by R. J. Lewis
Catching my expression, he smirks again and the sexy sight of it makes my chest jittery. “I know everyone around here who owes me money.”
My body turns to him, still rigid from nerves. “I don’t owe you money.”
Not yet anyway.
He circles the cigarette between his fingers while he moves around the desk. He’s coming closer, and I can’t help but inch backwards. I need distance. Nikolai is menacing and I’m not liking the way my body is responding to his gaze.
He stops in front of me and I crane my head up just to look at him. He’s so confident in himself, so precise in his movements, and I envy him for a moment, wishing I had the same boldness as him. I wouldn’t be shaking if I did.
“You’re here for money,” he states. It’s not a question, but he’s still looking at me for a response.
I nod. “Yes.”
“Then I can’t help you.”
I take a second just to process his words. “I’ve been waiting for over an hour and I need –”
“I can’t help you,” he cuts in without letting me finish.
“Aren’t you going to let me explain first?”
“I don’t want you to explain. I don’t want to know your situation. That’s not how this works.”
“How does it work then?”
“It doesn’t matter. I can’t help you.” His words are spoken with finality, and I’m completely perplexed.
“Of course you can,” I tell him quickly. “If you can help those deadbeats waiting beside me, you can definitely help me. They’re probably gone to cash the money you gave them on drugs, and all I want is food for –”
“I don’t want to know your situation,” he repeats firmly, his eyes narrowed at me now in warning. “Do you understand?”
My face falls. No, I don’t understand! I’m so confused and angry. He won’t even let me explain myself. It’s like he just wants me gone from his sights, and it feels like a terrible rejection. All those mornings I thought there was something there in his expression when he looked at me. Part of me hoped he had a soft spot, and that asking for this would come easy because he’d want to help me. I’ve been wrong this entire time.
I feel embarrassed at myself, but that aside, I’m also enraged and helpless.
“Don’t make me beg,” I whisper, my throat thick. “I need this, Nikolai.”
When he hears his name fall from my lips his face tightens. He keeps spinning his cigarette between his fingers, observing me with both indifference and frustration.
“I don’t lend money to people who already owe me,” he finally replies, his voice solemn.
“You’ve said that already but I don’t owe you money,” I retort, clenching my teeth.
“Tell that to your mother.”
I’m about to ask him what my mother has to do with anything before realization slams into me like a wrecking ball.
Oh, my God.
My shoulders slump and a rip of fury washes over me.
“She owes you money,” I quietly say, dejectedly.
He nods once. “I’m not useful to you, rybka. I can’t give you shit. You are living with a woman who takes from me and hasn’t paid me back. It’s not possible I can give money to someone else under that roof without seeing a penny back. I can’t help you.”
With that he turns his back to me and settles the cigarette in his mouth. He’s dismissing me, and I’ve never felt so inferior and pathetic. I stand there, not wanting to move but not seeing the point in staying either. I glance at the door for several moments and then at the tall man feet from me, back still turned.
He doesn’t realize my desperation, or he doesn’t care. Something tells me it’s the latter. Why should he? I’m just another beggar. A man in his situation looks after himself. Turning people like me away is just a logical business move.
Still. He won’t even hear me out.
Fuck him.
I want to run out of here and tell him I don’t need his money anyway. Then I’d feel proud of myself for reserving the little dignity I have in not begging.
But then I think of Scarlett, and I fight the sting behind my eyes and brace myself again.
“My mother has nothing to do with me,” I tell him calmly, pronouncing my words slowly and clearly. “She’s an alcoholic and a junkie and she just took off on us with all my money. She’s not coming back and I won’t let her if she tries. Whatever money you loan to me, she won’t see a penny of it.”
He doesn’t respond. I think he’s ignoring me.
Anger heats my skin. Being ignored is a recurrent horror in my life. It’s something Mother used to do to me as a child when I begged for attention and food, and I can’t handle it being done to me.
