She just wanted to kill the person who’d done this to her.
“I’ll be here when you get out,” Alexi said finally, managing to keep the rage from her voice. “But I’ll leave if you want me to.”
“I really don’t like the way we left things,” Tatiana said.
Alexi lifted her brows in query. “Oh?” Not too much hope, she warned herself.
“I was too hard on you,” Tatiana said. “I don’t what you had to go through, but it must have been rough, and I’m sorry for judging you.”
“You couldn’t have known what I didn’t share.”
“I should have asked instead of just dumping my stuff on you and expecting you to be there for me without making an effort to be there for you.”
“We’re good, Tia,” Alexi said.
Tatiana nodded, but her pretty brown eyes were still a bit clouded. She looked like she would say more, but went to the bathroom instead.
Alexi pushed out a harsh breath. She would keep Tatiana safe no matter what it took.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Tatiana emerged from the shower, eyes a little gritty from crying. She felt clean, but part of her still felt defiled from the men’s touch.
The memory washed over her briefly and she bit back a sob, and the sharp intake of breath had her jerking her head right. She found Alexi sitting on the chair with a trolley laden with food in the middle of the room.
She held Alexi’s gaze a long moment, startled by the storm of hunger in them. Her heart sped up, and every nerve in her body fired to life. Suddenly she could feel the air on her nape, on her face. Her heart thudded heavy in her ears almost deafening her.
Alexi got to her feet, and Tatiana feared she’d attempt to touch her, to make love to her. The other part of her prayed she would because right now, that would be a welcome distraction.
“Clothes are on the bed,” Alexi said. “Mellie’s cream will clear those bruises up in no time.”
She was naked, but then Tatiana had thought the room would be empty. She hadn’t expected Alexi to stay with her or even wait for her to get out of the shower. There was no need to be nice to her now that Tatiana knew what she was.
Tatiana quickly grabbed the gown, noticing the satiny feel of it before picking up the robe of the same fabric and all but ran back to the privacy of the bathroom to put them on.
She glanced at herself in the mirror. Her hair would be a frizzy mess in the morning without her curl cream and leave-in conditioner. She’d have to braid it, she thought ruefully. Curls could be so temperamental.
She ran a hand through her hair wishing for a comb. Then, she re-entered the bedroom as her phone rang.
Tatiana found Alexi leaning against the wall, her expression enigmatic, and she wondered what she was thinking. Did Alexi wish for the day before her secret had been exposed?
Tatiana did.
She picked up the sleek device from the dresser. “Hello?” she said even as she continued to study Alexi, who looked like an animal on the prowl.
“Tatiana,” Charles said on a sigh. “Your mother said you were home.”
“I’m back from Houston, but I’m not at home. I was attacked.”
He was silent, and she was angry with him, wondering how much of this he was to blame for.
“Tell me what happened.”
She recounted the attack calmly, despite the anger it stirred in her. She thought she heard a growl and glanced at Alexi to find her watching her. The rage in her dark blue eyes made Tatiana shiver.
“I’ll send someone to get you. You need to talk to the police.”
“I already did,” she said.
“Where are you?”
She drew in a breath and let it out. “I’m at No Dice. Alexi’s taking care of me.” She rubbed her arm, wishing for more from Alexi than a stare.
“What?” He thundered. “Tatiana, you need to be away from that woman. She probably ordered someone to kill your brother and now you.”
“I don’t think she’s going to hurt me,” Tatiana replied. “I’m tired. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, and please don’t send the cops to drag me out of here. I’m not going.”
“I’ll talk to you later, and don’t think for one minute that woman is harmless.”
She ended the call. “He thinks you hired someone to kill my brother.”
Alexi studied her. “What do you think?”
She shrugged. Tatiana didn’t know what to think about that. She’d mulled it over in her free time in Texas, but she’d come to no real reason why Alexi should have. After all, the girl her brother had killed couldn’t have been more than a commodity to Alexi.
“Did you?”
“No.” She rose.
“He thinks you’d hurt me, too,” Tatiana said.
“Why don’t you let me rub some of the salve on you? Then, you can eat.”
“I already put some on,” she said and sat on the edge of the bed. “Why do you do it?”
Alexi shrugged. “I’m good at it,” she answered. “But none of the women who work for me are being forced to do anything. They’re free to leave whenever they want to.”
“How do you get them?” Why would any woman be willing to sell her body when she had so many other options?
“I’m not into trafficking, honey,” Alexi told her. “The women come to me because someone told them they could make a lot of money working for me. Some specialize in fantasies, BDSM, ménages, and some don’t.”
“You pay them?”
“Very well,” Alexi told her. “I make sure they’re protected, they’re clean, and healthy.”
“Don’t tell me they even have health insurance,” she joked.
“They do. Yeah, running brothels is illegal, but it’s profitable and some of my girls use their money to get an education, or just start over.”
Tatiana nodded, considering that. “Are you part of the mob, too?”
“Too?”
“Like my grandfather,” she said, watching Alexi carefully. “I’m guessing from the way that cop acted you already knew that.”
“I did. I’m not part of any organization, no,” Alexi confessed. “I broke away from that before this.”
