2. Alek
2
ALEK
I ’m not sure what, exactly, made me decide to come to Hush. All I knew this evening was that I needed a drink, and that I needed a place where there was enough noise to drown out some of the clutter in my brain, but also enough space that I wouldn’t feel crowded. And, as far as I knew, memberships at Hush never lapsed, so long as the fee was paid. Mine had been on direct withdrawal, and my account had more than enough to cover it. I could have been gone another fifteen years, and the membership would still have been paid.
Since I’d been paying for it, I suppose I thought that I might as well take advantage of it. There had been the temptation to go to one of my older haunts, some place with a dartboard, dark corners, and the kind of crowd that rode in on Harleys, but I had a feeling that the close space of a kind of bar like that might set off all kinds of reactions I didn’t need to deal with just now. Also, there was a possibility that I might be recognized. I’ve only been home for a few days, and I’ve been keeping as low of a profile as possible. Here, even if someone recognizes me, they won’t acknowledge it. And they won’t talk about it, lest it get out that they saw me at Hush and spread the word around. The club is named that for a reason, and talking about who comes here can get your membership revoked if you’re found out.
I’d planned on sitting here, drinking outrageously expensive Scotch until I started to feel it, and then heading back to my hotel room. Outside of that, I don’t have many plans at all—other than attending my father’s funeral the day after tomorrow, and seeing my older brother for the first time in five and a half years.
Thus, the need for a drink. Several drinks, in fact. Straight and burning all the way down.
I hadn’t planned to talk to anyone. Hadn’t really planned to even look at anyone, other than the bartender who served my drinks. But then she came over, this woman with a body made for sin and a tongue that keeps tripping over itself.
I could think of a better use for her tongue. With a mouth like that…
The thought is abrupt and somewhat unwelcome. But a wave of her scent hits me, sugary vanilla with a slightly smoky undertone, and blood rushes straight down from my head to my cock. In a split second, I’m rock-hard, pressing uncomfortably against the zipper of my jeans, and I blink, startled by the sudden force of my arousal.
I see her gaze flick down to my hands, to the one wrapped around the crystal glass of Scotch. She studies it for a moment, and I think I see a flash of recognition when she notices the Bratva tattoo on the back of my hand. That gives me pause, and I look at her a little more closely, trying to make certain she’s not someone I know. That she’s not, god forbid, someone I’ve already fucked.
But I’d remember her if I’d seen her before. Everything about her, from her thick honey blonde hair to her wide green eyes, her wide, full mouth and the slender curves of her body makes my mouth dry with lust. I’ve fucked a good many gorgeous women, and I’ve forgotten a lot of them, but something tells me I’d remember this one.
That I will remember her, if I act on the desire that I can so clearly see in her eyes, and that’s raging through my veins right now. And that gives me pause, too.
But fuck if it’s not hard to think of many good reasons not to act on it. Don’t I deserve a memorable fuck after all I’ve been through? My cock throbs against my zipper, reminding me that I haven’t been inside of a woman for over five years, either. I always wondered how the lower-level men felt, when they got out of prison after taking the fall from some deal gone wrong.
Now I know. Hungry . Starving, like an animal that’s been caged without having been fed, except it’s pleasure that I’ve been starved for. Touch. Even now, my fingers curl against my palms, biting into the skin as I fight back the urge to touch her. To reach for her and drag her into my lap, flip up that little leather skirt she’s wearing and drag my zipper down, and fuck her right here in the middle of the club.
I’d get away with it, too. No one would dare come over here and ask me if I had my cock inside the girl on my lap, not even if I made her scream. But…there’s something about her that makes me not want to do that, no matter how fiercely I’m craving that pleasure. Something oddly possessive, as I look at her, that makes me want to keep her sounds of pleasure all to myself.
Am I really going to do this? I’ve been free for six months, and I haven’t taken a woman to bed. Not for lack of options, but because there’s something holding me back. Fear of betrayal again, maybe. That, and the need to keep a clear head.
But the way I feel tonight, maybe it’s a good fuck that would clear it, instead.
“What are you drinking?” I ask her, nodding at the cloudy liquid in her glass. She blinks, her gaze jerking away from my tattoo. When her eyes meet mine, I feel an electric jolt run down my spine, and I know I haven’t met this woman before. And if she recognizes my tattoo, that’s no concern of mine. There’s plenty of Bratva men out there, and any one of them might have found their way into her bed. Who knows—maybe that’s her type.
