Asher

by Shandi Boyes

  She also wants to be punished, but only by me.

  She melts into my tuxedo-covered body when I band my hand around her waist and draw her back so she can feel how hard her defiance has made me. “If only we didn’t have all those people waiting for us, then I could devour you for hours like your body demands. I should send them away, tell them we’re busy, then make them come back when I’m ready for them.”

  My tone is arrogant but laced with honesty. I am the king of my realm. I make the rules, and fools try to break them, but no one but Zariah survives their infantile stupidity.

  Zariah’s needy gaze skewers my ego. She wants me to follow through on my threat nearly as much as she wants this event over so we can move on to the next stage of life—a stage that equally terrifies and excites me.

  My heart rate triples when my hand drops a couple of inches lower. The satin of Zariah’s negligee is as smooth as the stretched skin on her stomach. That isn’t surprising. I rub lotion into her stomach every night before we rest. Our son still has three months until he enters the world, but his lessons on treating his mother right started weeks before we discovered he was indeed a he.

  “Come. Let’s get you dressed.” Goosebumps prickle across Zariah’s skin when I murmur in her ear. “Then I can end my day with an ultimate trifecta. I can say I fucked my fiancée, my wife, and the mother of my children all in one day while only bedding one woman.”

  Zariah’s elbow lands into my rib, not appreciating my wit. Many men in my industry have wives, girlfriends, and baby mommies, but she has no cause for concern. I have everything I need right here. I just can’t help but tease her. A little bit of teasing will have her so desperate for me, she’ll bring out the little rebel I pretend to hate but secretly love. She’ll fight me to dominate her, to claim her as no other man has, and I’ll be more than happy to meet her contest with an equal amount of content.

  Alas, until our four hundred guests watch us wed, our game is in intermission.

  I guess that just gives me more incentive to get our show on the road.

  I was right. We barely make it halfway through the reception when Zariah’s urges get the better of her. She’s always been hungry for my cum, but her needs have grown as exceptionally as her stomach the past six months. It’s lucky I have the stamina to keep up with her. After sucking my cock precisely how she’s been taught, I fuck her hard and fast on the steel bench our wedding cake was prepared on. Five tiers will be knocked down to three since my need to burrow my cock deep inside her has things getting a little rowdy.

  Unlike the day we made love on my office table, I take her hard and fast. I leave absolutely nothing on the table. I don’t have time to cherish every inch of her like I usually would, but this will tide her over for a few more hours, then I’ll fuck her how she deserves. I will have her screaming my name so loud all of Moscow will hear it.

  Now, though, she needs to be quiet before the staff I kicked out of the room with nothing but a growl return, panicked she’s in labor. I don’t know why I ever thought she was a mouse. There’s nothing quiet or meek about her when she’s being thoroughly claimed.

  Her cunt strangles my cock more when I seal my lips over hers. I kiss her more slowly than my cock pumps into her. I convey how much I love that she now has my last name, and that she’s going to be the mother of my children with my tongue instead of words. I’ll never be a man who openly expresses himself, but right here, right now, it doesn’t matter. My unspoken words are louder than any I could speak.

  Hearing my vows with actions instead of words, Zariah’s body tightens all over. Her head thrusts back as her cunt ripples around me. She sucks at me greedily, begging for my spawn to coat the walls of her pussy as thoroughly as it slid down her throat earlier. I let her pleas push me over the edge.

  With a growl, I sink into her until I’m balls deep. As a tingle races up my sack, the veins in my cock pump frantically, acting as if I didn’t achieve release only twenty minutes ago. I stay hilted inside of her until every drop of my cum is spilled.

  “Trakhni menya, Zariah. You will kill me one day.”

  After pulling my still throbbing cock out of her, I aid her to a half-seated position. She’s lucky our son doesn’t take up much room, saving her from doing the turtle-stuck-on-his-back wobble you’d expect a woman in her sixth month of pregnancy to do.

