The Dance: Bratva Vows Read online

  “No, Julie. It’s fine. Thank you.” Andrius speaks to her with an even tone, with respect. The way he should have spoken to Violet.

  Speak of the devil, the young girl, Violet, is back. I say young, but she seems as if she should be five years younger than me by the way she looks and behaves. Me? I’m twenty-three going on fifty-three. I’m jaded and worldly and not much shocks me. Violet looks like a deer in the headlights all the time.

  “Violet, go get your things,” Julie says as she nears. “You can pick up your paycheck this week, but you’re fired.”

  “What?” Violet says, her mouth parting in shock.

  “No, she isn’t,” Andrius pipes up from his table. He takes a swig of whiskey and gives Julie a cold stare. “She’s not fired.”

  “But, sir, she … your trousers … the whiskey.”

  “She’s not fired,” he says again. “And I expect this to be forgotten about. We all make mistakes, and I doubt it is one Miss Johnson will make again.”

  He shoots an amused glance Violet’s way, and I look to see her cheeks flush, as her eyes dilate, and she licks her lips. God! It seems maybe she does like his threat. She likes Andrius. The realization hits me as I watch her.

  Oh, God. The poor girl. What is she playing at? He’s the most dangerous man I’ve ever seen, and she’s a tiny, innocent little thing who is playing a game so far out of her comfort zone; I doubt she even knows the rules. He’ll eat her alive.

  “That will be all, Julie,” he commands. “Miss Johnson can go too. We can help ourselves if we need more to drink, and we will lock up.”

  “Of course.” Julie does this weird little bob that’s half bow, half curtsey and then scuttles off.

  I excuse myself too. “Gentlemen, if you’ll excuse me for a moment, I need to powder my nose.” I smile at them, mocking myself for the old-fashioned euphemism.

  Once in the ladies, I run the cold tap and put my wrists under it, trying to calm my racing heart and overheated skin. I should leave. I need to leave. I can’t leave. Something, some weird, invisible string is keeping me by Ilya’s side.

  Once I’m done having a pee, washing my hands, and checking my makeup, I head out.

  I enter the restaurant and weave around the tables, going a different way back to where the group is sitting. There’s a big palm plant in the way, but I go to skirt around it when their voices, or rather the topic of conversation, stops me in my tracks.

  “I have your permission to fuck her, then?” Ilya is saying to Andrius.

  Ugh, Andrius doesn’t own me.

  He has his back to me, but I see Andrius hitch one shoulder.

  “Don’t need my permission, only need hers. Allyov won’t care if you fuck her. I won’t care if you fuck her. I will care if you coerce her in any way.”

  “What, like say … threatening to spank her?”

  Andrius sighs. “I won’t do it. I wanted to fuck with Violet, see how she reacts. There’s something about that girl that’s not right.” He takes a sip of his drink. “As for Amber, do what you want with her, so long as it is consensual.”

  Ilya nods and sips at his drink.

  “You can come out from behind the plant now; we’re done discussing you,” Andrius says.

  What the hell? He hasn’t even turned around.

  Ilya looks up in surprise, his brows raised as he sees me behind the plant and bursts out laughing. Soon all three men are laughing, and I’m pretty sure I’m the joke.

  It pisses me off, and I go to grab my jacket. “I’ll be going now, gentlemen.” I put as much determination into my tone and words as I can muster.

  “I’ll come with you.” Ilya stands, giving me no time to argue as he helps me into my jacket, before shrugging his own on.

  “I’m going home,” I tell him pointedly.

  “Okay,” he says with a grin.

  God, his smile is devastating. I wish he’d stop doing it.

  “Goodnight,” Andrius says to me as he takes a sip of his drink.

  “Goodnight,” I reply.

  Once we’re outside, I start to walk away from Ilya at a fast pace. He catches up with me in a few strides. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

  I turn to him, furious. “I don’t like being laughed at.”

  He smiles at me. “It wasn’t laughing at you horribly. You have to admit, hiding behind a plant listening to us talk is a bit of a cliché from an old Hollywood movie.”

  “I’m glad I’m a joke to you.”

