Chicago Bratva Books 7-9, page 46
part #1 of Chicago Bratva Series
It doesn’t help that Maykl has begun to lave me with his tongue, to penetrate me with the tip of it, to screw one finger inside of me.
“You see?” He lifts his head and smirks, his lips glossy with my juices. “You can’t even answer me.”
“You are part of something I hate,” I manage to say. It’s the most I can offer. I can’t say I don’t hate him because he’s in it, he represents it. But no part of me feels hate directly toward him.
He’s too…
“Ugn.” I throw my head back with the shock of pleasure he delivers when he finds my G-spot.
Too…
Another whine leaves my lips. “Pozhaluysta.” I’m begging, just as he predicted.
“Tell me what you need, Valkiriya.”
I tug at my bonds, lust, and helplessness making me aggressive. Angry. “I need you to set me free.”
He shakes his head. “Not going to happen.” He slaps between my legs, delivering several light spanks that make me yank even harder to be free.
Then, to my horror, he backs away, off the bed. “I’ll let you simmer a while. I have to get back to my station.”
“Wait!” I cry in alarm. “I’m hungry! Thirsty! I have to go to the bathroom!”
None of those things are true. I just don’t want to be left alone. Not when I’m hot and needy and have no means of finishing myself off.
He seems to know it’s a bluff because he just offers a shrug. “You’ll have to think very hard about how to please me next time.”
“Wait…what?”
He walks out the door, and I stare in fury, mouth open, frustration slamming through me.
Evil man. Wicked, horrible, marvelous demon of a man.
I suck in a shaky breath and let it out with a moan. Maybe I do hate him after all.
If he keeps this up, I will definitely learn to thoroughly despise him.
Maykl
The trouble with torturing Kira is that I’m torturing myself at the same time. I leave the guards in front of my door to watch the apartment and go back to my station with the biggest set of blue balls in history.
I left Gleb in charge of the front door. “You back already? Go,” he waves me off. “I’m here. You go do whatever it is that has you occupied today. I have nothing else to do.”
I hesitate. Leaving Kira alone was part of my plan although it’s true that I didn’t want to leave her for long. But the funeral home left a message on my phone saying her sister’s ashes were ready to be picked up, so I could run that errand.
“Thank you.” I speak English because that’s Ravil’s rule for us. If he didn’t make it, none of us would perfect our English since we all live here together.
I text Ravil to make sure he won’t nail me to a wall over leaving the building, and he calls me.
“Kira’s phone has proved useful,” he tells me.
“It has? Good.”
“Stepanov set a meet time for her. We will be there to take them down.”
I note that Ravil doesn’t tell me when and where. Like he doesn’t trust me not to betray them. Like I might choose Kira over my brothers.
Would I?
Love can make men do strange things. I’ve watched the behavior of my brothers change radically when they chose a woman.
“How is it going with her?”
I think of my beautiful Valkyrie bound to my bed, and my cock thickens. “I’m making progress.”
“Maxim advised you to win her heart.”
“Yes.”
“Can you?”
I swallow. Can I? The possibility is there. But there’s the issue of her father’s death. That may be an insurmountable issue.
“I want to,” I answer. The only answer I can give.
“Good. Then get the ashes. Take care of your female. We’ll handle the security of the building until things are resolved.”
“Understood. Thank you, Pakhan.”
With his blessing, I pick up the ashes and then stop for soup and sandwiches from the deli on the corner. I buy lunch for Gleb while I’m there, dropping it at the desk for him when I walk by.
He lifts his chin in a gruff version of thanks.
I take the stairs up and enter the apartment.
I set the lunch down in the kitchen then head into the bedroom. The moment I see Kira, I forget all about eating. About breathing. About doing anything but devouring her.
Her cheeks are flushed. Nipples puckered. The flesh between her legs lifts and flutters in anticipation of being touched. She looks magnificent.
I lean against the dresser to take in the sight. To keep myself from going straight to her and ravishing her in every way possible. Because this is supposed to be punishment.
I’m making her wait for it.
I watch her closely. If I saw any fear in her, I’d probably go some other way. But all I see is irritation and desire.
She wants this. She probably hates that she wants it, but that doesn’t change the way she writhes on the bed, panting. The way she pleads with her eyes.
I saunter over and climb on the bed. “Shall we try again?” I slide my hands under her ass and squeeze it as I lick into her once more. She’s even juicier than she was when I left, as if her desire has only grown each minute I was gone.
I pause when she doesn’t answer, and she quickly barks out a “Da.”
I reward her with several firm strokes of my tongue, ending with a slow roll around her clit.
She rocks her hips up to my mouth. “Is this your fantasy, Maykl?” she pants.
“Yes.”
“Have you done it before?”
Is she jealous? “What? Captured FBI informants and punished them with my tongue? No.”
She shimmies her hips from side to side. “Have you done this with other women?”
She is jealous. Smugness zips through me.
I lift my head and grin. “No. You’re the first woman to inspire this precise treatment. Does that please you, Kira?”
I’m sure that it does because her cheeks turn pink as our gazes tangle.
“I’m tempted to torture you this way all day long,” I say.