  I clean her up with one of the many tea towels lying around the kitchen before tucking my cock back into my pants and assisting her to her feet. The tulle princess-inspired dress Roderick created falls into place, covering the catastrophe no amount of mopping can fix. I got a little eager in my quest to bed my wife that I shredded her panties off her body. Mercifully, even in her four-inch heels, her dress swishes across the ground when she walks, meaning there will be fewer men to take down tonight. I’m not willing to say no one will be killed. I could never be accused of being rational, especially when it comes to Zariah.

  As we walk into the ballroom that’s been transformed into a wedding venue, I catch Nikolai’s impish glint. He knows why we disappeared the past hour, as he too fell victim to the cause when he wed his Ahren the month before I left Vegas. What can I say? We Russian men know how to look after our women.

  After jerking my chin up to Nikolai’s request for a private word, I press my lips to the shell of Zariah’s ear. Fuck she smells good. Innocent, sweet, and wholeheartedly mine. “Go save my mother from your father before the champagne has her thinking he’s handsome.”

  With a giggle, she nods before spinning around to face me. The sappy sentiment in her eyes should raise my hackles. It doesn’t. Not in the slightest. She weakens me, but in a good way. I’m more ruthless now than I was before she returned to my life, because nothing will stop me from protecting her. I failed Dominique. I’ll never make the same mistake again.

  “Go.” I nudge my head to my mother for the second time. “Because if you whisper the words I see in your eyes, I’ll be forced to kill every man in this room just to keep my reputation.”

  Her lips rise against mine when she presses them together. Her kiss is as innocent as the little girl I watched sleep every night when we were kids, but as wicked as the gleam her eyes hold every time she busts me watching her sleep now.

  “I love you, Asher Yury,” she murmurs over my lips in a breathless moan before pulling back, pivoting, and hightailing it to the other side of the room, stealing my chance to reply that she can’t love something she owns.

  She does own me.

  Every piece of me is hers.

  Before I punch myself in the dick for how soft I’m becoming, Nikolai arrives at my side, stealing my gamble. His flick to my nuts is barely a fairy tap, but enough he doesn’t miss the response my body gets from Zariah continuing her ruse of loving a man with a heart as black as mine.

  “Finally got some little blue pills, did we?” Nikolai smirks against the rim of his whiskey glass before downing the generous serving in one hit. “Heard they’ve had quite the advancement in hair implants the past few years as well. You should look into it.”

  If it were any other man but him riling me up about my supposed limp dick and balding head, his intestines would be hanging out of his gut by now. But, since it is him, a man I respect as much as I admire, I take his comment on the chin—for the most part.

  Some of the whiskey halfway to Nikolai’s gut returns to his mouth when I sock him in the stomach. My hit isn’t hard enough to stop him from fucking his wife tonight as efficiently as he’s been eye-fucking her all day, but it’s enough his wheezy breaths are the equivalent of liquid gold to my ears.

  Nikolai coughs a few more times before devoting his attention back to me. I shouldn’t love the murderous gleam in his eyes, but I do. “I drag my wife and kids to your fucking icebox country to watch you wed, bearing gifts, and what do I get for it? Attitude.”

  I smirk...until the entirety of his reply smacks into me. “You brought me gifts?”

  When Nikolai nods, I stare at him.
Who the fuck is this man standing next to me, and where the fuck did the ruthless, coldhearted bastard I used to know go?

  He signals for his men to shadow Justine’s every move before gesturing for me to follow him. I do, forever curious.

  My curiosity picks up the further we travel. In silence, we walk past the rooms that were once out of bounds to anyone outside of my father’s medical team and weave past the offices where decisions worth millions upon millions of dollars are made before arriving at a long, dark corridor I haven’t walked since I beat Vaughn to within an inch of his life.

  I’ve dished out more punishments than I can count the past six months, but with all my energy needed to keep up with Zariah’s insatiable appetite, I’ve left the task of serving my sentences to my men.

  Matvei has shared many great stories the past six months.

