by T. L Smith
I’ve successfully avoided life for the last day. After Anton dropped me home, I stayed in all day and the next calling in sick to work, but now I’m going in to quit straight after my shift. Then hopefully, with a bit of luck, I can find a job, one that doesn’t involve me removing my clothes to get paid. Hopefully.
“Elina’s here,” Raven calls out while I’m pulling on my dress. I finish dressing and walk out to see her with shiny red lips and heels that don’t belong in this apartment. Hell, they probably cost more than everything in here.
“Hey,” I say with a little wave. She’s kind and doesn’t stare at what we have. I know she wants to. Let’s face it, this place is nothing.
“So Raven mentioned you were after work.”
Raven waves as she closes the front door leaving for the hospital to work.
“Yeah, I will be.”
Elina nods her head. “Well, Kazier actually needs to hire someone. Would you consider working for him?”
I stare at her, trying to form the right words, but they don’t come. Instead, I blurt out, “Is it legal?” I still don’t know what they do, but it doesn’t feel like whatever it is, is actually above board.
She laughs. “Yes, Death mentioned to him you work at a health food restaurant. Kazier owns a few established restaurants and is looking for a general manager with experience. The job is at one of his larger restaurants, and he’s looking for someone he can trust as he won’t be there much. I thought immediately of you.”
“You don’t even know me.”
Her lip twitches. “Do you talk to him like that?” she asks.
“Who?”
“Anton? I can see why he’s slowly going crazy over you.”
“Ummm… thanks, I think.”
Elina waves her hand. “Anyway, the pay is great. Health’s included. Hours are great.”
“Health?” I ask, to which she nods her head. “Yes,” I say, not even caring if it involves scrubbing floors, I would do it for those health benefits alone. “Thank you,” I say to her because I mean it. What Elina’s doing is more than she’ll ever know.
She shrugs her shoulders.
“Anton likes you. He doesn’t like many girls other than us. Yes, he fucks them but doesn’t tolerate them other than that. You, however… he likes.”
I have no words to say back to her. I like Anton, too. Do I know if I feel more than that? No. At this stage, it’s nothing more.
“Does he know? About the job you’re offering me?” I ask her.
“He does.” She pulls a card from her purse and hands it to me. “You can start when you’re ready. The manager is leaving, and waiting for you so she can train you. You don’t have to worry much about the boys being in there as that’s not their area of work.”
“What is their area?” I ask while taking the card and looking down at it.
“Order,” is all she replies, which makes my head pop up to look at her again as I scrunch my eyebrows together.
“Is what they say true about them?”
She shrugs her shoulders. “Most likely. They’re only nice to those that are family. And cordial with their employees. Where do you want to fit into that?” Her question throws me off.
“Friends,” is all I say.
She smirks. “You do have six weeks after all.” She laughs, and her white teeth show predominantly. She really is one of the prettiest women I’ve ever come across. Kazier is very lucky to have her.
“Yes, six weeks should be interesting.” I laugh with her.
It should be very interesting indeed. Now I just have to hope Jamie leaves me the fuck alone, and never comes back.
But my luck isn’t running well, and like a white picket fence, it can be rickety.
Chapter 13
Anton
“He’s back again,” Kazier complains, walking up to me. His hands are in his pockets, and his face is solemn. “He can’t be following us, Anton. Sort this shit out or I’ll fucking sort it my way.” He turns his attention to Viktor as they start discussing business.
Walking to the window, I notice his black car, it’s the same one that he came here a few days ago. He’s following us. Why? I don’t really know. Kazier has the police in his pockets, not all, obviously, but definitely a reasonable amount and in high places. He’s also got some government officials as well. So for Jamie to be following us, makes me believe it’s for his own reasons, and I have a feeling I know what those reasons are. Grabbing my gun, I slide it in the back of my pants, pulling my shirt down to cover it and walk out.
“Don’t you fucking shoot him in the street,” Kazier tells me.
“You have no faith in me, and it hurts.” I feign hurt with my hand over my heart.
“No, no, I don’t. Don’t fucking kill him in the street, that’s all I’m saying.”
I’ve only done that a few times and definitely not a police officer. Or maybe I have, who knows, I can’t remember.
Walking out, his eyes are on me. He starts his car and straightens in his seat as I get closer. His window is up, but my knuckles tap on it, indicating for him to wind the window down. He waits a few seconds before he moves, then he opens the door stepping out, so he’s now in front of me.
“Anton Smirnov.” He says my name like it’s a disease and I don’t give two fucks. I can be a disease to him if that’s what he wants—a fast and efficient deterrent.
“Jamie, Jamie, Jamie … so you’re the cop who’s obsessed with my current fuck.”
His lip twitches and his hand goes to his gun. He doesn’t like my words, but he doesn’t do a thing about them either. I lean in closer to him.
“She tastes good… have you tasted her? Have you heard her purr? Because she has the sexiest purr known to woman-kind.”
His teeth are grinding as I stand back, watching his reaction.
“Don’t you talk about her like that!”
I laugh at him. “You don’t even know how to make her scream, do you?”
His teeth grind louder.