“Don’t leave me again!” she cries out in alarm, and I chuckle.
“No? I crawl over her, unbuttoning my pants. “What do you need, little warrior? You want more than my tongue between your legs?”
“Y-yes please,” she warbles. She’s adorable when she’s coming undone like this.
I grab a condom from my nightstand and shuck my clothes before rolling it on.
I consider her. “Do I leave you in this position?” I muse aloud.
But I already know. As pretty as she looks splayed out that way, I want those legs wrapped around me when I sink deep inside her. I want her to be able to respond to me.
I unlock both her ankles and one of her wrists, then I climb over her and pause, looking down. I suppose I’m waiting for consent, even though she just begged me for it. But I want to feel wanted.
“I want on top,” she whispers.
I smile. How like her. My little warrior, demanding what she wants.
I release her wrist from where it’s chained to the bed and attach the other cuff to my wrist. Then I roll to my back, my hands at her waist to help her climb on.
Her eyes roll back in her head as she climbs on. Her internal muscles give me a squeeze, making me shudder with pleasure.
I watch as she takes what she needs from me, starting slow, her body moving in beautiful, graceful undulations. Soon her hips begin to snap as she tries to take me deeper. She picks up her pace, loses her breath. She braces both her hands on my shoulders, and I use my free hand to urge her hips forward.
She starts chanting. Babbling. Things like “now” and “yes” and “please”. She cries out my name twice. Each time sends a surge of lust through me. On the third time, I can’t take it anymore. I flip her onto her back and pound to our glorious finish. We both come at the same time–her muscles milking my dick for every last drop.
I shudder and shake and groan with the release.
And when stillness descends, I lower my lips to her neck and kiss there. “Thank you,” I murmur.
She lets out a small cry, like my thanks wounded her. When I lift my head, there are tears in her eyes. She blinks them rapidly away, turning her face to the side.
I catch her jaw and turn it back. “What is it?”
“I don’t know,” she says, and I believe her. “It was just…intense. But good, Maykl. So good.” After a moment’s hesitation, she says, “Thank you.” Almost like it costs her to offer the thanks.
Like she’s admitting something to herself when she gives it.
I claim a soft kiss from her lips. The kind without tongue that moves across the surface and squeezes at the end.
She lets out another tiny, pained cry.
My tenderness wounds her again.
I intend to keep wounding her this way. Showing her kindness. Offering my presence. Maybe eventually, she’ll learn to take it without it hurting.
13
Kira
After we shower, Maykl lets me put on some clothes. He has me uncuffed but keeps me within grabbing distance.
“I picked up your sister’s ashes,” he tells me.
The sensation of a swallowed stone in my stomach that I always have when I think of Anya returns. “Oh.” I can’t think of anything to say. “Where are they?”
He points to the cardboard cylinder on his desk.
I walk over and open the lid then quickly replace it. I’m not squeamish, but something about knowing what’s inside creeps me out.
“Do you…want to keep them? Or scatter them as a farewell?”
I look out Maykl’s giant windows toward the lake.
“Maybe…scatter them. Out there. Leave her to Chicago.”
He nods. “I’ll arrange it.” He pulls out his phone to text something.
I can’t help it. I throw myself at him, wrapping my arms around his sturdy trunk and squeezing hard.
It’s hard to fathom why he’s being so kind. What he could possibly hope to gain by carrying me through this.
He kisses the top of my head. A message comes through on his phone, which he checks and then pockets. “Get your boots and coat. We’re going now.”
“To the lake?” I blink in surprise.
“Yes.”
“I can go out? I mean, we’re going out to the lake?” I’m having a hard time assimilating this fact. That I could go from prisoner to pampered in just the blink of an eye.
“Even in war, there’s time given to bury the dead.”
“Are we at war?” I ask. Because I no longer want to be.
I want to find some way out of this situation that leaves us both on the same side. But is that even possible?
He tilts his head. “We are until we aren’t anymore. Go and put on your boots.”
I mull over his words as I pull on my boots and coat. When I return, he hands me the ashes then shows me the screen of his phone.
I gasp. Mika.
All grown up. I don’t know how I even recognize him, except the family resemblance is there. He looks like my sister.
“In case you need an incentive not to give me trouble.” I think I catch a tinge of regret in Maykl’s face as he makes the threat.
My eyes water and I press my lips together and nod. “He’s safe?”
“He’s fine. I’m not threatening his safety. I’m telling you to be good, so you can see him.”
I bob my head, still overcome with emotion. The relief that he’s actually been found–that he’s still alive and Maykl knows where–makes me want to drop to my knees and praise a god I don’t even believe in.
Maykl sees my emotion and loops an arm around me to lead me to the door. Outside stand two battle-faced bratva soldiers. I absorb that information. I’ve had additional guards at the door this whole time.
For some reason, it doesn’t daunt me. I don’t feel as concerned about making an escape.
We are until we aren’t anymore.
There’s a riddle in there. Something to work out. Some clue about what he’s planning for me.
“Follow us,” Maykl commands, and the guards tag along into the elevator. Someone else sits behind Maykl’s desk. An older man but clearly still bratva based on the tattoos that extend beyond his sleeves and across the backs of his hands.
