by Renee Rose
It certainly doesn’t feel safe now.
I can’t decide if that means I made the right or wrong choice in keeping this from him. Would he have been reasonable if I’d been straightforward and honest from the beginning. Or was this strong-arming inevitable?
I hear the snap of a lid and the rubbing of Natasha’s palms together, and then she makes contact. I flinch at first. Until Ravil’s earlier assault—seduction—whatever, I hadn’t been touched in months. Certainly not in a way that’s pleasurable. Sure, I hug my mom once a week when I meet her at Dad’s rehab center, but that’s about it.
My muscles bunch and tighten under her slow strokes, but eventually, I relax. She soothes my jumpy nerves, and the tension releases little by little. She’s good. Very good. She doesn’t dig in deep and kill me working out knots, but she finds them all, nonetheless, and somehow gently coaxes them out of their contraction.
Gradually, I unwind and eventually start to drift in and out of a light sleep. I wake when she murmurs something in Russian with the sense I’d been far, far away. There’s been no disturbing, frantic dreams—not the ones where I’m trying to prove myself at the law firm or in court, not the ones where I’m at my wedding, but I can’t find my groom.
None of that. Just a deep sense of peace.
Of me.
It’s like coming home.
She touches my shoulder lightly and murmurs again.
The massage is over. She steps into the bathroom and shuts the door, and I take a few minutes to get my bearings and find my way off the table. I open one of my suitcases and pull out a pair of pajamas. No sense in putting my work clothes back on—especially if Ravil isn’t going to let me out of this room.
Natasha emerges and waves toward the overstuffed armchair by the window. The one with a magnificent view of the water. She directs me into it and refills my water and hands it to me.
“Thank you,” I say, though I’m not sure she understands me. “That was magnificent. You are truly a gifted healer.”
She smiles, receiving my gratitude whether she understands the words or not.
She strips the table of the sheets and folds it up, carrying it to the walk-in closet, where she props it against a wall. She says something more in Russian and waves to me as she leaves, her large wicker basket with the sheets, massage oil and speaker, slung over her shoulder.
“Goodbye. Thanks again. Sorry I doubted you.”
She flashes an impish smile before she waves again and leaves.
Well, silver linings and all that. I should’ve treated myself to a massage months ago. That was pure heaven.
Ravil
The guys are gathered in the living room when I come out, no doubt waiting for me. The television is on, but Oleg turns it down when I enter.
Dima’s already taken Lucy’s laptop out of her bag and is doing his thing with it. Making every bit of it accessible to me. Inserting tracking chips in it, her purse, and her phone in case she somehow gets away.
“She is beautiful,” his twin, Nikolai, observes from an armchair, still speaking in Russian as I ordered.
A thread of irritation ripples through me. I’m not the jealous type, but I suppose I am possessive. Not that I believe for even a microsecond any of these men would ever touch what belongs to me. We are brothers in arms, and I am their pakhan. Loyalty runs deep between us.
“You will make pretty babies,” Maxim agrees in English.
“Russkom,” I growl.
He rolls his eyes but continues in our mother tongue. “First you order everyone to speak English only. Now the entire building must speak Russian. And for what? For how long? Let us in on your plan, Ravil.”
I shove my hands in my pockets to bury my irritation. I don’t sit with them. Not yet. They’re awaiting news from their leader. “She is my prisoner until the baby is born. After that, I have not decided.”
“This really can only go one way,” Maxim says. He lounges on the large red sofa, his feet propped on the ottoman, his hands behind his head. Like me, he prefers expensive clothes— button-downs and slacks. Shined shoes.
The others are in more casual attire—t-shirts and jeans or khakis.
I arch a brow. Normally, I appreciate his input. He’s a born leader and strategist. If he hadn’t been sent away by Igor, he would be next in line as pakhan for the entire organization when Igor dies. “What way is that?”
“You must keep her. Seduce her. Make her fall in love. Otherwise… she’s a high-power defense attorney. She has the intelligence and connections to bring us down. You don’t want to turn her into a weapon against us.”
I rubbed my face. “Nyet.”
Maxim’s right, but I want to throat-punch him for it.
Make her fall in love.
Dima chuckles from his work table. He’s wearing a black t-shirt with the image of glowing lines of code from The Matrix, his favorite movie. Dima has an office, but insisted on setting up a workstation out here, so he can watch television with the rest of them while he breaks every code ever written. “Making her fall in love might not be so hard.”
Maxim puts his feet down and leans forward. “What did you find?”
“Well, her Kindle is full of Viking romance, all bought after Valentine’s Day. Before that, she only read non-fiction.”
“So?”
He shrugs. “She has a thing for being carried off by big blond men. But it gets better. Way better. Guess what your little lady Googles late at night when she’s lonely?”
Goosebumps prick my skin. “What?”
“It’s good. You're going to like this.” He looks around, grinning and flicking his brows at all of us to make sure we’re listening.
“What?” I snap with impatience.
“Wait for it.”
“Dima,” Nikolai growls.
“Tell us!” Maxim raises his voice.
“Russian...spanking!” Dima shouts with glee.
The room erupts with jeers and laughter.
