I smile weakly. “None taken. I know what people must think of me.”
He puts an arm around me. “But you’re different. I can see that. You have a mind of your own, and your heart is in the right place,” he says sagely. I look up at him, my eyes shining.
“You have no idea how nice it is to hear that,” I tell him. “All my life, my father has tried to keep me as sheltered and vapid and clueless as possible. I see that now. All the moving around, the lavish vacations, the shallow gifts. He wanted to make me soft and stupid.”
“And compliant,” Nikolai adds.
“Yes. Exactly,” I verify, still amazed at how he seems to really get it.
“He wanted you to be so comfortable that you never question anything,” he says.
“Yep. Which is why I’m sure he thought I would just accept this horrible betrothal without complaint. I’m such a fool. But I have to think that my father is just as ignorant of how terrible Uncle Liev is as I was. Surely he wouldn’t try to knowingly marry me off to some disgusting pig of a man,” I mutter, frowning.
“One would hope,” Nikolai says grimly.
“Anyway, I’m sorry I got you dragged into this mess,” I tell him. “I don’t know what exactly you were planning to do hiding out in the hedges like that, but I apologize for jeopardizing your… your mission. Or whatever you call it.”
“Think nothing of it. You needed my help. What kind of coward would I be to have let you fall with no one to catch you? If I ever become the kind of man to turn away a beautiful woman in need of help, I will never look be able to look at myself in the mirror again,” says Nikolai. “Regardless of how or why we ended up in those hedges together, I will not abandon you now, Anastasia. I told you I would take care of you, and I meant it.”
My heart surges with affection and appreciation as I look up at him. Nikolai is still a mystery to me. I don’t know who he is, really, or where he came from. I don’t know what his intentions were when we met, but I know deep in my soul that I can trust him. Completely. He will never hurt me. In fact, as I recall with a twinge of painful longing, he is the only man I have ever known who could show me such indescribable pleasure.
And suddenly, I know exactly what I need right now. I know what will help me get through this terrifying ordeal. I don’t know what the morning’s light will bring, but tonight, I want to wrap myself up in Nikolai’s strong arms and let him take my body however he wants to.
My father might want to sell off my body and soul to someone else, but I can at least give away a piece of myself before he can.
Nikolai’s blue eyes seem to almost glow with understanding. He knows what I want without my ever having to even open my mouth and say it. He slowly reaches to cup my cheek in his huge hand, his thumb tracing gently over my full bottom lip. My body tingles with warmth, with need, and he leans in to kiss me gently.
His lips press against mine and I sigh into the kiss, feeling every ounce of tension in my body melt away as he holds me. His hands slide down my neck, my arms, my chest, all the way down to grasp my hips. Nikolai softly urges me to stand up, and guides me over to straddle him, climbing up onto his lap with my legs bent around his waist. As he kisses me, his tongue pushes inside my mouth and I moan, giving in to the waves of intoxicating lust. I have never felt like this before. So ravenous. So desperate for touch.
His hands slide down to grope my ass through my jeans as he gently rolls his hips. I inhale sharply when I realize that I can feel his hard, hot cock pressing against my ass as we rock together, kissing and folding into each other’s arms. I want him. All of him. And I am willing to give all of myself to Nikolai, too. Right now. Tonight.
But just as the heat is building ever higher between us, an annoying sound splits the air, jolting us both out of the moment. It’s a high-pitched chiming noise, and through the haze of lust, it occurs to me that it’s my ringtone. My stupid cell phone is ringing in my back pocket.
“Shit,” I murmur, sliding off of Nikolai’s lap and reaching around to grab the phone. He watches silently as I check the screen. My eyes go wide and I look up at him with horror. “Oh my god. It’s my father calling!” I gasp.
“Answer it,” Nikolai says.
“What? Are you crazy?” I ask, shocked.
