Burning for the Bratva: A Russian Mafia Romance Novel

by Maura Rose

  He nipped at her bottom lip, earning a pleased little noise in the back of her throat in response. Kelly’s hands moved up to the back of his neck, tugging at the hair there, urging him to shift his angle a bit, changing the kiss from deep and consuming to something more playful and dirty.

  Ivan hauled her against him, nudging her legs open and sliding his thigh between hers. Kelly gasped into his mouth and arched up against his leg.

  “What do you think?” Ivan asked, kissing along her jaw.

  “I think I like you better when you’re not talking,” Kelly shot back, but he could see her smiling as she pulled him back up for a proper kiss.

  “I don’t know, I think you like it when I talk,” Ivan purred, letting his voice drop and his accent get a little thicker.

  Kelly shuddered in his arms and spread her legs wider, arching against him. Ivan grinned in triumph, that as good as a verbal answer for him. Kelly shoved him in retaliation, making him stumble and fall back onto a crate.

  She climbed up onto his lap, straddling him, grinding down onto him. Ivan went from half hard to fully hard so fast he felt dizzy with it, glad he was sitting down otherwise he might have fallen down anyway.

  “I wonder,” Kelly mused, rubbing her hands over his shoulders, grinding down in small slow circles, “Would you be good and just put your hands down and keep still while I did this?”

  “You like being in control, don’t you?” Ivan asked. He wrapped his arms around Kelly’s waist, but otherwise let her control her movements, circling her hips.

  “You got a problem with that?” Kelly replied.

  “No…” Ivan looked up at her, at the flushed face and the gleam in her eyes. He reached up to nip lightly at her ear. “But I think maybe what you really want is someone who’s going to not let you push them around.”

  He slid his hands underneath her thighs and lifted her up, standing as he did so. Kelly gave a squeak of surprise, wrapping her arms around him and holding on tight as he turned to pin her against the wall of the crate.

  Kelly’s eyes were dark, her pupils blown wide until only a thin ring of blue could be seen. “Fuck,” she breathed, catching his face in her hands.

  “Did I guess right?” Ivan asked her. “I can guess something else too, I think.”

  He leaned in, brushing his lips over hers, and told her in Russian, I’m guessing you like the accent more than you want to admit.

  Kelly bucked against him, her legs tightening their hold around him and her nails digging into his skin. She shot Ivan an affronted look as he pulled back, grinning. “You—”

  She cut herself off, kissing him fiercely, yanking at his shirt. “Get this off,” she panted, pulling back. “Fuck, why are you so attractive?”

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to offend you,” he shot back, helping her in getting his shirt off. “You weren’t exactly holding back last night either, not in that dress.”

  Kelly gave him a wicked grin. “That was… kind of on purpose.”

  “Oh?” As fun as the idea of wall sex was, nothing more was going to happen until they finished getting their clothes off. He pulled away, letting Kelly’s feet fall to the floor so that he could undo his pants and help her with her shirt.

  Form-fitting athletic black clothes, not exactly conducive to romance. Next time—and so far, he was hoping they’d get a next time—he’d get a chance to do this properly.

  “I kind of wanted to show off. As a… I don’t know, a middle finger to you.”

  “Look but you can’t touch? I hate to tell you, but that plan flew out the window.”

  “I’m well aware,” Kelly said dryly, but then she reached up and took her shirt off and whatever sarcastic remark Ivan had planned flew out the window.

  god, she was gorgeous. He didn’t know how he wanted to touch her first, with his hands or his mouth, or where. He wanted everything, to touch her all over. All of that smooth, soft skin, those firm breasts, the pale long neck, he wanted to mark it all up and make it his.

  Kelly looked up at him through hooded eyes, slowly undoing her pants as well. “Well?” she challenged. “You going to do something about this or are you going to just stand there?”

  “You want me to take control?” Ivan asked, helping her tug her pants down and step out of them, pulling her back to him so that he could feel the heat of her skin on his, the way they fit together like puzzle pieces.