Part of me wants to smash them all for laughing at her expense, but I’m too pleased by the information.
My lovely lawyer did miss me.
When I mastered her at Black Light, it had been her first time playing with BDSM. She was on a rebound, and her friend in DC talked her into going. She came in dressed all wrong, but perfectly, in a red wrap-around dress. The moment I saw her, I knew I wanted her, but the evening was set up as a roulette game. Partners were picked by the role of the ball in the wheel. I’d planned to buy her from whomever she was paired with, but as luck would have it, Lady Luck—Lucy’s scene name—was paired with me.
“Did you spank her, Ravil?” Pavel sounds slightly alarmed. He’s younger—in his mid-twenties. His sexual experience might not be quite as colorful as mine.
All of their gazes fix on me, waiting for my response.
I shrug. “Da. Of course. I met her at the BDSM club Valdemar dragged me to in DC.” I spanked the hell out of her. Over my lap with a plug in her ass. It was hotter than Hades.
“Right. The exclusive club where you have to pay to whip a woman,” Maxim says, parroting my own words when I’d complained about going.
“Exactly this.”
“Guess you did quite a bit more than spank her,” Nikolai observes.
“Enough.” Lucy may be my prisoner, but I still don’t like her being disrespected.
My men force the laughter from their faces, resulting in the twitching lips and darted glances of school boys.
“So you will give her what she needs and make her fall in love. When the baby comes, she will stay,” Maxim sums up his take on the situation.
I purse my lips. “We’ll see.”
“Am I the only asshole to point out that families are against the Code?” Nikolai asks. He wasn’t separated from his twin when they joined, despite the edict, but they were an exception.
The mirth drains out of the room. Oleg sits forward, a crease on his forehead.
I don’t answer. Of course, this ha
s been on my mind from the beginning. I’m also at the point where I tend to make my own rules.
But it would open me up for replacement. Breaking the Code would mean I’d have to worry about someone burying a knife in my back to send me on my way.
“I mean, I’m not challenging you, Ravil. You know that.” Nikolai takes on a conciliatory tone. “I’m with my family.” He tips his head toward Dima. “But he’s also in the brotherhood.”
I give him a nod.
“Someone in Moscow could challenge you,” Maxim says. “Especially if Igor dies.”
Oleg’s meaty palms form fists, the frown on his forehead increasing. I think that means he has my back, but it’s hard to say. He was fucked by his own cell back in Russia. He’s been nothing but loyal to me, but I don’t know what his feelings on breaking Code are. And well, Oleg doesn’t communicate much.
“Would it be better,” Pavel starts, then holds up both his hands in surrender— “I’m not saying you should… but would they be safer if you left them alone? Kept some distance between you? You could keep her like a side piece, the way Igor has his mistress and daughter.”
“She stays here,” I growl.
My baby. His beautiful mother. In my building.
As it should be.
“I will protect them. And if any of you” —all the men immediately start shaking their heads— “want to challenge me on breaking the code…?” I slap an icy stare on all of them, even though they’re clearly not going to. “Good. Then you’ll have my back.”
“Always,” Dima murmurs.
“Da,” Nikalai concurs. Maxim and Pavel also give their assent.
Oleg nods.
“Thank you.”
I take a seat on the sofa beside Maxim. “Anything else of interest on that laptop?” I ask Dima.
“You can see for yourself.” He hands me my laptop, which was open beside him. “I made you a link to everything, but here’s some of the sites she landed on, if you want any pointers.” He grins as a smack and a cry sound from the laptop, and he flips it around to show us some amateur porn scene with a girl bent over the back of a couch.
“Mention this again, and you die,” I say coolly. “I won’t have her mocked.”
Dima instantly sobers. “Sorry. Of course not.” He ducks his head but not before I see his lips twitch.
Fucker.
Chapter 5
Ravil
Lucy doesn’t attempt to come out of the room when her massage is over, even though I haven’t locked the door nor stationed a guard. I’m still toying with how hard a line I draw with her.
I have to keep reminding myself that she wanted to raise our son without me ever meeting him. That she thinks so little of me, she does not think me worthy of parenting him.
Maybe I’m not. I had lowly beginnings. I was a poor son of a prostitute. I ran through the snow and slush of Leningrad in boots with the soles flapping open, stealing produce or digging in the garbage for enough to eat.
That was where Igor found me. Where I learned the Code of Thieves. Pay for nothing you can steal. Forsake all family for the brotherhood. Rise up through the ranks with my loyalty and courage.
The bratva became my identity. Within it, I am respected. Within my circles, I am God. Outside, though? On the streets of Chicago? A man covered in prison tattoos with a Russian accent doesn’t command a lot of respect.
I suppose that’s why I created the Kremlin. Bought this building in the most coveted area of Chicago and filled it with my own people. It’s why I demand everyone here practice their English. Learn the culture and laws, so they can be manipulated to benefit our kind.
Lucy’s rejection—knowing the beautiful attorney who is well-bred and well-respected in this city—didn’t find me good enough… Well, it stabs me where it hurts.
And so, I intend to hurt her a bit in return.
No one takes my son from me.
