by Amanda Hough
“Antonina—”
She interrupted me. “You fuck with my head. Daily. One minute you’re a dick, the next you’re soft.” She swiveled in the seat and looked at me. Her eyes were bright, the apples of her cheeks pink. She was pissed. “You throw me looks like I’m dessert and then look through me like I’m shit. And now… I mean what the hell am I doing here? Do you get what my 24 hours have been like? Mom! My car! I don’t even know where my car is. I don’t even know what to think about The Booth. And, I just walked out on my job.” She barked out a sardonic laugh and continued. “All this, and what am I freaking out about?” I pulled into a spot in front of my building and jammed the gear into park.
Huffing, she knifed out of the car and walked to the hood. Her hands in her hair, she yanked the ponytail loose and scrubbed her scalp.
I got out and walked to her. She put her hands up, ordering me to stay back.
“Toni, listen—”
“What? Now it’s Toni? Now you call me Toni? What about Antonina? This a new strategy to fuck with my brain? What the hell?” she called out to me.
“Toni…” I started for her and she backed up again.
“All the crap falling around me and what am I mad about?” she asked.
I looked at her. Unsure if I was supposed to answer. I didn’t.
She cocked her head at me and growled, “Well, what am I mad about?”
I walked toward her again. This time she didn’t back up. Instead she met me half way. She was flushed. I could see her energy pinging off her body. “What are you mad about, sweetheart?” I asked. My hand coming to her face, I moved a lock of her hair that had blown into her eyes and tucked it behind her ear.
“Who is your woman?” she demanded.
I didn’t assess. I didn’t gauge what her reaction might be. I was going to take my first taste of Antonina like I took everything in life. I snaked my hand behind her neck and grabbed a fist of hair, pulling her body to mine. I gave the locks a rough tug and forced her chin to tilt upward. I brought my mouth down on hers and bit at her bottom lip. I spread my legs wider and tucked her further into me. I made her whimper when my other hand went for her face. No gentleness, no soft caresses. My thumb swiped at her lips, and then I popped the tip into her mouth. I watched her eyes go bright with a myriad of emotions. But there was only one reaction I cared about. Need.
“You’re my fucking woman. Antonina.” My fist tightened in her hair and she moaned. “You were mine the moment I saw you.” I pulled my thumb from between her lips and brought my mouth down hard. Our teeth and tongues were instantly at war with one another. Hot and wet, she met my assault with fearless determination and a violence all her own.
I felt her body shift. Then I heard the thud of her boot on my car’s bumper, and then my eyes shot open when she’d leveraged her weight up and off the car to wrap her legs around my waist. Her arms draped around my shoulders.
I broke the kiss when her face became level with mine. Shimmering silver-blue eyes hit my gaze. Her mouth was swollen and red from my assault. Her lips turned up into a tiny lopsided smile and my cock, already engorged with blood, twitched a thank you for the grin she offered.
“Two things, Mikhailov.” Her voice came out in a breathy promise.
I released her hair and glided my hands to cup her ass cheeks. She mewed and wiggled herself into my stomach. Another jolt of appreciation came from my dick. “What two things Antonina?” I licked her bottom lip. I licked the top.
“I’m not your woman,” she began and I frowned. She grinned and continued. “Do you live in this shithole?”
I smiled.
CHAPTER TWENTY
SEE YOU NEXT TUESDAY
Toni
Finally getting the chance to taste the Dragan was way better than I imagined. And I had imagined a lot of potential first kisses. Everything about the man was hard. Body, countenance, freaking attitude. But there I was, wrapped tight around his middle. I could feel the tip of his erection at my ass, which offered a promise of a well-endowed man. His hands on my butt. The fingers long, and biting into the flesh. But his mouth. That mouth was the surprise. Soft full lips, firm and sure. When it first came down on mine, he let out a little groan and I was done. It felt so good to know he needed to touch me as badly as I needed to feel him. He’d walked in that bar months ago. Staring at me. Watching me move behind the taps, weave around tables at the end of the night. If only he knew the number of times it was his face in my thoughts when I slid my hand down my stomach at night. My fingertip finding the knot of nerves between my legs. All the times I awoke from a dream, wet and ready. It was his doing.
