Chapter 41
KIR
The moment I step into the house, I can feel the tension dissipating.
It’s been like that ever since Brooklyn moved in. Like there’s a calmness to the place that wasn’t here before. A peace. Honestly, I could get very used to it.
I’ve gotten very used to her being here, too. There’s never been any end date on this, I just told her when she first got here that “she lived here now”.
Now, I know how much I meant that.
It’s not even that “I don’t mind if she stays.” It’s far more than that. It’s that I don’t want her to leave .
Ever.
I don’t want a day to come where she’s moved on from this house, or from me. She’s not just in my life anymore, she’s a part of it, in a way I never anticipated, and in a way I know I won’t ever tire of.
I roll my shoulders and walk across the kitchen to get a drink, when I pause. My brow furrows as I turn slightly, hearing classical music playing faintly from somewhere in the house.
I follow the sound—the Grand Pas Classique, I realize as I get closer—and stop in the doorway to the ballroom, my eyes riveted on her.
Christ , she’s beautiful when she dances.
And yet, there’s something off. The longer I watch her, the more I see an almost manic expression on her face—the pursed lips, and feverish concentration. Loose wisps of her hair are stuck to the sides of her face as sweat soaks the back of her leotard.
There's a look of pure exhaustion warring with punishing drive in every movement and facial tick.
When the music finishes, Brooklyn’s back is to me as she bends forward, panting for air, her hands on her knees and her legs shaking.
The music starts up again immediately, on a loop. She gets back into position, preparing to start again.
Brooklyn flinches and whirls on me when I shut off the music.
“Turn that back on,” she says, not looking me in the eye. “I wasn’t finished.”
I frown. “You need a break.”
“I'm fine.”
“Brooklyn, you’re?—”
“Practicing, yes,” she snaps coldly. “Turn it back on, please.”
I'm not turning the music back on when she can barely stand.
“What is this?” I ask cautiously.
“I told you: I'm practicing. If I’m going to have a snowball's chance in hell of getting into Imperiya Korona , I need to be better.”
My jaw locks. “Brooklyn?—”
“Please. Just turn the music on.”
“Can you please look at me for one?—”
“Turn the music on.”
I shake my head. “Why are you killing yourself like this? Babygirl, you’re phenomenal?—”
“ Not as phenomenal as Inessa Moskovic .”
The words lash out like a slap. She’s still got her back to me, but slowly she turns around, her expression tight and grim.
“You’re using your connection with Ivan to get her in, right?”
Fuck .
My eyes lock on hers as I shake my head. “It’s not that simple,” I say quietly.
She shrugs. “Oh, but it is. There’s one opening, and you’ve already decided who's going to get it.”
“That is not how it wo?—”
“It’s fine,” she snaps coldly. “I was hurt.” Her mouth twists. “But now I’m just motivated. She’s really good.” She gives me a pointed look. “Inessa, that is. She came to dance with us today.”
My jaw sets.
“Still, I have that callback with Ivan next month. I know there’s only one apprenticeship—well, none , I guess, since it's taken. But if I work my ass off between now and then, maybe I can convince him to?—”
“ Brooklyn .”
I start to walk toward her, but she tightens her mouth and spins away from me, getting into her starting position.
“I really need to get back to work,” she says flatly. “So if you could just turn the music back on— hey!!! ”
She hisses, kicking and yelling as I grab her up in my arms and march over to the big sofas by the fireplace. I sit heavily in one, forcing a squirming, fighting, twisting Brooklyn onto my lap.
“Let me the fuck go!” she spits, trying to free her arms. “I have to?—”
“ No ,” I hiss, grabbing her wrists, yanking them to the small of her back and pinning them there as she struggles on my lap.
“Let me the fuck GO ?—!”
“STOP IT!” I roar, holding her wrists tight and shaking her.
My eyes blaze into hers. “There’s another Bratva organization—the Moskovic Bratva.
My own organization and theirs have been at odds since my father was alive and the Nikolayev Bratva was just a small gang of street thugs.
It’s been decades of bullshit, fighting, and declarations of war, and it cannot continue . ”
I exhale heavily. “Inessa’s father, Dimitri, runs the family now. And part of our agreement toward a lasting peace treaty is that I stay out of Russia, he stays out of New York, and I use my influence with Ivan Yelchin to get Inessa into the Imperiya Korona .”
Brooklyn’s still not looking me in the eye, but at least she’s stopped squirming.
“ That said ,” I growl. “Ivan is his own man, and the Imperiya Korona is his company. I can make recommendations, and they may go a long way with him. But that’s all they are: recommendations . Ultimately, Ivan will pick the best dancer he sees to fill the spot.”