I step into the room where I find her standing at the window, looking out at the lights of the yachts out on the water.
My dick gets hard because she’s wearing nothing more than a pair of tiny shorts and a camisole, both stretched tight around her pregnancy curves.
Blyat.
I want her now.
But operating from desire is never a winning strategy. I adjust my straining cock.
She turns and looks over her shoulder at me, her mouth in a tight line.
“What happens to the baby?”
Ah. Finally the question I’ve been anticipating. And yet my answer to it has changed in my own mind several times. Still, I’m going to play hard-ball. She can work on softening me if she likes. She has four months to try.
“The baby stays here, in this building. If you wish to be a part of his life, you will play nice with me.”
She stands very still. Only the slightest flaring of her nostrils and tightening of her fingers show her ire. She expected this.
“You can’t—”
“You know I can, so let’s drop the pretense. Your laws can’t touch me. If you tried, I would go underground with the child in a matter of hours. You’d never see him again.”
I’m ready for any argument she throws my way. What I don’t expect is for her eyes to grow bright with tears.
It does something raspy and harsh to my insides.
She blinks them back without changing anything on her face. I don’t take her for a crier, but I’m sure the hormones make her more susceptible.
I’ll have to make sure not to push her that far again because I dislike how off-balance it makes me feel.
“You tried to keep our son from me,” I say, too harshly. I’m reminding myself as much as her. “I’m being far more generous with you. All you need to do is cooperate with me, and you’ll keep your son. You’ll get to nurse him and raise him. Teach him and watch him grow.
“All the things you wished to deprive me of.”
She turns away from me, back to the window.
I have the impulse to turn and leave. But it’s my room, and I chose to put her in here with me for a reason.
I need to tear her walls down… not strengthen them. Even when I want to build my own.
I go to her. Touching her before was electric. She’d been so responsive. More responsive than Valentine’s night. It was like her body was primed for me, waiting for my touch.
She may have not thought me fit to be a father, but I now know with total certainty how much she loved my mastery at Black Light.
I slide one hand under her camisole to cup her breast, the other across her belly, stroking lower. “There’s still your punishment to deal with,” I say against the shell of her ear.
I’m satisfied to feel the shiver run through her. She doesn’t answer, but I sense her body listening. Waiting. Like before at her apartment, she wants this. Or at least her body does.
I love seeing the transformation her body’s made with the pregnancy. Back in February, she was on the too-thin side. Like she held her body to a rigid standard for weight. Now she has curves—not just her belly and larger breasts, but all of her has a beautiful softness. I knead her breast gently.
“These are much bigger than before. Are they tender?”
“Yes.” She stirs against me—little twitches and jerks, like pockets of resistance absorbed into my hands.
I pinch her nipple, tug it into a stiff, beaded peak. She shifts on her legs, her breath quickening. I slide my other hand into her tiny pajama shorts, curling my fingers to mold them over her mons.
She swallows and gives me more of her weight, leaning back against my body. “Doesn’t punishment counteract the massage? Weren’t you trying to keep me from stress?”
“All the stress I inflict will be relieved by the time I’m through. Unless you disobey.”
I sense a trembling in her—excitement, I assume, not fear. If she was afraid, she’d pull away.
She hasn’t.
I rub my fingers over her sex. She almost instantly gets wet, like her pussy wa
s waiting for me to stroke it. I pull the tiny camisole over her head and toss it on the floor.
“Come.” I turn her toward the bed. “I want you on your knees for me.” She hesitates a little, but then allows me to direct her. “Up,” I command.
For a moment, she goes rigid, like she’s just decided she shouldn’t give in to me.
“Be good, or I won’t give you the satisfaction I know your body craves.”
She glances over her shoulder, searching my face. Her lawyer mask is in place, and it’s hard to read her. I interrupt whatever internal debate she’s having with a sharp smack on her ass, and the slow drag of her booty shorts down her legs.
“On your knees.” I cup her elbow and lift to show her I want her on her knees on the bed. I spent all afternoon researching pregnancy. What’s safe for her, what’s not. Which positions are best. Which are contraindicated. How to make her comfortable. How to punish her.
I plop a bolster and the large body pillow I had Nikolai buy for her today in the center of the bed. “Ass up.” I slap the pale globe of her ass to punctuate the order.
She kneels in front of the bolster. I arrange the body pillow under her torso. “Chest down, kitten. Get comfortable.”
She stands on her hands and knees instead. I let her have her small defiance. The real punishment is my keeping her here. This, in actuality, is the pleasure of the situation.
For both of us.
She looks over her shoulder again, her brown eyes clouded with misgiving. I stroke my palm over her ass.
“Relax, kotyonok. I know what you need.”
I pick up a leather flogger—another afternoon purchase—and trail the soft tendrils across her skin. “The last time I flogged you, you had my dick in your mouth,” I recall.
“And you didn’t let me come,” she says immediately, like the scene is as fresh in her mind as it is in mine.
I chuckle. “No, I made you wait for it. But you saw the benefit of delaying the orgasm.”
She turns her head back to look down at the pillow. I position myself behind her and begin to twirl the flogger in a figure eight motion, swirling it so just the tips graze her skin.