“So, you pounced on me?”
“Yes, it’s all very funny to you. I know. It was… no, I don’t want to say whom.”
She’s upset. Still, she said, ‘whom.’ “Your English is excellent.”
Her voice hardens. “My accent is not perfect.”
“Close enough, I’d say. If you’re looking for self-improvement, I wouldn’t waste too much time on your accent.”
“Oh?” her sarcasm would cut paper. “What would you recommend I should improve most urgently? What would add most to my value? And stop changing the subject.”
“You said you wanted me to leave. Why do we need a subject?”
I know I need to keep my distance from this woman. It could be a classic old-school chisel-job, after all. He tells me she’s wonderful and she’s a virgin, she leads me on. I get jiggy with her and hey, what do you know, Marco shows up, ‘Oops! Looks like you bought the cherry.’
I’m hoping she can’t see in the dark how hard my cock is straining to take part in that little fairy tale.
She says, “Okay, okay. You’re right. I was right. You should leave me. Please go.”
“You asked for my help.” I remind her.
“Well?” she practically growls, “Didn’t you get what you wanted in return?”
My head shook. “You’ve been in tougher situations than that. You didn’t need to pull the old ‘Kiss me! Quick!’ stunt.”
“How would you know? What exactly do you think you know about me?”
“Nothing, but I’m pretty sure that you’ve handled yourself in a lot more real danger than that. And without too much trouble, too.”
“You think you know that about me? How?” The look she gives me is challenging in all of the best ways. And it confirms what I said.
I tell her, “You know that I run a club. My instinct for sizing people up is the asset I rely on most of all every day.”
“You have your most vital asset trained on me, Russian killer?” The look she gave me put the front of my pants under even more strain. She says, “You’re probably wasting your energies.” She isn’t pretending to be tough. I know that much.
I keep my voice soft. Gentle. “I can see that you’ve been through a lot.” And that was an understatement. As I say it, her chin tips up and a darkness grows in the back of her eyes. It’s true. And I’m thinking some of what she’s been through is even worse than I had imagined.
I change tack. “Marco wants me to buy you. Tell me why I should do it.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“You don’t want me to take you?” I didn’t intend the double meaning. Still, there it is.
“You think you can buy me like a drink or a car or a piece of furniture?”
“You know that I can.” I move closer. “I was asking if you wanted me to.”
Her teeth press into the side of her lip. Her eyes burn.
“I have an owner now. I don’t want another.”
“Is he good to you?”
“No. He’s brutal and he’s evil.” I doubted that. Marco was all kinds of bad things, but that didn’t sound like him at all. Why did she say that? I wondered. Is she trying to get sympathy from me?
I asked her, “But you don’t want to get away from him.”
“Every man who bought me has been worse than the last.” How many have there been?
I told her, “I might be different.”
Her chin juts. “You are. I can see it.”
“So?”
Her eyes narrow. “You’re worse.” She presses back against the wall. I want to move nearer but I hold myself back. Her voice is a growl. “You’re worse than all the others put together.”
“Maybe I could be your savior.” How had she even got me thinking that way? I was getting angry now but there was no point giving in to that.
She said, “Maybe you could be. But you’re not.”
“What makes you so sure?”
Her voice hardened. In the echoing basement passageway, she sounded hollow as she told me, “I know you’re not because if I was going to be saved, it would have to have been many years ago.” her voice was hollow. “Now it’s way too late.”
I wonder how a girl like her has come to a position like this. How can a beautiful girl with her educated English and the poise of a model or a top-billing actor have come into Marco’s possession? Marco is basically a high-end brothel keeper. One who for some reason was now trying to branch out into an up-market people-trafficking business.
She said, “Alright.” she pushed herself forward. the heat of her body, so close to mine, made my skin wake up all over. She said, “If you won’t go and leave me alone, I’ll have to go back up into that hell myself.”
She was moving away. I said, “Shame you only pretended to kiss me.”
“Why,” she turned on her heel and glared at me. “Is that what you deserve? Is that how I should pay you for doing what I asked you when I needed your help.”
I was going to tell her that she might have liked it.
She seized the back of my neck with one hand, the back of my head with the other. Her eyes blazed. She sighed, deep and hard as her body stretched up against me. She pulled me to her and her lips fastened on mine. Her breasts squashed, soft, warm and giving against my chest. I felt her thighs lock and clench as her hips rolled and pressed her hot mound against the weight of my straining cock.