“Don’t do that,” she says tightly.
“Do what?”
“Give me a false sense of hope. I don’t want it, and I don’t need it.”
“You’re right ,” I hiss tightly. “You don’t need hope or prayers or wishes or any of that bullshit. Because you have something better: sheer fucking talent! ”
Brooklyn glares at me and tries to yank her arms back again. But I grip her wrists tighter, looking her right in the eye.
“I know I should have told you about my arrangement with Dimitri,” I growl quietly. “I’m fucking sorry. But the way you lit up with that dream in your eyes…”
She looks away, blinking back tears. “Yeah, a dream you’ve already promised to Inessa,” she says quietly. All the fight leaves her as she sits on my lap, deflated. “Look, I understand that my dreams of dancing in a particular company aren't as important as mafia politics?—”
“That’s not true?—”
“Of course it is, Kir,” she says quietly, turning to look me dead in the eye. “The Zakharova's great, and I know I should be happy where I am, but…” She looks down, exhaling slowly. “The Imperiya Korona… It just seemed like the final goal, you know? The top of the hill. The end game.”
My jaw grinds as I keep her hands pinned with one of mine, reaching for her cheek with the other.
“Your dreams are every fucking bit as important as boring mafia political bullshit, little sinner. More, actually.”
She smiles wryly. “But if you don’t get Inessa that spot…what, you go to war?”
“Again, technically speaking,” I growl quietly as I exhale, “my deal with Dimitri says I have to recommend Inessa.” I lock eyes with her. “But it’s Ivan who will have the final say, and there’s nothing to say I can’t prepare you for that audition.”
“How exactly would Dimitri Moskovic view that?”
I shrug. “However he likes.”
“ Kir ,” she frowns. “Don’t joke around. You’re seriously talking about a full-blown Bratva war ?”
I shake my head as I push a stray lock of blonde back from her face. “If your dream is to get to Moscow,” I growl quietly, “I will move Heaven and burn down Hell to get you there.”
Even if it means losing her.
Because that’s the second shoe waiting to drop that I can’t bear to tell her: if she goes to Moscow, I can’t go with her , per my deal with Dimitri.
It’s not just that I stay out of Russia from a business perspective.
It’s that I literally cannot go there , just as he won’t be able to come back here, to the U.S.
There may be a way for me to uphold my deal with Dimitri by recommending Inessa to Ivan, but still have Brooklyn get the spot.
But there’s one reality I can’t escape: if I help her achieve her dream, I lose her.
Brooklyn rests her forehead on mine, biting her lip.
“Sorry,” she says quietly.
“You have nothing to apologize for.”
“Hmm…” She shrugs. “I was kind of a bitch when you walked in.”
“You were in the zone. I interrupted.”
“Still, I was a brat.”
“You really?—”
Brooklyn slaps me. Not hard, just enough to startle me and ignite a snarl inside me. She grins impishly, raking her teeth over her bottom lip.
“The fuck was that?” I growl.
She lifts a shoulder, still biting her lip. “Me being a brat.”
“That’s not being a brat, that’s?—”
She slaps me again.
“How about now?” she whispers, fire sparking in her eyes. “ Sir ? Or?—”
She goes to do it again . This time, I grab her wrists and yank them tight behind her back.
“Okay…” I growl, my muscles coiling. Brooklyn gasps as I swiftly twist her around and yank her down across my lap. “ Now you’re being a fucking brat. And you're not. Wearing. Tights.”
Her breath hitches as I grab the back of her leotard in my fist and pull it tight between the smooth globes of her ass. She whimpers when I give it a tug, making it rub against her pussy. Then my hand swings up before crashing back down with a sharp smack across her bare ass.
Brooklyn exhales, a moan mixed with a soft groan. Her body goes slack across my lap, and my cock throbs as I wind up and do it again.
Fuck , I love how much she loves this. How her body responds so eagerly to control and dominance. How she craves the catharsis of punishment and pain.
I spank her again as she whimpers in pleasure. I can feel the slick heat of her against my thighs as I spank her again and again, before I suddenly yank the crotch of her leotard to the side and push my fingers between her legs.
“ Oh fuck… ” she moans, arching her back as I sink two fingers into her greedy little cunt. I pump them in and out with deep, purposeful strokes, feeling how fucking wet she is as she makes a complete mess of my hand.
“Is this what you wanted, little sinner?” I growl. “To provoke me into punishing this ass until your pussy creams all over my fingers?”
Brooklyn's only response is to choke out a moan as my fingers pound into her, filling the ballroom with the deliciously wet, slippery sounds of her messy pussy soaking my fingers. My thumb slides up the crease of her ass, and Brooklyn whimpers when I press the pad of it to her puckered back hole.
