by Renee Rose
“Ooh, that will be good,” Lucy says.
“That’s a strip club, right?” Nikolai asks with mock innocence.
Sasha flips him the bird, and Dima chuckles.
“Are you taking the Lambo?” Pavel asks. “Or does Money Bags not let you drive?”
“The car was my gift to her, and it’s my pleasure to let her drive,” I answer smoothly.
Sasha beams. “You spoil me.”
She drives to the theatre, and I direct her to the valet. When we get out, I slip a fifty in the guy’s hand and tell him to take good care of it. He stumbles over himself thanking us and making promises.
Sasha rolls her eyes. “Man club.”
“No. It’s not because I’m a man.” I show her the wad of fifties in my pocket. “It’s a trick Ravil taught me—he read it in an old article in Esquire Magazine. It’s called Twenty Dollar Millionaire. The theory was that you don’t have to be rich to get respect or treated like a millionaire, you just need to grease palms. Flashing a twenty dollar bill will get you most anything. But with inflation, I figure it’s fifties or hundreds now.”
“I don’t think that would work the same for a woman.”
“Money gets you everything, caxapok, especially with the right attitude. And you have plenty of both. Don’t play small when you could be so very big.” I pull out a blank check I brought along and show her.
“What’s that?”
“It’s for the theatre company—if you wanted to get some attention with a donation. Make them remember your name.”
I hand it to her, and she tucks it in her purse. I wouldn’t say I’m a theatre guy. Yeah, okay, this is probably my first time—ever—seeing a live performance, but I enjoy it. I enjoy even more having Sasha on my arm turning heads. I enjoy her total absorption in the performance—the gasps and exclamations. Her standing ovation when it’s over.
“That ending,” she exclaims. “So powerful.”
We hang back in the lobby. I know what I would do to make things happen for Sasha, but it’s up to her.
“I’m going to find the director,” she says.
I smile. “That’s my girl. I’ll be by the doors.”
She finds me twenty minutes later, her eyes ablaze with glory. “I did it.” She beams. “I used the donation check to get his attention, and then I told him I’m an actor who just moved here from Moscow. He invited me to his partner’s acting class. It’s on Tuesdays. And guess what?”
“What?”
“You’re never going to believe this.” She grabs my wrist and squeezes it, bouncing a little in her heels. “They’re doing Anna Karenina next year, and he said he would love to have me audition for a part!”
I grin, trying to catch up. “They want a Russian in the part.”
“Well, I don’t know,” she says quickly. “But at least my accent won’t hurt me.” She waves a business card in my face. “And I have a connection now.”
I wrap my arm around her waist and pull her against my body. “You did it. See? There’s nothing you can’t do.”
She kisses me in a flurry of happy pecks. “Gospodi, I love you!”
I swallow when the full brunt of those words hits me square in the chest.
She jerks back with a startled expression like she just did something wrong.
“I’m pretty nuts about you, too,” I tell her before she can take it back.
Vulnerability bleeds into her expression, but she hides it. “Yeah?” She slides her hands up and down my chest. “I thought you married me for the money.”
I go still. Is that what she thinks? “No. Your inheritance is a pain in my ass. The perk of this marriage isn’t the money, sugar. It’s you.”
She steps in closer, tugging on my tie, insinuating her curves against my body. “You mean the sex.”
I narrow my eyes, suddenly wary. I feel like Sasha’s playing some role right now. The one her mother taught her about how to keep a powerful man. She’s not being real with me. And feeling like I’m being played is a goddamn trigger for me, especially with her.
“I said you,” I insist.
She catches the offense in my tone and pulls back slightly.
No, I misread her. I’m being a dick. She’s fishing for confirmation that I feel the same. I capture her nape and tug her lips up to mine.
“Even the crazy parts. I love you, too, Sasha.” It’s awkward to say, but once the words come out, I’m not sorry. I’m as vulnerable as my bride. And that’s what love is. Revealing your weakness. Trusting the other person with it.
