by Bethany-Kris
“I’m aware of that,” Adrik said dryly. “The arrangement would be a little … unconventional, sure.”
“That’s saying it lightly.”
“But it would also require a great deal of trust. Have I not shown you that? And respect, that too?”
Anton chewed on his thoughts. “You have. I’m listening, Adrik.”
“That’s all I want, Anton. Just listen. If you think it can be done to your satisfaction, I’m more than happy to work with you for the deal to be more to your benefit than mine, because eventually, it’ll come back to me tenfold, anyway.”
Anton watched his son climb up on a chair, kicking his little legs out and sitting straight and proud. He knew, without a doubt, he needed to set things up for his boy. Already, Demyan was so much like his father that it was hard to deny the likelihood of him not being involved in the Bratva when he was older.
“So,” Anton mused, drumming his fingers to the bar, “… work for me, hmm?”
Adrik grinned. “You’re as arrogant as they say, aren’t you?”
“Oh, yes. More so. Talk, I’m listening.”
Before the conversation could continue, three servers began bringing the dinner order up. Anton helped his wife get their son settled into a chair, though Viviana tried to convince Demyan to let her feed him.
“I’s a big boy, Ma,” Demyan said. “I’s can do it.”
Anton snorted under his breath. “I’m a big boy, little man. I can do it. Try not to make a mess.”
Demyan didn’t even bother to respond, instead focusing on the fork that was much too big for his tiny hand. Adrik’s daughter, however, jumped up into her father’s lap, happily allowing him to feed her bites from his plate and hers. All of Adrik’s attention was back on Sofia, as if she was his little princess.
Anton was reminded of how much he desired another child.
“That looks good,” Viviana said, pointing her fork towards the steak on Anton’s plate.
Raising his brow at his wife, Anton asked, “You’re interested in my steak, Vine, really?”
“I said it looked good. It does. What?”
Since when was his wife big on steak?
“Nothing, here …” Anton cut off a bite and held his fork out to Viviana. Grinning, she took the bite with a wink. “Good?”
“Very.”
“I can order another, if you want.”
“No,” she said. “I’ll just take bites of yours.”
“Fantastic,” Anton muttered. “So, I go home hungry. I see how this works, baby.”
Adrik watched the exchange with amusement. “You’ve been married three years, right?”
“A little more, yes,” Viviana replied. “Are you interested in being married? Maybe finding a mother for Sofia, Adrik?”
Anton nearly choked on the vegetable in his mouth. “Jesus, Vine! Not our business.”
“No, it’s okay.” Adrik smiled down at his daughter, offering her another small bite. “Eventually, maybe. Right now, though, my only concern for her is that she’s happy.”
“She’s a little girl,” Viviana said softly. “Right now it’s toys, dresses, and daddy. There’s going to come a time when she grows up into a little woman. Dances, dates, sex, periods—”
“Viviana, I am eating,” Anton managed to say, not remembering a time when his wife had embarrassed him so thoroughly before. “Not appropriate conversation for dinner.”
“Stop it,” she told him, rolling her brown eyes. “You’re being ridiculous. I’m only asking for Sofia, not to mortify you, Anton. Give it up and stop acting like a teenage boy. You know what a period is.”
“She has a point,” Adrik said, shrugging. “I’m aware of what my daughter needs, Vine. As she needs those things, I’ll provide them.”
“So you are looking for a mother for her.”
“Not actively, but I know she needs one.”
“But what about you? Don’t you want to have a woman you love and trust?” Viviana asked.
Anton desperately wanted to change the subject. “Adrik, our earlier conversation. What were you thinking of suggesting?”
Viviana took the hint and went back to eating, occasionally picking off Anton’s plate.
Adrik shot Anton a thankful glance before he said, “With your contacts and your assurance of my reputation to them, I could easily slip into the spot you hold now. I could ship and import, just the same as you do. However, they’d be working under the assumption they were dealing with only me.”