“It’s okay, you won’t ever know now. Once she tasted me, she never wants to leave.”
Jamie’s hand goes up, but he stops himself before he brings it close to me, then he turns opening his car door and slides back in. Standing there watching him with a smile on my face, my hands to my sides, he drives off flicking small pebbles in the air and skidding off down the street.
I head off back inside, not noticing Death waiting out front. Obviously, he’s only just arrived and he’s watching me carefully.
“Why’s he here?” Death nods his head to the car that Jamie just sped off in.
I shrug my shoulders. “Following me because I have his pussy.”
“He pursues her, and she’s scared of him,” he tells me, then walks up the stairs and into the house with me following him.
“How do you know?” I ask.
Death doesn’t stop, he walks over to the boys as he answers, “I was at her work when she kneed him in the cock.”
“What else are you not telling me?”
He shrugs his shoulders.
“You got your cock piercing still?” I ask him when we stop.
Viktor’s cleaning the guns as Kazier sorts through them. Viktor’s new house has a private room, hidden from the normal eye and covered by a bookcase. But if you know how to open it, a vast room opens up which is hidden from view. The room at the moment is full of guns, with some hanging on the wall like prized possessions.
“Yes,” is all he answers.
“Fuck! I want to have sex. You had sex yet?” I ask him, and he shakes his head. “Did you know we have to wait six weeks?” He ignores me. “Sam wants it, wants it bad.”
“Will you shut the fuck up about your cock, I’ve seen it enough this week to last me a good fucking year. Maybe fucking longer,” Viktor complains, putting a gun back on his wall after he cleans it.
“But it’s so pretty, and it makes me so very happy.”
“So does killing, but you don’t talk a
bout that like it’s your cock,” Kazier chimes in.
“That’s because it freaks people out,” I complain back to him. “Well, except Death, it doesn’t freak him out.”
Death nods his head, staying where he is leaning back on the wall watching us.
“Elina offered Sam the job, and she took it,” Kazier says.
“Good.”
His eyebrow raises. “She’s at the grocery store right now,” Kazier says, chiming in again.
Nodding my head, I walk out of there and straight to the car to drive to the store which isn’t that far. I spot her straight away from outside—she’s walking around the fruit section. Sam’s hair is tossed back, and her hands touch everything. Getting out and walking, I stalk up behind her, and she doesn’t even notice as I follow her closely. Her smell invades all of me, and my cock starts becoming hard.
Who the fuck is this woman to me?
And why can’t she leave my head, but most of all why does my cock call to her?
“Will you purr, pretty kitty.”
Sam jumps on the spot and turns to face me, her soft lips—that are so fucking kissable—beg me to taste them.
“You’re not a stalker too, are you?” She throws her hands up in the air. “Just my fucking luck.” She sounds exhausted, I wonder if Jamie saw her today as well.
“Nope. I can be if you want me to, though I do have a job to do. Why, kitten, who’s stalking you?”
Sam shakes her head, walking to the register. “Why are you here?” she asks, ignoring my question. She grabs a few more things on her way to the register, and stops before she reaches it.
“You aren’t planning to do anything with that cucumber again, are you?”
I smirk, shaking my head. Sam watches me then turns back as the lady at the register greets her.
“Has the meth kicked in yet?” I half whisper slash shout into her ear, loud enough so the lady at the register hears me.
Sam shakes her head, but the lady now thinks she’s on meth, because she mutters some shit under her breath as she hands Sam the bags with disdain written all over her face, and what she said I’m sure wasn’t anything nice either.
“Stop that. You have to stop that.” She looks back, and I do too. The woman is watching us intently. I tip my head to her, her mouth opens in shock then shakes in disappointment.
“Stop looking at her, you're making it worse.” Sam grabs my arm, pulling me faster out of the store. “Honestly, I could hurt you right now. That was next-level embarrassing,” she says when we get outside. Sam starts walking extra fast to her car, and I follow her. My cock starts becoming hard around her. Fuck, how does she do it? She owns it. Sam bends over to place the stuff in the car then comes back to look at me. My hand is adjusting my cock, and her eyebrow raises.
“Seriously.”
I shrug, it’s my only and best excuse. “You took the job.”
She leans against the car, her dark hair up, her dark eyes on me.
“I did.”
“You don’t have to work at that strip club anymore.”
She wipes her hands on her legs. “Tonight I do. I can’t leave them in the lurch.”
“Do you want me there?”
Her eyes go wide. “You know I’ve worked there for years, right? I don’t need a protector now.”
“Jamie...” I say that one word and let it linger in the air.
Sam straightens her stance.
“He’s watching me,” I say.
“He’s watching me, too. But I’ll handle it.”
I step closer to her. “I can handle it. All you have to do is say the word…” my mouth near her ear, “… and I can make him disappear. Just purr, kitten.”
Sam stays still, our bodies so close, then she pulls, back shaking her head. “What would you do?”
“Do you really want to know?”
She nods, but her hand is gripping the car door handle tightly.
“I would capture him, maybe play with him a little to see why he likes to stalk beautiful kittens. Then I’d remove his tongue, followed by his eyes—”
“Stop, stop! I get the message.” She shakes her head. “You wouldn’t, would you?”
