by Rose, Emery
“I could have you arrested for breaking and entering.”
I didn’t know what had possessed me to do it or why I thought I’d had the right to, but the flirty smile on her face told me that she liked it. That it excited her. “I have a search warrant.”
“Find anything interesting?”
“I haven’t searched the premises yet. You should probably kick me out.”
“I hardly ever do what I should.” She scrolled through the playlist on her phone and made her selection. Ed Sheeran’s cover of “Make It Rain” started playing. The lyrics fit her life story and this version was bluesy as hell. “You owe me a dance.”
I took her into my arms, my gaze traveling down from the thin straps that held up her dress to the layers of sheer fabric of the skirt. From the front, it was deceptively sweet and innocent. I spun her around and gathered her hair in one hand, sliding it over her shoulder. I traced my fingers down the ridge of her spine and felt her shiver of pleasure under my touch. She leaned back against me, her bare back pressed to my chest and rested the back of her head on my shoulder. Raising her arms, she wrapped them around my neck and our hips moved to the beat of the music, her ass rubbing against my cock in a way that felt deliberate.
“Are you trying to be a gentleman?” she asked.
“Yes.” I kissed her bare shoulder. “But it’s not easy.”
I wanted to taste her, kiss every inch of her skin, make her orgasm so hard that she’d scream my name loudly enough for the neighbors to hear it.
“Good.”
As punishment, she turned to face me and snaked her arms around my neck. With a thrust of her hips, her pussy lined up with my cock. A small laugh escaped from her lips when she felt what she was doing to me, the alcohol having taken away her inhibitions. My hands ventured lower and I palmed her ass, pulling her body flush against mine. She retaliated by grabbing the back of my head and positioning it where she wanted it before sinking her teeth into my bottom lip. I flicked my tongue over it and tasted the metallic tang of blood before I drove my tongue into her mouth. We kissed like our tongues were dueling for power. It wasn’t a sweet kiss. Our teeth gnashed. Our lips were raw and swollen.
I pulled back to look at her face, her kohl-rimmed eyes glazed over with alcohol and lust.
Hooking my finger into the neckline of her dress, I slid it back and forth. “How drunk are you?”
“Drunk enough not to overthink a kiss. But not so drunk that I won’t remember it tomorrow morning.”
Without breaking eye contact, I pulled down the neckline, exposing her soft pink nipple. I flattened my tongue and took a lick as my hands gripped her waist. She moaned, arching her back almost painfully, demanding more. Tightening my hold on her waist, I took another swipe. She gasped, her eyes falling closed.
Dropping to my knees like she was the altar I worshipped at, I inched up her dress, and slid my hands up her legs, over her trembling thighs, exposing a scrap of white lace between her legs. I found it sexier than if she’d been wearing red or black. She bunched the fabric of the skirt in her hands, her grip so tight her knuckles turned white. I brushed my thumb against her clit through her underwear, and her body jerked at the sensation.
“Deacon. Please.” It was a strangled plea.
“Please what?” Hooking my fingers through the sides of her underwear, I looked up at her. “You want this?”
“Yes,” she gritted out.
“Your wish is my command.” I lowered the underwear to her ankles, and she lifted one foot and then the other until she was free of them, her bare pussy exposed to me and so perfect I nearly wept. I ran a finger up her center, feeling that she was already wet for me.
“I want you in bed, Cinderella.” I stood up and tossed her over my shoulder. She laughed, pounding my back with her fists as I carried her into the bedroom.
Tossing her on the bed, the skirt of her dress spread out on her pristine, white sheets, her hair fanning around her face, she looked like a princess from a twisted fairy tale. She let out a little yelp as I grabbed her ankles and dragged her to the edge of the bed. Placing her feet flat on the mattress, I pushed her knees apart and leaned forward, taking my first lick.
Her mouth popped open and her head fell backward. I flattened my tongue and gave her long, slow licks, taking my fill of her. My tongue circled her entrance before dipping inside. Her body writhed against me, as I licked, sucked, and fucked her with my tongue.
