by Naima Simone
“Sasha,” she screamed, her short nails scraping over his shoulders, her hands grabbing at his head. “Please. Oh God, please.”
Whatever shyness she’d harbored at the start of their play evaporated under his mouth. Curses she probably wasn’t aware of uttering fell from her mouth as her body bucked and rolled in a frantic rhythm. Settling an arm across her hips to control her wild movements, he returned to her clit, circling the distended little nub, sipping at it even as he sank two fingers deep in her pussy.
A cry that probably could’ve been heard downstairs if not for the soundproofed walls tore from her throat. Her back bowed high, leaving only her head and hips on the table. Around them, matching whimpers and moans dusted the air, but he didn’t give a damn about the people watching. Couldn’t have given two fucks if they got off on Corrine’s screams and pleas, because every one of them was for him. All he cared about was her pleasure, about wringing her dry with it.
He withdrew his hand, then plunged back inside her, repeating the strokes, riding her so hard, his fist bumped her soaked folds. Her clit fluttered and shrank under his tongue, alerting him that an orgasm was barreling down on her. As if the almost brutal spasming of her pussy hadn’t telegraphed that. Clenching his teeth, he buried his fingers inside her once more and curled them, massaging the patch of firm, smooth skin behind her clit. At the same time, he pursed his lips over the engorged peak and sucked.
She stiffened. Exploded. Drenched him. Seized him so he almost couldn’t fuck her through the orgasm. But he did, her sex clutching at him, quivering around him. He didn’t stop until his ears stopped ringing with her screams. Even then, he gently, tenderly worked her. Only because he hated leaving the tight, smooth confines of her body.
Delivering one last soft kiss to her clit, he rose and strode over to a cabinet against the far wall. He removed a small cloth, wiped his mouth and chin, then selected a blanket. Returning to Corrine, who hadn’t moved, he crouched down beside her.
“Sit up for me, lisichka,” he murmured, helping her.
The small moan she released did nothing to calm the throbbing erection in his pants. He hurt. Needed to ease the pain. Yet, his first concern was comforting her, making sure she was cared for. He didn’t need a crystal ball to figure out this was her first foray into exhibitionism, and after her lassitude passed, she might feel embarrassed, exposed, confused at her behaviors, at enjoying what they’d just done.
And then there were the unprecedented cravings she stirred in him. The need to loosen the control he always insisted on. The desire to follow where she led.
The hunger to submit.
The unfamiliar urge unsettled him. So he needed to end this here, keep in control of their interactions. Not let her touch him until he figured out what the hell she drew out of him.
He wrapped the blanket around her and, standing, lifted her into his arms. Her head lolled against his shoulder, and he brushed a kiss over the strands of the wig. Instead of taking her to one of the private rooms, he carried her farther down the hall to his office. Not analyzing the motive behind his decision, why he needed to tend to her in his personal space, he gently set her on the couch in the sitting area. He tucked the cover more securely around her neck, legs, and feet before crossing the room to the bar. With minimal fuss, he poured red wine into a glass and retraced his steps back to the sofa. He set the drink on the coffee table.
“Let me,” he said and, reaching under her hair, untied the mask and removed it. “Drink some of this.” He picked up the wine and, kneeling beside her, held the glass to her lips while she delicately sipped the alcohol. The weight of her gaze touched him like a seeking, curious caress, but he didn’t meet her eyes. At least not immediately. Just as he didn’t question why he’d brought her to his inner sanctum, he couldn’t answer why he tended to her with wine, personally serving her. He couldn’t explain to her—or himself—that this wasn’t him. His aftercare was usually limited to wrapping his partners up, offering a soothing word or two, then exiting the room until they were recovered enough to leave. Not special attention.
Yet, he didn’t go. Instead, he continued to serve her until she finished the wine, and then settled on the couch, her bright-green-painted toes nudging his thigh.
“Is it totally cliché to say I don’t do things like this?” she asked, a wry note in her hoarse voice. When he thought of why it was so raspy, the lust that had never abated flared into flames.