Her body moved on mine like a pulsing ocean current. The way she kissed me I could have been her last meal before her execution.
Then just as suddenly she starts to peel away. As she moved, I have a grip on her hair. Her eyes flash and blaze as she yanked her head. She stares, wild-eyed into my face as a tiny tearing sound signals her pulling her head back and a few strands of hair stay in my hand. Her face is alight with thrill and fear. I can’t process that look, but I store the image.
It’s a picture of rage and panic. Terror and lust. A fire of raw passion. And a track of moisture runs on her cheek.
She rips herself off me. I breathe hard. She stamps a foot and glowers into my face. Her heels echo rapidly away and up the stone stairs. The glimpse of her ass as she stamps away sets what’s left of my imagination on fire.
I’m left thinking of her, of her heart-stopping curves invitingly wrapped in that dress. I’m imagining her stepping confidently down the glass staircase at the entrance to the club. She would be a breath-taking greeting.
The look on her face is burned into my mind. It tells me something but I don’t know what. Yet. I’m trying to distract myself from thinking of her in other ways. To not think of her soft body. Nor of her animal energy. Not to imagine how she would open.
How she would break and spill.
couldn’t stay down there with him, not for another second. I would have lost all of my control. The urge to beat him with my fists was already too strong. And he saw me. When he looked in my eyes, I saw the recognition. In the moment when I pulled my head so my hair tore, I know that he knew me.
Did I know when I ran down the steps, when I told him to chase me, did the dark part of my mind draw me that way on purpose? On my way into the reception, I caught sight of the twisting stairway leading down. The darkness below was a clue, it’s no use pretending it wasn’t. I knew where I was going, what I had been risking. My thighs quake as I spring up the winding steps. A dark, widening hole in my stomach taunts and mocks me.
Another minute with him and I would have come apart completely. As it is, I put blood on his perfect fucking white cuff.
If he buys me, I am sunk.
And he’s the best chance that I have.
At the top of the stairs, the noise and fuss of the party swirls around me and swallows me whole. I slip and wind between the wedding party guests. A girl with a silver tray of champagne flutes passes going the other way. I reach out and seize two of them. She gives me a look. And I tell her, “Wait,” while I sling back the first one, then the second. I put the empty glasses back and take another two. Then
I nod to her to let her go.
The admiration in her eyes reminds me in a flash of a moment from when I had a life. Another time. Another world. I saw a beautiful servant girl in uniform, going into my father’s library. She saw me and put a finger to her lips. She looked at me with such a gleam in her eye, I wanted to be that girl. That’s how the waitress is looking at me.
I shake my head as I tell her, “If you only knew.”
Now I can hear Bruno’s friends. How will I get through this thing? I’m sure every man here knows that I’m for sale. And they all want to put their hands in the jar to steal the candy. The two glasses were enough to cool my emotions. I have to be careful now or I could easily tip them up the other way.
So, I spend the rest of the afternoon swanning around the reception, looking for Irina. Of course, she’s the bride, so of course, she’s the person most in demand by all the hundreds of guests. As I mingle, I keep up a professional smile and I stay as polite as I can with all of the wives who would obviously love to see me dipped in acid.
I keep all the distance that I can get from the men, especially the older men, who get friskier as the afternoon wears into evening. And whenever I hear the voices of the younger men, I evade them at any cost.
Marco’s eyes are always somewhere near, but always from halfway across a crowded room. He’s there to look after his investment and, as he reminds me from time to time, to see me ‘market and promote the merchandise.’
I have no affection for my precious virginity. In fact, I think often about how wonderful it would be to be liberated from it. I was thinking that especially when I was down in the cold basement with the Russian killer, Vassily.
Then, the sun is going down, the mood in the music is hardening, and everybody’s party urges are starting to get serious. I’m on my way out of the ballroom when two of Bruno’s friends corner me by the door.
The dark-eyed one with the broad shoulders says, “What’s the matter, don’t you like to dance?” He moves in close behind me. I could turn, but if they get me playing their game this could all head out of control fast.
The big, round-faced blond moves in front of me. He leers as he tilts his head, “Maybe you’d like to dance with two of us.”
“Yeah,” his friend laughs. His groin is against my ass now. Anger knots my insides. I could jam my elbow back into his stupid face. Is this how he thinks he should treat a woman? Was he raised in the sewers by a family of rats?
His breath on my back is hot and damp. “Maybe one man isn’t enough for you. Maybe you need two.”
