The Russian Bodyguard: A Dark Mafia Romance (Krasnov Brothers Book 3) Page 6
Throwing a forearm across my eyes, I growled out, “You have no place to sneak off to now. Might as well get some sleep.”
Being extra mean to her would reinforce the wall between us, because I refused to touch her again in any way that was less than punishing.
“I’d rather bed down on a mattress of nails than be here with you.” Her voice slithered scathingly through the dark.
Her mocking quip did nothing but strengthen our borderline hate for one another.
Another half hour passed by my reckoning, and I relented. I turned onto my side, facing her.
I almost reached out to my unwelcome bedmate because I felt how stiff she was beside me, and neither of us would get any shuteye like this.
“Is your face sore?” I asked in a quiet rumble.
“Is your dick sore? Because I saw it getting hard earlier,” she retorted venomously.
Flipping to my back, I growled low in my chest. “Do not flatter yourself, Sashenka.”
“How could I even begin to with you criticizing me every chance you get?” Her voice quaked at the end, and I was worried she’d start weeping.
But not Sasha.
She didn’t cry.
She battled and baited me. She teased and toyed and flirted with any red-blooded male but me.
Blyad.
Being in bed with her was like sleeping with a badger.
Any other woman . . .
When she finally dozed off—her body loosening, her breathing relaxing—I blinked unseeing in the dense darkness.
Tresses of her soft hair fell across my shoulder, tickling my skin and stealing some of my breath.
My hard-on would not go away as if my cock thought any female in my bed was fair game despite the animosity between us.
Perhaps part of me had begun wanting her, which chafed at my entire being.
My dick—thick, throbbing, and rigid—and my fucking balls, full of seed, chafed more than anything else.
In her sleep, Sasha whimpered.
Then she whined, a sound of gut-wrenching distress.
Eyes closed but lashes fluttering in disturbance, she turned to me. She inched closer as if seeking the source of my heat. She curled against my side like she’d burrowed beneath the blankets earlier, her arm slung over me and her breasts against my ribs.
Holding my breath as if I were trying to coax a wild animal, I slowly closed an arm around her.
I really should have tied her up. Restrained her. Kept her gagged.
She needed to learn her manners—who her true master was—and fast.
Pampered. That was one word I’d use to describe Sasha.
I’d watched her wolf down Baba’s soup earlier as if it were her last meal. And I knew the exact moment she lost her appetite. When I’d outed her and her would-be American fuckboy—such a crass term, but oh so fucking appropriate.
She had sat there and taken in her father’s dismay with the proper amount of contrition.
For once.
Yury had been guarded though. He knew more than he was letting on, but it wasn’t my place to question the pakhan.
Bleary eyed, I squinted down at the woman nestled against me and, for once, she managed to provoke tender feelings from me.
Spoiled, pampered, stunning Sasha.
Her breaths deepened even more, and her knee rode dangerously close to my groin, which hadn’t settled down yet. Her fine breasts cushioned against me, nipples sweet nubs rubbing against my skin with just the thin top between us. Moonlight poured in through the bare windows, covering her in a blanket of shimmering silver as if to taunt me.
Unlike Sasha, I was not coddled. Had never been pandered to.
I’d spent days going hungry, on the verge of starvation.
Arkady and Kirill, both older, did their best, and I made sure they thought that was enough while we made our own place among the tricksters and thieves in the scum and slums of Moscow’s underbelly.
Only when my guts knotted and it felt like my insides were devouring themselves did I consider resorting to the very worst things just to get a full belly. I had only been a kid.
I vowed no one would ever attempt to take advantage of me again.
But I did not move Sasha away from me while she slept on.
The sun had barely met the horizon when I groggily woke up.
Something other than unsatiated hunger flipped in my belly when I felt the soft, womanly warmth draped half over me.
Or maybe it was just hunger of a different, more primal, sort.
Sasha didn’t move, and her slightly parted lips breathed wispily across my chest. Her head fit the bulk of my shoulder precisely, and I couldn’t imagine that was comfortable at all. Yet, she had fitted her body entirely against mine, her hand low on my abs, her knee again brushing my goddamn aching balls.
I had never jerked off about her.
I might not say no to spraying a giant load of cum on her precious face now though.
Rolling gingerly free, I padded into the bathroom.
I took care of other business, not my cock jutting angrily up at me.
Clean and showered, I left the steamy enclave with a towel notched around my hips to see Sasha had woken.
She looked softer in the morning light. Sleep-tousled and inexplicably sensuous, unfortunately. Her lips became even puffier in repose, as opposed to when she was biting out snippy criticisms or cranking me up.
Lifting her arms, she yawned lazily, and one nipple came dangerously close to escaping the confines of her top. “What time is it?”
With my back to her, I dropped the towel.
Her hiss of breath was not missed on me.
Hiding a smirk, I stepped into clean briefs before turning. I didn’t care that she saw another thick boner outlined in the fabric that my meat stretched to the maximum.
“Time for you to get up, lazy.”
