“What’s wrong?” she asked softly, mewling when he delivered another smack.
Grin back on his lips, he asked, “Do you liked being spanked, baby?”
She swallowed, then nodded.
He delivered more light swats, just enough to turn her buttocks pink, to see his handprints over her.
“Spread,” he ordered.
She did, until her cunt peeked from the curls of her pubic hair. He gave them a playful tug, making her moan. Without warning, he gripped her hips and slid inside her with one eager and ruthless thrust. She groaned, gripping the carpet, making him remember the little crescent marks she’d left behind on his skin with her nails.
They marked each other up good, so the world would know they were taken. Owned. He held her here captive, but she would keep a piece of his heart forever. Seemed like an equal trade.
“You’re so big,” she whispered.
Reaching between their bodies, he began massaging her clit, until it turned swollen.
“I’m going to make you feel good soon,” he promised.
He began working in and out of her, slow and steady motions at first, until she pleaded with him to pick up the pace. With each push, he went further, branding her insides so she’d never be able to compare him to any other man.
Fuck. Letting go of the one good thing in his life hurt worse than anything he’d ever experienced. She deserved better though, not punishing strokes, so he made sure with each entry, he brushed against her clit.
She gasped when he rolled his hips. Aiming for her sweet spot, he hit her there again, fingers sinking deep into her hips. Her back arched, telling him she was close, and so was he.
“Give it to me, baby. Surrender.” He pinched her clit, and her back rose in a graceful arch. She came, screaming out his name.
Dimitri sated his lust, pistoning in and out of her until his mind splintered. With a snarl, he exploded inside the condom. He slowed his thrusts and pulled out after.
What would it be like, to ride Sonia bareback? He’d fill her with his cum, both holes leaking, until he’d gotten her with child. His kid. Dimitri killed that line of thought.
She sighed like a happy kitten. His good girl.
“Don’t fall asleep on the floor, baby. I still need to serve you breakfast in bed.”
She rubbed at her eyes, let him help her to his feet.
“Really?” she asked, when he set her on the edge of the bed.
“Why not?” he kissed the top of her head. “Wait here. I’ll get us cleaned up and we can eat together.”
She squinted at him, frowning. “Why are you being so sweet?”
How could this woman read him so easily like an open book, when his enemies had a hard time figuring him out?
“Are you saying all I can be is a brute?” he asked, amused. Teasing was good. He hated the necessary deception and she would hate him after, but this was for the best.
She quickly shook her head, the suspicion there disappearing as she fell back against the pillows. Sonia looked like a tempting siren now, lazy smile curving on her lips.
Fuck, he wanted to make slow love to her now. If he kept at this though, he would refuse to leave.
“I could get used to waking up to this,” she said.
Dimitri had never wanted anything so badly though. He turned his back, so she couldn’t see the sorrow and regret in his face. “Me too, baby.”
****
Sonia’s head felt fuzzy, like it was stuffed with cotton. Peeling her eyes open worsened the nausea. Sunlight hit her face. The world passed her by, a constant motion of trees. She was in a car.
Sitting up, she rubbed her temples, trying to recall what happened. Sex with Dimitri, and then he’d offered to make her breakfast. She sat up.
“You’re finally awake,” an unfamiliar man’s voice remarked.
Decidedly awake now, she stiffened, back straight. The driver wasn’t Dimitri, but another man in a plain black and white suit. Like Dimitri, this huge was huge, buff, covered in ink.
“Who are you?” She kept her voice even. Panicking wouldn’t get her anywhere, especially not in Dimitri’s world.
“I’m Sergei. Dimitri introduced us this morning,” Sergei said. Hooded forest green eyes glanced at her through the rearview mirror.
She vaguely recalled being alarmed by the dangerous man joining them at the morning table.
“Dimitri called you his brother,” she murmured.
“Indeed, although we aren’t related by blood. He asked me to take care of you, so I will.”
Sonia gripped his car seat and leaned forward, not caring about the cut of the shoulder holster peering underneath Sergei’s jacket. This man was capable of getting his hands dirty. She knew that from one look and he wouldn’t show restraint either, but the way he spoke about Dimitri—like Dimitri wasn’t ever coming back, alarmed her.