“I’ll pay you back,” I tell him, swallowing the irritation that’s growing thicker inside me. “I don’t care what interest you charge me, either. I’m good for it.”
He still isn’t responding and I’m about to lose it.
Memories flash before my eyes. Of me shaking my mother passed out on the couch. “Mom, I’m hungry. Mom, please wake up.” Or rolling up a joint while I sat on the couch next to her and begged her to look at my picture I’d drawn with some old crayons the school had donated to me. “Mom? Mom? I drew a picture of you. Look.”
I feel a sting behind my eyes and I force it away. I won’t be ignored! Not again.
When Nikolai grabs a lighter off the desk, I feel my whole body jerk forward. He’s about to light his cigarette when I suddenly move in and grab the end from out of his mouth. Angrily, I chuck the cigarette on the desk, causing him to turn to me with hard eyes. He can see my anger and the corner of his mouth drops down in a frown that should scare me, but I’m too enraged to feel it.
“I need this,” I seethe out, staring him dead in the eye. “Do you hear me? I need this!”
“I already gave you my answer,” he replies coldly.
Hysteria conquers my anger. “I have no one else to turn to!”
“I’m not a charity.”
“I’m not asking you to be. I’m telling you that I will pay you back –”
“You have nothing to offer me. You make nothing. I know Ivan and he’s a greedy durak. He takes advantage of your situation –”
“You don’t know my situation,” I cut in icily. “You won’t even let me explain it!”
“I know if you owed me, I’d also be taking advantage of you. That would bring shame to my business, and I operate on respect.” He moves closer to me, his eyes dead on mine as he continues. “You don’t want to be in my pocket. It’s not a nice place, rybka, and you will hate me for it.”
“Just once,” I tell him, and I’m cringing because it sounds like a plea. “I never ask for help. This isn’t habit. I need a break right now.”
“I can’t help you.”
Those four words cut through me. He won’t budge. I know that now. He decided the second he saw me in here that he wasn’t going to give me a cent. I never had a chance.
I tear my eyes away from him before he could see the tears swimming behind them. I’m exhausted from being on my feet all day, hungry because I haven’t eaten a thing except two bites of mushy pasta in over 24 hours, and angry that my mother is a thieving piece of shit; it’s no surprise I can’t keep my emotions at bay right now. I’m crumbling. I have to go before I fall to the floor and cry at his feet.
Weakness is bad, but showing it is worse.
I eye the door once more and it’s daunting knowing I’m going to step out of here with nothing.
Nothing!
All of this was for nothing!
I have no food to feed Scarlett.
I have no food to feed Scarlett.
I have no…
I hear him exhale – he probably just wants me gone – and I’m about to turn when he says, “Wait, rykba.”
I look back at him and wait. He stares at me for a long moment, his face cracking just a little bit. Frustration flashes in his eyes, like he’s battling himself ov
er something. Then I watch as he sticks his hand in his pocket, pulling out a black leather wallet. He eyes me again, his eyes searching mine before he looks into his wallet and pulls out a single note. He folds it in half and holds his hand out to me.
I stare at the note. A crisp hundred. My fingers twitch to take it, but I don’t move an inch. My pride is trumping hunger, and I want to beat it to submission because that hundred is better than nothing.
“Take it,” he tells me.
“Loan?” I ask him, hopeful.
“Gift.”
Gift? I scoff. I really am a charity case. The hundred is probably just to get me out of here.
I shake my head defiantly as I scowl at him and tell him very slowly and clearly, “I don’t want your pity.”
I’m speaking out of anger. This is what happens to me when I’ve been broken down. I clutch at the anger because it makes me numb. If I was more level-headed I’m sure I’d be happy to have his pity any other time, but I’m stubborn when I’ve been ruffled, and Nikolai has ruffled me deeply with his dismissiveness.