“Lazy!” She screeched, but her voice had a sleep-husky quality, and she kept looking.
She did not get out of bed though. With another stretch and a spine-tingling purr, she sat up.
I refused to fall into the trap of her seductress’s tools and tricks.
“I slept surprisingly well.” She fluffed up a pillow and rested against it.
“Da. I know you did.” I finished putting on my clothes, tugging on a T-shirt and tying my military boots.
I wore suits only when I needed to.
“What does that mean?” The female in my bed gathered the covers loosely around her waist.
Ranging closer with a belt dangling from my hands, I reached out for her.
She immediately shrank from me, which was funny considering she’d spent the night snuggled up to me like I was her comfort blanket or something.
Perhaps she thought I was going to crack the thick leather belt across her lush body.
Maybe I would, but that was not my intention at the moment.
I closed the gap between us, and that time she remained still.
After running a lone fingertip down her cheek, I swiped across her bottom lip. “I know you slept well because it turns out you are a bed hog and you drool.”
Sasha immediately reared back as if I had struck her with the belt. “I do not drool, zasranec!”
She called me an asshole, back to her biting ways.
I latched onto her arm and dragged her from the bed. “It is also time for you to make me breakfast.”
“I’m not making you shi—”
Doubling up my belt, I snapped her sharply across the ass.
Crack!
She jumped and shrieked.
The wail of leather smacking her would sound so much better on her bare ass.
“Maksim!” She rubbed her posterior, shooting a glare at me.
“Quickly now. Shower and do whatever else you need to do to make yourself presentable.”
Her glare turned even more brittle.
“I am hungry, Sashenka.”
Her hands clenched. Her delicate jaw tensed.
She kept her mouth shut.
A first.
Half an hour later, the woman met me in the kitchen. She helped herself to a mug of cream-laced coffee then sharpened her glower on me once again.
“Hurry up, Sashenka.” Leaning against the granite island, I sipped my own coffee. “I feel like homemade blinis this morning. Caviar and maybe some bacon and eggs.”
Her pretty mouth pruned as cold flames leaped from her eyes. Yet, she set about finding the ingredients required.
“There. I knew you could do it.” Smug as could be, I couldn’t resist winding her up. “I was standing right there all those times Baba gave you cooking lessons.”
“That means you know too,” she replied with tart hostility.
“Cooking is not men’s work.”
That set off another tirade from her. For once, I was entertained by her nonstop blistering commentary because I was in complete control, and she knew it.
Making her cook for me was probably the best way to degrade the proud female, and I enjoyed every second of watching her march around—breasts bouncing—and bending over to forage for a skillet—round ass shoved out.
I considered this my part in domesticating her for a future husband.
Then, oddly, I decided I’d never let her get close enough to another man in order to receive a proposal of marriage.
Control over her, I relished it.
As Sasha spooned the expensive, quality caviar into two small porcelain bowls, I coolly instructed, “Do not waste the caviar.”
“Would I do that?” She had never sounded sweeter, her eyes wide and shining with wicked innocence.
Then she took a great big spoonful of the delicacy and popped the whole thing between her plump lips.
“Mmm,” she murmured, smacking her lips. “See? No waste here.”
If she liked great big mouthfuls of rich, unctuous things, I imagined she swallowed cum too.
With that thought, my cock thickened, balls growing heavy.
“It is time to eat,” I announced, disturbed by the direction my imagination had taken.
“Yes, sir. Whatever you say, sir,” she sassed.
Her backtalk stopped only when her mouth was full of food again, which set off another round of lewd ideas.
Ignoring her as much as possible as we sat next to one another at the island, I savored the taste of the caviar and fresh blinis, alternating between those and the bacon and eggs.
She was actually a very decent cook.
“What was it you said about wasting the caviar?” she asked after I’d finished most of my serving.
“Hmm?” I turned to her just as she mashed a well loaded blini at my mouth.
A throaty chuckle trilled from her as she looked at the smeared mess she’d made.
“You will pay for that,” I growled out after licking my lips then wiping the rest off with a napkin.
“So you keep saying.”
Leaping from the stool, I attacked without warning. I grabbed her around the middle, yanking her up against me.
“Maksim!” she squawked.
When I swiped runny egg yolk across her mouth, she sputtered, making even more of a mess.
Somehow, she looked attractive even with the yellow yolk clinging to her puffy lips.
Especially when she licked her lips clean.
Her obscene action distracted me long enough for her to wiggle away. I was still imagining her with my cum smeared all over her lips when she raced into the adjoining lounge area.
With a tempting smile, she dodged around the sofa.
I tracked her with predatory steps, a chuckle riding up from deep inside when she weaved back and forth.
“I am not through with you yet, Sashenka.”
She zoomed to the other side of the room.
The chase was on.
She darted one way then dashed the other, but I never deviated from my approach.
She was wily and nimble, but my arms and legs were much, much longer.
We both laughed when I heedlessly shoved a small table aside, her youthfulness infectious.
I had never let loose in this way.
