Burning for the Bratva: A Russian Mafia Romance Novel

by Maura Rose

  Kelly bent over backwards, literally, her back arching and her world going upside-down as she reached for his discarded pants, grabbing them and fishing the wallet out before pulling herself back upright—using her abdominal muscles.

  Ivan was gaping at her, the heat back in his eyes, when she straightened up and met his gaze.

  He muttered something in Russian that she just knew was very dirty, and grabbed the wallet from her, fishing the condom out of a side pocket and tearing it open.

  “You’re going to be the death of me if you do things like that,” he warned her.

  Kelly gave him an exaggerated pout. “But I thought that you would love how flexible I am. Just think of all the things I can do.” She winked at him, unable to keep the smile off her face.

  “Trust me,” Ivan growled, “I’m thinking of them.”

  He rolled the condom on and then put his hands back on her hips. “You ready?” he asked.

  Kelly nodded, tightening her thighs so that she could lift herself up—when Ivan lifted her all on his own, sliding her onto his cock himself.

  She started to gasp, but then she felt herself sinking onto him and the gasp turned into a kind of strangled grunt in the back of her throat. Oh, god, oh fuck, he was thick, stretching her and filling her up perfectly, and it felt like she’d gone from one hundred percent sober to one hundred percent drunk in the span of a second.

  “What?” Ivan teased. “I thought you’d like my strength. Think of all the things I can do with it.”

  Kelly wanted to shoot a smart remark back at him, but her vocal chords didn’t seem to be working. Her whole body felt like an exposed nerve, twitching with pleasure. Fuck, he could move her around so easily—and just the way he was filling her up now made it hard to draw air into her lungs in the best way.

  Ivan’s chest was heaving too, and for all that he was teasing her, she could tell by the strained look on his face that he was just as affected as she was.

  She gave herself a minute to adjust, to let her body relax to the intrusion. It had been a while, she didn’t want to ruin the moment by hurting herself. Gradually, the feeling became… not less intense, just more familiar, recognizable, like when she was doing yoga and doing a pose that she’d done before that was still a difficult move.

  As the sensation of familiarity grew, so did the sensation of lacking. It wasn’t enough just to have him inside of her. She needed him moving, too, needed that slick too-much razor edge feeling as he moved in and out of her.

  Kelly braced a hand on his chest and nodded at him, lifting herself up just a fraction and then making herself sink lower onto him, lower, lower still until she felt their hips become flush with one another and he bottomed out inside of her.

  Ivan made a strangled noise, his fingers digging painfully into her hips. He looked absolutely wrecked, gaping at her like she was a goddamn revelation.

  She liked it. It sent a thrill through her, to see him so in awe of her. Nobody had ever looked at her like that before, much less the type of man who could have any girl that he wanted.

  Kelly pushed herself up using her knees and thighs—thank god Ivan had laid down those clothes—and did it again, slowly, letting him sink into her inch by inch.

  Ivan looked destroyed, breathing harshly, just staring up at her as his hands flexed around her hips.

  She kept it slow for as long as she could, their eyes locked. Ivan’s eyes looked black between his pupils and the lighting, making him look deadly, destroyed, and unbearably handsome all at the same time. She was drunk on how he looked at her, on how he kept his gaze locked with hers as she moved, never pushing her to go faster or to change her pace.

  She ground her hips down, circled them, as she sank down that time. Ivan let out a groan, and she felt his entire body shudder, like he was struggling not to move.

  She did it again, and again, until Ivan’s whole body was shaking beneath her. It was like there was a taut string inside of him, pulled tight until it was close to snapping.

  Kelly leaned in, drunk on the power, on the feeling of him inside of her, on all of it—and wanting to see what happened when he finally let go.

  She brushed her lips over his. “Go on,” she whispered. “Take me.”

  The string inside of him snapped.

  Ivan grabbed her, crushing her to him, and fucked up into her, the pace hard and brutal. She had no choice but to sink down fully onto him, to feel him driving into her as deeply as he could possibly go.

