Sexting The Bratva Beast: A Dark Christmas Romance (Ruthless Mafia Kings), page 45
SEXTING THE BRATVA BEAST
VIVY SKYS
Copyright © 2025 by VIVY SKYS
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
CONTENTS
1. Cartier
2. Andrej
3. Cartier
4. Andrej
5. Cartier
6. Andrej
7. Cartier
8. Andrej
9. Cartier
10. Andrej
11. Cartier
12. Andrej
13. Cartier
14. Andrej
15. Cartier
16. Andrej
17. Cartier
18. Andrej
19. Cartier
20. Andrej
21. Cartier
22. Andrej
23. Cartier
24. Andrej
Epilogue
About the Author
1
CARTIER
Holy fuck!
I’m gaping. Am I gaping? I force my brain to engage with my jaw and snap it shut, the sound causing the baby in my arms to startle. A tiny hand wriggles free of the pink blanket the baby is swaddled in. She opens her mouth to bawl, and the sound is so fragile, so utterly gut-wrenching that my demented heart goes into full-on maternal overdrive.
“Shh, shh. There, there.” Because babies only understand words in duplicate. “Naughty Auntie Cartier, making you jump.”
But the baby must pick up on my irregular heartbeat. Or maybe she’s intuitive and she heard my silent cuss when the bad boy dressed all in black walked through the door. Either way, she refuses to settle back in my arms, and I pray that I haven’t destroyed our future relationship by traumatizing her with my rampant thoughts within six hours of her arrival.
I hand her over to her mom, my friend Gianna, and she settles instantly.
The same can’t be said for me, however.
I was three years old when Hurricane Charley hit Florida. Too young to make memories of vacations and trips to the Magic Kingdom and play dates at the park. But I still remember the atmosphere before the hurricane reached land. The tension in the air that you needed a paddle to wade through. The wary eyes. The heightened senses.
That’s how I feel right now. Like the storm is happening before I even realized that I should appreciate the calm first.
Without the baby in my arms, I have nothing to focus on, no one to hide behind, no reason not to make eye contact.
And when I finally psych myself up to glance at the man who just walked through the door, he’s staring straight at me like he knows exactly what I’m thinking. Or maybe he’s simply used to being stared at. I mean, I defy any woman to set eyes on him and walk away from the encounter unscathed.
Or undressed.
Or both.
I mentally shake myself. This kind of meet-cute only happens in steamy romantic novels and every romcom ever made in the history of time. It isn’t the stuff of real life. And even if it were, it doesn’t happen to people like me.
Not that I ever wanted it to.
I’ve seen first-hand how physical attraction can so easily slide from a planned happy-ever-after into a toxic relationship from which the escape route is often more dangerous and volatile than the situation itself.
Gianna, Mika, and I met in Montenegro where we all worked at a women’s refuge. We shared an apartment, which meant that we also ate, drank, and socialized together. We knew everything there was to know about one another…
Apart from the fact that Gianna’s family were so super-wealthy that she shouldn’t have been allowed outside the house without a bodyguard. And those thrift store bargains she wore: they were an act of rebellion.
Her life reads a little like a Godfather movie. She was abducted during her flight home from Montenegro to Chicago by the man who is now her husband. Leonid Ivanov. Because he obviously looked at Tinder and thought that kidnapping was the safer option. Her sister’s husband kidnapped her a second time, and then, the story goes that Leonid threatened to burn Chicago down for the women he loved.
Yay for the amber-eyed Russian prince!
Leonid then bought Gianna a huge property which we’ve been helping her to renovate and transform into a women’s refuge here in Chicago. Today is the opening day. And Gianna has just given birth to beautiful twin girls.
So, I guess some people do find their happy ending.
And I don’t even know how my brain has connected the dots from setting eyes on the hottest man on earth to having babies. Must be something to do with the mountain of romance novels I’ve read since I was old enough to understand how a hero should make me feel, and my ovaries choosing this exact moment to wind up the body clock and turn it up to full volume.
Or perhaps it’s simply down to the fact that my entire body has become untethered from my brain and is preparing itself to be well and truly enlightened by the bad boy in the corner.
“Car?” Gianna’s voice penetrates the drool-fest taking place inside my delusional brain.
I glance up to find everyone watching me as if I just declared out loud that I want to rip his clothes off and ride him till I can’t walk.
My face floods with heat. I feel my cheeks growing hot enough to fry an egg on and try to recall the conversation that I’m supposed to be responding to. Nope. Nothing. I’m a complete blank.
So, I wing it. “She just wanted her mommy.” They were talking about the baby, right?
Wrong.
Gianna furrows her brow just enough for me to realize that if my face gets any hotter it’ll explode. Then, “This is Andrej. Leonid’s brother.”
We’re doing introductions now? Did I miss the part where he said hi to me and Mika when he walked in?
My traitorous eyes instinctively follow Gianna’s to the sex god in black.
