“Is there any reason why your other hand is still fixed to your wife’s waist and out of sight?” I drawl back, signing the receipt for the chips and handing it back to Frankie. “Are you poker-facing me already, Sanders?”
“Do you think she’d look half as satisfied if I was missing any digits?”
I tip my head back and laugh as Frankie stacks the gold and black-flecked plastic into three neat piles in front of me, smallest denomination on the top. It’s the sort of line I would have relished delivering myself.
“Rick,” hisses Nina, her cheeks flushing the same color that Ielena’s do. “Stop being an ass.”
“Just telling it how it is, sweetheart.”
She pushes him away with a small smile and goes to wait for him by the bar, curling onto a stool with her long legs crossed to the side.
Forty minutes later, Rick’s not looking so smug. He’s two hundred down and I’m running the show. The cards are rich for me, and I’m getting richer.
The first play in the next round is dealt. Turning up the corner of the card, I find it’s another ace.
“Place your bets please, gentlemen.”
I’m sliding fifty grand’s worth of chips into the betting box when I hear the door to the private room open behind me.
“Your balls really are lucky,” murmurs Rick, glancing over.
“I told you I always win in my casino.”
“Not the game, you British asshole. The woman.”
Frowning, I follow his gaze and my world stops turning.
Ielena’s standing just inside the doorway, blinking and unsure, but with her small chin jutted sky-high in an attempt to front it out. Tall and regal, with curves in all the right places, her bright red lipstick is a beacon for a mouth that I know, from sweet experience, tastes like ripe dark cherries on a summer’s day. Her slinky satin cocktail dress and matching heels are the same color, the former being slashed to the waist to expose one of those pale, slender legs that I keep envisaging wrapped around my body. The high neckline emphasizes the flawless arcs of her breasts and her slenderness, and there’s no frigid, old woman chignon for her today—just a long curtain of glossy dark hair that reaches well past her ribcage.
She looks every bit of her twenty-two years and defiant as hell.
Not pretty… Not beautiful… She’s something even better.
A beat later, an unfamiliar emotion is blazing through me.
“Ielena.” I rise to my feet, and she meets me halfway, which is a fucking leveller in itself. “I hear you've been playing Captain with my ship.” I press my cheek to hers and feel her body tremble. She doesn’t lean away from me though, and I feel a buzz of admiration for it.
“I had to keep myself amused somehow, Aiden. The boring get bored, too.”
She’s mad at me, and I’m turned on as hell about it.
“There’s nothing boring about that dress.” I cast my gaze downward, drinking it all in. There’s a grace about her that sets her apart from other women. “Your taste is improving, day by day.”
“What if I used the whore’s gift you left on my bed to buy it? Would that make it a scarlet dress for a scarlet woman?”
My jaw clenches. “If it offended you so much, pay me back.”
“Oh, I intend to. For everything.” She shoots me a look that has me scrambling to decode it. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”
“That goes both ways.”
“You must be the new Mrs. Knight.” Rick’s angling for a cut-in and I consider breaking his face for the intrusion.
“Rick, this is Ielena,” I grit out. “Ielena, Senator Sanders.”
“Please, call me Issa,” she says graciously, shaking his hand like a true lady.
Fuck, that’s hot. I imagine her asking me to tongue her pussy with the same refinement.
“Is it Issa or Ielena?” Rick looks confused.
“Issa.”
She says it at the same time I growl, “Ielena.”
There’s a pause. “Friends and people I respect call me Issa,” she says with a small laugh, managing to shrug it off and publicly kick me in the nuts at the same time.
Rick shoots me an amused look. “Issa, it is.”
“Would you like a drink, Ielena?” I’m gritting my jaw so damn hard the fucking thing’s about to crack.
“I’d love a glass of red… Do you have any Saint-Émilion?” She bats her eyelashes at me, as innocent as a baby fawn.
“I’ve heard the 2015 vintage is full of shit,” I say coldly, ramming her with my 4x4 of a retort, imagining flailing limbs and bleating pleas as I do. Instead, she scrambles back up again with a sweet smile that hits me dead center of my dick.