  “Yes,” she cried out, trying to keep herself from being too loud and alerting anyone who might be nearby. “Oh, fuck, yes, yes, just like that—” She had no idea what she was even saying anymore, words just falling out of her mouth as he fucked her like they would die in the morning and this would be their only chance.

  God, it was good, so good—she couldn’t remember sex being this good, making her this mindless. She couldn’t think, didn’t want to think, focusing only on the way that Ivan moved in and out of her, splitting her open, plunging into her and claiming her. It was almost animalistic, and she loved it, loved the wildness and roughness of it. She encouraged him, thrusting back down when he thrust up, circling her hips, grinding against him, telling him yes, yes, yes, this was what she wanted, what she craved.

  Ivan sat up, changing the angle, and she had to bite down on his shoulder to hold in her yelp.

  “You’re so loud, did you know that?” he whispered in her ear, his arms wrapping around her to hold her in place while he fucked up into her.

  Kelly whimpered around the meat of his shoulder.

  “You don’t even know all that you’re begging for, do you?” Ivan asked, his voice sin itself. “You’re so beautiful, asking for it, asking me for harder and more, demanding it, fuck, if only you could hear yourself—”

  His words were driving her even crazier, until she didn’t know which was making her hotter, making her writhe in desperate pleasure, his dick or his words. Both? Both was fine, both was more than fine, they were fantastic.

  She kept biting into his shoulder, unable to stop, knowing more filth and screams would fall out of her if she did. They couldn’t do that. Not here, not now, maybe later or another time—and that meant she was thinking of another time, and maybe later she’d be embarrassed or annoyed by that but right now it just sent a thrill of desire through her. Greedy, she was greedy, wanting him again already and they weren’t even finished with the first time.

  “I’m going to get you in a bed,” Ivan promised, his thrusts becoming harder and faster but also more erratic, harsh, and she could sense him losing control. “I’m going to get you somewhere no one can hear you and I’m going to see how much I can get you to scream. I could tease you for hours, see what you like, what really gets you turned on, get you begging and desperate for me—”

  Oh, she could imagine it all right, imagine all of her dirtiest fantasies. This was the kind of man who would have no problem making those fantasies come true, who wouldn’t blanch or gawk but would indulge her and then some, who’d add his own ideas, take whatever she threw at him and throw a challenge right back at her.

  “I want,” she managed to get out, whispering it, pressing her mouth right up against his ear. God, she was so close, she could feel him close too. She slid her hand down between her legs, rubbing at her clit—fuck, it was almost too much. She rubbed desperately, so close to the cliff edge, racing for it. “I want to feel you coming inside me.”

  She could imagine how it would feel if he didn’t have the condom on, how dirty and wrong and perfect it would feel. His come would drip down, sliding down her inner thighs… the very thought sent a thrill through her and she nipped at his earlobe.

  “Come on, that’s what you want, isn’t it? To fill me up? Gotta make an heir, you know, going to plant your seed, show everyone who I belong to, is that what you want to do?”

  She had no idea where all of this dirty talk was even coming from. She generally hated the idea of belonging to anyone and she
’d never been one to talk much during sex—well, consciously talk, begging was another thing entirely—but she wanted to see Ivan lose control the way she was losing control. She wanted to watch him lose his mind. And she knew that was important to him, was important to all the families, having an heir.

  And, well, the idea of belonging to Ivan… so long as he also belonged to her… that didn’t seem so bad.

  Ivan growled, honest to god growled, the sound animalistic and deep, rumbling in his chest. She could feel it vibrating against her skin.

  “Fuck, yes, just like that, fuck me like you mean it,” she encouraged, feeling herself start to babble again. She clamped down on his shoulder, biting hard, her nails digging into his arm as her other hand rubbed at her clit—

  Ivan reached up, yanking at her hair, tugging hard until her face was pulled up and he could bite her lip, shoving his tongue into her mouth as she came, shuddering, clenching, and she could feel him go stiff and come as well, the way she went tight around him too much for him.