That odd, possessive feeling burns through me again. Like I’d kill any Bratva man that I found out had already put their hands on her, already found out what she tasted like on their tongue. Mine , something deep within me growls as I look at her, and I shove the feeling down.
Possessiveness and attachment has been my downfall in the past. And I’ve learned my lesson. Fuck romance. Fuck love. I’ve got no interest in either any longer. But how this woman’s lips might feel wrapped around my cock…I have a definite interest in that.
“Apple toddy.” She gives me a wry smile, almost as if she’s a little embarrassed. “It was on the themed drink list.”
“Ah, yes. This place does like their kitsch.” I look around, and I hear the small giggle that she represses. Hush went all in on the aesthetic, and they’ve definitely accomplished the atmosphere that they set out to curate. I don’t mind it—in the past, I’ve found it relaxing. But now, I’m not sure there’s much that could relax me.
Her eyebrow rises, surprise written across her face. “This is an expensive place to call it kitsch. I’m not sure the very large man at the door or the woman whose face doesn’t move would appreciate hearing you use that word to describe it.”
I almost laugh. I feel a sort of buzzing, deep in my throat, that reminds me of what it might feel like to laugh. She’s funny—and she’s right, the woman at the door does have a face completely devoid of expression.
If I spent enough time around this woman, I might even remember how to laugh again. A tight, cold feeling knots in my stomach at that, a resistance to the idea. To her .
I shrug, as if none of this matters to me at all. “Still, it leans hard into the theme, net ? Old-world luxury. Taking us back in time.” I gesture around the room with my glass, and I see her eyes heat as she looks at me, her teeth scraping against that full lower lip as she takes another sip of her drink. Her throat moves, and I imagine what her mouth would taste like. Like apples, probably, and the spice of rum. How her throat would move while she swallowed down my cock. That ache settles deep in my abdomen, a tight, almost painful pressure as I throb with the need for release. I haven’t been this aroused in—I don’t remember how long.
The craving for sex is a strange thing. When I was first locked away, deep in that goddamned Russian compound, I craved it like air. Like food. After enjoying pleasure at my whim for so long, my mind couldn’t handle the fact that it was stolen from me. That there was only unending pain, instead.
But after a while, the body forgets. After enough pain, it’s possible to not even be able to remember what pleasure felt like. After a year, I stopped even bothering to get myself off. Why, when I’d only be punished for it if I was caught? All pleasure was zapreshchennyy —forbidden. I remember that word, shouted at me through bars by a guard eager to beat me for breaking the rules.
I’d wake in the night sometimes, my thighs sticky with my own release when my body couldn’t handle the neglect any longer. And for years, until I escaped, that was the only pleasure I had.
I jerked myself off the first night I was free, in a motel shower. I remember groaning aloud when I came, my hand spasming around my cock. And still, I couldn’t remember what it felt like to be inside a woman. Couldn’t grant myself that pleasure, when my mind still told me that it could still be stripped away, and the torture of unlearning that need forced on me all over again. Five months, and I haven’t taken anyone back to my bed.
I hadn’t come here tonight to find anyone, either. But now that this woman is sitting in front of me, her lips glistening with the lingering drops of her drink, the thought of walking away from her is as painful as that need.
“Do you come here often?” she asks, clearly scrambling for small talk, and that urge to laugh buzzes in the back of my throat again. It’s clear that I’m making her nervous. There’s a strange sort of gratification in that, in the memory of what it feels like for someone to be afraid of me . And an urge rises up in me to stoke that fear. To savor it along with the pleasure while I fuck her.
Tenderness and gentleness are no longer a part of me. And right now, what I’m craving is something far more primal.
“No.” I look at her, my gaze meeting hers, and I see her tongue run nervously along her lips, making my cock twitch.
I wait another beat, letting her squirm. The life I’ve lived has always meant that I’m alert to the signals that others give off. A twitch of a hand, a look out of the corner of the eye—it can spell death in an instant, if a man isn’t careful. If he’s distracted.
I let myself get distracted once. It won’t happen again. And while I feel sure that there’s nothing dangerous about this woman, I still watch her with that same keen eye. Reading her. Assessing her.
She’s nervous. And she’s aroused . Her slender, half-bare thighs squeeze together slightly when I look directly at her, her pleated leather skirt shifting over her pale skin, and I see her fingers tighten around her glass. Her eyes are slightly glassy, her back straight, her legs canted to one side, duchess-like. She’s the picture of wealth and elegance, and I can read a great deal into even just the way she sits.
