Chapter 24
Anya
My orgasm rocks through me so hard that I don’t even realize that I’m falling until my knees hit the perfectly polished marble at an awkward angle, taking Nikolai down with me. The statue I was perched on makes a strange sound, and for half a moment I’m terrified that somehow it is going to fall over and go crashing to the floor. Where would I be then? I would never live something like that down. I could never live with myself if that happened.
Nikolai smirked and stood before me, his hand extended out toward me to help me off the ground, but I don’t get up, not yet. “Thank you for the bracelet,” I say softly. Nikolai’s brow pinches in confusion.
“You are more welcome, of course.” He offers me his hand again, but I shake my head.
“I want to try again… if you will let me?” My voice feels small. Why am I so nervous? He just did it for me—it only makes sense that I be allowed to try to do the same thing for him again.
“Try what?”
I can’t say the words out loud. It’s not the same as when he’s commanding me to say something, and I simply echo it back to him. Coming up with the words myself feels embarrassing, I’ve never offered to do this for a man before.
“You know...”
I slide up onto my knees, and sit back on my heels as I look up at him. I place my hands on his thighs, and run up the hard muscle to the waist of his slacks slowly. He doesn’t seem to fully understand my intentions until I am pulling open the buckle of his slacks, and leaving the belt open. “Can I? Sir?” I don’t need to ask for permission, I’m sure, but I want it anyway.
Nikolai’s throat bobs, and he nods once.
I pull the teeth of his zipper down slowly. This feels nothing like the first time, nothing at all. I feel powerful, sexy. It’s a heady feeling to realize that he is focused on me, wholly on me and nothing else. My mind empties, and I press my thighs together. I need to feel the pressure between my legs but I’m not quite bold enough to touch myself in front of him. This is how it’s supposed to feel. He’s staring down at me, already rock hard before I pull him from his pants.
Precum drips from the tip, and I tentatively flick my tongue over the broad head, collecting it on my tongue experimentally.
“Anya,” Nikolai groans. He lifts a hand to grab my head, but stops himself with some difficulty.
I like that too. I run my tongue along the side of his shaft, learning, and encircle the tip with my lips and suck softly. Nikolai stops breathing. His head dips backward and his eyes shut for a moment before he looks right back down at me. He looks like he wants to devour me all over again.
“You are so beautiful, sweetheart.”
Something in my chest somersaults at his use of the name this time. Somewhere along the line it has turned from something insulting, to endearing, and I love it. I relax my throat and try to take as much of him into my mouth as I possibly can. I absorb every sound of pleasure that he makes as I learn the best way to distribute my weight until I am bobbing my head up and down on him comfortably.
Nikolai’s fingers slide through my hair, tangling into the tresses and holding softly to my head as he starts to meet my movements with soft thrusts of his hips. “Fuck you feel so good, sweetheart. Just like that,” he groans and I feel high.
The closer that he gets, the tighter he starts to grab my hair until he has a vice grip and fucks himself into my mouth. I can’t breathe, but I swear I’m so turned on that a light tap to my clit could have me careening over the edge right now. Such a powerful man, reduced to nonsensical sounds because of my mouth. Mine.
“I’m going to cum,” he looks down at me, and I blink slowly up at him. He pulls out just enough that he rests against my lips. “Swallow me like a good girl?”
“Yes sir,” I breathe, happy tears running down my face from his movements.
“Fuck,” he groans, and pushes back into my mouth, hitting the back of my throat forcefully as he explodes, and I swallow every single drop.
Impossibly, Nikolai agreed to let me explore the city alone for the rest of the afternoon.
Well, mostly alone.
His phone had interrupted us just as he had me bent over a bench in the middle of the gallery. When he had to leave, I had my skirt up and over my ass, anticipating being thoroughly fucked in such a gorgeous setting. I almost kicked him. Given the circumstances, I believe he would have let me.
“You must take Ivan,” he had compromised. As if I was stupid enough to think that I would actually be allowed out of his sight. Free reign in a foreign city? Yeah right. However, I was happy enough to be allowed even that small freedom that I didn’t question what phone call could be possibly more important than finishing ourselves off again.