“What did you do with the girl my brother killed?”
“I sent her home, paid for her funeral, and gave her family some money, calling it her savings.”
Tatiana blinked. “You did?”
“She wasn’t just a whore to me, Tia. She was someone’s daughter, sister. She was a person who deserved to be honored despite the choices she made.”
That was enough for now, but she would want to know more about Alexi’s clubs when she was up to it.
****
Someone had attacked Tatiana, but why?
Charles leaned back in the chair at his desk in his office at the dry cleaners. He’d just finished a meeting with his top men, the men who’d not only be working for him, but protecting him.
His top enforcer was still there while everyone else was gone. The man’s brown eyes were curious as they watched him. He’d worked with Clyde Bennett for years, and he was in fact the only one of his enforcers and subordinates that was well-known to him, other than Ewan.
“What is it?” Clyde asked.
“Someone attacked Tatiana at her home,” he said and told the man what Tatiana had told him.
“Could have been Five by Five striking back. The new head of the organization is trying to send a strong message to anyone who’s counting them out. He’s consolidated power in Texas and wants to reclaim some of this city.”
“It’s mine,” Charles muttered.
“Not just yours,” Clyde told him evenly. “You’re going to have to deal with the combined force of Alexi and Mojo. Mojo isn’t looking to expand into anything. They do whatever it is they do.”
“And Alexi?”
“She’s not expanding into anything new either, but you have to face the fact she’s not going to bow to you. The Cell tried to control her and lost that
battle. She was the fire behind their demise.”
“How?” Charles was curious how he’d missed that she was a power in the time he’d been working for Breakers. Maybe because their operation was so small, and his role was to stay invisible, he’d missed things he should have learned.
“Alexi’s been operating in the state for years. I think she opened her first club fifteen years ago. She slowly expanded her reach, creating a small power structure akin to a little mafia organization.”
“Little?”
“You’re seeing that word in the same terms as the Cell and even Five by Five. Alexi helped bring them down as well. She’s friends with some powerful men and women.”
“Why couldn’t they get rid of her? You just said her organization was little.”
“Little in terms of racket, not power. She can wage war with you and win because she knows how to play the long game.”
“She had someone kill Trevor.”
“She might have,” Clyde agreed with a careless shrug. “But your thinking is why she’ll defeat you if you aren’t careful. She’s about fairness and a few simple rules. Felix wants to keep the peace with her, so our business won’t be disrupted here.”
“He’s afraid.”
Clyde chuckled. “I doubt he’s afraid of her. He respects the mess she can make of things here. The Cell looked good from the outside, but they were falling apart.”
How could she have toppled the organization? She was an uneducated slut. She probably slept with both men and women and used them all to get what she wanted.
“She knows people, but so does Felix.”
Clyde shook his head. “You’re missing the big picture. Alexi is well connected partially because of what she does and partially because of what she used to be,” Clyde told him. “She uses her head, man. Your grandson was going off the rails. I understand you want vengeance, but the boy was turning into a psycho.”
“Don’t say that,” he snapped.
“You loved him and wanted to bring him in, but I promise you inside six months you’d both be dead because he’d have raped and killed the wrong woman. If Felix didn’t order you to do it—and he would have—then Mojo would have been hired to take him out by one of his victims’ families.”
“Felix thinks that could have happened. I want to know which one of them is behind it, and I want them dead.”
“Felix told me not to bother with that, but if anything comes my way, I can share it,” Clyde told him.
“That bastard,” he growled. “He knows who killed Trevor, doesn’t he?”
“He didn’t tell me if he does but consider his words carefully before your own decisions take you down a road that won’t come back,” Clyde told him quietly. “This can be a very good and lucrative life for you if you let it.”
If he let Trevor’s death go.
He never would. Whoever was behind it would pay if it was the last thing he ever did.
“I will try to find out who went after Tatiana, presuming you care.”
“If it was Five by Five, they need to be hit back.”
“More than likely was,” Clyde told him. “But I’ll need to confirm. They’ve been gunning for you even before you took their shipment and killed off their people. They could have killed Trevor and Carrington to get at you.”
Find those people, take them out, and that would be the end of the problem.
“That’s all the more reason why they have to be handled,” Charles told him.
“It’ll turn into a battle you could lose, so be careful and play this smart,” Clyde said. “Mojo and Alexi aren’t going to allow a turf war to destroy this city.”
This was his city now, and they didn’t have a choice.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The next morning, Tatiana woke to the warmth of a strong body at her back and an arm draped over her waist. Alexi’s body rose and fell with the even tempo of her breathing, and Tatiana snuggled closer, savoring the feel of her.
She’d grown tired of waking up alone, and finding someone special, someone she could have a real relationship with had become more important to her in the last six months. Ewan clearly wasn’t it. Things were never going to work with him because as great as he was, he wasn’t the person for her.
Never mind that side of him she’d glimpsed at the benefit. She’d seen and felt darkness in him that bespoke of a man who’d become an abuser if she didn’t allow him to control her.