She was someone raised with manners. Someone who appreciates fine things. I can see that from the red soles of her stilettos, the butter-soft finish of the leather of her skirt, the deep purple blouse that falls like real silk, caressing her skin the way my fingers itch to. The wrists of the sleeves are buttoned neatly, not a hair or bit of her clothing out of place, and I saw her leave her black blazer on the couch next to her friend. Maybe she just came from work? I picture her in a bathroom stall, shimmying out of a tight black pencil skirt to change it for the shorter leather one, and my cock jerks again.
I could convince her to head into the bathroom here, and wait for me. Fuck her over the counter, with the hum of a hundred people outside, able to hear her moaning for me. I could watch her face in a mirror, grip her throat while telling her to keep her eyes on me, until I come inside of her.
And then I could leave her there, and try to never think about her again.
But just like that earlier flicker of fantasy, I feel a resistance to that idea. I want her alone, in private, behind closed doors. I want a bed, skin on skin, all the things I’ve been denied for so long. I want to take, and take, until I’m satisfied, with no chance of interruption and no need to rush.
When I’m done with her, she’ll never fuck another man without thinking about the night I gave her.
Satisfaction burns through me at that thought. “I’m Alek,” I tell her abruptly, taking another sip of my Scotch. It burns, too, searing down my throat with the taste of oak and vanilla as I watch her face.
A smile tilts her lips, and a look that’s almost like relief, like she’s glad that her ridiculous pick-up line didn’t screw it up, crosses her face. “Dahlia,” she says, her lips parting as she lifts her glass to her mouth. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“A pleasure.” I linger on the last word for a second too long, and I see the pale skin at the base of her throat start to flush. I can’t help but wonder if she’s already wet, what I’ll find when I slide my hand under her skirt. I feel pre-cum pearl at the tip of my cock at the thought, dripping down the length of it, and that sensation alone is enough to make me grit my teeth together, wishing I’d jerked off in my hotel room before I came out tonight.
If I’d had the slightest thought that I was going to take someone back to my room, I might have. With her, I want it to last. But even if the first time is quick and frantic, we’ll have all night.
I toss back the Scotch. “Want to get out of here?” I look at her, letting her see the heat in my eyes, as I drag them from hers to her mouth, lingering on her full lips for a moment, down to the shape of her small breasts beneath the purple silk, all the way to the creamy skin of her thighs against the leather edge of her skirt. I linger there, too, imagining spreading them apart as I press my mouth to the wet, hot flesh between them, and my cock strains painfully against the front of my jeans.
Her mouth drops open slightly. “Aren’t you supposed to seduce me?” she teases, reaching up to brush a lock of hair off of her shoulder. “Flirt a little?”
I raise an eyebrow. “Do I need to?”
Her cheeks flush slightly, as if she’s been caught out, and I see a rebellious glint in her eyes. A spark of fire that makes me bite back a groan. “Do you always get right to the point?” she asks, and I chuckle, leaning forward until we’re a breath apart, until I could reach out and touch her, but I don’t. Not yet.
“Do you want to play games, gertsoginya?” I lean forward, brushing one rough finger along the edge of her jaw, up to push a lock of honey-colored hair behind her ear. I drag that same fingertip over the shell of her ear, deceptively gently, and I feel the way she shudders, her lips parted, her warm, apple-scented breath hanging in the air between us. “Or do you want to get fucked?”
Her mouth drops open, and she looks stunned. If I were a gambling man—and once upon a time, I was—I’d bet money that no man has ever dared speak to her like that.
I’d also bet that it’s high time one did.
“I—” She stares at me, and I lean back, sprawling slightly in the wingback chair as I set the crystal glass of Scotch—now empty—aside. I look at her from where I’m sitting, as casually as if I’m not starving for the taste of her on my tongue, and I see her gaze flick down to where the thick ridge of my erection is pressing obviously against the front of my jeans. Her eyes dart to the tattoos on my hands, at my neck, sliding all the way up to where, now that I’m no longer carefully hiding it in the shadows, she can see the long scar that runs down one side of my face. It skims from the corner of my hairline, just past my eye, over my cheekbone and down to the edge of my jaw. It’s deep and slightly jagged, made by the sharply honed blade of a large hunting knife.
I was trussed up like a deer and threatened with being skinned like one. But Dahlia’s eyes, as they land on the scar, only heat further.
She wants the danger. The roughness. She wants something only a beast of a man can provide. And tonight, I’m happy to give it to her.
“Get your coat, gertsoginya ,” I tell her. “Tell your friend you’re leaving with me. You have five minutes.”