Fuck! I mean the resemblance is unmistakable, same thick raven-black hair, same amber eyes. But he has a scar on his top lip that gives him the appearance of a feral wolf, and that thought shouldn’t be sending smoke signals directly down to my pussy. But it is. And they’re still waiting for me to speak…
“Hello Andrej. Leonid’s brother.”
I lean across the bottom of the bed and offer him my hand to shake formally, like this is a business meeting, and I need him to part with some of his hard-earned cash. Or payment in kind. I wouldn’t say no to something altogether more appealing to my thrumming heart and the tingling between my legs.
His palm meets mine. His grip is warm and strong, of course it is, and his eyes draw me in, causing me to forget which way is up and that I need oxygen to stay alive. His touch sends a tremor down my spine, adding to the confusion creating havoc amongst my brain cells.
“Good to meet you, Cartier Black.”
I’m sorry, but how the hell did he make my name sound like he just rolled it around in honey and then dipped it in melted chocolate?
Is it a requirement of the Ivanov family that their men carry an aura of ‘come any closer and I’ll fuck you till you scream’? Is that what happened to Gianna when she met Leonid?
She was engaged to be married to an Irish guy called Seamus when she boarded the plane in Montenegro. The next thing we knew, she’d ditched him for Leonid and was expecting his baby. Babies, plural. And I can totally understand why.
Andrej Ivanov could whip out a pair of handcuffs from his back pocket right now, and I’d willingly follow him back to his dungeon.
Bed.
Cold shower.
I fan my face with my hand. Why isn’t anyone else sweating?
Mika is standing right next to him across the room, and I don’t see her having palpitations. Gianna is sitting there, propped up against the pillows of her hospital bed, looking as if she’s enjoying a spa weekend at a five-star resort rather than someone who just gave birth. While I can feel my hair starting to cling to my overheated face.
“I’ll open the window.” Andrej must’ve noticed the heat emanating from me. Or maybe he can feel it wafting his way.
I’m watching the way his shoulder muscles ripple through his sweater when my phone vibrates in my pocket. I slide it out and I’m so distracted I almost drop it.
It’s a message from Mika, who is literally standing on the other side of the bed:
Are you creaming your panties or did someone crank up the heating in here?
Mika has always had a way with words, especially when it comes to men who are smoking hot. It’s as if she has an inbuilt radar that can sniff them out from a hundred meters. Whenever the three of us would visit a nightclub in Montenegro, she’d scope out the place within minutes and inform us which one she would be making out with by the end of the night.
Perhaps she manifested them into her life. Or perhaps she gives off all the right signals. Because I’ve never known her to get it wrong.
She gave up trying to set me up with a guy – any guy – around the time that I mentioned that Heathcliff was the only man for me. You know, dark, brooding, serious. A little like Mr. Bad Boy Ivanov here.
In fact, exactly like him.
I wouldn’t normally respond to Mika’s crude jokes, but my fingers need an outlet for the electricity still humming through my fingertips from his handshake. And staring at my phone screen will give my face a chance to cool down. A girl can hope.
I type: Is it that obvious?
Girl, I can smell your pheromones from here.
I shake my head and swallow hard while I compose another message: My mouth is dry. It’s the only part of me that is. I hit send before I can talk myself out of it.
I sense Mika’s smile, but I don’t dare peek up at her. She’s too close to Andrej, and this room is so crammed full of Ivanov muscles that I’d still be able to see him if I was hiding under the bed with a sheet over my head.
My phone vibrates in my hand. Is the ice queen thawing?
I fire back: Is that a euphemism for wanting him to fuck me on every available surface while he gazes into my eyes and says I’m not done with you yet?
Send.
If so, yes.
When Mika’s reply isn’t forthcoming, I make the fatal mistake of raising my eyes.
Fatal because Andrej Ivanov has opened the window and is currently reading my text messages from over Mika’s shoulder, while my so-called friend angles her screen towards him to give him a better view.
Her smug smile tells me all I need to know: he read them all. As if he needed yet another woman to remind him that he’s a walking, talking, alpha. Now he also knows exactly what I’ve been thinking since he walked through the door of Gianna’s hospital room.
So, I guess I have two choices.
One: I throw myself across the bed, snatch Mika’s phone out of her hand, and hurl it out of the now open window.
Two: I pretend that I’m gloriously and naively oblivious.
I’m going with the lesser of two evils.
I zero in on Gianna, ignoring the curl of Andrej’s lip in my peripheral vision, and say, “Did you prepare a speech for later, Gi?”
My best friend wrenches her eyes away from her beautiful baby daughter. Like a lioness protecting her cubs, she instinctively seeks out the twin in Leonid’s arms before she finally reaches me. Each passing moment feels like an eternity with his eyes on me, but I don’t waver. I’ve had plenty of practice over the years at keeping a deadpan expression.
Gianna scrunches up her face, and I already have my answer. “I’m sorry, Car. I was going to do it last night when I got home, but my babies had other ideas.”
She smiles down at the babe in her arms, and I wonder briefly if they’ll ever be able to tell their own children apart.