“I’ve kept you from your game long enough.” She turns to Rick. “It was lovely to meet you, Senator Sanders. I wish you every good fortune for tonight.”
She drifts away to introduce herself to Nina while Rick and I resume our seats at the table. He doesn’t say a word, but I know what he’s thinking. For four years I’ve presided over the French Riviera with total authority. I staked my claim the minute I arrived. I crossed every line to gain respect because that’s what needed to happen. The foundation of this whole damn casino is lined with dead bodies—men who tried to curb the meteoric rise of my star. I spread fear like a pandemic, but in four seconds flat some defiant teenager has waltzed in here and cut me down to size in front of one of the most powerful men in the world.
A cold, hard knot settles in the pit of my stomach and no amount of Glenfiddich is shifting it. My game disintegrates. I’m too distracted by the sound of my wife’s laughter—she and Nina have clearly hit it off. I slide the felt when I need to ‘stand’, and ‘stand’ when I need a hit. Over the next twenty minutes I manage to lose close to half a million.
“Fuck it, I’m done.” Throwing down another piss-poor twenty-two, I slide the rest of my chips into my pants pocket and kick my chair back.
“Present company not satisfying enough for you, Knight?” inquires Rick slyly.
“On the contrary. It’s high time I gave my new wife a tour of my casino. I’ll be back for a late-night game. Save a cigar for me.”
Striding up to Ielena, I take her by the waist, grinding our hips together and smiling coldly as she flinches away. “Time to go, sweetheart.” She’s about to learn that I’m not a man to play games with.
“So soon?” Nina’s face falls in disappointment. “It was lovely to meet you, Issa,” she gushes, seemingly oblivious of her transformation into a human rod of tension. “Keep up the drawing. I’d love to see some pieces. Make sure you send them to me. Aiden will give you the details of my gallery in New York.”
“That’s if ‘Aiden’ ever decides to,” I say in an undertone as I march Ielena toward the door. “What drawings is she referring to?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she says breathlessly. “You wouldn’t be interested.”
“Try me.” But she’s right. I’m not. I’m too busy thinking about how soft and supple she feels beneath my fingertips, and how much I’d like to pound my hardness and punishment into her like the callous bastard that I am.
“If you don’t slow down I’m going to trip in my heels,” she warns.
“Is that an order?” My fingers tighten around her waist and I don’t slow my pace for a second. “Where’s all the belligerence gone, sweetheart? A few minutes ago you were drooling with it”
“Aiden—”
“I’ll tell you what happened to it. It disappeared off to the same damn place as my half a mil.” I guide her out into the glass atrium, her slender body still locked to mine. “And I was so looking forward to more of that verbal foreplay.”
“You just lost half a million?” She looks stunned.
“The ownership of that is up for debate. Personally, I’m blaming you and that dress for the distraction. What the hell are you doing here?”
“I was bored! I said it already.”
“Bullshit.”
“You treat me
like I’m non-existent.”
“You have my attention now.”
“I was angry—”
“Angry?” We reach the white and gold lobby and I spin her around to face me. “You know what, Ielena? That shit’s transferable, because right now I’m fucking furious.” I take a step closer, and she refuses to take a step back again, and my God, if that isn't the sexiest fucking thing ever. “Careful, princess,” I murmur, fighting the urge to smash my mouth down onto hers again. “You’re inching more and more into my frame, and that’s never a safe place to be.”
Chapter Twelve
Issa
A bad decision is like a bad meal. The premise is good, the recommendations are excellent, but when the plate arrives half-cold and you’re forced to swallow it, you end up with a bad case of nausea and regret.
Picking a fight with my new husband is one of those bad decisions.
He’s a criminal, a crook, and, I strongly suspect, a cold-blooded killer. Basically, he’s the worst kind of man to have a passive-aggressive showdown with and embarrass in front of a leading US senator.
I came here to learn about him, to try and understand him, to figure out why I’ve been forced to marry him… Now, I’ll be lucky if I see it through the night.
