by Peyton Banks
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For her, he’s willing to do all that and more.
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But first, she must agree to belong to him and only him.
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~Warning: This BWWM Romantic Suspense features a mob lifestyle and contains violence and graphic sex scenes. Proceed with caution. ~
To all my Sassy Sirens in Siren’s World. This story is for you. I hope you enjoy Constantine and Cristal. Scar and Vlad makes a small cameo in this story. You’re welcome. To all the readers who are new to the Dangerously Curvy world, I hope you enjoy this dark and romantic suspense series.
Every night, he watches her like a hawk watches its prey. Observing, longing, waiting for the perfect time to swoop down, lift her up off her feet and carry her away to a private location where he can cherish her, protect her, keep her all to himself.
One day, he will claim her. One day, she will belong to him. One day, she will love him. Not yet. But soon. Soon he will possess the woman he’s obsessed with. Until then, he will watch and he will wait, impatiently.
Constantine Novinkoff
1
She’d made almost one hundred dollars in tips.
Nowhere near enough to pay off her debt. Still, it would do for tonight. She was tired, her feet hurt from standing in heels all night long and she was ready to go to bed. Cristal Dawson counted the ones and fives that had been dropped into her tip jar.
At this rate, she wouldn’t be done paying off her debt for five years. Screw that, ten. This was worse than trying to pay off a student loan. Luckily, this debt didn’t come with interest. Just as she was folding her money, a customer walked up to the bar and tapped her on the shoulder.
“Are you the bartender?” The female asked, words slurred.
With her back to the customer, Criss shook her head, not bothering to look over her shoulder. She wasn’t a bartender. Yeah, she was standing on the bartender’s side of the bar, but that didn’t mean anything. She was just watching the register for Angelina, who’d gone to the back to use the restroom.
“Is the bar still open?” The customer behind her asked.
Again, Criss shook her head without turning around. Yeah, it was kind of rude of her to ignore the customer. But if she made eye contact, the female would start begging her to prepare her a drink.
They always got her with that one drink line. Once the drink was prepared, they complained about its taste. As if she hadn’t told them she wasn’t a damn bartender. Tonight, Criss didn’t have time for that.
After a few moments and a few choice words, she heard the customer stumble away from the bar. Cristal turned around and scanned the crowd, looking for a security guard. Her eyes connected with Ramirez, who was posted up in the corner.
She waved to get his attention. When he looked her way, she pointed in the direction of the female she’d just finished talking to. The female was stumbling through the crowd. Ramirez saw the chick and nodded.
Criss didn’t have to say a word. Ramirez already knew what she wanted. She wanted him to keep an eye on the female and make sure she made it into a cab safely. She waited for Ramirez to reach the woman, before turning her back to the counter once more.
The club was closing. The music was no longer blaring. Even though that was a tell-tell sign that it was time to go home, there was always one or two people security had to toss out each night.
It would probably be another thirty minutes before she was able to go home. Criss went back to counting her money. Maybe if she counted it slower, more would appear. Yeah, right. Stuff like that only happened at Hogwarts.
Cristal shoved the money into her back pocket and stared at the liquor bottles on the shelves. From the corner of her eye, she saw the side panel on the bar open. In stepped the real bartender, Angelina.
Angelina caught her staring at the bottles of liquor on the back wall. “Hey, Criss, you want a drink?”
Cristal glanced at the scantily clad bartender approaching her and shook her head. “Nope. I have to drive.”
“You could always catch a cab.”
“I don’t want to waste my money.”
“You could get the boss man to take you home.” Angelina winked at her as the club’s D.J stepped up to the bar and placed an order.
“I don’t trust the boss man as far as I can throw him.”
Angelina chuckled as she served her last customer of the night his drink. Every night, D.J Loco got a free drink before heading home. Not only him, but most of the security guards and the dancers got free drinks before leaving also.
After the D.J. walked away, Angelina put up the ‘No Longer Serving’ sign and started counting the money from her register. So much money. Why couldn’t Cristal bring in the kind of money each night?
“I don’t know what you have against our boss man. You’d have to be blind not to notice how sexy that man is. Wouldn’t you love for that hunk to give you a ride home then stay and have his way with you?”
Cristal pretended she hadn’t heard what the bartender said. Truth was, she would love for Constantine Novinkoff to have his way with her. Even though she hated to admit it, it was hard to ignore the raw sex appeal he exuded.
Dude had to be about 6’4. And he wasn’t pretty-boy fine. He was rugged, lumber jack, headboard banging until the wee hours of the morning fine. He had broad shoulders that were made to have a female’s legs thrown over them.
In her wild fantasies, she yearned to rub her tongue all over his bulging muscles. Sometimes, when she was alone with him, he stared at her in a way that made her think he wished for the same thing.
Then he opened his mouth and spoke, and she remembered why she hated him. He may be sexy, but he was also rude and obnoxious. He was also a killer. Maybe that should’ve been at the top of the list of reasons why she despised him.