  “I could put it in writing, if you’d like?” Kelly replied, reaching her hand down and stroking him slowly, teasing him, her grip not tight enough to get him off but just enough to drive the flames inside of him higher.

  He took her wrists, gently gripping them and pulling them back, then turning her around so that he could press his chest up against her back. He slid one hand up to her breast, finally getting to feel it under his palm, getting to circle her nipple and tweak it lightly, feel and hear her gasping.

  Ivan slid his other hand between her legs, almost startling at how wet she was. He’d never had this much fun during sex, never had banter and a sense of equality, and he’d been enjoying it—but he hadn’t realized just how much Kelly was enjoying it, either.

  He circled his finger over her clit, rubbing lightly, and Kelly moaned, her knees buckling a little.

  “You’re so wet,” he murmured in Russian. “Fuck, that’s hot.”

  Kelly reached up, dragging a hand through his hair and pulling him down so that she could kiss him. Ivan dragged a finger through her folds, hissing into her mouth, pleased with how responsive she was—the way her hips tilted towards him, seeking more of him, even as her hands and mouth were greedy with him.

  Pliant but not passive. He loved it.

  “What do you think?” he asked her.

  Kelly gave a kind of purring, growling noise in the back of her throat. “I think you should make good on all of your promises,” she told him. “And show me why all those women followed you to your apartment.”

  And, well—Ivan was never one to back down from a challenge.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Kelly could see the way that Ivan’s eyes darkened. The shadows and light playing around them from the single flashlight made everything look either washed out or too dark, playing with her sense of dimensions. It made Ivan look a little more dangerous, his face in shadow and eyes gleaming but his bare, muscled chest shown in stark relief.

  She wanted to run her hands all over that, but he had her pinned to him with an arm like a band of iron around her waist. It was partially keeping her anchored and upright, honestly, since at this point she was feeling so weak in the knees she doubted that she could stand under her own power.

  Ivan slowly worked a finger inside of her, his thumb circling over her clit again and again, like he was slowly, methodically turning her insides into hot jelly. Kelly let herself lean back against him, her breath coming in harsher pants as Ivan started kissing his way up and down her neck.

  “Well, if you insist,” he murmured, his accent thick. She couldn’t tell if he was doing it on purpose or if it just happened as he got more turned on and lost control, but she had decided she didn’t care. It was hot, all right, point to Ivan, his accent and his Russian dirty talk was turning her on.

  He kissed her, quick and dirty, his tongue sliding in and his finger moving more firmly and deeply inside of her. Kelly cried out into his mouth, feeling teased, wanting more.

  Ivan was right—both about the politics of a union, and about the sexual chemistry. She’d been denying it as long as she could, teasing, sassing, playing it off. Not wanting to admit that this person who’d infuriated her since they’d first met was also someone she desperately wanted to fuck her.

  But now all resistance was gone. There was a confidence to Ivan, an assuredness in how he moved, how he touched her, that told her if she just gave in and let him he’d make her feel like no one else ever had.

  He didn’t seem to want her to just let him do all the work, though—something she’d been worried about. There were
some men who had that dominating confidence about them that seemed to just want the girl to take whatever was thrown at them and be a rag doll for them. Kelly couldn’t do that. When someone shoved her, she shoved back.

  She gripped his arm, kissed him everywhere she could reach: his neck, his jaw, his mouth. She ground back against him, feeling his cock settle against her, letting him get some friction as well.

  Ivan groaned, adding a second finger inside of her. Her hips jerked, riding the friction, seeking more of it, wanting to be filled. Her body felt like it was on fire, screaming for it, and she knew that it wasn’t just that it had been a long time. Mediocre sex after a long dry spell was almost even more of a disappointment. This—this was far from mediocre. Ivan seemed to know exactly what he was doing and how to make her melt in his arms.

  god, she wished they were in a proper bedroom, somewhere she could act on all the dirty thoughts flitting through her head. She wanted to take him into her mouth, slide her tongue up and down the shaft, hollow out her cheeks and suck until he was begging for her. She wanted to take her time mapping out the firm body she could feel pressed all up against her, trace the muscles with her tongue and hands, finding out what made him swear, what made him jump, what made him moan.