So, what do I do?
I take all that nausea and regret and I choose to go down in flames with them.
“Good. I’m glad you’re angry.” Twisting out of his grip, I force a couple of feet distance between us, pushing my dark hair away from my face. “Maybe it shows we have more in common than we think. When people don't treat us with respect, we get mad.” I wish I didn't notice how handsome he looks in the light of a dozen crystal chandeliers. He’s dressed in black again to color coordinate with his heart, and his rich tan is making his ceruleans flash like raging tempests.
“I disagree,” he says coldly. “I’ve passed the ‘mad’ stage, and now I need to get the hell out of here before I start killing people.” My body turns to ice as he beckons to the doorman. “I need my car right away.”
“Oui, Monsieur Knight.”
The guy scuttles off to call down to the parking lot as we pause our argument for a halftime break of seething resentment. There’s another man standing just inside the lobby doors with us. He’s rolling an unlit cigar between his fingers and watching us intently. He looks like the British playboy type—floppy hair, ruddy complexion, daddy’s disapproval threaded into the seams of his Savile Row suit…
His huge ego coughs up a smirk when he catches me staring back. It wasn’t a compliment, monsieur. I look away, but I can still feel his eyes crawling up and under my dress like scarab beetles.
“Are you eye-fucking my wife, Landon?” Aiden’s possessive growl echoes around the lobby, sounding like a transmission break in hell. Chatter ceases, the rest of the doormen evaporate, and Playboy’s smirk drops faster than a gear change on his Ferrari. “Perhaps you’d like me to flip her dress up so you can see what a million-euro pussy looks like for yourself?”
“I had no idea she was your wife, Knight. I thought she was a…” The word dies on Landon’s lips when he realizes he just made his situation a thousand times worse.
“A what? A whore?” finishes Aiden casually.
I open my mouth to diffuse the tension, but he silences me with that look. It’s too late. He’s a light bulb fizzing and spitting, and he’s about to blow.
“Why don’t you give your admirer a twirl, Ielena,” he purrs, grabbing my hand and coercing me into a haphazard spin. “He hasn’t even checked out the glorious back view yet.”
I stumble on the downturn, but he catches me easily and brings me in close, crushing my ass against his front. Oh my God. Despite the dragging pain across my chest, it’s my senses that are spinning like crazy now. He’s hot and hard. An invitation and a warning. I’ve never been held by a man like this before, but when he palms my stomach to stop me from escaping, I push back on him out of some weird primitive reflex, absorbing the threat of his erection with a vicious thrill.
A low growl in my ear tells me he knows exactly what I’m doing.
“Will you be joining me in my cabin later?” he murmurs. “There’s a sublime skill to hate fucking that I mastered a long time ago.”
My insides turn to liquid fire. My pussy is a throbbing mess and I have to part my legs to ease the ache. Meanwhile, Playboy is inching closer and closer to the glass doors. Even Daddy’s money isn’t going to buy him out of this one.
“Isn’t she beautiful, Landon?” Aiden lets go of me with a not-so-gentle push, leaving my body awash with neglect and confusion. Playboy’s eyes dart to my face, and then back to Aiden’s. “I said, ‘isn’t she beautiful?’” Aiden roars suddenly, making all the chandeliers rattle.
“Yes, yes, very beautiful.” Landon’s not even looking at me as he says it. He’s not even daring himself to. I’m the Gorgon—Medusa herself—but my savage husband is the one who will be turning him to stone.
A sleek, black Maserati has appeared out front.
“Would you like to taste her?” Aiden’s voice slows to a thoughtful drawl, but it’s just as terrifying as his roar. “Black cherries, Landon, all glazed with innocence...”
“N-no, thank you.”
“Are you saying my own wife is less desirable than the girl you tried to rape in my hotel last night?”
Wait, what?
