. I bite my lip as I realize small moans are slipping out of me. There’s heat and throbbing building up in my pussy. It’s intimidating, but I know I’d chase after whatever is coming no matter what.
It hits me a lot harder than when I got myself off. My whole body goes stiff as my pussy rapidly squeezes Lev’s cock. An eruption of ecstasy hits me, reverberating in every part of my body. It’s almost surpassed when Lev growls and I feel his hot pleasure fill me.
He slowly pulls out. I nearly fall off the stool, but he catches me and lays me down on the floor. There’s so much that should be consuming me, eating me from the inside, but as he kisses me, the world could burn and I’d let it. The courtrooms could be destroyed and all the judges could lose their jobs—I’d be fine with it. There’s no such thing as desire right now except for how much I want to be here with Lev.
In this moment, it’s the only justice that matters.
11
Lev
After we have sex, I leave the building to smoke. When I return, Louisa gushes about Allison spotting the perfect dress.
The dress is wrapped up in a box, so I never see it. I shouldn’t care. In my tax bracket, I’ve seen every kind of dress, from rich old widows in an abundance of frills to young gold diggers outfitted in sheer material. More to the point, I’ve seen plenty of dresses crumpled on the floor with a naked woman standing over them and they all look unimportant in those moments.
So why do I care about this one?
Why does the thought of Allison stepping out of her room in something I’ve never seen before thrill me so much?
I can’t explain it. So I ignore it.
Back at my estate a short while later, Allison sprawls on the couch.
I set her cards on her chest. “Thank you.” She smiles lazily at me. It’s so carefree, so satisfied, I can’t help but smile back.
“We could still implement a mix of interrogation poker and strip poker,” I say. “We could both end up winners.”
“It would also distract us and the gala is tomorrow night. Focus, sir,” she drawls, wiggling her eyebrows with the last word. She must know it should irk me, her joking disrespectful—and yet, it doesn’t.
She peeks at her cards and sets them back on her chest. I give myself two cards and flip over three more onto the table.
“We have plenty of time. We’re doing things my way. So here’s the new set of rules,” I say. “You can fold, but it means you have to take off a piece of clothing. You can raise, but if you lose, you’ll have to take off two pieces of clothing. But if you raise and you win, I’ll answer two questions.”
“You are very confident in the cards you haven’t seen,” she laughs.
“At some point, I’ll end up on top—in every way.”
She squirms. “I’m not going to raise.”
I check my cards. Hmm. I flip over another card. Her eyes light up for the briefest moment before she starts to fiddle with her bra strap.
“Do you want to raise?” I ask. She glances at me, a smirk growing on her face.
“Yeah. I do. Two pieces of clothing, Lev.”
I flip the last card. Life is too good to me.
“Well,” she says, dropping her cards on the table. “I hope you like three of a kind.”
“I do,” I say. I lay my cards down. “But I like a straight better.”
“Son of a gun.” She sits up. “How do you do that? It’s a game of luck!”
“You can convince yourself of that if you like, but you still need to take two pieces of clothing off.”
Allison hesitates, a shy half smile lingering on her face as she surveys what’s available. She isn’t wearing socks—she never put them back on after the shower she took when we got back from the store. It leaves her clothing options rather limited.
“You know what?” she says suddenly, straightening up and beaming. “This is good. I’m going to go in with a whole new tactic.”
She pulls off her shirt. I raise an eyebrow as she unhooks her bra and tosses it to me. Her breasts sway with her movement. It’s hard to not imagine my mouth on them, my hand cupping them both as I’m fucking her from behind. Just a finger brush against the nipple to feel it stiffen under my touch.
My face must be an open book, because it takes only a moment for her smile to widen. She’s glowing with pride at turning the tables on me. All I can do is laugh and shift around to try to hide the growing steel between my legs. I can’t let her know just how dramatic of an effect her body has on me.
“It looks like my tactic is working,” she says confidently. “Deal again.”
I shuffle the cards, but I keep my eyes on her. She smiles at me. She knows she has me. God, I could fuck her over and over. I could fuck her so hard, it would destroy that ten thousand dollar couch and I’d just move on to fucking up the next piece of furniture.
“I think you’ve shuffled enough,” she mentions, her finger trailing between her breasts.
“You’re far too confident,” I say. I lean forward to place the two cards between her breasts. I let my hand linger as I feel her sharp inhale.
“Don’t hate the player, hate the game,” she says. “Specifically, the person who invented the new rules.”
I pull my hand back and place two cards in front of me.
“Let�
�s get you naked,” I say. I flip over three cards. “Raise?”
“Nah.”
I check my cards before flipping the next card.
“Raise?” I ask again.
“Nope.”
I flip the last card and look up at her. It’s hard to focus on her face.
“I’m not going to raise,” she says. I lay down my cards.
“Two pair,” I say.
“Mmm.” Her eyes crinkle as she smiles wider.
“You have a better hand.”
“You don’t know that,” she argues.
“You’re smiling like you won the lottery. You weren’t smiling that much in the beginning, so you either have a better two pair or three of a kind. I’m going to go with the latter.”
“Three ladies!” she says, laying down her queen. “I should have raised. That means I have to make this question a good one.”
“Go ahead.”
She contemplates me, her eyes skimming over mine like she can see right through me—see all my thoughts clanging against each other.
“Tell me about your parents.”
“That’s not a question.”
“Okay. What was your childhood like?”
As much as I want to, I can’t pass on the question. It would violate our agreement on the game’s rules. “Chaotic.”
I gather up the cards, pushing them together until they’re stacked.
She reaches forward, her breasts baiting me. She snatches her bra from my lap and starts putting it back on. We lock eyes.
“If you don’t play by the rules, then I’m not going to,” she says.
“I answered the question. If you wanted a different answer, you should have asked a different question.”
She finishes clasping the back of her bra. She fixes the straps. “And I took off my clothes. Now I’m putting them back on. I’m certain my father won’t find it strange at all that I don’t know what your parents do.”
She picks up her shirt. The fear yanks at me again like a parachute being pulled. I’m not this cowardly.
“They’re both dead,” I whisper. “You can spin any love story about them that you want to.”