“I’m not your woman,” I’d said and it pissed him off. Good. I wasn’t his. Not yet anyway. I don’t do that Alpha male caveman shit. I have never considered myself a man’s woman. He had a lot of work to do before he got that prize. And I was looking forward to putting in the time.
I grinned, eyes going to the thin scar under his nose.
“Where’d you get that scar?” I asked.
“Which scar?” he chuckled.
My tongue traced it from left to right. “This one,” I whispered.
From a distance I heard a growl rumble. Starting in his chest, crawling up his throat to spread the vibration across my cheek.
“We’re goin’ talk about scars? Right now?”
I raised my eyebrows and waited.
He rolled his eyes. “I got hit across the mouth with a beer bottle by some crazy bitch,” he finally answered.
My eyes widened. “Why’d she hit you with a beer bottle?” I asked.
He shook his head. “’Cause it was handy I guess.”
Smartass. “No, I mean what did you do to deserve to be hit in the mouth with a beer bottle?” I clarified.
“What the fuck? Why do you assume I did anything?” He sounded offended. I didn’t care.
“Dude, you’re a man. You walk around with attitude. And you’re ‘bout as subtle as a hurricane.”
He looked up like he was searching for the answer and then chuckled. “I called her a cunt,” he confessed.
I hissed between my teeth. “Oh, women don’t like that word,” I explained.
It was his eyebrows turn to raise. “You think?”
I gave him a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth and ordered him to put me down. He didn’t.
“You’re the one who climbed up here,” he said.
I laughed. “True, but I want to give the hospital a call. Check on my mom. And I need to call work. I just left without talking to anyone.”
He gave my ass cheek a smack and lowered me to the ground. “I talked with Rosa before Sergey and I left. You only had an hour left on the schedule. The Booth is closed for the day.”
“Mikhailov, you can’t just close the bar. There were six people on the schedule today. That can screw with a person’s budget. Losing hours—”
He stopped me. “No one’s losing any hours Toni. Everyone gets paid. But for today, the bar is off limits. Tomorrow you and I need to talk about that crazy ass schedule of Rosa’s.”
I shook my head. “Already on it. Was goin’ to ask her to let me take on that bit anyway.”
“Good.”
He turned me and started to walk toward a rusting metal door that I assumed would lead to his apartment. I palmed my cell and called Mom’s room. The nurse answered. Mom had eaten a little lunch and was asleep again. Her pain levels had been high when she woke up from her morning nap, so the doctor had prescribed a mild sedative. It had knocked her out.
I told the nurse I would be in later in the afternoon and reminded her to call my cell phone if they needed me.
Dragan had directed me down a long hallway. His apartment was the last door on the left.
“Seriously, you live here?” I asked. I was afraid I’d get tetanus if I touched the door.
“It suited my purpose when I came back to Austin.”
I nodded as he unlocked the door and led me in the one room apa
rtment. “So you needed a place to live that had a ‘crack den’ kinda vibe, eh?”
He smiled and brought me up against him. “Antonina,” he leaned down and whispered in my ear.
“Yeah?”
“You are my woman.”
The Dragan
I told Antonina to take a seat and I went to the mini refrigerator Evelyn made me buy and got her bottled water. It was all I had.
For a moment I regretted bringing Toni to my apartment. Maybe with a woman like that, the setting should be more appealing. A big bed covered in soft sheets, scented candles. But when I turned to tell her we should go to her house she had already removed her jean skirt and T-shirt. She sat there, on the end of my ugly ass single bed with nothing but a white lace bra and panty set and those fucking cowboy boots. Her legs were crossed, leaning back on her hands behind her. She smiled at me.
I tossed the bottle into a corner and she laughed.
Walking to her, I shed my jacket first, popped off my shoes and started at my tie.