  But they were in a goddamn shipping crate, and she also might be incapable of moving with how he was methodically turning her entire body into liquid. Ivan played her like a goddamn instrument, his fingers moving precisely, alternating between slow and fast, going hard and rough and then soft, teasing. She couldn’t make out a pattern and the inability to guess was making it all that much more intense, at the mercy of him.

  “Oh my god,” she gasped out as he finally, finally added a third finger. Ivan was staring down at her, his eyes dark and fascinated, like he could stare at her all day. “Fuck, please, c’mon.”

  “Look at you,” Ivan said, his voice hushed and dark, the words rolling around in his mouth. “You’re so wet and tight, so perfect…”

  He sped up, twisting his fingers as they moved in and out of her, his thumb working relentlessly on her clit. Her hips jerked, moving, trying to get away from and push into the pleasure at the same time. Her couldn’t think, couldn’t process, could only hold on and gasp in response to his movements.

  “I’ve wondered what you would look like,” Ivan told her. “Wondered if you would let yourself go enough to scream my name.” He pressed a kiss just behind her ear. “You’ll have to keep quiet this time, just in case, but you can let go. I want to see you fall apart.”

  A tiny part of her, the proud, stubborn part of her, wanted to pull away and take him apart, make him fall to pieces instead. But there was something nice about this surrender, about letting him just give her what she needed. And, god, she didn’t think she was physically capable of pulling away. She was so close, sparks going off at the edges of her vision, her whole body taut and twisting, helpless, begging for release.

  “Come on,” Ivan encouraged her. A choked sound came out of her throat as he bit down lightly at her neck. “Yeah, you liked that when I did it before, didn’t you? I saw your neck after, when we stopped, and though about how I just wanted to dive back in, make it a proper mark that wouldn’t fade, get your skin all dark and purple there, show everyone who’d made you come.”

  Oh, fuck. She hadn’t had to hide a hickey since high school, worn them like a badge of honor in college—and she could imagine it so easily, everyone’s eyes wide, seeing the mark, only partially hidden by a scarf or makeup, whispering, wondering who’d finally scored with Kelly O’Gill.

  Ivan kissed her, deeply, almost savagely, working her clit faster until she screamed into his mouth, a huge shudder going through her entire body as white lights exploded behind her closed eyes. Fuck, it felt like the breath was punched right out of her, her whole body a live wire, raw, sensitive, charged—overloading.

  He pulled his fingers out of her and she clenched instinctively, wanting to keep them in. She liked the feeling of being stretched and feeling full, the slight burn that could come with it, the overwhelming sensation.

  Ivan shifted his grip to her hips, tipping her forward so that her hands were braced on the edge of a container. “One second.”

  She didn’t think she was capable of saying anything. This was the part where she should probably make a smart remark, but her brain was still offline, her legs shaking with the aftershocks of pleasure that hummed through her.

  There was the sound of something tipping over, and then she felt fabric all around her feet.

  “These clothes are going to be ruined,” she said, realizing what Ivan was doing.

  “Can’t say I mind all that much,” Ivan replied.

  She turned around and saw that he was getting all the clothes out of the containers and piling them up, making a kind of makeshift bed.

  “We’ll have to do the Ritz next time,” he teased, holding out a hand to her.

  Well, now that there was cushioning…

  Kelly stepped forward, made sure that they made eye contact… and then sank to her knees.

  She saw Ivan’s jaw go slack before she had to tear her gaze away, nuzzling into the juncture of his thigh, mouthing along the hard shaft of him. Fuck, he was thick, and she couldn’t wait to get that inside of her—but first things first.

  She teased him, giving little kitten licks up and down the shaft, swirling her tongue around the head and flicking it over the slit, but didn’t actually put him in her mouth, didn’t give him any suction. She slid her hands up to the back of his thighs to keep him in place and felt, almost as if it was an answer, Ivan’s hands slide into her hair, gripping—not tightly, not forcefully, just firmly. Like he needed to ground himself.