“ Sir …” she chokes.
My fingers stroke into her clenching pussy, fingering her faster and faster. My thumb drags in slow, lazy circles around her asshole, making her quiver and shake on my lap.
I grab the straps of her leotard and tug them off her shoulders. Just as she's about to slide the straps from her wrists I twist the fabric, binding her arms behind her back with her own leotard.
Brooklyn moans when I quickly unbuckle my belt and yank down my zipper. I reach inside and pull out my swollen cock, stroking it right in front of her face as I finger her pussy and tease her asshole.
“Open wide like a good girl,” I growl, relishing the way her face crumples with lust. “I'm going to fuck your pretty mouth.”
She whimpers, opening her mouth wide, her eyes hooding as they swivel up to mine. I ease my thick head between her lips and tangle my fingers in the back of her hair.
“ Please fuck my mouth, sir ,” she mumbles, her jaw open wide and her lips around my dick.
Well, since she asked…
I groan as I thrust my hips, pushing the swollen head of my cock into the back of her throat.
She moans eagerly around me, slurping and sucking and licking like crazy as she gags and whimpers.
I pump my fingers faster, fucking her messy pussy with them as she starts to whimper louder around my cock.
“ Just like that,” I grunt, lifting my ass to push my cock into the back of her throat. “You’re doing so well, little sinner, being such a fucking good girl.”
Without warning, Brooklyn's body jerks, choking on my cock and drooling all over it as she cries out. Her pussy spasms and clenches around my fingers, squeezing them tight as she floods my hand with her cum.
I quickly flip her over onto her back, spit and precum smeared across her gorgeous mouth, her hands still bound at the small of her back.
I yank all my clothes off and push between her thighs, wrapping them around my hips as I pull her leotard aside and ease my cock against her glistening pink pussy.
“Show me how good girls take a big, fat dick, baby.”
I slide into her, groaning at the sight of her face going slack, her eyes rolling back and her dripping cunt swallowing my cock.
“ Fuuuck , babygirl,” I groan, grinding as deep into her as I can. “That’s such a sweet, tight pussy.”
Brooklyn whines in pleasure as I slide out and ram right back in, luxuriating in the silky feel of her tight cunt rippling around my cock and squeezing it.
I grab her hip with one hand and wrap the other around her throat. Our eyes meet just before I crush my mouth to hers, swallowing her moans and starting to fuck her hard .
My hips crash into her thighs, her legs wrapped tight around my waist as I fuck into her.
I devour her mouth, her lips, her tongue as I feel her cunt clench around me.
Her nipples tighten to points and drag across my chest as her back arches, her bound hands clawing at the sofa as she moans in ecstasy.
“ Whose fucking pussy is this ,” I growl into her mouth, biting her lips and making her squeal as I slam into her.
“ Yours, sir! It’s yours! ” Her face caves. “Oh fuck !” she pants. “Kir, I’m—I’m going to?—”
“ Uh-uh ,” I rasp against her lips, tightening my hand around her throat as I fuck into her faster, her pussy strangling my cock as she comes apart at the seams. “You don’t get to come yet,” I hiss. “Not until I fucking say so .”
She moans deeply, her thighs locked around my hips. I keep fucking her, pounding harder, until she’s emitting one long, drawn-out guttural moan and her pussy is clenching like a vice around my cock.
“ PLEASE, sir! ” she whines. “ Please let me come! ”
I groan, my balls tightening as our eyes lock.
“That’s it, babygirl. Keep those pretty eyes on me. Only me. Look at me while I claim this pretty fucking pussy.”
“I— oh fuck! Oh fuuuuck! ”
I drag my mouth from her lips, nipping and sucking them before sliding down her jawline to her neck. I bite down, making her scream in pleasure as her pussy starts to seize up around me.
“ Now, babygirl, ” I husk right into her ear. “ Now you can fucking come for me like my good girl.”
It’s like sticking her with a live wire. Brooklyn’s body arches off the couch in a mad, violent explosion. A choked moan of utter release tears from her throat as her hips meet mine.
With a groan, I sink deep into her, keeping myself there as my cock pumps spurt after spurt of hot cum into her.
For the rest of the night, we just lie there on the couch in the ballroom, me holding her in my arms, her face on my chest. At one point it starts to rain, and after looking at it through the window for a while, I pull her down onto my lap and watch as she slowly rides me, rolling her hips up and down, dragging it out as long as possible with the rain against the windows until we explode together.
Whatever happens next, or ever, that’s how we’ll do it.
Together.
Because together, we’re unstoppable.