“What do you mean by that?” Sonia remembered Dimitri pulling her to his lap, lifting a glass of cool orange juice to her lips. Then she swore. Realization dawned on her. No wonder he’d looked so anxious for her to take a sip. “That fucking bastard drugged me!”
Startled, Sergei nearly lost control of the wheel, but grabbed it in time. They drove out of the woods now and were back on the highway. The interior of the car looked unfamiliar, she realized. This wasn’t Dimitri’s ride.
“Christ, woman. I thought you’re a teacher,” Sergei pointed out.
“I am. I was,” Sonia corrected at the last minute, gritting her teeth.
What happened in the past few days hadn’t changed that bit. Sonia liked to guide kids, to see them grow up. That was one part of her she’d never give up. She’d told Dimitri that, and he understood.
By staying with him, she thought she had to make a choice. They were being hunted down by the Ivanov family. Survival came first, and she chose him. She might have begun as his prisoner, an unwilling accomplice, but being with a man who made her feel alive wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Besides, she had plenty of her heart to give. To the kids she might never see again. A huge chunk to him. What had Dimitri done?
“I thought teachers didn’t curse,” Sergei grumbled.
“Sergei, tell me what he did,” she insisted.
Sonia had an inkling of Dimitri’s line of thoughts. For all his talk of keeping her, he never once mentioned being together. Sergei, she recalled, was the guy he’d met with yesterday. Someone he trusted, although she wasn’t entirely sure of that. Trust had to be earned, not bought.
Sergei shook his head. “It’s better if you don’t know. Wait, what the hell are you doing?”
The car skidded to the side of the road to a halt. Sonia climbed over and sat beside Sergei.
“Fine. If you don’t want to talk, take me to him,” she said simply.
Sergei let out a laugh. “Little lady, you’re in no position to make demands.”
Sonia leaned forward until her face was mere inches from Sergei, as if she meant to kiss him. He jerked back, taken aback, as if never in a million years anticipating her forward gesture. Closing her hand on the handle of his revolver, she pulled it out, unlocked the safety and gripped it with both hands, just like how Dimitri had taught her.
“How about now?”
Sergei cursed. “I can see why he’s willing to risk it all for a woman like you.”
“I’m one of a kind, whatever. Stop being cute. Tell me.”
“You’re going to hold me at gunpoint until you get answers? Can you really shoot me? I’m your last hope, teach. Without me, you won’t stand a chance out there.”
Sonia couldn’t help herself. She cracked up, which only seemed to unsettle Sergei. “Dimitri told me that, too. Poor helpless schoolteacher. She’ll die the moment she returns to her old life, because the monsters will come out as soon as it’s dark.”
Sergei frowned at her.
“I have no intentions of returning to my old life, not until I see Dimitri. Now tell me or I’ll shoot you in the fo
ot first, then move to the rest of you.”
Sonia didn’t know where she got all this bravado from. Holding this infernal weapon sapped all the strength out of her, but to her credit, her hands didn’t tremble.
Shooting a man wasn’t her intention, especially not Dimitri’s best friend. She needed Sergei to like her, if she and Dimitri planned on spending the rest of their lives together.
“I can see Dimi’s had a bad influence on you.” Sergei’s hand blurred, and in a fraction of a second, he reversed their positions.
Sonia held her breath, but she didn’t resort to pleas, simply stared down at the barrel. Sergei wouldn’t shoot her. These men held some twisted code of honor even if they constantly broke the laws of the world. Days ago, she would have reacted differently. Dimitri had changed her, altered her for the good or bad, she didn’t know.
“The moment he took me, he put a part of himself in me. I love him, Sergei,” she said softly.
“Fuck.” Sergei placed the revolver down, tucked it back in its holster and stared out the car windows. “He wanted me to arrange a meeting with the boss, to explain why he killed Vlad.”
Her heart beat faster at those words. “Will Vasily Ivanov listen?”