Maykl keeps his arm around me. I’m sure it’s to keep me close, to make sure I don’t run, but it also feels protective. Comforting, even.
He leads me out to the sidewalk toward the lake. As we pass by the window of the building, I hear a knock and Kat gives me a friendly wave from her studio.
I smile back because it’s impossible not to return the friendliness.
It’s cold out, and I tighten the jacket around me as we walk into the wind. Maykl leads me to the end of a dock. I stand and stare out at the water for a long time. It’s a dark blue. The sky is grey to match the occasion.
Maykl doesn’t hurry me. Or lead. He just stands beside me, his hulk and strength giving me a pillar to lean into.
I take a deep breath. “Okay, let’s do this.” I open the lid of the ashes container and unceremoniously dump the whole thing. No scattering. Just a straight pour.
“May the earth be soft for her.” Maykl speaks the traditional Russian saying.
“Except she’s in water,” I say. I start to laugh. It’s a hysterical kind of laugh. The sort that could just as easily turn to tears. In fact, some tears do stream down my cheeks as I knock into Maykl’s solid form, rocking on my feet with hysteria.
He wraps me into his arms and sways with me gently as I laugh until I sob.
When the outburst finally dies, I pull away and wipe my tears. “I’m okay,” I say, even though he said nothing.
Behind him, the soldiers stand stoic and watchful.
I turn back to the water, to the swirls of ashes stretching away into the giant body of water. “Bye Anya.” I swallow. “I’m sorry I didn’t do more to help you. I’m sorry you were a shitty mom. I’m sorry you’re dead. I’m sorry…I’m sorry it wasn’t me.”
Maykl visibly flinches. “What does that mean?” he demands.
I don’t look at him. I keep my gaze on the trail of ashes growing longer as it stretches further and further away. “I mean when the bratva came. I could’ve taken her place. I wouldn’t have let it break me the way it broke her.”
Maykl’s brows draw together. “You…you feel guilty they chose her?”
I nod.
He moves closer, standing right beside me, my shoulder against his arm as we look out together.
“We all wish there were things we could change about our past. Things we’ve done. Things done to us. Unforgivable things. But that guilt serves no one.”
“I can’t just put it away. If I did, I’d stop caring. And I feel like I barely care for anyone or anything anymore.” Tears clog my voice.
“I…” Maykl seems to be struggling. “There’s something I’ve done, Kira. After I killed my father. I don’t regret that crime. He would have killed me if I didn’t defend myself. But I didn’t understand how it worked. The pakhan made me believe the brotherhood would take me in.” Maykl waits so long to speak that I know he must be wrestling with his memories.
“But they require initiation. A price to pay to become one of them.” He shifts away from me, like he doesn’t want to contaminate me with his crimes. “I didn’t know what a cost that initiation would have on my soul.”
I finally turn. He’s pulled me completely out of my own turmoil. The need to comfort him rises–a surprising but sweet sensation.
“What was it?” I ask softly.
He faces me and works to swallow. His eyes are haunted. “An execution. A man who owed them money and tried to pay with counterfeit currency. I was–” he draws a breath. “Thirteen years old. They put a gun in my hand and pointed me at him. I had to prove myself. If I didn’t…I’d be on my own.”
I reach over and pick up his hand on the rail of the dock. “Not your only killing, though, right?” I trace the X’s on his knuckles.
He shakes his head. “No, but…the one that ruined me.”
I feel the heaviness and constriction of his statement like a cloud of darkness in my lungs. “You’re not ruined.”
Somehow, I’m sure. Absolutely positive.
But he shakes his head. “You don’t know.” He looks so pained. I squeeze his fingers. “You don’t know who it was.”
I suck in a sharp breath suddenly picturing the worst. A child or old lady. Someone completely defenseless. “Were they innocent?”
“No. He was mixed up with bratva business. He tried to cheat his way out of his debts, I was told. And it wasn’t the first time.” Maykl searches my face. What he seeks, I don’t know. I feel the magnitude of it, though.
He’s not doing a great job of cheering me up, if that was his intent.
I blink back tears. For him. For me. For Anya and Mika. “Why are you telling me this?”
He drops his head and shakes it. “I lost the point. I meant to tell you that guilt serves no one. My guilt can’t change what I did. Questioning that choice won’t change it. Nor will stopping myself from experiencing the rest of this life. The guilt serves no one. It doesn’t bring back the dead. It doesn’t heal any wounds–it only makes them fester.
“So you were thirteen when you joined the bratva?” I ask.
“Yes.”
Thirteen. The same age I was when Anya was taken by the bratva to pay my father’s debt.
“You were just a kid. You didn’t know any other way out of your situation.” I nod. “You did what you had to do to survive.”
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I would’ve died inside if the bratva had taken me instead. Sought out drugs to numb the pain, the way Anya did. To believe I would’ve done better is naive at best, arrogant at worst.
Besides, Maykl’s right. The guilt doesn’t bring back the dead.
I can only move forward. Live in the present.
I tug his hand. My fingers are chapped and numb in the cold. I have gloves in my pockets but didn’t bother putting them on. “Let’s go back. It’s done.”