Anton waved for him to continue, chewing his steak.
“Like I said, you need the spotlight gone. You want to keep doing business. I can help with that. Your money, your product, and I can keep up the shipping end of it under my watch and name.”
Anton swallowed his food. “I can see what you mean about trust. You do realize I ship in the millions worth of product monthly, right?”
“I’m aware.”
“I won’t give you a percentage or product, Adrik.”
“I don’t want it. Just having the ability to get my own product in and a way to get it here gives me exactly what I need. But, I needed your contacts and your word to do it. It’s a good arrangement, for both of us. You get what you need, without doing much, and I get what I need.”
Anton picked up the napkin and wiped his mouth, leaning back in the chair. “If you stole from me—money, drugs, whatever—I would kill you.”
Beside him, Viviana didn’t react a bit to the declaration. While she had embarrassed him earlier, she was making it up to him tenfold now.
Adrik kissed the top of his daughter’s head. “I like my life, thank you.”
“I should hope so. You might be known for being ruthless, but do you know what they’ve come to call me, Adrik?”
“Brutal when crossed.” Adrik cocked his head to the side, amused. “Unstoppable. You have hordes of men loyal to you for the way you work and handle issues. I aspire to that. Who wouldn’t?”
Yes, Anton had to admit, he liked Adrik.
“To friendship, then?” Anton asked, feeling his wife’s hand squeeze his knee supportively under the table.
Adrik dipped his head. “To a friendship.”
With the dinner finished and the plates cleaned, conversation flowed to easier topics. Despite Demyan being a big boy like he professed earlier, he was curled up on his mother, his head resting against her chest and snoring while she rocked him like a baby. Even big boys got tired, apparently, and only then was it okay for them to act like infants. Sofia, too, had fallen asleep over her father’s shoulder.
“There’s one more thing I wanted to ask you, Anton,” Adrik began, still rubbing his daughter’s back.
Anton traced his fingers along his wife’s arm, content and quiet. “What’s that?”
“I’ve made it clear my first priorities are with my daughter …”
“You have,” Anton replied, confused. “I can relate. Why?”
“I want to insure her future, her safety. Things of that nature. I want to know that if something happened, and I was taken from her, she’ll be taken care of, loved, and protected.”
“Don’t we all,” Viviana put in from Anton’s side.
Anton agreed with a hum.
Adrik gave Viviana a pointed look that she missed, though Anton didn’t. “You did that quite well, didn’t you?”
“I tried,” Anton replied. “But I love Vine. I couldn’t imagine not being with her.”
Viviana’s head popped up, a bright smile coloring her beautiful features. “He did just fine.”
Anton wasn’t focusing on the words that were being said, he was focusing on the ones that weren’t. “What are you dancing around, Adrik? You’ve been frank with me all night. Suddenly you’re clamming up. It’s making me fucking nervous.”
“You risked a hell of a lot for your wife. You’re still facing the consequences, too.”
Viviana cleared her throat and stopped rocking Demyan. Clearly, by the frown she sported, A
drik’s comment had put her on edge. But, like the lady she was, she chose to take herself out of the equation.
“Anton, I need to use the ladies’ room, so if you wouldn’t mind taking him, please.”
“Sure, baby.”
Demyan switched arms, seemingly not noticing his new bed was his father’s much larger form. Anton reveled in the heat and quietness of his son as Viviana made her way through the dining area. Once out of view, Anton turned back to his new friend and ally.
“I think you offended my wife,” he said quietly. “Though I’m not sure why, so I’m not too angry about it.”
Adrik chuckled lowly. “Maybe she heard something you didn’t.”
“Like what?”
“Would your son do for a woman what you’ve done, Anton?”
“Excuse me?” Anton asked, confusion muddling up his mind.
“They’re close in age. They seem to get along just fine. Over the years, with the understanding of what was expected of them, they could very well find affections have grown between them. You and your wife a perfect example of this.”