I suppose that I’m going to have to get used to having large men follow me around. I suppose this is my new normal, that is what I agreed to anyway.
I think that Nikolai has given all of his men instructions to stay an arm’s length away from me so that they don’t run the risk of accidentally touching me. Not after the plane. Ivan doesn’t say much, but I am used to it now. He can’t give me anything that I don’t already know, and I don’t want to put him in an uncomfortable position by asking things that I’m not supposed to.
Ivan stood stoically by my side while I traipsed around the Trevi fountain, he endured my leisurely stroll through the pantheon but said that he had to stop me in the quest to see every available tourist destination in Rome.
“What about the Colosseum? We can’t miss that—we absolutely have to go!” I protested.
Ivan shook his head firmly.
“The baths?”
Another no.
“What about the ruins?”
Ivan arched a brow at me, basically saying that since the sun is setting, I’m done for the day. I turn my eyes upward to the beautiful colors soaking through the sky. It is getting rather late, and I’ve been past the point of exhaustion for the last few hours. I could sleep for a year, at this point.
“Ivan, I might not ever get the chance to be here again, I want to see everything! I’m sure that we can fit in at least one more thing before you have to take me back to the Vineyard, right? Just one more thing? I’ll even be nice enough to let you choose?” I ask sweetly, batting my eyelashes at him. The poor man could not look more uncomfortable if he tried. He pulls his phone from his pocket, and texts somebody. Probably Nikolai.
“You were supposed to be back before dinner.” He says simply, unwilling to waiver on his instructions. My shoulders sag in disappointment. “But something has come up, Mr. Volkovich’s meeting has gone on longer than he expected.”
“Meeting?!” I ask with surprise. Nikolai said that we weren’t here for business. What sort of meeting is he having? Ivan instantly realizes that he said the wrong thing. I wish I had a phone. “Don’t suppose that you would let me text Mr. Volkovich, would you?”
Ivan’s fingers curl around his phone as he pulls it closer to his chest, slides it into the inside pocket of his jacket and shakes his head.
“I won’t tell on you, you know,” I tease him, but he does not seem like he possesses a sense of humor, and he appreciates my pushing the envelope even less. “Okay. I’ll drop it. Does that mean that I can choose where we eat? Real Italian food? Whatever I want?”
Ivan shifts awkwardly, like he wants to say something, so I wait.
“I have an idea?” He says finally like I’m going to instantly reject it. Poor man. I wonder how he and Nikolai came to be. While from the outside, they are both large and intimidating, having spoken to both of them, I cannot see Ivan as being the sort of man to just come out and befriend somebody like Nikolai. Perhaps Ivan was a legacy, somebody who has always been tied into the family. He is likely more lethal than I have any comprehension of, but he seems so docile. Other than his size.
“Oh? Out with it, please.”
“It is a small place, I have been before.”
“So, you want to eat there then, Ivan? Why didn’t you just say so?!” I move toward him, intending to loop my arm through his like I have with so many of my other friends back home, but I stop myself short because I don’t think that he’s allowed to do that sort of thing. “Sorry, lead the way, I’m right with you,” I amend, and offer him a diplomatic smile. I can’t say that we are becoming fast friends, but I think that Ivan and I are slowly going to come to some sort of arrangement or mutual understanding of one another at the very least. As a result, I get to see the closest expression to a smile that I think he is capable of. Even the moderate muscle twitch feels like a monumental accomplishment. “Am I allowed to ask you about yourself? What do you like, where you’re from?”
Ivan gives me a sideways glance like he’s not sure if he should answer. I stay silent, giving him the time to respond because I really do want to know. If he’s going to be assigned to me as my personal guard for the foreseeable future, then we need to get to know one another.
“I am from Moscow,” he says finally.
I smile brightly. “I guessed as much. Tell me something else.”
“You are like dog with bone,” he sighs, but doesn’t actually look bothered by this.
“Yup,” I answer, a grin plastered across my face. “So, tell me something more personal so this goes well for the both of us.”