“Oh my God. I’m going to…”
I took her clit into my mouth and lightly bit it as I sucked, knowing it would push her over the edge. She screamed my name as she fell apart, her body convulsing as if she had no control over it. I flattened my tongue and licked her pussy as tremors from the aftershock rippled through her body. She gripped the back of my head, trying to push me away, the sensation too much. I kissed the insides of her thighs and moved up her body, my mouth capturing hers. She wrapped her arms around my neck, kissing me greedily.
“Are you going to stay?” Her eyelids fluttered closed like they were too heavy to keep open. I pressed a soft kiss on her lips, and she smiled.
“I can’t stay.” I had somewhere I needed to be.
“Oh,” she mumbled and then she passed out. Just like that.
She was sound asleep, her breathing deep and even, the ghost of a smile on her lips as I tucked her into bed, pulling the sheet over her. I sat on the edge of the bed and watched her for a few minutes. Her lips were slightly parted, her flawless skin glowing in the moonlight. She looked like a goddess or a fallen angel. I roughed my hand over my face and stifled the groan threatening to break free. This girl was killing me, softly but surely.
I was so hard it hurt. It was a miracle I hadn’t fucked her yet.
Instead, I resorted to jacking off in her bathroom like a thirteen-year-old boy who had just discovered porn. It took approximately ten seconds, tops, to chase my release. When I turned my head, she was leaning against the doorframe watching me, in her Cinderella dress and bare feet, her hair disheveled, her lips kiss-bruised.
I flushed the toilet and moved to the sink to wash my hands, watching her in the mirror as she slipped past me and cleaned the makeup off her face. As if she hadn’t just watched me fisting my cock and shooting my jizz in her toilet bowl. She traded her makeup remover for a pot of face cream and slid down the tiled wall like a ragdoll, her legs spread open and her dress hiked up to her thighs.
“You weren’t joking about your gigantic ego,” she said, rubbing cream onto her face in practiced, circular motions.
I turned from the sink and leaned against it, my hands gripping the edge. “It’ll be easier to fit through the door now.”
She burst out laughing. I could tell she was still drunk, and the alcohol was hitting her again. Her head lolled back against the wall and she smiled up at me.
“It was a beautiful wedding. Wish you could have been there.”
“Me too, babe.”
“Ugh. Don’t call me babe.” She screwed the lid on the cream and set it on the shelf of the open cabinet next to her. “I bet every girl in your world is babe. I want something special.”
“I’ll get to work on that, babe. I gotta run though. Do you need me to carry you to bed again?”
She rolled her eyes and got to her feet, drawing herself up to her full height, just a few inches shy of six feet. “I didn’t need it the first time.”
With that, she shooed me away from the sink and took my place, waving me off with her toothbrush. “You can go now, Batman.”
“Well, damn, that’s harsh.”
She smirked. “If you wanted all sweetness and light, you wouldn’t be here, babe.”
Cunning minx. She was right.
9
Deacon
I parked outside the club behind Dmitri’s red Lambo and bypassed the crowd waiting behind the velvet rope. Rocco, the bouncer on the door, pulled me into a guy handshake, the aggressive kind where his meaty hand pumped mine and we gave each other
thumps on the back before he waved me inside without patting me down. For some men, this was an adult Disney World. An Aladdin’s cave of wonders. But I’ve never gotten off on paying a woman to grind her ass against my dick or shake her tits in my face in exchange for cash in her G-string.
House techno music pulsated, and hazy purple lit up the stage area in the otherwise dark club as I weaved through the crowd at the circular bar. The clientele was a mixed bag—Eurotrash, gang-bangers, out of town businessmen, and a group of guys who looked like frat boys out for a good time with wallets padded enough to pay the inflated drink prices and hefty cover charge.
Val, one of Dmitri’s favorite girls, was finishing up her pole dance, the last notes of Air’s “Sexy Boy” playing out. She caught my eye as she climbed down from the stage in lethal-looking stilettos, bypassing the tables of men clamoring for her attention as she strutted toward me. The tassels of her metallic gold jewel-encrusted pasties swung as she walked. She stopped in front of me and ran her hand down my chest.
“Hey Sexy.”