Anton’s mind finally caught up to speed. Fuck, he was usually a lot quicker at shit like this. “You’re suggesting an arranged marriage between Demyan and Sofia.”
“It’s an interesting idea, you have to admit. Not only would it guarantee my daughter a future, you will have cemented your son with part of his.”
“Adrik, I think you have some things confused. My wife and I had but two meetings growing up. I resented my family for the choices they took away from me. Actually, I gave them hell for it.”
“Yet, it’s obvious you love her, now,” Adrik pointed out quietly.
“Because I fell in love with her. In the end, I made the choice myself. Not because my family wanted me to. Viviana and I are a special case. Had she been a different woman, we wouldn’t be like we are. I’d likely have a mistress, or more. Maybe I’d have had a woman I loved on the side, and a family with her. I’m aware what I could have been like. I see it in men around me every day.”
Adrik looked off to the side, sighing. “I want to know my daughter will be more than just okay in the future. Especially where a husband is concerned.”
Anton nodded, understanding that more than anything. “Then let her. I don’t know how my son will grow, or who he’s going to be, but I know he’s going to do it on his own. By his own will and his own choices. Not because I made them for him. If he falls in love with a woman, it will be because he picked her, not because I did.
“And,” Anton continued with a conspiratorial grin, “… if this partnership of ours continues to be good, then our children will cross paths more than once, I imagine. Let them grow, Adrik. If they find affection, as you said, they find it. I don’t think you have to worry about cementing your daughter’s future. She has you for a father, after all. Look at all you’ve done for her so far.”
“Considering everything I’ve done so far has been for her, that,” Adrik said, staring down at Sofia, “… is what scares me the most.”
Chapter Eleven
“Mmm, fuck you taste good right here,” Anton murmured, his teeth scraping along Viviana’s pulse point in her neck. “And here …”
“Sure,” Viviana replied, her voice muffled by a pillow. “I probably taste awful right now. I need a shower.”
“No, no. More like sunlight and sex. I had to get up early anyway for a meeting at Seven Lights, so I figured you might want to get up with me before I go.”
Seven Lights was finally opened back up for regular business, but Anton made it clear to her the Bratva side of things were being taken care of elsewhere. Whatever business meeting he put together was probably for his employees.
“Are you going to drop Demyan off at daycare?” Viviana asked.
“I can if you want me to. You’re going in to open the bookstore, right?”
“Yeah, around noon, but I need to go into the clinic for my appointment.”
Anton didn’t question her on what the appointment was for, and Viviana was grateful. It was bad enough he’d began asking her when, or if, she wanted to think about trying for another child. She did, and she told him that, but she also wanted to wait until after the trial, for obvious reasons. Beyond that issue, Viviana’s cycle hadn’t returned since her miscarriage in February. It was now May. Why hadn’t her cycle returned? She couldn’t actually get pregnant if she didn’t have a period, for Christ’s sake, but she didn’t want to tell Anton there might be something wrong with her body and worry him. Hence, the appointment.
While Anton kept up his kisses and bites along Viviana’s neck, waking her body up to the morning light filtering into their bedroom, she turned to look at the clock on the nightstand. It was way too early for Anton to be waking her up like he was.
“I could use the extra thirty minutes of sleep I might have left, you know,” Viviana muttered, tilting her head away from another one of his tantalizing kisses. The heat between her thighs was starting to spread, never mind the juices she could already feel leaking from her pussy. Another gentle bite landed to her shoulder, Anton’s hand slid between her legs to cup her heated sex, and Viviana gasped. “Jesus, come on, Anton.”
“I’m going to use those thirty minutes to do something terribly naughty to my sexy wife. Like fucking her soft and slow from behind while she plays with that sweet pussy of hers. Wake up, Vine, and I promise you’ll be coming really fucking soon.”
That dirty mouth of his was something she found impossible to resist.
“You’re awful,” she told him, looking back over her shoulder. “Just terr—oh fuck, yeah.”
