Chapter 2
CHAPTER
TWO
KIRILL
I should be meeting with our arms suppliers right now, not auditioning dancers for a position I don’t give two shits about.
I must be half out of my mind to let Evelina lure me here by my dick.
But I’ve been working eighteen-hour days for weeks straight while half the city’s crime families get picked apart by an enemy we can’t see or track.
I need something that isn’t another crisis or another missing shipment.
Maybe that’s why I said yes to her, this gorgeous distraction who had the audacity to chase me down and demand an audition like she’s the one with power here.
I’m not just the owner of this club; I’m the man who runs this city.
The next in line to the bratva throne. She knows my family owns this club, but she's not a New Yorker, so she doesn't understand what the Baronov name means here.
“After you,” I say, gesturing for her to enter the private room.
Uncertainty flickers across her face before she ducks her head and steps inside.
The black corset cinches her waist tight, and my gaze drags over every curve as she walks ahead of me.
She caught my eye earlier when I was coming down the stairs. She was sitting near the far wall, nursing a drink. Waves of blonde hair falling past her shoulders, cat-eye makeup, red lips, and that tattoo sleeve of vines and flowers wrapping around her right arm.
She’s fucking hard to miss with her fifties pinup girl looks. Beautiful in a timeless way that doesn’t require surgery or filters.
Still, Oksana should know better than to bother us with staffing issues, but there was genuine sympathy in her voice when she pleaded this girl’s case. Another woman from Moscow trying to make it in a foreign city.
I agreed because if I didn't, I'd spend the rest of my life wondering what I missed.
The noise from the club cuts off the moment I close the door, sealing us in. She looks around the room, appearing less sure of herself now that we’re alone.
The Emerald Room is all about decadence. Rich burgundy walls, crystal sconces throwing warm light across polished wood.
There’s a bar in the corner stocked with top-shelf bottles, and a leather couch facing a small raised platform with a pole under a spotlight.
My brothers and I gutted and rebuilt every room when we took over, erasing whatever history these walls held.
I don't think about what they looked like before. Or what Velour used to be.
I drop onto the couch, spreading my arms across the back and letting my legs fall wide.
Might as well enjoy myself. Watching this beautiful woman dance might be the first moment of peace I've had in weeks.
The Ghost has been tearing through New York's underworld for the past two weeks—stolen shipments, hijacked deliveries, ambushed soldiers.
Nobody knows who they are, what they want, or when they'll strike next.
All we know is they're well-funded, well-trained, and always one step ahead.
It's exhausting. I've been running on too little sleep and too much whiskey, which explains why I'm here instead of at another emergency meeting.
“Do you have any music preferences?” she asks, arching an eyebrow.
A smirk tugs at my lips. “Surprise me.”
She pulls out her phone, selects a track, and music with a heavy bass and a driving beat fills the room. With a final breath, she wraps her hand around the chrome of the pole.
“Not so fast,” I grit out.
She freezes, her eyes—deep hazel with bursts of amber—snap to mine.
“You came in here talking a big game. Telling me you’re different, better than my other dancers.” I lean forward, elbows resting on my knees. “So prove it. But not up there.”
Her brows furrow, confusion crossing her face. “What do you mean?”
“Come here.” I crook a finger at her. If she’s this desperate for the job, I’m going to make her earn it.
“Why?” Her cheeks flush pink, fists clenched at her sides.
“We don’t do pole routines in the private rooms.” I settle back, watching her process this. “That’s for the main area. In here, the girls give lap dances with a lot less clothes on. You were so confident out there, so sure you could handle anything. Was that all talk, or can you back it up?”
For a split second, alarm flashes across her face, but she covers it quickly. The space between us feels charged. I’m testing her, pushing to see if she’ll run or rise to the challenge.
She takes a breath and rolls her shoulders back. “It’s not a problem as long as you understand the rules. No touching, and I’d like to start right here.”
She gestures toward the pole, making it clear she’s doing this her way.
My cock twitches at the challenge in her tone, as if she has any leverage here. I’m used to compliance. To people saying yes before I finish asking. But I like a woman who pushes back.
I stand, taking my time shrugging out of my suit jacket, letting the fabric slide off me before tossing it onto the couch.
My fingers move to my collar, working the top three buttons open to reveal the black ink that sprawls across my collarbone and down my chest. Then I roll my sleeves to my elbows, baring the veins that rope down my forearms. Her gaze tracks my every movement, her throat working as she swallows.
I sit back down, reclaiming my position. "You have five minutes."
She taps her screen, changing the track. This time a sultry beat fills the space.
Evelina closes her eyes, and when she opens them again, a new determination hardens her gaze.