  Kelly didn’t know where it was coming from, the pleasure—from his hand in her hair, his tongue in her mouth, his hand on her, her hand on herself, his dick inside of her—but fuck, it was all of it, a thousand tiny explosions just underneath her skin, knocking her out.

  She slumped against him, utterly spent, down for the count.

  There, in the cocooning darkness of the crate, they breathed together. Held onto each other. Almost as if they were actually partners.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Ivan felt like he’d been hit by a train. Repeatedly.

  For a minute or two he and Kelly just held one another, her still in his lap, his softening cock still inside of her. It was… oddly, it felt like the most intimate thing the two of them had done. They weren’t sniping at each other. They weren’t trying to drive the other one crazy with sex. They were just existing, peacefully, holding one another.

  It actually felt more… nice than he had expected. She felt well inside of his arms, and he could easily see himself picking her up like this and carrying her, perhaps to a warm bed or the giant porcelain tub in his bathroom—the bathroom in his actual apartment, not his now all but abandoned sex apartment.

  He detangled his hand from her thick hair and started stroking it, helping her to come down from her high. She was still shaking in his arms, hit with what he’d always called ‘aftershocks’, the little tremors of pleasure that could come after the main wave of a good orgasm had faded.

  Kelly made a tiny noise of satisfaction as he stroked her hair. She brushed her noise against his—not quite kissing, just sharing one another’s space, breathing into one another.

  Ivan could smell the sweat and the stench of sex on Kelly and on himself, in the air around them both. Normally, this was the part where he’d get a warm washcloth, clean them up, and then collapse into bed for a while.

  They didn’t really have the luxury of that right now, but he did eventually rock back, falling carefully onto the pile of clothes. Kelly propped herself up so that she could settle herself better, tucking her face into the crook of his neck and then sighing, relaxing into him. She wasn’t a small girl by any means, but she was still shorter than he was by a good few inches and she didn’t weigh enough for him to need to push her off right away. He liked her weight on him, liked that feeling of being grounded, solid.

  Neither of them said anything. It didn’t, oddly enough, feel uncomfortable. He expected it to be. They weren’t really all that good at being in the same space together and not going at each other’s throats. Maybe it was just that Kelly was exhausted.

  But it wasn’t just that for him, although he was plenty tired now. He liked having her in his arms, and when they’d been having sex… it was like all of the barbs they traded and all of the energy they spent snarking at one another was now being diverted into something that had them working together, building one another up instead of tearing each other down.

  He ran his fingers soothingly up and down Kelly’s back. She made a noise of contentment. She was wonderfully vocal, had been doing the sex as well, begging and telling him exactly what she wanted. He’d loved it, had let the words fill his head and make him feel drunk.

  And then when she’d started telling him to fuck her like he meant it, to knock her up…

  He wasn’t ready to be a father yet, although he did know that he needed an heir and he did want one. He wanted a few kids, actually, if possible. Just not right now while everything was insane in the transition period. But the idea of marking Kelly in that way, of claiming so indisputably who she belonged to and who she’d chosen to be with—because there was no doubt that claiming Kelly meant being claimed by her in return—it had made him nearly blow his load right that second.

  If he were a younger man, still a teenager, he’d be ready to go all over again just at the memory of it. His dick was sure putting up a valiant effort, twitching, reminding him of how good it had felt to be fucking up into her. But they had to get out of there and get to safety, and anyway, he wouldn’t be able to give anything more than a half-hearted sloppy fuck at this point.

  Just a few more minutes, and they’d go, he promised himself. After all, getting discovered on top of a pile of contraband knockoffs from China while spooning naked with the daughter of another mob boss was not exactly the way that Ivan wanted to be found by the Murphys in the morning, thanks. Or by the port authorities.