“Yes.” When her gaze jerked to his, a dark red eyebrow arched high, he shrugged a shoulder. “It is. Besides, there’s no need to tell me that. I already know.” Tilting his head to the side, he studied her. “Regrets, Corrine?”
She shook her head. “No, of course not. I just…” Dipping her chin, she inhaled, her shoulders rising and falling beneath the cover. When she lifted her head again, the vulnerability in her eyes, in the slight tremble of her parted lips, punched the breath from his lungs. He’d expected the emotion, but damn, seeing it on her face… “Would you mind holding me?” she whispered.
Instead of answering, he stretched an arm along the back of the couch and extended the other out to her. She scrambled across the small distance separating them and crawled onto his lap. Her ass settled on his thigh, her hip pressing against his dick. Pain that could only be assuaged between her thighs clawed at him, but he ignored it.
She curled into him, tucking her head under his chin. He closed his arms around her, and the sigh she released burrowed into his chest. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on willing his erection to subside, not dwelling on how natural—how perfect—she fit against him.
“Merchant isn’t very Russian,” she said after several minutes of silence. “Is that your real last name?”
He stilled at the personal question; he didn’t talk about his parents or his past. With anyone. Only Rion and Killian knew the particulars, and that’s because they’d been there. Too much lay back there… Some things he’d rather forget, and some things he was supposed to forget. Not want.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized, her voice soft. “I didn’t mean to pry.” She loosed a sound caught between a chuckle and a sigh. It ghosted over the skin of his collarbone. “I’m just being…sentimental. Silly. All I know is your name, and I guess since we just—kind of had sex, I wanted to know more about you. I’m being such a girl, I know. And besides, talking wasn’t part of our bargain. I…” She trailed off, and he didn’t need to see her face to discern that color probably painted her cheekbones a fire-engine red. Not when her shoulders damn near bracketed her ears, and she curled tighter into herself.
Shit. He squeezed his eyes shut. He was going to fucking share.
“It isn’t my real last name,” he ground out. “It’s Polzin. After my family came to the United States, my father Americanized it. Since Polzin actually refers to a merchant in Russia, he thought it was a way of fitting in here and still maintaining a bit of our home.”
“That’s a wonderful compromise. Your father sounds like a smart and proud man.”
“Yes, he was,” Sasha said, the familiar and hated stab of pain lighting up his chest at the mention of his father.
“Oh God, I’m sorry, Sasha.” She leaned back, placing a hand on his chest. Over his heart. “I didn’t know he died. God, I didn’t think. I wouldn’t have—”
He shook his head, cutting off her stammered apology. “He’s not dead,” he said, tone flat. And that story—of why Val Merchant might as well be dead since he considered Sasha six feet under—he refused to go into.
Thankfully, she let it go, but after silence fell between them, he almost opened back up just to keep her talking. He liked her voice, the light but husky quality that could’ve belonged to an elementary school teacher or a 1-800 sex operator. Other than doling out instructions to his female employees or issuing the “You down to fuck?” exchange to his partners, he didn’t have long conversations with many women. Since he’d abandoned his old life, his social circle consisted only of his friends
. But with Corrine—a woman he hadn’t even had yet—he wanted to…talk.
“About three years ago, I tried to sneak into the Red Sox locker room after too many drinks and a stupid dare from Tara,” she said into the quiet. “I love my best friend, but I swear when I’m around her I revert to a twelve-year-old. Anyway, they caught me and almost arrested me for trespassing.”
He released a crack of laughter, disbelief and amusement rolling out of him. “What? And where did that come from?”
She shrugged. “You shared something with me, so I’m doing the same. And it’s true. I didn’t even make it near the locker-room door before security snatched me up.”
Still chuckling, he shook his head. “Seriously? You like baseball?”