He grins, and I can see his teeth don’t sit quite straight. I have a feeling it has nothing to do with genetics and everything to do with the fact that he was raised a fighter for his entire life.
“I grew up with Nikolai, but it feels weird to think of it now. I do not think that he will have explained these things to you, and so I should not.”
I cross my finger over my heart to swear myself to secrecy. “Please?” I ask sweetly, and it seems to work.
“When I was child… my father was bad man. He was very bad man—killed my mother with a hammer one night because he drank too much.” He does not say this with remorse, rather as a statement of fact.
“So, I run away, I think I was about eight or nine.” He shrugs as if these details do not matter. “This was good thing, my father did not want me, and I did not want him. This is why I do not have a family name, I claim none other than the one I choose. I was little street—what is word… small gray creature with the—” he gestures to the sides of his face.
“Whiskers?” I supply and he nods. “Rat? You mean rat?”
“Yes, Rat. I was little street rat. Got into lots of trouble, always taking and going. Got into many, many fights all of the time. I was small kid, did not grow much until I was teenager. Probably about seventeen. I met Nikolai when I was much younger, in a fighting ring. Underground boxing, no rules—very brutal. Not for pretty women like you.” Ivan flashes me a closed lip smile, and I take his words for the compliment that he means them as.
“Nikolai was unbeaten champion. He only lost one fight whole career—I was that one fight.” Ivan whistles low, lost in memory of that night.
“This is because he chose to let me live… I was much smaller than him at the time but I did not stop, like rat, always going for more, always pushing just a little bit harder all of the time, you see… and Nikolai he laughed. As you know, he likes challenge. He spared me, fed me with the winnings money and we got very, very drunk.”
“It’s not exactly hard to imagine Nikolai in an underground fighting ring, but what was he doing on the streets? Was that just something that he did for fun?” I ask..
“He did not always live in big house in country,” Ivan says ominously.
“What do you mean by that?” I ask.
But before he can answer, I’m distracted by a small shop with a brightly colored ice cream shaped neon sign. It’s a small place, built practically into the side of the building. There is no door to go inside, just a walk-up space with a couple of tables outside that somebody can stand around while enjoying their treat.
There is only one person working there, and there are a selection of nine flavors of gelato in shallow little tubs. A couple of the flavors look simple, vanilla, chocolate—then there is the one I am the most excited about, black currant. I had never noticed it before Nikolai told me that it was his favorite, and now it’s one of the first flavors I see. I bend and tap against the glass. I have to get some, not that I have any money of my own.
I glance over my shoulder to the keeper of the money, and my escort for the day. Ivan sighs. I’m going to end up making ice cream for dinner a reoccurring event.
“I have to take this to him,” I explain with a smile.
Ivan sighs and reaches for his wallet, pulling out enough Euro coins for me to purchase two of the black currant, one for me to sample, and one for Nikolai to do with as he pleases, and of course one strawberry for Ivan.
“My restaurant would be more filling.” He said softly, before biting his ice cream like a psychopath.
I shake my head.
“If that is how you eat your ice cream, I’m not certain that I want to go into a restaurant with you.”
I tease. It takes Ivan a couple seconds to catch onto the fact. He narrows his eyes at me in return, which only makes me laugh.
“We must hurry back, or else this will be melted, and you will have sticky hands,” Ivan says, and glances at the clock on his phone. When he pockets it again, he offers to carry the gelato for me, and I happily take him up on his offer.
We turn into an alleyway that tapers off into a smaller section. We didn’t come this way, but I figure that Ivan must know a shortcut back to where the car is parked.
As we walk, I finally sample the gelato for myself. I have to clamp my hand down over my mouth to keep from making noise. It’s wonderful. It’s exactly the sort of flavor of gelato that I would choose for Nikolai. Somehow, it suits him perfectly. Sweet and tangy, little bits of fruit—I turn to Ivan to say just as much, but he has stopped walking.
He’s turned to focus on a man at the end of the alleyway. The man is dressed in head-to-toe black and is a good deal smaller than him. He’s squared off his shoulders, and there is something long and menacing in his hand. Ivan glances to me quickly, not wanting to take his eyes off the man watching us. It looks like he’s about to tell me to run but two men step into the alleyway behind us, blocking off our path entirely. There is no way out.