  But hey, they’d had sex. Amazing sex. Mind-blowing sex, he’d dare say. He hadn’t had that much fun with a girl or been that satisfied by sex in ages. They might still snipe at one another, but he and Kelly were sexually compatible. If they did marry and created a union, then at least they wouldn’t be straying to other people sexually. They might be able to build something off of this attraction, change it into something else, something more.

  But that could just be ridiculous optimism. He might be completely mistaken.

  Kelly curled into him, breathing quietly, heavily, comfortably. She didn’t seem to be in any hurry to speak—but then neither was Ivan. If he spoke, it might shatter the fragile peace they’d created for themselves.

  Eventually, however, they did have to move. Ivan slowly started to sit up and Kelly moved off of him, grabbing the flashlight off the container and shining it around so that they could wipe themselves off with the pile of clothes and then get their own clothes back on.

  They moved in silence. Ivan didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t ruin the mood and have Kelly at his throat again in a bad way, and he sensed that Kelly was just as tentative. It was odd. Normally he had no qualms about talking and he certainly never wondered or worried about what he was going to say to a girl. He was confident, in his element.

  But with Kelly… it was an entirely different ballgame.

  He didn’t know what she was thinking. Normally he could tell what the woman he was with was thinking, but with Kelly… he hadn’t been able to tell what she was thinking from the start. He’d though she might have been the murderer, for crying out loud. He clearly didn’t know her all that well.

  So he just kept silent, for fear of ruining everything.

  Once they were dressed, they put the clothes and everything back into the crates and containers as best they could. It wasn’t pretty but hopefully it would keep people from immediately realizing exactly what had gone on in this shipping crate.

  Ivan couldn’t help himself—he started laughing.

  “What?” Kelly asked, but she sounded curious rather than irritated.

  Ivan shook his head. “When they find this,” he whispered, “they’re going to think that it was one of their men creeping around with a girlfriend while he was supposed to be on watch or something.”

  Kelly laughed, smothering the noise with a hand to her mouth. “That’ll make things awkward around here.”

  They didn’t speak again until they were safely back on the O’Gill side of the docks. They crept quietly through the corridors made by the crates, keepi
ng a lookout for any Murphy watch, especially a larger group like before. But if the docks had been pretty dead when they’d first crept around, they were definitely deserted at this time of night. Not even mobsters wanted to deal with bringing in shipping crates at three in the morning if they could help it.

  When they got back to the O’Gill controlled docks they relaxed, walking normally.

  Ivan knew he couldn’t put off the question forever. He needed an answer about the union idea.

  It was a smart move, politically, she had to see that. Neither family was larger than the other, so there wouldn’t be a power imbalance. He’d seen that a lot when there were mob marriages. The more powerful family would look down on the spouse from the less powerful family and treat them as less-than, or even expect the spouse to renounce their former family ties. That was, of course, if the bigger family didn’t just try to take over the smaller family completely.

  The interests and business approaches of the O’Gills and his own family were different enough that they wouldn’t be stepping on each other’s toes but they would overlap nicely in terms of interest. They’d cover more bases. It was a neat solution to a problem—a problem that would only get bigger when the Murphys launched a full-scale attack.

  Ivan could lend his support to the O’Gills. He had some contacts in Moscow that he could go over and talk to, get them backing him, and his men were well trained. The O’Gills couldn’t survive alone but with Sokolov help, they’d stand a damn good chance. And Ivan wasn’t all too keen on the idea of just the Murphys having a monopoly of the docks and squeezing extra money out of everyone.

  But he couldn’t lend support to the O’Gills in an all-out war with the Murphys, not unless he was married to Kelly. Simply saying that Sean had agreed to mentor him wasn’t enough. He had to have a solid reason for backing the O’Gills.

  They needed one another, plain and simple, but at the moment the O’Gills needed him just a bit more than he needed them. He had figured out who was behind the attack and that meant he had held up his side of the bargain with Sean. He could just cut his losses now and find another person to mentor him, someone who wasn’t apparently on the brink of a war with another family.