Truth was, most of the men who worked at the Private Affairs night club were killers. If she was a normal and innocent female, that would bother her. She was neither normal nor innocent.
She had secrets of her own, just like the rest of the workers at Private Affairs. The males she worked with were no different from her dad and the men she’d grown up around. Well, there was one difference.
Society liked to call Constantine and his gang, businessman. Yet, they called her dad and his gang, thugs. In her eyes, they were two sides of the same coin. She’d grown up around men like him.
Hell, she’d grown up around women who was just as ruthless as he was. Her mother, God rest her soul, was one of those women. Criss was used to being in the company of criminals.
Which was why she fit in well with the crew at the club. It wasn’t the fact that Constantine was a killer that kept the two of them apart. It was her. She wasn’t his type. All she had to do was look around the room for proof of that.
According to Angelina, all of the female staff was hired by the club’s Manager. Constantine was the club’s Manager. None of the female staff looked like her. Which was sad. Because she was fucking awesome.
She was curvy as hell. She was a plus size chick who would never diet just to fit society’s rules regarding what was and what wasn’t beautiful and attractive. She was happy in the skin she was in.
She loved her thick thighs and not quite flat tummy. Yet, all the dancers in this establishment were slender. Slender and some form of white, be it Italian, Russian, American, Serbian, German or Polish.
She was the only sistah at Private Affairs. Normally, she wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like this. Not because of the white women. She wasn’t racist. Plus, she’d become friends with a few of them.
It was the atmosphere of the club that she didn’t like. The place reeked of over-priced perfume and cologne. There were naked women, rich men, and money being thrown around like it was nothing.
At least back home, her father and his goons kept their thots away from her and her sister. Here, they were proudly on display for everyone to see. No, this was definitely not her type of party.
&
nbsp; She’d much rather be at home with her granny and her niece, watching a reality T.V show. It was amazing how much drama housewives encountered on a daily basis. She wasn’t even married and she had just as much drama in her own life.
Lately, she been down on her luck. So down, that when she had her first car wreck ever, she’d run into the back of Constantine Novinkoff’s ride. At the time, she’d had no idea who he was.
Now that she did, she knew it was bad luck that caused her to run into his car. Out of all the cars on the road in Chicago Illinois, it was his she crashed into. If that wasn’t bad luck, she didn’t know what was.
His expensive ass car shouldn’t have been in her way. Cristal sighed. No matter how much she wanted to, she couldn’t blame Con’s car or its devilishly handsome owner for the accident. The wreck wasn’t their fault.
Had her eyes been on the road, instead of on her phone’s GPS, she wouldn’t have run into a car with headlights that cost more than her entire piece of shit car. In her defense, she was new to the state of Illinois.
Her small hometown down in Mississippi didn’t have as much traffic as the Windy City did. Because of her inability to look at her GPS and drive, she’d rammed into Con’s car. Well, ram was too strong of a word.
It was more of a tap. The damage wasn’t even that bad. Just a busted tail light and a few scratches. If she would’ve had her duct tape and black permanent marker with her, she could’ve fixed him right up and sent him on his way.
Instead, he’d gotten out of the car and started throwing around fighting words like police and insurance. She didn’t have insurance and she hadn’t wanted to get the police involved, so she’d suggested paying him in installments for the damage.
At first, he laughed at her suggestion. Then, as his gaze swept over her, his laughter faded and he agreed to her offer. Probably because he realized a woman wearing a gas station name tag on her T-shirt couldn’t afford to pay him upfront for the damages.
For the first three months after the accident, she paid him a little here and a little there. Whenever she had money to spare, which was hardly ever, she gave him a few dollars. Fifty. Twenty. Twenty-five. Just a little something to keep him from complaining.
From July to September, he’d been okay with that. Well, not okay, but he’d accepted it. Then October rolled around. When she came by the club to pay him, he told her that her paltry payments were starting to piss him off.
He’d actually said the word paltry. Who the hell even uses that word? She hadn’t really been prepared for that. Because of that, she hadn’t had time to mask her anger with a smile. Her attitude seeped out in her words before she had a chance to think them over.
She’d told him that coming to his skanky ass club every week to pay him was starting to piss her off. And she had better things to do with her time than converse with a group of criminals.
That was definitely the wrong thing to say to a criminal. If looks could kill, she would be pushing up daisies right now. To her surprise, he hadn’t yelled at her right away. No, he’d told everyone to leave the room first.
When she’d tried to leave with the others, he’d yelled for her to stay. And that was the night she started working at his club. He’d told her if she couldn’t pay him more with the cashier job she was already working, then she needed to work at his club.
She’d thought he’d meant as a stripper. She’d turned him down really quick. There was no way she was going to get her big ass on anybody’s stage and shake it. Her ass was not for everyone to see.
And she’d made it a point to tell him that. Then his rude ass told her that he would never allow her to strip at his club. The look on his face let her know the mere thought of her doing so disgusted him
He said he wanted her to entertain his patrons in a different way. He told her that he was thinking of hiring a band. He wanted her to sing with the club’s band on Friday and Saturday nights.