His fingers between her legs spread her fleshy folds. Using only two fingers, he circled the sensitive entrance of her pussy, gathering the slick arousal on his digits, before running his touch back up to her clit. Over and over he provoked her body like that, slow and gentle, making her jerk every time he came in contact with her swollen, needing bundle of nerves. Anton never penetrated her with his fingers, though, simply teased her entrance until she was backing into his hand, begging him for more.
“Mmhmm, that’s what I want to hear from you, baby.”
Reaching out, Viviana caught his free hand with her own, intertwining their fingers together. The weight of Anton’s body behind her, his cock hard, driving into the small of her back, pushed Viviana deeper into the bedding. God, she loved the weight of him—all of him. Tighter she squeezed his fingers as he circled her clit once more with a little more pressure than before. Enough to make her legs tremble and the muscles in her stomach clench. More wetness seeped from her sex.
“You smell so fucking good. Get those fingers of yours down here. Come on, Vine,” Anton breathed, dark and sinful into her ear. “Give me what I want, and I’ll give it back just how you like.”
“Fuck, please! Just … God, Anton, don’t stop, just don’t fucking stop.”
“Never, baby. Now …”
Anton drove their connected hands under Viviana’s body, stopping only when he’d come to the needing junction between her thighs. Spreading her fingers wide, Viviana could feel how wet he’d made her with his simple teasing and light touches. Slick from arousal and tender from being coaxed into near bliss, her clit was hot under her touch. Slowly, she began a gentle circling rhythm of her own, feeling her husband’s fingers finally slip into her tightening core.
Viviana moaned at the intrusion. “You don’t even know …”
“Know what?” Anton asked, surprising Viviana at how close to her face he was. “How high you are already? That you’re burning up just how I like? Oh, I know. I always fucking know.”
Then, his fingers were leaving her soaked sex, trailing up higher with an enticing leisureliness. It was only when he came to the entrance of her ass, spreading the wetness from her pussy that he finally stopped. With each circle he drew over the tight, puckered hole, Anton pressed with a little more pressure until his digits were sinking in past the clenching ring.
&nbs
p; “Love your ass,” Anton told her, his tone thick like rolling molasses. “So tight, baby. Breathe and feel, Viviana.”
Viviana’s back arched at the delicious sting his fingers created when they thrust harder, and deeper. It wasn’t that she put anal on the table often, because she didn’t, but she loved when Anton played with his fingers, working her ass while he fucked her, or even when he was on his knees and his mouth was tasting her pussy.
Melting into the ravenous hunger building inside her body, twisting deep in her womb, Viviana barely recognized Anton’s hand leaving her own between her thighs. His arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her up to her knees so her ass was higher in the air. The cool air of the room whispered along her exposed sex and Viviana knew without a doubt, Anton had the best view of her pussy and ass on display for him.
She couldn’t even bring herself to care.
The keening cries in the back of her throat built in intensity, moving higher like the wave of pleasure washing over her skin and nerves. Every thrust of his fingers inside her ass took her closer to the cliff. Every swipe of hers along her clit threatened to break her further.
Viviana was so fucking close to coming it was ridiculous.
She couldn’t even speak to tell Anton.
She didn’t have to. In the next second, the arm he held snug around her waist released its grip only long enough for Viviana to feel the crest of his cock sliding up and down her slit, spreading more of her juices. All the while, his fingers in her ass kept up that punishing, deep rhythm while hers rolled faster over her pulsing clit.
Anton took her slow, working his cock through the clenching muscles of her pussy. Every inch he gave, he took it right back until Viviana was backing into his shaft on her own, needing to feel him fill her, fuck her, and own her like only he could. It was only when he’d filled her totally that Anton let go of the base of his cock.
For a moment, Viviana stayed still, reveling in the way he’d filled her sex, her ass, and how her body quivered from the attention she was giving to her clit, too. Wet and hot was a fucking understatement. From the wetness between her thighs to the perspiration beading on her skin, she felt soaked and burned.