“It will be worse if you don’t answer. Just lie. Tell him you felt ill and needed to go home. Tell him you caught a cab. Anything,” he suggests. I bite my lip, unsure if I can follow through with what he’s asking. I never lie to my father. He’s never given me a good reason to.
But I know Nikolai is right.
I slide the screen open and press the phone to my ear. “Hello?” I murmur quietly.
“Anastasia Nestorevna Koroleva!” my father bellows angrily into my ear.
“Hi, Daddy,” I whisper.
“What the hell is your problem? Where are you? Mr. Ovechkin is furious! How dare you disobey me? Running away from your fiancé, absconding with a strange man like some low-class whore! What were you thinking?” he shouts, his voice so loud it’s nearly hoarse. I tremble, my blood running cold. My father has never spoken to me this way in my life.
“I-I’m sorry, Daddy,” I mumble.
“Sorry? Der’mo. Damn right you will be sorry when I get my hands on you! How could you do this to Liev? How could you do this to me? Have you lost your mind?” he demands.
“I just—I just can’t do it. I can’t marry Liev. I’m sorry. It’s not right,” I speak up weakly.
“What do you mean ‘not right’? He is your fiancé. Your betrothed. You have no choice in the matter, Anastasia. You are my daughter and you will marry whomever I choose!” he spits.
“Daddy, he’s not the man you think he is!” I exclaim. “Uncle Liev—Mr. Ovechkin—he’s a bad guy! He’s an abuser. He treats his staff like cattle. He hunts endangered animals. He is friends with Theodore Harrington, for god’s sake! I saw proof that—”
“Now, you listen to me,” Daddy interrupts, his voice a low growl. “I don’t give a damn what you think you know about Liev Ovechkin or his friends or his hobbies. It’s none of your business. It doesn’t matter. He could be a serial killer for all I care, it still does not give you the right to disobey me.”
My jaw drops. I look over at Nikolai, who is staring off into space with a look of barely-contained rage on his face. I know he can hear every word of this.
“You mean… you knew? All this time, you knew Uncle Liev was a jerk and a criminal and you still want me to marry him? I am your daughter. Your only child,” I splutter in disbelief.
“Exactly. You are my daughter, and that gives me the right to give you away to whomever I please,” he says coldly. “I have given you everything you could ever ask for. I have set you up for an easy, luxurious life of leisure as the wife of a powerful man. And this is how you repay me: by throwing it back in my face. Now, for the last time, tell me where you are.”
Tears sting in my eyes and roll down my cheeks. I’m so confused, torn between anger, pain, shock, and pure sorrow. “No,” I tell him firmly, trying to keep my voice even. “I won’t tell you where I am. In fact, I am going to hang up right now.”
“Anastasia, don’t you dare,” he warns me, but I don’t listen. I end the call, turn off my phone, and throw it across the room. It bounces harmlessly on the bed, and I crumple to the floor, feeling as though the entire universe is collapsing on top of me.
Nikolai
I see bodies break on a regular basis, but it’s rare I watch a soul shatter in such a gut-wrenching way. By the time Ana collapses, I am already halfway across the room to her, extending an arm and putting a hand on her shoulder as I crouch down beside her, mixing my shushing with the sounds of her sobs.
“Don’t tell me it’s okay!” she snaps, swatting my hand, though it doesn’t budge. “There’s no way this is okay, Nikolai!”
“I wasn’t going to say it was,” I say in a slow, soothing tone. She looks up at me with red-rimmed eyes. She sniffles, but there’s anger and r
age written all over those beautiful features. “Because it isn’t.”
“Are you serious?”
“Do I look like I’m joking?” I say, giving her a steady, firm gaze.
She shakes her head and sniffs, wiping tears away. “I just don’t get a lot of sympathetic ears from people like you.”
“People like me?” I ask with a wry smile.
“You know what I mean,” she says.
And I do.
She means men in the bratva, the kinds of men who have run so much of her life before. But there is a difference with me. The others in the bratva, so many of them are in this for the money, just to climb a different kind of ladder, stepping on the lives of ordinary people as they go.