“Hey babe. You good?”
She batted her false eyelashes at me. Her gold eye makeup matched her pasties and thong. Val was exotic-looking with coal black hair and dark almond-shaped eyes. But she was all tits and ass and I suspected that most of the men in this place never looked at her face.
“I’m the best,” she said with a wink. “You ever wanna test the goods, I’ll give you a free ride.”
“Appreciate the offer,” I said with a smile. “But you’re Dmitri’s girl.”
She rolled her eyes and jutted out one hip, planting a hand on it. “He doesn’t own me. Besides, he’s with his new whore tonight. Send his highness my love.” With that, she strutted over to a table of paying customers and I headed to the VIP lounge.
Before I could part the purple velvet curtains, a beast of a man with long black hair, a beard, and hands so big he looked like he could crush a human skull with them, appeared in front of me. His arms were the size of tree trunks. It was a wonder he could cross one over the other. Leon was the muscle, and nobody got to Dmitri without going through Leon.
When my CI had first introduced me to Dmitri, Leon had held a sawed-off shotgun to my temple for a solid ten minutes while Dmitri questioned me.
“You’re a cop, ain’t you?”
“I’m not a cop. Are you?”
“When did you graduate the academy?”
“Didn’t go.”
You think ten minutes isn’t a long time? Think again. Longest ten minutes of my life. My heart was in my throat and I had tried not to break a sweat or let them see that I was nervous. I had passed the test and little by little Dmitri had started letting me in.
“Well, well, well if it ain’t Dima’s golden boy,” Leon said around the fat cigar clamped between his teeth.
Dima’s golden boy. It made me feel like a two-bit hooker. “How’s it going, Leon?”
He grunted in reply, a man of few words, and made a sweeping gesture with his hand as he ushered me inside a black room. Everything was black—the walls, the mirrored tables, the plush carpeting, and the crystal chandelier.
Dmitri was sitting on a black velvet sofa like it was his throne, his arm slung around a Val look-alike who was snorting lines off a mirror with a hundred-dollar bill, a girl on her knees between his spread legs, her blonde head bobbing up and down.
Lifestyles of the Rich and Depraved.
“There he is,” Dmitri said, a big grin for me as he shoved away the girl on her knees in front of him. The girl collapsed in a heap at his feet and then stood, looking a little dazed as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Dmitri didn’t even spare her a glance. He zipped his black pants as he stood and extended his hand to me. We shook and he clapped me on the back like I was his honored guest. He jerked his chin at Viktor who was sitting on the sofa across from him. “Move.”
Without questioning it, Viktor dutifully moved to the other end of the sofa and I took the seat he’d just vacated, across from Dmitri.
I tipped my chin at Viktor who nodded his greeting before he went back to playing on his phone and at Sergei who narrowed his eyes at me before he went back to snorting blow off a girl’s stomach.
The girl Dmitri had shoved away perched on the edge of the sofa and watched me as she snorted a line off the mirrored coffee table, her reward for servicing Dmitri, no doubt. She resembled Connor’s girlfriend, Ava, with her white-blonde hair and big eyes. Pretty like a china doll. But I could tell she didn’t have Ava’s sass. She had a deer in the headlights look, too young and innocent to be in a place like this. I wanted to tell her to take the first bus back to Kansas or wherever she came from, but she was too busy getting high off Dmitri’s expensive blow to think about the danger she was putting herself in.
Dmitri snapped his fingers in front of her face. “Go show Kosta some love.”
She blinked as if she didn’t understand his words. His hand shot out and he backhanded her. I gritted my teeth but kept my face neutral so he couldn’t see that the way he treated women made me physically ill. She just stared at him, her eyes glistening with unshed tears, and raised her hand to her cheek to cover the red mark from his hand. “You wanna keep your job, you fucking do what I tell you to do. You hear me, bitch?” he snarled.
“Come here, sweetheart.” I crooked my finger at her. I didn’t want her to come over to me. I just wanted to get her away from Dmitri and if she didn’t move her ass, he’d backhand her again. She responded to my words and made her way over to me, running her tongue over her lips and her hands over her tight, stretchy red dress.