She gasped, the sound full of outrage. Tipping her head back, she frowned up at him. “Of course. How can you call yourself a Bostonian and not love Red Sox baseball? And let’s not get on the Patriots. Bill Belichick should have a shrine immortalizing him in the Public Garden. Right next to George Washington.”
“O-kay,” he drawled, smiling. “Well, what happened? Did you flirt your way out of an arrest record?”
The mock anger faded from her expression, and the gleam in her emerald eyes dulled. “No,” she said, and he hated the monotone note that entered her voice. “Once they found out my last name and who my father was, they decided to let me go ‘that one time,’” she sneered, a humorless smile curling a corner of her mouth. “I should’ve guessed something was different about my father then, but stupid me just thought he was a respected businessman with clout.” Disgust coated her words, darkened her gaze.
“You’re not stupid, lisichka,” he murmured. “Not then, and not now.”
“You knew who Carmine Salvaggi was, didn’t you?” Reluctantly, he nodded, and she laughed, the sound as sharp as jagged glass. “See? Everyone knew but naïve, gullible me. That’s what the press calls me, you know. Naïve, blind, spoiled. Like I didn’t want to see. I never questioned why I had to attend private boarding schools outside of Boston while my brothers were allowed to stay home. I didn’t ask why my friends were carefully handpicked by my parents. There were even a few times when kids would call my father Don Corleone, but I chalked that up to the stereotype of Italians being members of the mob.” She chuckled, the sound dry and full of disgust. “So, yes, maybe…maybe a part of me didn’t want to know. That’s the only thing that explains how I didn’t know my father was the boss of one of the largest crime families in the city. A killer.”
How could she know how her words sliced him like a scalpel? Still, he hated the pain and bitterness weighing down her voice. Though his throat tightened around the words struggling to escape, he pushed forward, needing to give her at least a little something to help her understand the man who’d raised her.
“For the first couple of years after moving here, I was the awkward Russian kid with the weird eyes and the weirder accent. When I finally made friends, they were everything to me.” Finding out Rion’s father was a hitman for the Irish mob and Killian’s was a career criminal hadn’t changed his mind or made him love them any less, although Val Merchant had forbidden his son to have anything to do with the boys he’d called gopniki—criminals or thugs.
“I ended up getting involved with what my friends were into. And that included fighting and petty theft. Especially from those people who called me a Russian rat or Drago, and who treated my parents like garbage. It felt good. Rebelling felt good. Standing up for myself, refusing to take their shit, earning money to help support my family felt good. Even if the means were less than legit.”
Why he was going into this, he didn’t know. Maybe he didn’t want her looking at him with the same disgust that had twisted her lovely face when she’d spoken about her father’s secret life. Maybe he wanted to give her a little insight…understanding of why people made the decisions they did. When Sasha’s father threw him out at sixteen, disowning him, he’d had the friends he considered brothers, but he’d still been alone. But he’d vowed then never to be at the mercy of anyone again. That kind of vow influenced a man’s life.
“I don’t know the circumstances of your father’s childhood, and I’m not making excuses for him or what he’s done. But when you’ve been poor, discriminated against, or powerless, it shapes the way you think, act, and make choices. And the motivation behind many of those choices is never to be in a position where someone can use, take advantage of, or abuse you again.”
She studied him, and fuck if he just managed not to fidget under her close scrutiny. Give him a safe to crack—no problem. A belligerent drunk to manhandle—he didn’t break a sweat. But make him share his past with a woman to offer her the most comfort he could? Kill him now.
“I get what you’re trying to tell me,” she finally murmured. “I…don’t know if I can…” She trailed off, briefly closing her eyes. “I’ll try to understand.”
He didn’t go into full detail about his association with the mob. Sasha might not have officially belonged to the O’Bannons because of his blood and heritage, but he’d been an associate. His relationship with Rion and Killian had provided acceptance. He’d stolen, hijacked trucks, doled out beatings…and worse…for the gang. For Rion and Killian.
His ultimate loyalty had been to his friends, but unlike them, who had been born into that world, Sasha had chosen it. He’d left, but because of promises to his dying mother and his best friends. Not because he’d hated it. Fuck, there were times when he still craved the adrenaline rush, the excitement.