She’s given me that.
It’s time for me to do the same.
“I love you,” I repeat the words, staring straight into her blue eyes.
A shiver runs through her. “I used to fantasize about this moment,” she whispers.
My lips kick up into a grin. “I annexed you out of all fantasies for fear of my life. But let me tell you, sugar—I’m making up for it now. I have about a hundred that involve you bent over that new car of yours.”
“Oh yeah?”
I reach in my pocket for the valet ticket. “Want to go for a drive?”
Her smile is as wicked as my heart. She snatches the valet ticket from my fingers. “Always, big man.”
Sasha
Maxim directs me to one of those high rise parking garages that goes up and up and up. We take it all the way to the rooftop and park. There aren’t any other cars up here. We get out, and I walk to the wall to look over the edge at the city. “I love this,” I exclaim.
It feels like the night belongs to us. It’s all ours.
Maxim loves me. I can’t—won’t—stop that thought from swishing around me like a warm, bubblegum pink dream.
It feels too good to be true.
Like any minute, the relationship police are going to show up and arrest me for impersonating a real wife.
I mean, he had to marry me. He didn’t even want me. How did I trick him into love?
How did he trick me?
Who is tricking whom?
Or is this actually real? It feels real, but I’m so afraid to trust in it. Everything seems too easy. Too perfect. Things looking up for my acting career. Living in the U.S. again, a short flight away from my friends. Making new friends in Maxim’s roommates.
Feeling wild and celebratory and maybe with my exhibitionism coming out to play, I open the zipper on my dress and pull it over my head.
Rather than reaching for me, Maxim steps back and shoves his hands in his pockets, his gaze sweeping up and down.
“How was it you liked to punish me?” I purr, unfastening my bra. “Just in my heels?”
He pretends to be casual, but I see his erection tenting his pants. “Aw, fuck, sugar.” He walks slowly toward me. “That teasing’s going to get you spanked.”
“Mm. I’m counting on it.” I back up toward the Lambo, cracking the door to toss my dress and bra inside. He follows, keeping his distance and his relaxed posture.
I square off to him, holding his gaze as I slowly slide my g-string down my thighs and step out of it.
Maxim makes a beckoning motion, stepping closer. “I’ll take those.” I hand them to him, and he tucks them in his pocket.
“Hands on the hood. Spread your legs.”
Thrills of excitement zing through me as I take the position, pressing both palms to the cool metal and affecting a wide stance in my high heels. It’s a warm night, so I’m not chilled by my nudity out here. Or perhaps it’s the heat pooling between my legs. The risk of being caught up here by someone, completely naked, makes this a hundred times more exciting than if we were somewhere private.
Maxim palms my breasts from behind, squeezing both nipples. “My wild bride.” I toss my hair when I look over my shoulder at him. His hand claps down on my ass, hard. I shriek and then laugh. Tremors run down my legs.
“Ouch?” I murmur.
He slaps me on the other cheek, just as hard. “I know, caxapok. But you look so pretty with my han
d prints on your ass.”
More shivers shoot down my inner thighs, lifting my arches and curling my toes.
“Be a good girl and hold still for it.” I do because I freaking love it. He spanks me in a flurry of short, quick slaps warming my ass with his palm until I’m shifting on my feet. “That’s right.” He rubs the sting away.
“What’s it for?” I ask. I don’t know why. I think part of me still wants to know if he’s forgiven me for the past.
“For making me fall in love, lyubimaya.”
I whimper because it tears me wider open every time he says it. Smashes my defenses. Leaves me more and more vulnerable to this man.
Did my father know I would feel this? That we could be happy together? In love?
Even the tiniest sliver of belief that he did feels like redemption. I didn’t know I wanted to be redeemed. Certainly not by him. But the feeling is wonderful. He didn’t despise me. What if he did want what was best for me?
“Please,” I beg.
Maxim’s fingers slide between my legs, and I almost come just from that touch. “Begging already, sweetness? You need my cock?”