One hand wraps around the pole as she starts to sway with the rhythm. The movement is careful, hypnotic, her body syncing to the beat.
Her head tilts back, exposing the long line of her throat, and I want to taste the pulse hammering under her skin.
This isn't the polished, mechanical seduction I've seen a thousand times before. This is raw. Unfiltered.
Like she's dancing for herself and I happen to be watching.
She spins on the pole, one hand gripping high while her body bows backward, hair sweeping across the floor as she tips her head back, spine curved in a perfect arch.
Then she pulls herself upright with surprising strength, wrapping her legs around the chrome and spiraling down slowly, heat pooling low in my gut.
The tension coiling my shoulders finally loosens. Weeks of paranoia and sleepless nights fade into background noise.
Right now, there’s only her moving like sin and my blood rushing south.
When her feet touch the ground, she drops to her hands and knees and crawls toward me. Fucking hell.
I eat my words from earlier. She’s as good as she claimed to be.
Her back arches like a cat as she moves, hair falling forward over one shoulder. She’s taking her time, hips swaying with every inch forward.
When she reaches me, her hands slide up my shins, over my knees, gripping my thighs as she crawls up my body.
Her touch sends blood straight to my cock. By the time her face is level with mine, every muscle is coiled tight.
She swings one leg over my lap, straddling me as her hands settle on my shoulders. We’re face-to-face. Close enough to see the flecks of gold in her hazel irises.
Her breath ghosts across my lips as her nails dig into my skin, and her sweet scent surrounds me.
I lock my jaw and curl my fingers into the leather seat. The lap dance has barely started, and I'm already fighting the urge to break the no-touching rule, fighting the urge to grab her hips and grind her down against my hard length.
I’ve had plenty of dances in my day, but I’ve never been affected like this. It’s like she’s crawled under my skin and set fire to every nerve ending.
Up close, we stare at each other, the music floating around us. The moment stretches, taut as a wire, neither of us willing to break first. Then she gives me a wicked smile and starts to move. Her body rolls over mine in slow, deliberate waves.
Her palms slide down to my chest, palm warm through the thin fabric of my shirt. Her skirt is hiked up, and there’s nothing but the thin lace of her panties between us.
My cock is granite-hard, and every torturous grind makes pre-cum leak into my briefs. Fuck me, I’m seconds from losing it completely. Doesn’t help that it’s been weeks since I’ve gotten laid.
Even before the Ghost situation consumed my life, the usual rotation of models, escorts, the occasional socialite, stopped appealing.
Call it burnout or boredom, but nothing’s done it for me in a while. Until her.
With Evelina grinding on me, her lids closed, lips parted, head tipped back, every coherent thought evaporates.
My balls draw up tight, pressure building at the base of my spine, teeth gritted against the need to thrust up into her heat.
“I hope I made this worth your time?” she rasps, taunting me.
“You’re doing fine,” I manage, though it comes out rougher than I intended.
“Well, I aim to do better than fine.”
She pulls back enough to meet my stare, her gaze dark and hungry.
Without breaking eye contact, she reaches behind her. A few seconds later, her corset loosens and her breasts spill free.
They’re perfect. Pale skin, dark nipples already tight, begging for my mouth.
A tattoo of vines and thorns wraps around her ribcage, disappearing under her right breast.
She lets the corset fall to the floor. Now it’s her bare skin against my shirt, and it takes everything in me not to lean forward and capture one of those nipples between my teeth.
My knuckles go white where I’m gripping the leather. It’s the only thing keeping me from grabbing her ass and grinding her down on my cock.
She picks up the pace, hands trailing down my chest, fingers splaying across my ribs.
My vision narrows. The room blurs at the edges. All that exists is her, the feel of her body moving over mine, the sound of her ragged breathing mixing with mine, the relentless friction pushing me closer and closer to the edge.
She's not just dancing. She's fucking me through my clothes. If I had any sense left, I'd stop this.
Lift her off, tell her the audition's over. But I'm too far gone.
My hips rock up to meet hers. Pleasure coils tight low in my gut, and a rough sound tears from my throat. And then I lose it completely. My cock pulses, release slamming through me harder than it has in years.
I buck against her, riding out the best orgasm of my life. From a lap dance.
Evelina's lids fly open, wide and startled. She goes still as she realizes what just happened.
How hard I came. She wasn't trying to make me come—she seemed to be as lost in the moment as I was. But she did, and it was fucking glorious.
Satisfaction spreads through me like warm honey.
I won't let her retreat into shame or panic over what just happened. She gave me five minutes where nothing else existed except the way her body felt against mine. Five minutes where I wasn't the heir carrying the weight of an empire, just a man completely undone.
Now I'm going to pay back the favor.