  She ran her tongue up the underside of the shaft, smiling as it made Ivan shudder. “Kelly,” he whispered, and she didn’t know what he was trying to say by that, but she loved the way he said her name, all wrecked like that. She sucked on the head, fluttering her tongue, making him groan.

  Then she swallowed him down as far as she could.

  It’d been a while since she’d done this, so she couldn’t get him all the way down the way she wanted, but she could still take him in pretty far, loving the way that he stretched her mouth open, the weight of him heavy on her tongue.

  Ivan swore, his hips jerking, and she tightened her grip, keeping him in place. She slid all the way off, then took him down again, slowly, not letting him increase the pace or the pressure.

  “Kelly, fuck,” Ivan swore, “You’re going to—fuck.”

  Oh, yes, she was definitely liking this whole reduced to swear words thing.

  She increased her pace, taking him down over and over again, tonguing his slit when she pulled away, almost but not quite pulling off completely. Ivan was shaking underneath her hands, gasping like a fish out of water.

  When she could feel the muscles bunching underneath her, going tight, she pulled away. Ivan swayed on the spot, his eyes glued to her mouth.

  “Come here,” she told him. “And fuck me.”

  Ivan sank down, grabbing her at the same moment and yanking her to him, kissing her, his tongue licking into every part of her mouth like he was trying to scoop up the taste of himself on her.

  They ran their hands all over each other, Ivan’s hands roaming over her skin, squeezing, exploring, and Kelly eagerly touched him back, wanting them to touch everywhere, to feel the slide of their skin together all over. He was broad, fuck, she’d known he was broad just by looking at him, but feeling it was entirely different. The way that her hands couldn’t span his back, the play of the tight muscles underneath the skin, the firmness, no give anywhere. The tiny scars—and some not so tiny—that were crisscrossed over the skin, scars from knives and knuckles and road rash and even a bullet or two.

  She shuddered, a little, knowing that this was a dangerous man. Knowing that Ivan had been in fights, all kinds of fights, from a young age. That the hands gently sliding over her skin right now held guns and kni
ves, and could probably kill her now even without a weapon. Ivan could strangle her, snap the life right out of her, and she couldn’t do anything about it—she could fight, and would fight, of course she would, but his brute strength was so much more than hers. If he chose to fight her, he’d win.

  But all of that power, all of that raw strength and deadly knowledge, and he was being gentle with her, smoothing his hands across her back and cradling her jaw in his palm as he kissed her. He was a dangerous man, but not to her. All of that deadly power was directed at pleasuring her.

  It was a rush like nothing else.

  Kelly pushed at Ivan’s chest, encouraging him to fall back so that she could then straddle him. He complied, following her orders, letting her have the power for a moment. It was starting to become less of a battle, so to speak, and more of a proper give and take. The idea of being able to command this person, who ran a large group of very dangerous men doing very dangerous things, and here he was just letting her manhandle him—it made her shiver and heat spike at the base of her spine.

  She couldn’t stop kissing Ivan, but then, he didn’t seem all that inclined to stop kissing her. She spread her legs wider, letting him rut up between her legs, his cock slick and sliding against the crease of her thigh, so close to where she wanted it.

  Then she remembered—oh, fuck.

  Kelly pulled back. “Please tell me you have protection.”

  She was clean, had been since the last time she got checked and she hadn’t hooked up with anyone since then, but Ivan had a reputation for a reason. Not that she thought—but it was better to be safe. And she was on birth control, but… no, she just wasn’t chancing it, she couldn’t.

  Ivan’s eyes went from dark and hungry to wide and startled. “Oh, crap, yes, in my wallet, in my back pocket.”

  Kelly decided this was an excellent opportunity to show him that she’d been doing yoga in addition to martial arts for the past few years.

  “Anchor me,” she told him, putting his hands on her hips.

  Ivan looked confused but his hands tightened on her hips obligingly.