The last obstacle removed, I finally cornered the minx against the wall.
Pressing my bigger body into hers, I barged against her so she had no escape.
“I was just kidding, Maksim!” she pleaded, but her cheeks crested with pink and her eyes sparkled in a pretty way.
Her mouth within such easy reach, the thought of kissing her crossed my mind.
What would the lingering taste of her lust feel like?
When her lips parted softly, and her head angled perfectly, I knew she was inviting me in.
The temptation made my lids lower, and the ember of illicit lust lashed us together.
“Da.” That was Yury’s ponderous voice, booming behind me.
We were no longer alone.
Yury’s sudden appearance shattered any ill-advised spell I might have been under, and I moved away from his daughter.
The printsessa.
Yury had arrived completely unannounced, but then, he did own the building. He could come and go as he liked.
Focusing solely on the pakhan, I did not look at Sasha again.
Papa rubbed his thick paws together, nodding his head. “Good.” His heavy accent elongated the one word. “This will work fine.”
I wanted to ask exactly what would work fine, but one did not question the pakhan’s pronouncements.
In the face of his enigmatic expression, I sobered completely.
Sasha and I had been acting like youngsters—getting in a food fight and crashing around the apartment. Such childish impulses were foreign to me and always had been except for those few carefree moments with Sasha, which would not be repeated.
“Meet me downstairs,” Yury commanded.
Then he left.
I gathered my weapons in silence then Sasha and I descended to the unfinished bar of The Hammer and the Sickle.
A brigade of top-tier Bratva soldiers patrolled around but neither of my brothers was anywhere to be found, which made me wary.
Yury sat in a chair in the middle of the room, and he beckoned the two of us forward.
“I have confirmed men are coming after my Sasha. They are Russians. I have solution.”
I hoped to hell his answer to this new threat included shuttling the printsessa off to a convent where she’d have no choice but to embrace a chaste life under the care of mean nuns instead of me.
After lighting a cigar, Yury measured the pair of us up with a shrewd, unsettling smile.
Then his weighty gaze landed on me. “You will marry Sasha.”
“What?” I squinted at the bear-like man as if he’d lost all of his marbles.
It was possible my jaw dropped to the basement.
“Only way to keep Sasha safe,” Yury murmured.
What?
Inhaling deeply, I held the breath within my chest. I removed every single emotion from my face.
I certainly did not peer at Sasha to see her reaction to this most unexpected and unpleasant news.
I had no wish to be tied down to the overindulged brat but perhaps it was better me than anyone else. Hadn’t I already spent half my life looking out for her?
The troublemaker was not allowed on social media yet she’d set up profiles far and wide. I knew without doubt that was how she’d met Jimmy the Deceased.
She might have thought she was ahead of the game and that her online presence had gone undetected. Not with me. Not ever.
She was on Tinder. Facebook. Instagram. Every time she interacted with the wider world, she put her life and this Bratva in danger.
As her husband, I could control her the way I wanted. With unparalleled power. I could finally rid myself of the role of bodyguard—in title at least. As husband to the pakhan’s daughter I would have higher standing than either of my brothers.
I did not need a woman to make me the man I already was though.
And she really was a pain in my ass.
After squinting at Sasha then at Papa, I said simply, “Nyet.”
Yury pulled his head back on his neck and stared at me from under bushy brows. “You do not think my Sashenka is attractive?”
My jaw tightened.
I had not said that.
If not for her infuriating insolence and her impulsive streak and the simple fact it was her, she would make a fine mate.
I did not answer Yury, trying to be diplomatic, which wasn’t my strong suit.
I refused to look at Sasha again, but even in my peripheral vision I could tell her temperature was hot. Arms crossed beneath her breasts, she braced forward as if against an incoming tidal wave.
For some reason, Yury took my silence as surrender.
Standing, he smiled. “You are only one who can control her. Will be good match. Solve all my problems.”
5
Sasha
“YOU DO NOT THINK my Sashenka is attractive?”
Amen, Papa! Did Maksim think I was a dog or something?
But there were moments last night when his arousal had been evident. I mean, the way he packed those briefs made it impossible to hide a rigid cock.
So freaking annoying the way he’d been blessed with male perfection.
Even worse was my reaction to his attraction. Something about seeing him in his own place, in a different situation, exerting his control over me made me squirm deliciously.
His voice had become even deeper, more resonant in the dark of the bedroom last night from so close beside me I could feel the heat and power rolling off of him in potent waves. He’d asked about my bruised cheek, a note of genuine concern making his timbre rougher.
Any other man . . .
But not this one. My human chastity device.
Marriage? To Maksim?
I stared incredulously at Papa, unnerved and not a little bit irritated by Maksim’s flat-out refusal.
With a sideways glare at the bastard my father sought to shove me off on, I made my displeasure clear too. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
Papa roamed closer. “Not a joke.”
“But Papa—”
“Nyet. I gave you too much freedom.” In a familiar gesture, he slashed his hand through the air. “I am not just your papa. I am pakhan, and this is my decision.”