“The boss sees Dimitri like a younger brother, but he’s not blood,” Sergei finally said, looking at her in the eye. It felt like he was about to deliver a death blow to her soul. “Vasily would want retribution for Vlad’s death.”
Chapter Thirteen
“Weapons, all of them,” one of the suits guarding the door ordered.
Johnny avoided looking at Dimitri completely. Fine with him. Dimitri wasn’t here to socialize. He took off his holster. His knives followed. One couldn’t have too many of those in case he ran out of bullets.
He let the suit pat him done.
“Clear,” the guy said, turning the doorknob.
Being back in Vlad’s office felt surreal. Did Dimitri wish he’d done things differently? He remembered the feel of Sonia on his lap, those sexy lips of hers turning upwards to a smile as she sipped the orange juice he offered.
No.
Once Dimitri made a decision, he stuck by his guns. Screw the consequences. He entered the door. Vasily sat in the chair Vlad had died in. Pretty morbid, if you asked Dimitri. He took in the new details of the office. Cleaned and swept bare of carpets and Vlad’s shit, it looked like an empty space now, save for the desk and chair.
Aleks lounged by the wall corner, holding a gun loosely by his leg, ready to draw. His executioner then, but his mind went back to the shooting. Aleks had missed him on purpose. Did that mean the hitman didn’t want him dead? Judging by the glare, Dimitri guessed right. Perhaps Aleks wondered why he'd didn’t cut his losses and run. If Dimitri got out of this alive, he’d explain to Aleks. Someday, he would need to make the hard choices, too, and that there was something else beyond the shades of murky gray of their world
One chair, not two, Dimitri noticed, for maximum discomfort perhaps?
Finally, Dimitri met the gaze of the man who had taken him in when no one else would. Every crime family knew his was made of contract killers who possessed no loyalty, save for money.
Being in his late thirties made Vasily the youngest boss among the other bosses of the Bratva. Only the foolish crossed him. Vasily had earned the respect of the other Family heads long ago. Vengeance was a tricky business, Dimitri knew.
Another family had double-crossed and butchered most of Vasily’s family when he was eighteen, leaving only Vasily and Vlad alive. Vasily had forged a path of blood, taken the heads of those who made his loved ones suffer, and restored the Ivanov’s family name. Vasily didn’t forgive easily. Dimitri knew he wouldn’t walk out of this office alive, and he was ready to pay penance for his crimes.
Eyes black as coal regarded him from a scarred face.
“I’ve received Sergei’s reports on my brother,” Vasily began, taking a cigar from a case on the desk and lighting it. “Tell me, Dimitri. You were the last man who I expected betrayal from. Over time, you’ve proven your loyalty to me, to the Family. Why now?”
Dimitri answered without hesitation. “Sonia was innocent in all of this. Vlad took a client’s money and murdered him in cold blood. Sonia’s no one’s consolation prize.”
Vasily furrowed his brows, inhaled from his cigar and exhaled. Rings of smoke rose upwards. “Do you think I’m a fucking fool, Dimitri? That you’d kill for some whore?”
Anger surged through Dimitri like a wave. He clenched his fist. Aleks moved a little closer to the boss, although Dimitri doubted Vasily needed the protection. He’d seen Vasily kill before, and the man could more than handle himself.
He was tempted to lunge across the desk, wrap his hands around Vasily’s throat for calling his woman a whore, but he reminded himself Vasily didn’t outright kill him. Vasily was willing to come here, hear him out.
“Sonia was a schoolteacher, merely a woman caught in the web of our world,” he finally said. “She wasn’t his to break and ruin. She’s mine.”
Vasily leaned back against the chair, studying Dimitri like he was a puzzle Vasily couldn’t quite figure out.
“You speak of this woman like a man in love, Dimitri. I thought that didn’t exist in your dictionary.”
“She changed all that.”
“You should know. Vlad might be a piece of shit, but his blood flows in my veins. Family means everything to me,” Vasily eventually said.
“I understand all that.”
Those frightening eyes that gave nothing away met his, but Dimitri realized Vasily was trying his best to understand why he’d emptied an entire round into Vlad’s chest.