“Mr. Knight, I—”
“Shut the fuck up,” he snarls. “Your speaking rights just got revoked. Indefinitely. You don’t get to touch her. You don’t get to speak to her. You don’t even get to think about her, you piece of shit. Understood?” He swings back to me with more of that bubbling violence in his calm. “Ielena, sweetheart, I’m taking back what I said when we first met. When the revolution comes and the guillotines starts swinging, you won’t be the first in line, after all.”
“Please, don't do this,” I whisper.
“I would have dealt with it before, but I’ve been a little…” His gaze flicks to the front of my dress. “Preoccupied. Frankie, get her out of here,” he orders as footsteps approach. “Landon and I need to have ourselves a chat.”
There’s a shriek and a scuffle as Landon tries to make a run for it, but black-clad security have materialized at every exit.
“Come on, baby.” Frankie takes my arm and gently tugs me toward the doors. “You don’t need to see this.”
I don’t remember walking to the car. I don’t remember Frankie opening the door for me, but suddenly I’m here, swathed in expensive cream leather and trying to digest the rotten swamp of the last ten minutes.
Hunkering down in the passenger seat, shivering for a million reasons other than the cold, I turn my back on the casino as muffled thuds and high-pitched male screams flood the balmy night. Aiden’s oceans have volcanoes, and when they erupt they’re savage and bloody.
Five minutes pass.
Ten minutes.
It’s coming up on twenty when the driver’s door finally swings open. Aiden throws himself behind the wheel, reeking of sweat, triumph, and a raw potent masculinity that, despite everything, settles like hateful, hot smoke between my thighs.
He doesn’t say a word as he tears down the floodlit driveway and out onto the moonlight-drenched streets of Monte Carlo, breaking every speed limit going. As for me, I have no desire to resurrect our disagreement in his present mood, not when the passing streetlights keep throwing up smears of blood on his knuckles. There’s a strain in the air, which tells me that whatever violence spilled out of him is still molten and seeping.
He skids the Maserati to a halt by the quayside and one of his deck crew emerges from the shadows to take the keys. We make our way onto The Cristo still trapped behind our walls of silence, but when I try and peel away he grabs my arm to stop me.
“Oh no, you don’t. I’m not done with you yet.”
Depositing me on a couch in the main saloon, he stalks over to the bar and starts packing a white cloth with ice.
> “What did you do to that man?” I ask softly.
“I gave him an etiquette lesson. Drink?”
“No, thank you.”
“Tough. You’re having one anyway.”
Sighing in defeat, I slip off my heels and work the knots out of my toes. When I glance up again he’s watching me, with a whiskey in one hand and the ice pack wrapped round the other. He seems calmer now, as if the ice is chilling the worst of his temper, as well as his swollen hand.
“Why did you come to my casino tonight?” he asks again, handing me the glass.
I take the drink, even though I hate whiskey. “I wanted to see the place.” I take a sip and try not to gag as the alcohol sets fire to my throat. “I’ve never set foot in a casino before. I was intrigued.”
“Intrigued?” He laughs. “If you wanted an insight into my business, princess, you just had yourself one hell of a demonstration.”
It appears that this devil celebrates his deeds with a stiff drink and sarcasm.
“You tell me next to nothing about yourself. I was filling in the blanks.”
“Were you feeling inquisitive, half-measure?” He takes off his black jacket and throws it over the back of the couch.
“Please don’t call me that. It’s insulting.”
“Don't kid yourself. You went to my casino to make trouble.”
“No, I—”
“Enough.” He saunters back to the bar. “I underestimated you, Ielena. In hindsight, calling you ‘insipid’ was my first mistake.”
“And the second?” I watch him pour himself a whiskey, honing in on his thick fingers and wondering how they’d feel inside me...fucking me… Stop, Issa, stop.
“Kidding myself that I wouldn’t want to fuck you.” I let out a gasp as our thought processes align seamlessly. “Fooling myself that you were unattractive. Laughing off your virginity as an inconvenience.” He knocks his drink back, and then pours himself another, stripping me bare with his gaze.
Black Skies Riviera: An Enemies To Lovers Mafia Romance Page 11