He’d heard her singing in the parking lot and thought the club could use a little live music. Luckily for him, she loved to sing. And when he told her she didn’t have to dress naked like most of the women in the club, she’d snatched up the offer to sing with a band.
Of course, all of her profits would go to him. She thought she’d make enough money to pay him off in no time. Wrong. Dudes who came to the club were willing to make it rain for a stripper, but for her, they just made it sprinkle. Sprinkles didn’t add up to much.
“Hey, Criss. Cristal. Cristal!”
Cristal blinked when Angelina snapped her fingers in front of her face. “What?”
“Damn girl, that must’ve been some fantasy.”
“I wasn’t fantasizing. I was thinking about everything that’s going wrong in my life.”
“Well, like I always say….”
“Don’t focus on the bad, appreciate the good.” Cristal said before Lina could spout off her mantra. “Whatever.”
Angelina placed the money from her register into a black bag. The bartenders usually went to the Cashier’s Room, one by one and counted their money for the bar manager, Jeff. Being the lead bartender, Angelina always went back last.
“Lina, how much money do you make in tips on a good night?”
Angelina leaned her slender hip against the counter. “Um, on a good night, I could make close to three hundred.”
“Are you serious?”
Lina nodded. “When the high rollers are in town, I make more than that. But, I’m not the only bartender here. At my last job, I was the only bartender. I usually made close to five hundred a night.”
Shit. She’d never made over a hundred. Even when the high rollers were in town.
“I sing my ass off and I never make more than a hundred.”
“Well, if you….” Lina shook her head. “Never mind.”
“What?”
“Nope. Not saying. Because then you’ll get mad and I’ll lose the only bitch in this club that I like.”
“If you don’t tell me, the only bitch you like isn’t going to like you anymore.”
Lina sighed. “Alright. I’ll say it. I think you don’t make much because you dress like a school teacher. There. I said it. And, not even a teacher from today. More like a teacher from when I was in grade school.”
Well damn. Cristal stared down at her clothes. Tight black jeans. Loose fitting red shirt and red heels. This was her sexy outfit. She didn’t know what Lina was talking about. “This is sexy.”
“No. That is dated. Outdated.”
Ouch. “Should I dress like you? Booty shorts and a bra?”
“No. You need to wear something that compliments your figure.”
“This does.”
“No. It hides it. And why are you wearing a shawl?”
Cristal glanced down at her black shawl. “Because it’s cold outside.”
“It’s not cold inside. You don’t stand out. The men here see women like you every day. You remind them of their wives, their girlfriends, their co-workers, their sisters. Why would they pay for more of that? You need to be their fantasy.”
“In case you haven’t heard, men don’t fantasize about big girls.”
“Bitch, have you been living under a rock? First of all, all pussy is pink. Big women, small women, black women, white women, Hispanic women, all women have pink pussies.”
“Ew. But, true.”
“And men will fuck anything with a pink pussy between its legs. If trees magically started growing pussies instead of leaves, men would fuck them.”
“Um, are you trying to make a point or are you trying to get the image of a pussy-tree stuck in my head?”
“Stay with me. Since men will fuck anything with a pink pussy, size doesn’t matter.”
“Lies. You’re small. You don’t know what us thick chicks go through. You haven’t been told, oh, you’re pretty, for a big girl. Or, you’d be sexy if you were slimmer. Or my favorite, you’re so cool, I just don’t date big girls. No offense. You cool as hell.”
; “Those are men outside the club. The ones who care about what others think about them and their choices. The ones who meet you, like you, want you, but are afraid to be judged for their dating preference. Outside these walls, men have to live up to a certain social standard. Unfortunately, that standard is bias and unfair. And no one seems willing to change it.”
“How does that help me get tips?”
Lina smiled and tossed her dark brown hair over her shoulder. “Inside these walls, those worldly standards don’t apply.”
“Really? Then why are there only slender white females working here?”
“Because only slender white females have been applying. Other women haven’t. I even heard Jeff say that this club needed a variety of women to make it stand out more and up their cliental. And that’s where you come in.”
“Me? How?”
“Right now, you’re getting tips because the guys think you’re cute. They don’t give a fuck about your songs. Your songs are boring and bland. Sorry.”
“Hey, those songs are classics.”
“Exactly. You need to step into this century. Start singing newer songs. Sexier songs. Songs that make these already horny fools even hornier.”
Cristal thought for a moment. What Lina was saying made sense. She hated to admit it, but it did. “I can do that.”
“Of course, you can. And you need to dress sexier. Not naked, just sexier.”
“I don’t want men to think I’m easy.”
“Do I look easy?”
“Yes.”
Lina burst out laughing. “Fuck you.”
Smiling Cristal said, “You look it, but I know you’re not. I don’t want to look it. That’s not me.”
“Then dress classy sexy.”
Classy sexy? She thought she was dressed classy sexy. This was probably one of her sexier outfits.
“Criss, I have to go. Jeff is waving me over. Look, you’re off tomorrow, right?”