“Why did you come here, Dimitri? To finish what you started and go after me, too?” Vasily asked, looking more tired than Dimitri had ever seen him.
No surprise, given a turf war was going on. Word must have gotten out to the other rival families that one of Vasily’s own men had murdered his brother. The Ivanov family couldn’t be seen as weak.
“I’m here to ask you for a favor.”
“You fucking dare ask something of me, after all you’ve done?” Vasily didn’t raise his voice, didn’t need to. Those dead eyes weighed down Dimitri’s soul.
“Yes. Take my life. It was always yours. Sonia’s gotten caught in a crossfire. Her dream is to teach. Give her back her life. She knows nothing about the Family. Let her go.”
Arguing voices rose outside, and Dimitri turned, frowning. The door burst open. He glimpsed the suit who patted him down slumped against the wall, unconscious. Johnny’s voice rose, mingled with a familiar man’s.
“The boss is in a meeting,” Johnny was saying. “Don’t fucking make me shoot you.”
“Stand down, kid. No one has to die today.”
Sergei.
What the fuck?
Sergei was supposed to be far away from the reach of the Family by now. His heart thundered when Sergei shoved Johnny away and entered the room.
Dimitri knew Aleks and Vasily drew their guns. His own hand fumbled for the revolver he forgot was confiscated. Seeing who else Sergei dragged with him, he swore.
He’d never expected to see Sonia in the flesh again. No bruises as far as he could see. By some damn miracle, she’d managed to convince Sergei to drive straight back here. Dimitri would have been impressed, if he wasn’t so pissed off at her. A stranger convincing Sergei to do anything was a feat in itself.
Fuck. If Dimitri knew she was this stubborn, he would have increased the drug dosage. Tied her up.
“What the fuck is going on here? This isn’t a damn marketplace. Sergei, are you turning your back on me, too?” Vasily demanded.
“No way in hell, boss. I came by to return what rightfully belongs to Dimitri,” Sergei said, cocky grin on his face.
Dimitri wanted to punch his lights out, but Sergei wasn’t his enemy. Two men had their guns pointed at him and Sonia. Grabbing her, he planted himself in front of her, shielding her from harm.
“Fuck you, Dimitri. You never gave me a choice.”
“You don’t belong here,” he said, voice shaking with rage. “This world will consume you, put out your light.”
She held onto his fingers so hard, her nails bit into flesh. “That’s my decision to make.”
“Dimitri, this the woman you’re offering your life for?” Vasily asked, interrupting them.
Shit.
Sonia peered at Vasily from his shoulder and revealed herself. Stepping out of his shadow, she stood by his shoulder.
“Hello, Mr. Ivanov. That’s right. It’s a pleasure to meet you, circumstances notwithstanding. I would shake your hand, except you’re pointing a gun at us.”
Dimitri’s dick hardened at the sight of his woman, evenly meeting Vasily’s gaze, like a champ, an equal. Sonia didn’t flinch away in the face of other monsters in human skin. Why should she, when she was bold enough to take on a man like him?
He slid his arm over her shoulders, aware of the trembles in her body, despite the face she wore. Brave, sexy woman. All his for the taking, if by some miracle they survived this.
A rumbling crackle started. It took Dimitri several seconds to realize Vasily was laughing. He’d never thought he ever heard the boss do that. Fuck, Vasily had what passed for a smile on his lips.
“Why did you come here, Sonia?” Vasily finally recovered and asked.
“Because I don’t think I’m capable of going on living, knowing Dimitri’s dead in a ditch somewhere. Wasn’t he like a younger brother to you? Wouldn’t he be more useful alive than dead?”
Dimitri nuzzled her neck, distracting her. Reasoning with the boss was useless. Once Vasily made up his mind, it was done.
“You’re bargaining with me,” Vasily observed, amused, still wearing that smile that creeped the fuck out of Dimitri.
Dimitri knew another contract killer who only smiled when she was about to do something bad—Alexa, Aleks’s twin sister. What was Vasily’s next move, opening fire on them perhaps? By now, Johnny would have called for back-up. They were trapped in this office now, Sonia, him, and even Sergei.
The Hitman's Obsession Page 7