  “Are you giving me the five hundred pounds of coke you arrived with minus distribution costs?”

  Nikolai gives me a look, one that reveals I’m dreaming. “That’s pure, uncut coke. It’s worth way more than you paid for it, and it will cut up nicely, so no, limp-dick, I ain’t slicing any more off my profit margin than I already have.”

  While rubbing my hands together, I smirk. “No harm in trying. Besides, who confirmed that it’s pure? For all I know, you could be selling me laundry detergent.”

  Nikolai stops just outside a partially cracked open door. “Your veins still running clear?”

  “Seven months and counting.” I sound shocked. In a way, I am. I’ve lived a hard and fast life that has included everything you could imagine—drugs included. That all changed when my drug of choice transformed from a white powder to a woman.

  “Don’t look so shocked, Asher.” I take a step back, shocked. I swear this is the first time in over a year Nikolai has called me by my name. “Who needs drugs when you’ve got a woman willing to suck your dick like she’s sucking the marrow from your bones?” He adjusts his crotch in a manner that reveals his eagerness to get back to his wife. “Justine and I are coming up two years, and I haven’t missed my old life for a day. She gets me, just like your girl gets you. Fuck anything else.”

  He steals my chance to reply to his unusual relationship advice by swinging open the door we’re standing next to. A smirk tugs at my lips when I take in the gift he brought me. It isn’t a present you’d expect from a normal man, but since this is coming from Nikolai, a king in his own right, it’s highly appropriate.

  The man shackled to the ceiling in the room I often refer to as my ‘torture chamber’ squeaks when he detects our presence. He can’t see us; the hessian bag over his head ensures this, but no amount of pleading will stop him from smelling the testosterone pumping out of us. There’s a high you can’t replicate when you bring insolent men before the courts. It’s a different high than the one I get from Zariah quivering beneath me, but still important in its own right.

  Although it’s not quite the same today. I’ve got no one to punish.

  Curious, I pace toward the man wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts. They’re wet at the front, and although I can’t see his back end, I’m fairly confident the stench of shit haunting the air isn’t coming from Nikolai. He didn’t just piss his pants; he shit them as well.

  My veins thicken with adrenaline when I tug the hessian bag off the man’s head. The face I wanted to pummel to within an inch of recognition over twelve years ago reflects back at me. Time hasn’t been kind to him. His hair is receding as Nikolai wishes mine would, and the lips I’ve dreamed of slicing off for kissing a woman he didn’t own are covered with the fine lines my mother hates. Feo has either been kissing a lot of asses the past twelve years, or he’s smoked one too many cigars.

  I take a few moments to relish the fear in his eyes when he realizes who is standing across from him before I shift on my feet to face Nikolai. As much as I’d love to kill Feo for kissing Zariah, I’m trying not to become the man my father was. I am a cold, ruthless, calculated man, but I’m the way I am for a reason. Just like I don’t kill women and children, I don’t punish without cause.

  All my neuroses leave when Nikolai digs a piece of paper out of his pocket. It’s a bidder registry lined with a handful of names. Some are Russian, but the majority are foreign entities I’m familiar with but have no association with. It’s a similar-sized list as the one I helped Nikolai extinguish eight months ago. Every name has been scratched off but the one at the very top of the list: Feodra Balstra.

  He not only bid for Zariah; he won.

  I work my jaw side to side when Nikolai discloses, “When you had Hunter look into Vaughn’s affairs, I asked him to dig a little deeper. I owed you for helping me with Zoran.” He drops his icy blue eyes to the document I’m clutching. “Consider my debt paid in full.”

  He doesn’t need to spell it out for me. His eyes tell the entire story. He personally took care of every man who bid on Zariah when she was sold—all except Feo. He knew I’d want to take care of business myself, just as much as I knew nothing would stop him from paying a visit to Zoran’s family once things settled down stateside for him.

  With the grin of a madman, I push off my feet. I’m not going far, just to a chair at the side of the room to remove my jacket and tie. I’d hate for my new wife to see the blood of the first boy she kissed smeared on my shirt.