“Yes.”
“You want to be fucked over your brand new car? Need me to show you who’s really driving around here?”
I laugh because I knew it must bother the extreme alpha male in him to let me drive, and yet he did it anyway. “Yes. Show me.”
“I’ll show you.” I hear the rip of a condom foil, and then the head of his cock rubs over my wet folds.
I push back, eager to take him. After a week of non-stop sex, I’m addicted to the feel of him inside me. To coming when I’m stretched wide and sore from his pounding. Surrendered to his control.
He’s a bossy lover. He talks dirty and puts me in degrading positions, but he always makes sure I come at least twice as many times as he does. He takes care of me.
He slaps my ass again lightly as he pushes in. “Damn,” he groans. “You look like a Penthouse pinup right now, baby. You’re like every man’s dream. A hot car and an even hotter woman.
He reaches around to stroke my clit, easing in and out of me slowly. “What part do you like best, sugar? Your spanking or knowing we might be caught?”
“Getting caught,” I gasp, my inner muscles squeezing his cock. Although I love the spanking, too. “You?”
“Me?” He catches hold of my hair and tugs my head back. “I just like being in charge.”
I squeeze around him again.
“I like it when you offer yourself up to me like a gorgeous little fuck-doll.” He pinches one of my nipples, then pushes my torso down. “Tits on the hood, beautiful.”
The car is shiny clean, but even if it wasn’t I would do what he told me. Maxim makes pleasing him a game I like to play.
He holds me down with his hand in the middle of my back and starts slamming in harder. When he pushes too hard and my pelvis slams against the car, I yelp and he instantly adjusts, wrapping his forearm in front of my pelvis to cushion the contact.
And then it’s on.
He slams in harder and harder, making me lose my breath, lose my mind.
The pressure of wanting to finish before we’re caught ratchets up my need, and yet it feels so good, I don’t want it to be over, either.
“I’m going to fuck you up against the window at home. Out on the rooftop. I’m going to finger you in that theater the next time we go there.”
“Gospodi,” I whimper. “I’m going to come.”
“Not until I say.” There’s a sharp warning in his voice.
He hasn’t played this game with me before, and I go cross-eyed, trying to hold back the tidal wave about to descend.
“You be a good girl and wait for permission.”
“You’re… crazy,” I pant.
He grips my hair, pulling my head back at the same time he pushes my torso down, making me arch for him. Hurting me lightly in that wonderful, dominant way of his. “Crazy for you.”
He comes, and I screech, already coming, too, unable to hold off any longer. Maxim chuckles darkly, dropping his torso down over mine, his cock still inside me, his body molded to mine from the back. “You’ll be punished for that, lyubimaya.”
I close my eyes, my internal muscles pulsing again around his cock in an aftershock. “I couldn’t help it.”
He kisses my neck. “Me either.”
Chapter 18
Sasha
I walk out of my acting class with a group of actors, still talking about the Stanislavaski exercise we did. It’s the third week I’ve been going, and I already feel like I belong. I have friends. I love the exercises. I’m getting the inside scoop on the Chicago scene.
Maxim found a Hollywood speech coach to help me with my accent in virtual sessions, and if I concentrate, you can barely tell I’m not American. At least, that’s what my new friends say.
“Hey Sasha, you want to join us for coffee?” one of the older women asks.
I hesitate.
At first, Maxim didn’t want to let me come to this class alone, but I threw a fit. Having a possessive and protective husband sitting in on class would make everyone think I was a freak. After a throw-down, he ended up dropping me off and picking me up for the first class, but last week, he decided I could start leaving the Kremlin on my own because Dima’s new data mining program is in place, and things are settling down in Moscow.
It finally gave me the chance to pick up a burner phone and call my mom, who still wouldn’t tell me where she is. I felt a little guilty breaking my promise to only go straight to class and home and hiding the phone and the conversation from him, but my mom was still full of suspicions about Maxim’s intentions, which made me wary.