“You asked, I answered.”
“Is that what you do?”
“It’s some of what I do, and I’m damn good at it.”
“Would you do that to me?” she asks.
“Not unless it was commanded, no I wouldn’t.”
“Commanded?” she asks on a shaky breath.
“Kazier… if he tells us to do something… we don’t say no.”
“That’s fucked. You know that, right?”
“It is to you, and maybe to normal people. But we aren’t normal. We live in it, the bad, the dangerous. We grew up with it surrounding us. To us, it isn’t wrong. We’re taught to remove feelings… they don’t have a place in our life.” She doesn’t move or even blink, just stares at me. “Except the women, they are now the only weakness.”
“You think of your women as a weakness?”
“They are a weakness. And it’s a weakness we can least afford to have. Why give us a weakness, it’s only leverage for someone else to use against us.”
“You don’t believe in love?”
Looking around, we haven’t moved. We have stayed in the same place, her holding onto the car, me trying to work out how I can somehow touch her.
“Lust! Lust is what I believe in. Lust doesn’t equal crash. Love equals crash. I never want to crash.”
She shakes her head, pulling her door open.
“I have to go, Anton. Tell Kazier thank you.” She gets in, shutting the door behind her before I can utter another word.
What did I do?
Chapter 14
Samara
Love equals crash? I don’t even know what that means. It has my head in spins trying to understand him. He’s so high, so naturally high all the time. His energy is one people crave to have around them, but for me, it’s too much sometimes. Then there’s Jamie. What do I do about him? I’m completely hesitant and unsure whether to call the police, which I know won’t work because, he is, after all, one of them.
Grabbing my bag, I head out the door to go to work. Raven’s gone and already at work thankfully. She sees too much now as it is. Her grilling me and telling me what I should be doing in my love life, if that’s even the name for it, isn’t what I want right now.
My boss greets me when I arrive, and then I tell him my news. He’s disappointed, but wishes me good luck and lets me know my job is always there if I need it. Even though it’s a lovely offer, I plan to never step back inside these doors again. Ever.
The night goes fast, quicker than I thought it would considering it’s my last night. I figured it would drag on, taking forever to finish. That is, until a familiar face walks in, shocking me to the pole that I’m currently upside down on.
He’s back when he shouldn’t be anywhere near me. I’ve asked. I’ve told him. Yet, here he stands directly in front of me with a smirk on his face and hand on his belt. Sliding down and finishing my solo, I walk off once the lights go dark, trying to disappear from his sights. He’s everywhere though, everywhere I don’t want him to be. This stupid one-night stand I had with Jamie has led me to a painful year.
Why do I always choose wrong?
Shantra knocks on my door then pokes her head in with a smile. She’s young, just turned twenty-one, and I wonder what made her choose this life. “An officer is asking to see you.”
Before I can tell her no, the door is pushed open. She smiles then walks away, leaving me in this small confined space with him. His smell is the first thing that assaults me, it invades my system, taking me over and sets off all the built-in alarm bells. Then it's him, all of him, as he steps through the door and closer to me. Jamie’s hand comes up to touch me, but I back away and plaster my hands against the wall.
“Samara,” my name rolls off his lips. His hand drops away, but he doesn’t move back. In
stead he shuts the door, locking us in here together. His eyes look me up and down. I’m not dressed. Damn it, I should have gotten dressed, but now I can hardly move.
“You need to leave, you shouldn’t be in here.” It didn’t come out as strong as I wanted it to sound coming from my lips. It sounded weak and almost pathetic.
He shakes his head. “You didn’t listen to me. He’s bad news, you know.”
“Who?”
“You know who, Samara, the one you’re fucking.”
The way he said ‘fucking’ sends shivers all up and down my spine. I need to get dressed and he has to leave. “Leave now, Jamie, before I call security.”
He shakes his head, his eyebrows pinch together, and his eyes roam me up and down again. “That isn’t going to happen, Samara. You need to tell me, did you enjoy fucking him? Was he better than me?”
My head starts shaking. “What are you talking about?”
Jamie cracks his neck, the vein in it pops out making him look disturbingly unstable.
“That low-life covered in ink. He wasn’t a better fuck than me, was he? Tell me, was he?” he yells the last part.
Hoping someone can hear him is unlikely. The music is so loud out there that if you aren’t locked in a room away from it like we are, it’s hard to hear at the best of times.
“Anton,” I whisper.
Jealousy is what this is all about. But my nerves are shot, and his proximity is way too close.
Jamie reaches out and places a hand on either side of my head, effectively trapping me. He steps closer, bringing his breath to my face.
“Leave,” I try again, but my words are so weak, and he doesn’t heed my words anyway.
He doesn’t listen.
Instead, he touches me.
His hands shouldn’t be on me. I didn’t ask for those hands on me.
“Don’t!” It leaves my mouth, but he doesn’t seem to listen. “Don’t,” I whisper louder as his hand slides from my bare stomach to under my breast. His damn eyes are glazed over now, and he isn’t even hearing me anymore.