I am here for a different reason.
I’m here for vengeance.
Ana stands up and starts pacing the room, visibly shivering for a moment as she works through the horrifically alien emotions of having your whole view of the world changed in a matter of seconds.
“I’m just a pawn to him,” she says. “He doesn’t even care for me, does he? That piece of shit just seems me as a bride to be given away! I thought...I thought…”
She pauses by the foot of the bed, putting a hand on it to take a moment and gather herself before she starts pacing again.
“I trusted him,” she says, holding back tears. “I trusted that he would always have my interests at heart. He always said he loved me. I can’t fucking believe I trusted him!”
“A girl should be able to trust her own parent,” I say, “but that is often not the case.”
“The hell it isn’t,” she snaps. “I just can’t...why? Why would he do something like this, especially when he knows what kind of man Unc- what kind of man Liev Ovechkin is?”
“I have worked for these men for a long time, Ana,” my voice rumbles. “They care only for money, nothing more.”
She glares at me while she paces, but she needs to hear this.
“Human lives are nothing to these people” I say. “They’re just another resource, like you. These are sociopaths unable to see others as being the same as them.”
“And what about you?” she snaps.
“I chose this path in life for a reason,” I say, deadly serious. “And believe me when I tell you I’ve suffered my own loss. A heinous loss that is the spur in my side every day that I pick and choose what work to take for these monsters.”
I have never come this close to explaining my life to anyone, and I don’t know how it can come so easily to me around Ana, but something in her is tugging at something in me. I can’t explain it.
“Your father and Liev Ovechkin are my enemies, and now, they both know it. But you, Ana,” I say, looking down at her and caressing her face, “you and I are not as unalike as you might think.”
Her jaw tightens, but after a moment, she nods.
“Fine,” she says. “If we’re on the same side, then let’s act like it. I’ll tell you everything I can about Liev.”
She starts to describe his schedule to me, all while pacing. She goes through much of the same information I already knew, but some details are new, and I make note of them as she speaks. She’s been close to them for years, kept at arm’s length, never knowing the whys, but she has plenty of information on the whens and the wheres.
There’s such an intensity in her eyes as she rants, and I can taste the betrayal she feels in the air. She even starts to describe some of the times Liev and her father worked together.
Even mention of some business they took care of in Siberia, too close to my hometown to be a coincidence.
My suspicions grow closer to being confirmed every passing day.
“My own daddy,” she sobs, and she balls up a fist like she wants to punch a wall. I step up to her and catch her by the elbow. She spins around and tries to wrench free from me, gritting her teeth and jerking her arm, but I wrap my arms around her in a tight hug, pulling her into my chest. Immediately, she starts sobbing, melting into my embrace like there’s nothing else in the world for her to cling to. Because for once in this spoiled girl’s life, there really isn’t.
“Let it out,” I say in the gentlest tone I can. I am a killer, not a comforter, but I can at least try to be both. “Don’t bottle up your anger.”
“I don’t want to be angry,” she says after a few moments she takes to collect herself. She looks up at me with eyes that are hurt yet defiant, and she shows no impulse to pull away from me.
“Then what do you want, Anastasia?” I ask, and I can feel her heart pounding faster and faster as I hold her.
Without a second thought, she jumps up and kisses me, and my hands go under her ass to hold her against me.
There’s no thought, no more planning or deliberating, no more therapy, just action. I walk us back to the bed as she pushes her tongue against my lips, and I let her in. She only has time to explore me briefly before I bite at her lip, and I sit us down on the mattress, holding her firmly against my body as we lie down together.
My head is swimming with desire. The ferocity in this girl is like nothing I have ever seen before in a civilian. Her energy is infectious, and now more than ever before, I feel that I must make her mine. My body is still pulsing with need from the interrupted session we had in the car, and this time, nothing on heaven or earth could stop me from releasing that need.