  When I tug my dress shirt out of my pants, exposing my wife-beater underneath, Feo murmurs a plea through the gag stuffed in his mouth. I can’t understand a fucking word he’s saying. It’s for the best, because no amount of begging will stop me from serving him his punishment tonight.

  You don’t fuck with the master of your universe and not expect to get burned.

  Feo’s about to learn that the hard way.

  The end!

  * * *

  Are hot Russian gansters your thing? Do you know Nikolai’s story has already been told. You can find it here: Nikolai: A Mafia Prince Romance It is FREE!

  * * *

  Also, did you know Nikolai’s first book will be released in April 2020 completely from his POV?

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  Chapter One

  Twenty-eight arrest warrants and fourteen DUIs in the past two years alone, plus a long list of felonies that fill a four-page dossier, all achieved before his twenty-ninth birthday, which is only two short weeks away.

  I drift my eyes to my mentor, Mr. Fletcher, bulldog defense attorney extraordinaire and general all-round badass. “How is he not serving thirty to life?”

  He flashes me a ruthless grin, sending the giddiness in my head to a lower region. “Because he had a man like me working for him, but with his lawyer up and vanishing, we have a perfect opportunity to secure him on our books. We want this client, Justine, even more than Clay wants to bed the assistant district attorney.”

  Stumped for a better reply, I smile. I’ve only been interning at Schluter & Fletcher the past three months, but I’m already aware of Clay’s hope to get frisky with Sasha Sheridan, assistant district attorney. Even when they’re clashing in the courtroom, Clay’s interests are abundantly clear.

  Before I can issue a response respectful for a first-year law graduate, a female police officer cracks open a secure entrance in the Las Vegas PD arsenal of properties. While holding the door open with her curvy hip, she scans our frozen frames. I’m not offended when her gaze lingers on Mr. Fletcher longer than me. For a man ten years my senior, he has looks that rival the men featured in People’s sexiest man competition. He’s handsome with inky black hair, unique colored eyes, and a body someone who works eighty plus hours a week shouldn’t have.

  “Mr. Fletcher. Ms. Walsh.”

  The unnamed officer’s formal greeting indicates she’s well-informed on the individuals she’s sneaking into the secured premises. Our location is so guarded, I didn’t know
it existed until Mr. Fletcher’s Bentley pulled into the underground entrance.

  Mr. Fletcher showcases another one of his famous traits: his delicious voice. “Roselyn, it’s been too long; we should catch up for a drink soon.”

  He kisses Roselyn’s cheek, compelling their pasty white coloring to shift to a vibrant shade of pink. A strand of my red hair falls into my eyes when I greet her with a dip of my chin.

  After returning my wordless greeting, Roselyn gestures her hand to a dimly lit corridor on our right. “This way.” She shuffles on her feet to face the dark hallway. “He’s being processed for a lineup. Sasha is already on site.”

  As I snap our potential client’s textbook-size police file shut, Mr. Fletcher guides me inside with his hand on my lower back. My pulse quickens when we enter the windowless building. It’s sooty and damp, even without a dust bunny in sight, but I’m unsure if that’s the cause for the eerie sentiment thickening the air.

  I’ve always been skittish when it comes to this part of my internship, but the butterflies in my stomach aren’t the ones I usually face when combing police headquarters for prospective clients. It’s tense and exciting at the same time—like I’m moments away from unearthing greatness or free-falling into disaster.

  After the tempestuous few years I’ve had, I really hope it's the former.

  When we reach a reinforced door marked "private," Mr. Fletcher inputs a six-digit code into the electronic security lock before opening the door and gesturing for me to enter.

  “It’s showtime.” His tone is as jazzy as his insinuation.

  My heart races when I slip into the cramped space. There are two men dressed head to toe in black in the far corner of the room. Their attire is the unofficial color of law enforcement, so that’s not the cause for my clammy response—it’s their inquisitive glances and tantalizing grins.