“What’s your name?” I asked when she stood in front of me, her legs spread.
She ran her tongue over her blood-red painted lips, a stark contrast to her pale skin. “Angel.”
Of course, it was.
She dropped to her knees in front of me as if that was expected of her and undid the button on my jeans. That shit just depressed me. I hauled her up by the arms and planted her ass in the seat next to mine. Dmitri and Leon, who was standing in the shadows, arms crossed, were watching me to see what I’d do next. Everything was a fucking test with these guys and my next move was risky, but my conscience won out. I leaned in close, my voice low and for her ears only. “You don’t have to do that for me or for anyone in this room unless it’s something you want to do. Understand?”
She shook her head, her eyes filled with fear. “I cannot afford to lose my job,” she whispered in my ear and I detected the Eastern European accent. Fuck me.
“You won’t lose your job. I’ll make sure of it.”
I was making guarantees now?
She gave me a trusting smile that damn near broke my heart as if I alone had the power to make her world a better place. My sister Abby said I became a cop because I had a savior complex. She thought I wanted to save the whole world. I didn’t want to save everyone. Just a select few. Girls like Angel. Guys like Connor. Good people who needed help getting out from under all the shit before it buried them alive.
Dmitri flashed me a white-toothed smile. “Ask your bitch to pour us a round of shots.”
My bitch. I’d rather be in bed with my tarnished princess who gave me sass and could hold her own. I nudged Angel and tipped my chin at the bottle of vodka in the crystal ice bucket. Beluga Gold Line. The same vodka Keira had been drinking the other night. I knew it by taste.
Angel jumped to do my bidding and filled two shot glasses to the rim, sliding one in front of Dmitri and one in front of me before returning to her seat, a shy smile just for me. I felt like I’d just adopted a stray puppy. Just what I fucking needed.
“Thanks, babe.”
She curled into my side, tucked her arm in mine and drank her Dom Perignon, feeling safer now that she was under my protection. Dmitri and the others wouldn’t fuck with her if they thought she belonged to me. They abided by their own twisted moral code.
I turned my attention to Dmitri, the black knight in his sharp sui
t. His face looked like it was cut from granite, chiseled and hard, with a mane of thick black hair that reached the collar of his black dress shirt. Women found him attractive, in a dark, sadistic way. He took care of his body, worked out regularly, and unlike the others, he never touched drugs. Dmitri was a businessman and led by intimidation. Except for Leon, the other guys in his crew sucked up to him. It was probably why he liked me. I didn’t pander to him.
“You’re coming to the Hamptons with us,” Dmitri announced.
He held up his shot glass and waited for me to do the same. “Za nashu druzjbu.”
To our friendship.
In his eyes, he’d just bestowed a great honor on me. If I didn’t drink to seal the deal, it would be a sign of disrespect. I downed the vodka and set the empty glass on the table, knowing there would be at least three more shots to follow but I would stop at two and Dmitri wouldn’t say shit about it.
Dmitri considered me a friend. He confided in me. Asked my opinion. Invited me to hang out with him in his steel and glass waterfront penthouse in Long Island City, a stone’s throw from the apartment the field team had rented for me. We watched ballgames, played chess, and boxed at the gym together. For all his money and flashy lifestyle, Dmitri was a lonely man. Now he was inviting me to the Hamptons. Which was the whole reason I’d been cherry-picked for this assignment. To get close to Dmitri so we could bust the drug ring he was running. To gain his trust so he’d give me information, ideally leading us further up the food chain to his suppliers.
“When’s that?” I asked, adopting a relaxed pose, my arm draped across the back of the sofa.
“We’re leaving on Thursday. For a long weekend.”
“Who’s invited?” Sergei asked, shooting me a look as he abandoned the girl and moved closer to our circle, crossing his arms over his chest, on the defensive, always trying to protect his turf. Sergei was on a lower tier of the hierarchy, at the same level as Viktor. They did the grunt work, acted as the lookouts, and were only privy to information on a need to know basis. It pissed him off that Dmitri treated me as a friend, but he knew where his bread was buttered and was smart enough to keep his mouth shut.