But he couldn’t explain any of this to Corrine; she wouldn’t understand. Which made him sitting here, sharing confidences with her, foolish as hell.
Sex.
Their bargain and limited relationship was about sex. Not secrets. Not friendship. She was the slippery slope to his addiction. If he became involved with her, with the world her family existed in, how long before he dipped his toe in? How long before the lure proved to be too much temptation? No, as long as he remained at the top of that hill, his feet planted several inches away from that crumbling edge back into “the life,” he could have her until they had their fill of each other, then walk away, unscathed.
He could return to what he, Rion, and Killian had fought—literally—to build.
Chapter Five
For the third night in a row, Corrine arrived at Lick. This time, she arrived by taxi, changing up her mode of transportation as Sasha had instructed her. And she’d also switched up her hair. She grinned to herself, patting the ebony wig, the ends of the bob brushing her chin. An illicit thrill spiraled through her. This was the stuff Cinemax movies were made of, and in a really freaking odd twist of fate, she’d ended up the star.
As the cab pulled up to the back of the club—again, as Sasha had instructed—a door under a plain black awning swung open, and Sasha stood in the doorway. Her heart thudded against her sternum, and desire kindled inside her. As if her body immediately recognized the man who could make it sing, make it explode in the sweetest pleasure imaginable. Just looking at him was foreplay.
Foreplay for her, anyway.
Two nights in a row—first in the alley, then in The Loft the evening before—Sasha had introduced her to a pleasure that had damn near fried her brain. And not once, not one damn time, had he allowed her to touch him. It didn’t take a sexual savant to know this was…odd. Unless he didn’t want her to… Immediately, she ditched the thought, just as she had countless times last night as she lay in bed, the doubts crowding her like the people on Lick’s dance floor. He may not have let her caress him, but his erection had prodded her ass last night when he’d held her against him. He’d definitely been aroused…so what the hell?
At some point in the wee hours of the morning, she’d reached a conclusion. His aversion to her hands on him had everything to do with control. It was about maintaining distance. Well, that shit wasn’t going to cut it. The two times they’d been together, he’d stolen her control. And how could she be dista
nt with his fingers buried in her sex? It was incredibly lopsided and unfair that he have the upper hand in this…this…whatever they were doing.
That ended tonight—tonight he would be just as shattered as she.
Resolution solidified inside her as the taxi braked. Even before the driver put the car in park, Sasha was beside the vehicle, waiting to escort her from the car to the club entrance. Tearing her embarrassingly rapt attention from him, she reached for her purse to pay the driver, but Sasha opened the door and held his hand out to her.
“I just need to—”
“I have it,” he countered, his hand still extended.
She slipped hers in his, and with a quick word to the cab driver, he led her inside the building. Waiting in the vestibule with the Old North Church photograph while Sasha left to pay her fare, she closed her eyes, images from the previous two nights running through her brain like a movie reel. The alley where he’d bound her with his belt and finger-fucked her. The playroom where he’d brought her such pleasure with his mouth in front of a roomful of people. The moments in between and after. The conversations, the glimpses of the man who had a past he guarded. Like having a father who was dead, but wasn’t.
She understood that only too well.
Shaking her head, as if the gesture could dislodge the thought from her mind, she concentrated on the door, waiting for Sasha. At just the mental mention of his name, the arousal spiked higher. The mysterious Russian consumed her—he had since the moment he’d sent her would-be suitor scurrying. She didn’t know anything about him other than that he owned this club and liked cartoons enough to catch her references, but she trusted him. Enough that she’d willingly allowed him to strip her naked and drive his tongue into her pussy in front of witnesses. Heat flamed her face even as her sex clenched. If anyone had told her a couple of weeks ago that she was going to cross that line, she would’ve wondered what drugs they’d been smoking. But not only had she crossed it, she’d raced across it like Usain Bolt.