As three more men arrive to join the first, I don”t recognize any of them. We”re severely outnumbered. Nobody had been following us that I was aware of—I”m always on the lookout for such things. That is yet another advantage of growing up with my father.
Are they here for me? Ivan? Just a random mugging? Nikolai said that my father hadn’t been looking for me… was that a lie? Are these men here to free me? If that”s the case, how come I don”t recognize any of their shadowy faces? I”m not ready to leave Nikolai... I don”t want to go.
Then everything happens all at once. Ivan drops the two gelato cones he was holding. The force of their fall strikes the cobblestone at an unusual angle, causing them to splatter in every direction.
In the same movement, he grabs two guns from the double shoulder holster that I hadn’t even known was hidden underneath his suit jacket. He aims one at the men on the far end, and with his other hand he pushes at my head with two fingers and forces me to duck under his arm. He blocks me against the building with his body, setting his jaw in a hard line.
The large gun spins over his hand once I’m out of the line of fire; holding it poised and aimed. One hand to each side of the alley, daring them to make their move.
I blink—the safety on Ivan’s guns is clicked off.
He fires.
He doesn’t wait for an explanation, he doesn’t ask them who they are or what they want; he moves, he reacts. If the men are armed, they don’t draw any weapons.
Two men fall, followed by a third. Ivan has perfect, excellent aim, but one man charges despite having a bullet lodged in his shoulder, bodily tackling Ivan to the ground.
“No!” I scream. Then again, I think I might have been screaming this whole time.
At a loss for anything else to do, I throw my gelato cone at the man. It smashes into his face and eyes. He sputters, stumbling half a step backward. But that’s enough. Ivan gets the drop on him, tripping him and falling on the man’s face with his elbow; his foot twitching, and not moving again.
I don’t know how many more men come rushing into the alley from both directions, but Ivan fires, and fires again. But they don’t fall, they kick the gun out of his hand.
When Ivan falls, I finally regain my own mobility. I always hoped that in a situation like this, I might be able to hold my own, stand up for myself, at the very least slap and scream at them but instead, I watched everything happen in front of me like a helpless child.
I move entirely too late, using one hand to shove off of the brick wall behind me. The rough texture tears the cold skin of my palm as I throw myself at one of the men. My slight frame doesn’t do much in the way of damage, but I knock my target sideways just enough for Ivan to dislodge another with a kick to the jaw. There are too many of them. We are outnumbered and overwhelmed.
“Ivan!” I scream, even though I know that saying his name in this situation might get him killed, but I’m scared for him. I’m frightened that this man that I barely know, that has been tasked with keeping me safe, is going to die here in an alleyway because of me.
One of the men grabs me around the middle, as tears fall freely down my face. I thrash, and kick, and scream, and claw at the person dragging me down the narrow end of the alleyway.
I can’t tell if Ivan is still moving—I can’t see if he’s still fighting.
My nails break against the brick as I reach out for something, anything that will give me any leverage in this situation. I need to get back to Ivan; I need Nikolai. I don’t know what these people want, or where they are taking me, but I’m not going to go without a fight.
My elbow catches my captor somewhere soft, and he loosens his grip on me for a moment. I take off back in the direction of the alley.
Maybe I can get to Ivan”s gun, where there must still be bullets, and free us both... I have a brief moment of hope as I round the corner, but then more hands grab me by the waist.
Another man grabs my wrists and begins wrapping duct tape around them repeatedly, all the while I”m being carried down a side street.
I’m being kidnapped, again. Somebody is taking me away and I can’t even bring myself to process that knowledge, because I cannot tear my eyes away from the men kicking Ivan where he lays on the ground.
I scream until my throat feels like it’s bleeding. I”m not giving up. My exhausted body is useless—my captor wraps his hand around the bottom half of my face to silence me, and I bite him as hard as I can.
He hisses in pain, “Fucking bitch!” he shouts, and then I feel metal knock me on the side of my head and everything goes dark.