  He grows serious. “Oh, you’re not a joke. That was funny. You? In general? You’re not funny.”

  “What am I?”

  He pauses, cocks his head to one side, and smiles a slow, one-sided, sexy as hell smile. “You’re … audacious. On the stage? Audacious. Dealing with customers? Audacious. Standing up to Andrius—

  Andrius—absolutely audacious.”

  Audacious. I like the word. I like it even more that he thinks it describes me.

  “So, Amber, do you want to do one more audacious thing and come back with me to my hotel? Or would you like me to see you into a cab?”

  I know I should go home. It’s been forever, though, since I’ve had sex, and he’s delicious. He’s also scary, but in my fucked-up-head it only makes him more attractive.

  “If I come back with you, I want to know you’ll stop whenever I say.”

  “Audacious,” he says mystifyingly.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Say the word, audacious, and everything stops.”

  Crap, I need a safe word? This just got real. I should go home, tuck myself up in bed, and use my trusty rabbit. But, God help me, I want to know what a night with him will be like.

  “Okay, take me to your hotel.” The words are out before I can stop myself.

  2

  Amber

  The hotel is swanky, and I wouldn’t expect anything less.

  The elevators alone are posher than most people’s homes.

  The ride up is tense, quiet. I wonder if he regrets asking me up to his room as he makes no move to touch me.

  We go all the way to the top and as the doors slide open, I turn to him and raise a brow. “Penthouse?”

  “Of course,” he replies with a self-deprecating smile and shrug.

  He slots the keycard in, and the door opens to reveal a space larger than my entire apartment. Things like this don’t impress me much, though. I might not have money now, but my grandparents do, and they are some of the nastiest people you could meet. They disowned Mum when my brother and I were in our teens, and we haven’t seen them since. Their reasoning? Mum had a boyfriend, God forbid, and they thought she should live like a nun, what with her having two children. The thing is, her boyfriend was a nice man and a stabilizing influence on us. He stood by her side when she got sick, and I still meet him for a coffee once every few weeks.

  So yeah, money, wealth, it doesn’t matter to me. So long as I can afford to rent a safe place, buy the clothes I like, and they are all chain store clothes, not designer stuff, then I’m good.

  I wander around the room and note the details. The book on the side of the bed. Ilya reads; one point for him. Reading does impress me.

  There’s also a copy of the Financial Times by the sofa in the seating area. It’s an open plan room, with one door off to the side, which I presume is the bathroom, and another door adjacent to that, which I’m not sure about.

  “If one of those doors is the bathroom, what’s the other one?” I ask.

  “Dressing room,” he says as he takes off his jacket and hangs it over a chair. He then takes off the holster and the gun, which he puts in a drawer, locks and shoves the key into a small safe hidden behind a door next to what looks like the mini fridge.

  “Wow. Okay. This is swanky.” I avoid watching as he taps in the combo, and I pretend he isn’t putting away a gun, or I might get cold feet.

  “It is, but I don’t dig the open plan thing they’ve got going on. If I pay for a penthouse room, I expect the bedroom and l
iving space to be separate.” He’s done with the weapon and glances around the room.

  “Ah, old fashioned,” I say with a wink.

  He smiles and gestures to the fridge in the corner of the room. “Drink? I have champagne in there.”

  “Okay. One glass won’t hurt.”

  He opens the fridge, takes out the champagne, and opens it expertly. “You okay with normal glasses? I can call down to reception for some flutes and an ice bucket.”

  I grin at him. “Do I look like the kind of girl who needs a flute to drink her champagne out of?”

  He cocks his head slightly. “To be honest, yeah, you do.”

  “Well, I’m not.”

  “So, who do I get tonight? The real you, who drinks champagne out of crappy hotel room glasses, or the seductive Amber, movie-star-like goddess?”

  “Who do you want?” I realize I’m nervous for his answer.

  “You. The real you. I like authenticity.”

  “The real me isn’t Amber.”

  “Oh, who is she?” He reaches me in three long strides and hands me some champagne.

  “She’s Amanda. Boring, huh?”