Am I still in danger? Or is the only real danger from him? I don’t really believe it, but I don’t want to be foolish, either. I read every Agatha Christie book as a child. I know large sums of money make people untrustworthy.
“Not this time,” I say. It’s not just my promise to Maxim. It’s that the chef was going to cook a nice meal, and we were all going to eat together tonight. And as much as I want to make new friends, especially actors, I’d rather get to know and hang out with my new family.
I walk to the parking lot next to where my class is held. No valet nearby, unfortunately. Parking the Lamborghini in an unattended lot made me nervous, and I'm so relieved to see it's still there.
I open the door and slide in, tossing my purse on the seat beside me. When the door opens back up, I shriek in surprise.
"Get out, the car is going to blow,” she says in clipped Russian.
“Mama?”
“Get out, now.” My mother drags me out of the car and pulls me, ducking low, at a run through the rows of parked cars.
An explosion knocks me forward. I think I scream.
Even though she told me it was going to blow, I’m in disbelief. I turn to stare at the smoke and flames.
My mother yanks me forward until we reach an alleyway, and then she pulls me into it.
“Mama! What’s happening”
She doesn’t answer, just keeps yanking me along, down the alley, up a side street, back around until we’re on the other side of the street, the sirens of police and fire trucks shrieking as they race to the scene.
We go into the hotel across the street and straight for the elevators.
Tears drip down my face. “What’s happening? Who did that?”
“It’s all right, darling.” My mother turns to face me in the elevator and takes both my hands. To my surprise, she looks happy. Giddy, almost. “We did that!”
“Wh-what?”
My mother nods, beaming. “Viktor set the bomb. You’re free now!”
It must be the reverberation of the bomb because a ringing in my ears suddenly makes me deaf. In a bubble of confusion and shock, I don’t hear the elevator ding or notice the doors open, but my mom tugs me out of it and into a hotel room. Alexei sits on one of the double beds watching television. Viktor stands
at the curtain watching the mayhem below. He gives me a curt nod.
I run to the window to look down at my sweet car—my beautiful baby that Maxim bought me because I’d look hot in—but it’s completely gone. Viktor grabs my upper arm and yanks me roughly back, jerking my shoulder and giving my neck whiplash.
“What the hell?” I snap in Russian.
“Keep her away from the window,” he orders my mother, like I’m not even worth explaining things to. His words sound far away, filtered through the echoing in my ears.
I stare at his handprint on my arm in shock. “What did you do?” I ask my mother.
She cups my face. “I killed you. You’re dead now. You’re free of Maxim and Ravil and their plans for your money. Now it all goes to me—to us!”
“Us?” I ask.
My stomach drops out. My body turns ice cold. I think I always knew my mom had money issues. She loved money but was terrified of losing it. That’s why she put up with my dad—to be kept in luxury. And then her worst fears manifested when he left Vladimir in control of her purse strings. I knew she had these fears, but now I suddenly see her through a new lens. Like when the wicked witch in a fairytale—the one who was beautiful and said all the right things—is suddenly unveiled as an ugly old hag.
“D-did you kill Vladimir?” I ask.
She turns away when she answers, “Don’t be ridiculous,” and I know at once it’s a lie. She did it. Maybe not personally, but she was a part of it. My mother and these two men, Viktor and Alexei, were somehow responsible.
I want to cry, but no tears come out. I’m in too much shock.
“You didn’t have to do this. Maxim would’ve taken care of you,” I say weakly. I think it’s true. She sowed all that doubt—she’s the one who was conniving.
My mother whirls back, anger marring her pretty face. “Would he? I doubt that. This is a man who tried to rape you when you were seventeen.”
I shake my head, nausea hitting my belly. I’m just as bad as my mom. Cut from the same cloth. Taking stupid, desperate measures to prove I’m not as powerless as I feel. “He didn’t. I lied about that. I offered myself, and he refused.” It feels horrible to say it out loud.