Darkness did exist in Alexi, too. However, Tatiana didn’t feel it the same way she had with Ewan. It was part of her yet separate, animal-like. It wasn’t waiting to pounce on her the moment Tatiana refused to do as Alexi wanted.
Alexi seemed like the kind of woman who shut down, walked away rather than hurting her lover. There could be a danger in her ability to turn her emotions that would kill a relationship without communication.
But Tatiana liked her, wanted her more with every breath she took until Alexi was all she thought about when she didn’t have to think about work. That could be dangerous for her emotionally if she kept seeing her.
Her parents wouldn’t accept Alexi because she was from the wrong side of social standing. Not only that, she wasn’t in a reputable line of work, something that would create a climate rife for ridicule for her family.
She stretched, her body pulling tight against Alexi’s, the heat of Alexi soaking into her, making her think of sex. Her clit began to swell in arousal, and her nipples hardened, drawing a low moan from Tatiana.
She should probably put some distance between them and think about what Alexi had told her last night. She should try to—her thoughts went fuzzy as Alexi’s hand crept up beneath the gown, which was already up around her waist.
Alexi’s fingers splayed on her stomach as soft lips kissed the side of her neck. Heat flared in Tatiana’s body, setting her aflame with want and need.
“Good morning,” Alexi murmured.
Tatiana ran her hand up Alexi’s arm, her magic bubbling inside her. She let it trail along Alexi’s skin and waited to see if she reacted as most did, as if they’d been shocked.
Alexi purred like a cat and the sound intrigued her, but Tatiana didn’t have time to dwell on it. Alexi’s hand was moving up to cup her breast. She squeezed the firm mound before pinching the nipple.
The bite of pain tore a gasp of pleasure from Tatiana. “Morn—ning.”
“Did you sleep okay?” Alexi asked, her voice a low throaty sound that made Tatiana’s juices run.
“Yes,” Tatiana said huskily.
Alexi pushed her onto her back, and Tatiana willingly went and reached up to push her fingers into Alexi’s sleep-messed ebony hair. Her eyes were already dark blue with hunger.
Goddess on Olympus.
She had the same effect on Alexi that Alexi had on her, and it left Tatiana speechless. Just a speechless as the hand Alexi ran down the silky flesh of Tatiana’s stomach and over her thigh to between her legs. She gave the cloth covered lips of her sex a tap, and Tatiana creamed, her juices dampening her panties.
“Alexi,” she breathed.
Alexi trailed kisses over her cheek to her lips. Alexi claimed her mouth, the kiss soft and unhurried. Tatian curved arms around Alexi’s neck as their tongues dueled and glided against each other in a sensual dance that made Tatiana hotter.
Alexi broke the kiss and their eyes met, and Tatiana saw heat flare brighter in eyes that momentarily looked green.
Alexi straddled her and pushed the gown up. Tatiana raised her arms to allow Alexi to slide it off easily. Then, Alexi cupped both breasts and ran her thumbs over the nipples.
“You have such pretty tits, sweetness,” she murmured and lowered her head and flicked her tongue over a dark chocolate peak.
Her magic infused her skin, making it sensitive to even the air blowing over it. And when Alexi curled her tongue around a taut peak, Tatiana gasped and arched her chest toward Alexi’s mouth.
“Ooo!” Tatiana pushed her hands beneath Alexi’
s little black top and stroked her. “I want you, Alexi.”
Alexi drew the nipple into her mouth, sucked then released it with a pop. She turned her attention to the twin while her fingers pinched and plumped the vacated turgid peak. She slapped the fleshy mound, sucked, and then scraped her teeth against the delicate bud before sucking it again.
“Goddess.” Her body seemed alive, she was able to feel each stroke of Alexi’s tongue to her cells, and it made her head swim and her body hotter.
“Mmm. You taste so good.” Alexi gave her nipple one last pull with her lips and pluck with her fingers before kissing a trail down over Tatiana’s belly.
Tatiana’s breathing was harsh, her body an inferno. Her head thrashed on the pillow as her lover’s fingers found her clit and stroked it. “Oh fuck!”
Alexi settled between her thighs before using the fingers of one hand to part the flushed lips and run her tongue up Tatiana’s juicy slit.
“Sweet,” Alexi murmured, then played her tongue around the nubbin of Tatiana’s clitoris as her fingers worked into the humid depths of Tatiana’s slick pussy.
“Goddess, Alexi,” she cried as she canted her hips up.
Alexi’s tongue lashed at the bundle of nerves while her fingers fucked deep and easy inside her. Tatiana made soft noises as the pleasure raged out of control in her. She pushed one hand into Alexi’s hair to hold her head closer.
“Oh, yes!” she cried. Her energy spilled from her again, as if reaching out to something.
That something was just outside her consciousness, but Tatiana felt the wildness of it, heard the growl of it as it melded with her power.
Alexi lifted her head and ran her tongue down to the entrance of Tatiana’s body. She pulled her fingers free and thrust her tongue inside. She used her fingers to work Tatiana’s swollen clit as she fucked her with her tongue.
“Alexi!” Tatiana pushed her hips up, and gripped Alexi’s head and held her in place as she moved, frantically seeking release. One pinch of her clit and her body was jerking in orgasm.
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