  “No. Not boring.” Our fingers brush as he hands me the glass, and the spark is still there, still alive despite my constant second guessing myself for being here. “And what does Amanda like? Do you like the movies, reading? What?”

  “I love reading. I read loads. Classics. Thrillers. Romance. I love the movies, but prefer old school movies, not the newer ones. I like to keep fit. I’d love a dog, but can’t have one in my place at the moment.”

  “I have a dog.” He takes his phone out of his pocket and moves closer, his scent washing over me, enticing, and masculine. Swiping at the phone, he brings up a picture of a huge, beautiful German Shepherd.

  “Wow, what a beauty,” I say, and I mean it. “Boy or girl?”

  “He’s a boy, Frank. My wife named him; she loved Frank Sinatra. I thought it was a shit name, but she wanted it, so she got it. He’s our … my family pet. I have three others, Dobermans. They are guard dogs.”

  “You need guard dogs.” I raise my eyebrows a touch.

  “In Russia, if you have anything worth protecting, you need guard dogs and a whole lot more. It’s not that stable there, you know?”

  “Is it very unsafe, what you do?”

  He reaches out, brushes the hair from my nape, and bends to kiss my neck as he stretches his other arm behind me and places his glass on the dresser. “No. It’s not the safest job in the world, but honestly, it’s safer than a lot of the ways people have to make their livings. I’d rather be doing this than going down the mines like my father did. He died in a mining accident. My mother died two years later; I always thought it was a broken heart.”

  “I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I lost both my parents too.” I shiver as he kisses me again.

  “We’re both orphans then,” he murmurs.

  “Yes.”

  “Both loners, perhaps?”

  “Yes.” It comes out on a gasp at the end as he bites my neck, not hard, but enough pressure to sting slightly.

  I like the sting, the burn.

  He wraps my hair in his fist and pulls it to one side, giving me another sharp sting of pain and pleasure, this time in my scalp.

  “I want to fuck you, and I want to fuck you hard. Do you want it, Amanda?” The emphasis he puts on my name has me weak at the knees for some reason. Few people call me Amanda anymore. To all intents and purposes, I’m Amber these days.

  “Yes,” I say.

  “Why don’t you strip for me? But this time as Amanda, not Amber.”

  I stare at him. I don’t know how to do that. Amanda doesn’t strip; she just gets undressed. “I don’t… I mean, when I strip, I’m always Amber.”

  “So … take your clothes off the way you normally do.”

  I can’t do that. It’s not sexy or practiced.

  “I want you, not the show. Take your clothes off, Amanda.” Ilya puts so much authority into his words, I find myself complying almost against my will.

  I take my shoes off first, undoing the straps on each one by lifting my foot onto the stool by the dresser. Then, when my shoes are gone, I take my trousers off. My top is long enough to cover me to my upper-thighs, and I glance at Ilya to see him watching with hooded, hungry eyes.

  My top is next, leaving me in a black bra and matching thong.

  “Your body is a work of art,” he says.

  “Come here.” He crooks a finger at me as he sits on the bed, legs spread a little, the same posture as he adopted in the club.

  I do as he says and walk to him. He pulls me onto him, my legs straddling him, knees sinking into the bed.

  He’s fully dressed, and I’m almost naked. It makes me vulnerable. It turns me on.

  His hands sweep up my back, smoothing my hair out of the way as he lowers his mouth and kisses my décolletage. It’s oddly delicate. Then he brings one hand around to the front and yanks my bra down so my breasts are popped out, spilling over the top of the underwire and on display for him.

  He takes my breast into his mouth and sucks on my nipple, adding a scrape of teeth until it’s achingly hard. He sucks at me as if his life depends on it, while his other hand sweeps over my back and down to my buttocks, where he grabs a handful of flesh and squeezes.

  I’m already wet for him, but this is making me more so. I want a kiss, though. He hasn’t kissed me yet. Only the brief touch of lips in the club.

  His mouth moves to my other breast, but not before he blows cool air onto my hard, wet nipple. He suckles me there, and then palms my breasts together and takes both my nipples into his mouth at once. He bites down, nipping, then sucking, then soothing with his tongue.