Her eyes spark with that hint of fire again. “Or?” she challenges, and I chuckle darkly, wishing there was still some Scotch in the glass. It’s taking everything in me not to throw her over my shoulder, or worse still, tell her just how deeply I need this. But if there’s one thing I’ll never show a woman again, it’s weakness of any kind.
I shrug. “Then I’ll find someone else with a pretty face and a wet pussy.”
Her creamy skin blushes deeper. Her eyes snap with the urge to bite back, but I see her thighs squeeze together, and I know she’s not going to tell me no. Desire vibrates through me, hot and urgent, but I don’t let it show. I keep my face blank, utterly devoid of emotion. Of anything .
I’ve learned how to do that very well, over the years.
Dahlia stands up smoothly from the chair, snapping her mouth shut as her eyes sweep over me, too. For one brief moment, I think that maybe I’ve misjudged her after all. That maybe she is more offended than she is horny, and she’s going to walk away.
If that’s the case, though, she wouldn’t be able to take what I have planned for her, and it’s for the best.
Her eyes flick to my scar again. “Five minutes,” she says crisply, and then she turns on that red-soled heel, stalking back towards the lithe brunette who is still lounging on the antique sofa across the room, watching our conversation with the amusement of someone enjoying a sport.
In two minutes, Dahlia is walking back towards me, her blazer draped over her arm and her hips swinging in that short leather skirt.
She tosses her hair back, her gaze sweeping over me as if she’s regained enough confidence to once again think that she’s the one in control.
Which is fine. She’ll lose that notion soon enough. And I’ll enjoy every minute of it.
I stand up smoothly, crossing the space between us in two strides. “Should we go back to your apartment or my hotel?” I ask her, and Dahlia bites her lip. I want to grip her chin between my fingers, lean in, and bite it instead.
“My apartment,” she says decisively. “That way you can leave when we’re done,” she adds, a touch of bravado in her voice, and I chuckle.
“It’s going to be a long time before we’re done, dorogoy .”
I see her throat tighten as she swallows, and my chest aches with how badly I need to touch her. It feels like a cramping hunger, a need that I can’t hold back much longer, and I step forward, my hand moving to brush against the small of her back as I turn her towards the stairs.
Just the pressure of my hand against the silk of her shirt makes my head swim with arousal. It’s been too fucking long. I hear the hitch in her breath too, though, and while I doubt it’s been anywhere near as long since she’s had a man in her bed, I can tell from every reaction that it’s been a long time since she’s been properly fucked.
Maybe no one has ever properly fucked her. But by the time I’m done with her…
She walks down the stairs in front of me, her heels clicking against the wood, and I never take my eyes off of her for even a second. The swing of her blonde hair against her shoulders, begging me to wrap it around her fist, the slim curve of her waist that’s perfect for my hands, the shape of her ass beneath the leather skirt—all of it arouses me to the point of pain, and by the time we reach the hallway that leads outside, I’m gritting my teeth against the urge to fuck her in an alleyway once we step out of it.
“I rode my motorcycle here.” I glance down at her skirt and heels. “But we’ll call an Uber.”
Dahlia gives me a sharp look. “We can take your bike,” she says, a glimmer of a smile on her lips. “I’d enjoy the experience.”
I look at her, a little disbelieving. “Are you sure?” I can’t imagine it’ll be comfortable for her. And something in my gut tightens at the thought of having her on the back of my bike, her arms wrapped around me, her breath warm against the nape of my neck. It’s too cold for a motorcycle anyway—I only took it because it’s the only ride I still had access to, and I welcomed the sharp bite of the air. Dahlia will freeze.
“Don’t think I can handle it?” She tips her chin up, that spark still in her eyes. “I can take anything you want to give me.”
Hot lust tears through me, and I step forward, only the bulky man several paces ahead of us at the main door stopping me from throwing her up against the wall and hiking her leg up around my hip. “We’ll find out if that’s true soon enough, gertsoginya ,” I murmur hoarsely. “And you’ll take all of it.”
She licks her lips, a hint of nervousness flickering through her gaze as she holds her ground. “How did you get into the club wearing those?” she asks abruptly, gesturing towards my jeans, and I blink, briefly thrown off by the swift change in topic. But I can answer that easily enough.
I take one step closer to her, our bodies nearly touching now. I can smell the smoky, sugary scent wafting off of her skin, feel the heat of her body that I want so desperately pressed against mine, and I chuckle darkly, as I lean in so that my mouth is almost brushing her ear.
“ Gertsoginya,” I murmur, as I feel her shiver. “No one ever tells me no.”
And then I turn sharply on my heel, striding towards the door, knowing she’ll follow.