I can see his patience beginning to dwindle as his eyes flash darker. He presses his lips down hard and moves closer, his hand now raised to my face, that hundred inches from my cheek.
“Take it,” he repeats edgily, his light accent thicker.
“I’m not a charity case,” I tell him, fighting to keep my voice steady and my head held high. “I wanted a loan!”
He’s irritated now. “I’m not giving you a loan. I’m giving you this.”
“Let me pay it back.”
“You need to shut your pride down and take it.”
“At least let me earn it,” I retort, swallowing hard.
Tilting his head to the side, he looks at me oddly. “Earn it?”
“I can clean your office,” I speedily explain, fighting to keep my armour up as I gesture around the room, “or wipe the glass displays, anything –”
“You want to earn it?” he cuts in, his voice dangerously low. “Is that what you really want?”
Something’s changed in his expression, and it makes me unsettled. I back away and he moves even closer, making sure there is no distance between us. The scent of him hits me suddenly, and it’s a mixture of mint and musk. There’s something that draws me in about it I can’t understand. A tug inside of me that tells me he’s safe, but I don’t believe it.
“Say it then,” he continues, towering over me, his other hand suddenly gripping my arm, that hundred now slapping against my face.
My heart picks up, and I’m beginning to shake. I’ve pissed him off. He’s a bad man and he’s going to hurt me. Why didn’t I just leave?
“Say you really want to earn it, rybka,” he demands roughly. “Because I can find a way you can.”
I open my mouth, tears springing to my eyes, and give him what he wants. “I want to earn it.”
I don’t know what to expect when I say that, and when he suddenly moves closer, I close my eyes, waiting for pain, for his roughness to tear down the little pride I have left. The men Mother brought home had always hurt me before I learned to fight back, but it’s been so long and I’m vulnerable right now, my soul sucked dry, my body weak and frail.
I feel him closing in on me, so close his scent is all around me.
He’s saying something in Russian, and I’m not sure it’s a curse or something else, when I feel something soft suddenly touch my lips. It takes me a heartbeat to realize what it is.
He’s… kissing me.
I’m too alarmed to feel it in its entirety at first. But then seconds pass, and the sensation begins to sink in. My body is sensitive. It’s been so long since I’ve been kissed. The tension inside of me loosens as does his grip around my arm. He kisses me softly, his lips brushing tenderly against my mouth, coaxing my lips apart. It feels…soft and warm. The sensation is so foreign to me. All thought vanishes in an instant as something wet coats my lips – his tongue sliding across them – before he presses his lips against them again, more firmly than before.
A single tingle travels down my spine. I’m frozen, afraid to open my eyes, afraid of what will happen if I listen to my body and press harder against his mouth.
Nikolai tastes sweet. I feel his fingers running up my arm, settling to the back of my neck. He pulls away, and I feel his ragged breaths against my mouth (too heavy for a soft kiss to bring on) before he says huskily, “Earn it, kotyonok.”
Earn it.
He wants me to work for it.
For the crisp hundred my body wants more than anything.
When he kisses me again, I come alive against his mouth. I part my lips, giving him access to my tongue. My hand runs up his exposed smooth chest as I languidly run my tongue against the crease of his mouth. I drink him in, getting lost in a simple kiss that suddenly has my blood running faster and my heart beating harder.
What am I doing?
Am I seriously kissing him for a hundred dollars?
Food, food, food.
He makes a sound in the back of his throat. I think it’s approval, or a groan. Whatever it is, it sounds delicious, and I’m getting warmer, forgetting all about the reason I’m doing this. I breathe harshly into his mouth, a light sound coming out of my own lips. He moves even closer, his entire body flushed against mine, and there’s something pleasurable about it my body responds to. The closeness gives me a high, makes me crave it even more as I grow needier against him.
He traps me between him and his desk, his hands on either side gripping it, his mouth never breaking from my lips. The kiss grows into something more; it’s ravenous and heated, and I’m not present in thought as I let myself go.