  I’ve always liked having my tits played with, but it’s never been a major thing for me. To be honest, my neck is more sensitive, but this is driving me insane. I’m squirming on his lap, and I think if he did this long enough, I might actually come.

  A thick finger reaches between my folds and rubs at my core through the flimsy fabric of my thong.

  He lets go of my breasts with a loud pop, and using his free hand, grabs my hair and pulls my face to his.

  The kiss is nothing like I was expecting. It’s not soft like in the club; instead, it’s hard and demanding. He takes control of my mouth, using my hair to angle my head the way he wants, and it is heaven.

  Between the kiss and his hand between my legs, I’m just about losing my mind.

  He slips his finger into my thong and between my folds. Pulling away from our kiss, he grins at me. “You’re so wet.”

  I am turned on beyond belief, and I allow him the satisfaction in his voice because he’s damn good.

  He flicks my clit, and I cry out, so he does it again and again. Then he pinches it between his thumb and finger, and I come. I come so hard, and he pushes one thick finger inside me, and I clench around him. It’s not nearly enough. I want more. Need more.

  I’m still in my underwear, and he’s fully dressed, and I’ve had the best orgasm in years. If this is an indicator of what the night holds, I’m in for a good time.

  He lifts me from him and places me to one side on the bed, with a swift, hard kiss to my mouth. Then he’s stripping for me.

  And what a show it is.

  He slowly and deliberately removes every item of clothing, piece by piece, until he’s only wearing his fancy watch. Lord, he’s incredible. Muscles on muscle, and acres of tan skin covering it all.

  He has a few tattoos, but as he says, none of the ones I’d expect, like the infamous stars on the shoulder type things. One is of a snake wrapped around his huge left bicep.

  I stare at his body. He’s massive but not in a steroid-induced way. He’s big built naturally; you can see it in his thick wrists, big hands, broad shoulders. He’s not some skinny guy who has put hours and hours in at the gym. He’s a big guy who has honed his God-given physique to perfection.

  My eyes drop, and
I take in his dick. Oh, his dick. I could write an ode to his cock. It’s long but best of all, it’s thick … mouth wateringly so.

  Deciding I want to taste him, I get up and cross the floor to him, kissing his neck, tasting the skin there, and then down to his smooth chest. He has a small smattering of hair between the two slabs of muscle that make up his pecs, and it runs down his body to his cock. His fabulous cock. I think it’s the nicest I’ve ever seen, and I’m including my porn collection in that assessment.

  I drop to my knees, stare at his thick crown, and lick my lips. A bead of moisture forms at the top and runs down his length, like a drop of ice cream melting in the sun. I do exactly the same thing I’d do to that ice cream, and lick the drop up. He groans, and his cock twitches, bumping against my face.

  Oh, so big boy wants more, does he? I take a hold of him and wrap my lips around him. At first, I tease a little, sucking his head and licking around the rim, and he’s leaking pre-cum for me like a faucet. I want more, so I take him down deep, and I can’t get him all the way in, but I do my best.

  He grabs my hair in his hands, his fingers tugging at it, and wraps it around his fist, using it to guide me, to once more take control.

  After only a minute or two, he pulls me off him, hauling me to my feet with that hand in my hair, and his other under my arm, so he doesn’t actually hurt me.

  “Get on the bed,” he says, voice guttural.

  I think he’ll want me on all fours, so I assume the position. He climbs on behind me, the bed dipping as he does. “This ass is all creamy and smooth, and I want to put my mark on it.”

  He bites me. On my ass. Hard enough to make me squeal in surprise. Jesus.

  He slaps me then, right next to the bite, and then two more rapid fire strokes on the other cheek. “Pity we’re not in Russia, where I have a flogger that would be perfect for you,” he growls.

  He bites my other cheek. I moan at the sharp sting. I like. Love it. He finds my clit with his left hand while his right continues to spank me, and I swear, I’m ready to go off again, but before I can, he stops.

  He soothes me with kisses and soft licks all over my ass, including a flick of his tongue right over my asshole. Then he flips me over as if I’m made of feathers, not flesh and blood and bone.