“Two big men.” The one in front is leaning closer, turning his head in a way that he must think is attractive. I’m feeling hot inside. I need to change this situation and fast.
I laugh. Loudly. Too loud, on purpose. They stiffen.
At the same time, I sidestep, leaving the two men facing each other and too close and looking like idiots. I laugh and I say, “Two men? Or maybe three. Sure.” I jab a finger in the face of the nearest one. That was maybe going too far but I’m over caring. “No number of little boys in big men’s clothes are going to do it.” They turn to face me and move to crowd around me again. They’re big alright.
Marco is at my side fast enough then. He isn’t a huge man but he has enough of a look and a presence that these two kids won’t cross him. Snorting, tossing their heads, they back away.
They’re still in earshot when Marco says, “You’re not making a good show of yourself, Katya. You aren’t presenting yourself in the best light.” He sounds like a little boy whose toy got broken.
“Maybe you should have been concentrating on taking better care of me.” My voice is too loud. “Perhaps you should have looked after your investment and put less effort into impressing your comrades. Concentrated more on looking after me. Safeguarding and taking care of the ‘jewel’ that you always tell me is so very precious.”
He looks around. “Not so loud. Not here.”
“But don’t you always say that it’s what makes me so super-valuable?” I’m feeling hemmed in and claustrophobic. Worse, I’m brimming. Anger. And the other thing.
Marco’s voice lowers. It’s like a saw blade. “Yes, Katya. But at a wedding party, shouting about it is like a red rag to a whole herd of drunken bulls.”
I push with a finger on his chest. “I’m starting to think, Marco, that maybe I like bulls. Maybe a herd of angry bulls is exactly what I need.”
“Yeah, Marco.” the blond one is rounding on me. Looking like he’ll shoulder Marco away. “Let the lady make up her mind.”
Then a forearm smashes into his face. He goes down like a tree.
Of course, it’s the man Marco wants to sell me to. The great Vassily. Everybody’s fucking hero.
The blond guy is down on his ass. His nose is bleeding and Vassily steps between his sprawled legs. He’s blocking off the other one. He tells him, “You don’t harass women. That isn’t how a man behaves.”
The dark-haired guy’s frown deepens. “What are you, my dad?”
“No, Alexei.” Vassily’s tone is sweet and gentle. His words are the opposite. “I’m doing what your father would have done if he wasn’t a milksop and a drunken idiot.”
Insulting the man’s father in a public place was worse than spitting in his face. Red shows around the kid’s eyes and the muscles in his jaw flex. He thinks about it. Then he reaches in his coat.
Vassily slams the heel of his hand into Alexei’s chin. His head snaps back and bangs into the doorpost. As he slides down the wall, Vassily smashes the side of his hand once under his ear. He tumbles and slumps in a heap on top of the other kid.
I turn on my heel.
His voice follows after me. “No, it’s okay. Don’t thank me.”
I throw my head back to tell him, “I didn’t ask for your help,” and I storm away with no idea where I was going to go. It is hard to walk, too. The image of him standing in the doorway turns my knees to water. The little flower of darkening red on his white cuff shimmers in my head.
onstantin is at my side in an instant. He slaps his big mitt on my shoulder. “There’s no blood on the carpet or the walls.” He looks down at the two stupid kids. “You piled them up tidily, too.”
He says, “I never went to a decent wedding without at least one or two fights.” His fingers snap in the air and he laughs.
Two men carve their way through the tightening crowd. They stand by us and face out to let everyone know that the show is over. Their amiable smiles keep the mood light. When the guests have turned away, Konstantin’s men haul the slumped groomsmen upright and efficiently remove them.
I’m annoyed. Konstantin is clearing up after me. His position as the father of the bride and the host of the occasion puts him in charge and requires it. He is showing generosity to me as his guest. At the same time, standing by my side, he signals to the whole party that I am in the right and the two kids were in the wrong.
I hate feeling like I’m being managed. But I thank him and praise him for his wise judgment. It’s what you do at the wedding of a man’s daughter. He smiles and gives my shoulder a shake.
Mikhail catches my eye from the other side of the room and he makes his way through the party. “Boss,” I can see that there is something he wants to tell me. His slow blink is enough to let me know and Konstantin saw it, too. He squeezes my shoulder again as he leaves us to our business.
Vassily: Perfect Pain - a Bad Boy Mafia Dark Romance Page 5