“Leave the tie on, Mikhailov,” she ordered. I complied and went to my knees in front of her. I eased my hand between her knees and uncrossed her legs. I placed a chaste kiss on her knee, letting my hands slide down the worn brown cowboy boot. Taking it by the heel, I angled it off to find a rainbow striped knee-high sock. I repeated my efforts with the right foot and tossed both boots in the general vicinity of the forgotten bottled water.
Toni wrapped the broad part of my silk tie around her hand and pulled me to her. Her mouth on mine, I let her control the kiss. I clenched my hands into fists to keep from taking over. Her lips and tongue tasted my mouth while her hands unbuttoned my shirt and pulled it from my body. I let her pull my torso between her legs, my arms next to her hips. Her fingers found the scar that trailed down my right shoulder blade.
“Will you tell me about your tattoos?” she asked.
“Later, sweetheart.”
She took her time, examining the three-inch scar below my right nipple. “What is this from? She traced the puckered skin on my chest, where a man stabbed me in my sleep when I was seventeen.
“Bar fight,” I answered.
She looked into my eyes for a second then continued. “And this one?” Her hand found the old wound below my clavicle. It was narrow but deep. A fillet knife had been inserted with practiced ease. I’d lost little blood but it managed to puncture my lung.
“Fishing accident,” I lied. Though it wasn’t far from the truth.
She looked back into my face. She didn’t ask about the scars there. But I had them.
“Antonina, can I have that mouth back now?”
She nodded and gave it back to me. “Put your hands on me Mikhailov,” she urged.
“No,” I ground into her lips.
“Your hands!” she said again, her little fist tugging at my tie.
I refused and dug my knuckles into the mattress. She edged closer to the end of the bed. I could feel her control slipping. I’d shoot my fucking load in my pants before I’d cave. She wanted the control; I was going to make her earn it.
I rocked my torso nearer and chuckled at the hiss I got when my hipbone pressed into her. She tried to duplicate the pressure and I eased back. I loved teasing her. Pissing her off got me hard but I was holding on by a thread.
“Toni, you ready to let me taste that pussy, sweetheart?”
With a groan she let go of my tie. Her face was fucking poetry. Blushed pink, her mouth swollen. Her breath came out in a rush waiting for my move.
“On your back, Antonina.” She immediately complied. Her legs spread at the corner of the bed. I got up on my knees and eyed the undies first. “Let me see that pussy.”
She lifted both legs perpendicular to the bed, jacked her ass up and soon the underwear was sliding up her legs, over her toes and tossed somewhere behind me. I unbuttoned my pants and ordered her to rest her feet of the edge of the mattress. My zipper down, I was massaging my cock watching Toni spread open for me.
I licked my lips and cut my eyes to her. She was biting at her lower lip. Her hands fisting into the sheet, I knew what she was feeling. I knew the need to control your own pleasure. To drive and grind until you got what you wanted.
I pumped my dick once and bent down between her thighs. My turn.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
HEADBOARD
Toni
“Mikhailov!” I gasped; air came from my lungs in a whoosh. His hands held my thighs open and his tongue darted into me immediately. I involuntarily convulsed around the muscle, loving the invasion and his hands tightened on my legs as he started licking me. Up and down his tongue laved at me. I wanted to ask him a question but my words came out in little moans instead. I wanted to demand more of everything but when I opened my mouth, all I could focus on was breathing. I tried to move but he nibbled and licked. It was too much.
The muscles in my stomach started to shake, my legs quivered under his hands.
His mouth covering my clit and he sucked, his face grinding back and forth across my pussy. I felt the friction from his facial hair on my naked skin. I groaned and pleaded, but I didn’t understand why I was begging. The heat of my orgasm started in my legs. In my body, a match struck and ignited to flame. The relentless sensations danced across my abdomen, down my arms and up to my scalp.
“Mikhailov,” I groaned, my eyes shutting tight. I rode vibrations until I gave in and jumped over the side and into oblivion.
Dragan had crawled up my body and had my nipple in his mouth when I opened my eyes. I watched his mouth work the peak. Lick, suck, bite. Again and again. “Mikhailov,” I said, pulling his head from my breast. “Please kiss me.”