I’m moments into a kiss and this man is drawing something out of me. Something hidden and unexplored. My knees shake, heat swarms between my legs, a growing ache that needs attention.
Nikolai is strong and experienced. He works his lips flawlessly, coaxing more light sounds out of me. I want to touch him everywhere. I want to cling to him for hours, wrap my legs around his hips, feel his hardness inside me and forget all about everything shit in this life.
I want it so bad, it’s the reason why I’m kissing him so hard. It’s me that’s being rough. It’s me that wants to be touched. It’s me that isn’t just thinking about food, but of how fucking hot he makes me feel.
Without warning, Nikolai tears his mouth away. Dear god, no. The loss of contact makes my body protest. I waver a little closer, opening my eyes and watching as he looks back at me.
His lips are swollen, his hair is out of place, some locks falling loosely over his forehead. His exposed chest is heaving, like he too was just as affected as me. Even his eyes are cloudy as he stares back at me, amusement all gone along with his irritation. He looks positively masculine in every way, and he wants to ravage me. There’s this pained expression that fleetingly passes through his eyes as he looks at my mouth. He wants to kiss me again. I can feel the want, see the tension in his shoulders. It’s there, so achingly transparent.
Instead, I feel his fingers brush along mine, and then he takes my hand to his lips. I watch in absolute shock as he wraps his wet, swollen lips around my finger, sucking at the cut from this morning. A tingle so sharp it feels like a knife shoots down my stomach and settles between my legs.
Dear god, let him kiss me again.
But he doesn’t.
He sucks my finger gently, eye-fucking me while he’s at it, and then he slowly starts to release it, his teeth biting lightly at the very tip. I see the tremors shoot through his body, see his eyes pool with need. I think I’d do anything to keep him here, to make this moment carry on. But he lets my finger go and takes a large step back, keeping a good distance from me when he’d been the one to close it earlier.
It confuses me.
His expression clears as he regains control of himself. He grabs at his carton of his cigarettes again and pulls one out. He settles it between his teeth, still looking at me with those cloudy eyes, before he s
ays through laboured breaths, “Take it or leave it, kotyonok, it’s there.” As he says that, he places the hundred on the edge of his desk and turns his back to me, lighting his smoke as he collapses on the couch.
He’s dismissing me. Or he doesn’t want me to see him.
Maybe I drew something out of him he didn’t like.
That makes two of us.
Still breathing heavily, I glance between him and the hundred, and I don’t take long thinking about it.
I grab it and hurry out of the room, leaving the last of my dignity behind.
Chapter Six.
Nikolai
“Did you see those tits?” Andrei whistles. “Easily a D.”
“I was too busy staring at those long legs,” Vlad responds.
“With her tiny cut-off shorts.”
Vlad laughs. “Oh, she could wrap around my body like a vine with those legs.”
A vein in my neck throbs as I watch them stand by the front entrance, peering out seconds after Alina has left. I followed the moment I heard their dirty remarks. I want to tell them to shut their mouths. Especially Vlad.
I bite on my cigarette as I cut in, “Move away from the window, you filthy pigs. I’m not paying you to play with your little dicks.”
Andrei looks over his shoulder at me, disregarding my demand. “What did she want, boss?”
“What do you think?” I retort.
“The same reason Valeria comes knocking and fails.”
“Mind your business.”
“Did you give her a loan?” Vlad asks, the bulky man turning to me now.
“No.”
“Why not? She was desperate.”
“That’s not my problem.”
“She needed it,” he argues. “We came into business to help people.”
“We came into business to make money,” I retort. “We have more pressing matters right now than some lonely girl who needs money.”
“Like what?” Andrei asks obliviously.
This man-child aggravates me to no end. “Like where did Gustav run off to? Remember him, your friend you assured us was good for a loan. The very same one that walked off the earth three days ago without a word. The one that owes us ten big ones. Where did he go, Andrei?”