“Could you do it for me?” she adds. “Please?”
I glance at the clock on the wall. We’re running out of time, and I know how important this grand opening is to Gianna. The mayor will be attending along with plenty of other important people in Chicago; not the kind of event where I can ad-lib a speech and still expect to impress people.
“We’d both be grateful,” Leonid says from the visitor’s seat where he’s cradling the other twin.
“Of course she can.” It’s easy for Mika to say, she isn’t the one under pressure to write a mayor-of-Chicago-worthy speech while being mentally undressed by the babies’ uncle.
“I’ll help.”
My heart screeches to a halt and then starts thudding in reverse like it can rewind the past few seconds and watch Andrej repeat the offer.
“I’m free for the rest of the day,” he adds. His eyes meet and hold mine, and I’m frightened of what will happen if someone doesn’t pry me away from him soon.
“You want to help her write a speech?” The question from Leonid saves me in the nick of time.
“It’s fine,” I blurt out. “I’ll do it.”
“I think it’s a great idea.” Mika doesn’t even try to contain her grin. “I remember the last speech Cartier gave; she got the director’s name wrong twice.”
“I was hungover.” I glare at her, but it goes unnoticed. “I’m quite capable of writing a speech.”
Mika is on a roll now, in full-on ‘let’s embarrass Cartier’ mode. “So hungover that she woke up in the shower that morning wearing a hi-vis jacket and steel-toe-capped boots that she stole from a construction site.”
“And whose fault was it?” I arch an eyebrow. “Who threatened to rip up my antique copy of Jane Eyre if I didn’t do a tequila shot?”
“Mine. I’ll hold my hands up.” Mika, unfazed, raises both hands in mock surrender.
Gianna chuckles. “It was funny, Car. You delivered the speech and then crashed out underneath the staffroom table with a packet of sugar as a pillow.”
“This is the reason why I don’t drink.” I address Mika and Gianna. “Because I have friends who can’t be trusted to keep me sober. I lost my favorite pair of cowboy boots that night.”
A smile tugs at Andrej’s lips, and fuck if my pussy doesn’t immediately react by pulsing like I just got an electric shock. “That I would love to have seen,” he says.
“Maybe next time.” Mika gives me the side-eye, but I don’t bite.
I’m not inviting him to go on a night out with us. I’m not inviting him anywhere. In fact, the more distance I put between me and Andrej Ivanov the better. I’ll get through today’s grand opening, I’ll go home and take a cold shower, and then I’ll forget all about him.
“I promise to keep you sober.” His tone is deadly serious, but the glint in his eyes is telling a whole different story.
“Andrej, I’m not sure—” Leonid doesn’t finish because his brother cuts him off.
“I can give you a tour of Chicago’s best nightlife.”
I glance around the room, and all eyes are on me. Apart from Leonid, who is trying hard to get his brother’s attention without making it too obvious.
“Cartier would love that, wouldn’t you, Car?” Mika prompts. “Her idea of nightlife is reading until her eyes go blurry and falling asleep with all the lights on.”
“We’ll have to see if we can rectify that then.”
“I like reading.” It’s the Cartier Black version of I carried a watermelon.
He smiles, and I make a mental note to train my heartbeat not to react in future. “I can show you a library that not many people know about.”
A library? Is this guy for real?
“That’s her ‘I can’t wait’ expression,” Mika says before I can think of a suitable excuse.
“Great. I’ll pick you up outside the refuge.”
His gaze is steady, cool. So why do I feel as if he has already undressed me and is planning all the different ways in which he can make me beg for more?
Andrej Ivanov is dangerous. That’s what I tell myself as Mika and I make our way through the hospital and outside to her beaten-up old car. No good will ever come of getting too close to a man like him.
And, in that moment, I believe it.
2
ANDREJ
“What was that all about?”
The door has barely closed behind the two women when my brother pounces. He might be all gaga over his baby girls, but his tone is still cold metal with me.
“What was what all about?”
I lean against the wall with my arms crossed and wait for him to elaborate. Leonid has always been easily rattled, coiled up like a rusty spring, and he wonders why we’ve always fought so much. It’s too tempting to resist, and life is too short to be boring.
“Cartier.” He keeps his voice low so as not to disturb the twins.
This is his life now. The Pakhan has finally been stabbed through the heart by Cupid’s arrow. I never thought it would happen to Leonid, but he changed the instant Gianna entered his world. Sure, she was promised to an Irish mob boss when she first arrived. Leverage against the Irish and the Sicilians. An acquisition to barter, to end the longstanding feud between the Ivanovs and the Amory family.
And now here we are. My brother funded the women’s refuge that Gianna and her friends will run, and I have two nieces.
Life evolves. It’s the kind of feel-good shit that our sister Victoria would spurt.
It’ll happen to you too one day, Andrej. I can hear her voice inside my head. Then you might look back and wish you’d done things differently.
I doubt it. I’ve spent my life doing whatever the hell I wanted. Can either of my siblings say the same?