His mouth came to mine. Our tongues meeting, twirling and dodging. I brought my hands up to his face, trying to lead the dance but he wouldn’t let me.
He’d pushed me to the center of the bed and kept his legs between mine. His knees keeping me open to him. His mouth traveled up my neck, to my ear and down to my shoulders. My body shuddered.
With a growl, he gripped my neck and sat me up, scooping his hands under my ass so I straddled him. I reached behind to guide him into me. When the head of his cock reached my entrance, I hiccupped a breath.
“I want you riding me sweetheart,” he whispered in my ear.
I nodded and adjusted my position so he could lay is long body in the center of the bed. I was on him and easing onto his dick. He held me still for a moment, dragging the head back and forth across the swollen lips between my legs. Using my wetness he lubed the head and glided into me.
“Ah, God, Mikhailov,” I moaned. The heat from the stretch made me wince.
“You good, sweetheart? Take all of me, Toni.”
I nodded slowly and relaxed my muscles. “Uh huh, all of you baby,” I said. My hands settling on the headrest of the bed, I started riding. Slowly at first, I tilted my hips forward as I slid down his cock and then bringing my hips back to rock back up his length. Again and again I rode him like this. Soon, I felt his hips thrusting up to meet my downward plunge. The friction built until I sensed another orgasm.
“Mikhailov, I’m going to come again,” I warned. I looked down at his face. A picture of concentration, he sucked my nipple into his mouth. The pull from his mouth made me quiver. I couldn’t take the dual sensations anymore and pulled away, resting my hands on his chest, I rode him while he slammed into me.
“Yeah, that’s right baby. Fuck that cock sweetheart,” he cheered me on. “Come on Toni!” he demanded.
I ground my teeth together, fighting the urge to let go and come. Sweat beaded down my back and into my ass crack but I fucked him harder, slamming down. My head falling back as I let the sounds of our bodies slapping together carry me.
I cried out as I came hard but Dragan didn’t yield. Instead he sat up and pushed me to my back. He left one of my legs between his and grabbed the other leg and lifted it over his shoulder.
“Hold on to the headboard,” he ordered slamming i
nto me. With nothing in the way, he was able to fill me to the hilt. “Come for me again, Antonina” he cried out. I knew he was close; a flush crept up his neck making the tattoos I was so fascinated with earlier, stand out.
He grunted into me, his thumb going to my hypersensitive nub. Circling once before I cried out my orgasm and his own need followed with my name on his lips.
The Dragan
I hated that I had such a shitty shower for Toni to get washed up in but at least it was clean. There wasn’t room for both of us, so she went first and I returned some phone calls.
While I listened to messages, I gathered her clothes from around the room and laid them out on the bed for her. When she reappeared she was wrapped in one of the towels Evie bought me.
She spotted her clothes on the bed and thanked me.
“Give me five minutes and we’ll head to Sergey and Evie’s.”
“Okay,” she said without demanding more details. So, I’d figured out how to get Toni Hume to comply.
Six minutes later we were out the door and headed to Sergey’s. My brother called to tell me the Grand Jury deliberations were complete. Arrest warrants were going out for both Alina and Sofia’s husbands. In addition, sixty-year old pawnbroker Baron “Dobo” Drobski was being charged for forty counts of racketeering. He and four of his lieutenants from around Texas and New York were being charged with grand larceny. Irina was another story.
New York was requesting extradition for Drobski. With the old man about to be in custody, Sergey had some details he needed to share with Evelyn that he couldn’t before.
Antonina was in the passenger seat of my car and she smelled like my soap. And in spite of the fact that I’d just come harder than I had in years, I wanted to pull over and fuck her again.
She’d been everything my warped mind imagined and more. Flawless skin, tight, feminine body and her tits were perfection. And no games. She enjoyed sex and didn’t hide her need behind bogus diffidence or sexual passivity. Like I said, fucking flawless. Glancing over, I caught her staring at me.