She moans and whimpers like a prisoner as we touch each other. I have to restrain my strength as I work her shirt off, and her bra comes next. I push her flat on her back and straddle her, whipping my belt off as my eyes glare down at her exposed breasts. A low growl escapes me at the sight of them.
Everything about Ana is delicious, everything perfect. I’ve only known her for a few hours, but we move against each other as if we’ve been together for years. She starts to reach up, but I grab both her wrists with my hands and force her down, pinning her to the bed. My cock is so swollen and tight against my pants that it aches.
My face goes to her left breast, and I take as much of it into my mouth as I can. My tongue rolls over the stiff nipple, and she lets out another cracking squeak as I toy with it. The tip of my tongue flicks it until it’s so stiff that it feels hard, and I then take it between my teeth and toy with it gingerly. She squirms in my grasp as my sharp teeth play with the most sensitive of skin, but I never get too rough.
I am in control, and she knows it.
I play with both her breasts like this, and whenever one of them isn’t in my mouth, my eyes are on it, watching it stiffen and move as she pushes her body up, trying desperately to feel as much of me as she can.
My mouth works its way up to her neck, and I start sucking on the smooth flesh there as I take her hands and guide them to my front. I hold her by the wrists and let her slowly feel my pecs and abs. She gropes them and savors the feeling. I’m like a cliff face with just enough give, just enough warmth and softness to make her feel safe and protected. She needs me. She craves everything I have to offer, including my protection. But I mean to give her so much more, as much as she can handle and then some.
Once I have guided her hands past my abs, I let them feel the buttons of my pants, and I release her wrists. She takes the cue and starts to unbutton them, but she stops halfway through, looking up at me with pleading eyes.
“I want to see it,” she whispers. I nod and sit up on my knees, letting her see her work. The buttons come undone at last, and she pulls my pants down enough to let my cock spring out, fully erect and aiming right at her.
The sight makes her gasp, and the hungry look on her face fills me with desire for her.
“Touch it,” I instruct her. “Feel what’s going to be inside you.”
She does, and she touches me as if my manhood is precious jewels. Her fingers are soft and warm as they caress my cock, working their way down to the balls. She explores me with such innocent wonder and yet such base desire.
“Do you want this?” I ask as she runs her hand up and down my cock, and I let
it twitch up to attention to let her know the effect she can have on it. She looks up at me with doe-eyes and nods, mouth open.
I work my way down her, and she helps me pull her pants off her, tossing them to the side and leaving her utterly naked.
“Do you know how delicious you look to me?” I growl in a husky tone, reaching down and running my hands from her sides to her hips to her round ass, squeezing her hungrily.
“Show me,” she begs, and I don’t want to hold back any longer.
I scoop her legs into my hands, and I drape them over my shoulders and let my shaft rest between her lips. I haven’t even penetrated her yet, but her eyes roll back into her head as she feels me grind against her with the soft underside of my cock.
“This is nothing,” I growl. “You have much to learn.”
I bring the tip of my cock up to her wet lips. They’re so soaking with desire that I can slide in with almost no effort, but I hold her there, making eye contact with her. Slowly, I push my cock into her. As soon as my crown is past her soft lips, she lets out a sharp moan, and I feel honey all around my shaft. Inch by inch, I enter her, until a third of my cock is inside her.
“Fuck, you’re tight,” I groan.
“I’ve never had anything like this in me,” she gasps, and I see that even though not even half of me is in her, she’s already gripping the sheets, bracing herself. I hold her hips, gentle and firm, and I guide my cock further in. Halfway in, I pull back out almost to the tip, and I start to rock back and forth. The sighs she lets out fill the room, and they make me stiffen harder and swell larger with each passing second. Back and forth, I let my bulging crown grind against her insides, exploring her deep pussy, and soon, I start to delve deeper.
“There’s more?” she gasps when she looks up and realizes how little of my cock is inside her. “Will it all fit?”
Killing for Her: A Mafia Hitman Romance Page 10