Chapter 8 Andrei
ANDREI
My brave anghel stands on that stripper stage with her hands bound together and a blindfold over her eyes. Her chin stays high and her spine straight and proud. Regal.
I will kill her father for this.
Suddenly, I realize there are worse things than to grow up without a family. A parent who views you as subhuman, who treats you like an object? A thousand times worse.
Money becomes no object. I tear my eyes away from Nina’s nearly naked body long enough to glare menacingly at my rival bidders. I know these fools don’t have the money to pay for their bids. They’re running up the number for me, that’s all. Testing how high I’m prepared to go before I drop out.
I grasp the handle of the metal briefcase full of cash manacled to my wrist. My wrist aches and my knuckles sting from beating Melor Kotov’s baklany to death. His body may never be found, but if it is, his murder won’t be traced to me. The same fate will meet any man who challenges me for Nina.
One by one, they stop bidding. The risk of going too high and being embarrassed when they can’t pay becomes too great.
“Going once,” Melor shouts like an auctioneer, glaring around trying to scare his men to push the price higher still.
Sheepishly, they all avoid his eye, too busy ogling my bride in that excuse for a nightgown.
The triangle of her white thong is visible beneath the sheer white silk.
Straps no thicker than kite strings hold the silk to her mouthwatering breasts.
Her tits are mine to behold. Not theirs. Never theirs.
“Going twice,” Melor says. No one challenges my bid. “Sold.” He spears me with a glare. “Assuming you can pay, Volkov.”
Nina is mine. Excitement sizzles down my neck, down my spine, pulling my shoulders back as I swagger to the steps. I unlock the cuff and hand him the briefcase. “It’s all there, plus some. Keep the change.”
A dominance tactic. By giving him more than the value of the auction, I cheapen his win.
I’m the one in charge of Nina and this entire situation.
Asserting my ownership of everything. A hush falls over the room.
Melor takes the case to a small table with a bill counting machine, pulls out a chair, and clicks open the briefcase.
Stacks of crisp hundred-dollar bills whisk through the device.
“Bring out the priest,” says Melor, closing the silver case and locking it onto his wrist. He turns to leave, but glances back over his shoulder with a sneer on his face. “And the bed.”
A high-pitched squeak brings my head around to the stage where two women in heavy makeup are pushing a twin-sized mattress onto the stage.
Nina turns to the sound even though she can’t see through that thick blindfold.
The damn thing is hardly large enough to hold a child, yet cold understanding rips through my body.
I thought I had outsmarted Kotov. The man is as wily and dangerous as a rabid fox.
“We must ensure there are no loopholes,” Melor grins. “You belong to me now, Andrei. No more Volkov ties.”
My hands curl into fists at my sides. I want to break this man’s face the way I destroyed his henchman’s.
Just get through this.
Once Nina is my wife in all ways, I can better protect her. Still, when I envisioned making her mine, it wasn’t before an audience. What a disgusting mudak her father is. Asshole.
What kind of man not only auctions his only daughter’s virginity, but forces her to lose her innocence in front of an audience?
I’m used to bad men. I am one. Melor, he’s a monster. His men follow him not out of loyalty, but out of fear—which will make it easy for me to peel them away.
But Nina…how much has he already hurt her?
She fidgets in those sky-high stripper shoes. The restless shifting of her hips conjures images that have kept me company for years. My cock thickens, tenting my jeans.
If I must do this, every man in this room will know how much she loves fucking me. It is too much to ask that she love me—I wouldn’t know what to do with such a soft emotion. There is no space for it in my world.
After tonight, they will know the baby growing in her belly belongs to me—and so does the woman.
A thin man in a cassock steps onto the stage. He keeps his gaze straight ahead, looking anywhere but at the scantily-dressed woman and the tiny bed on wheels. The women have locked them in place and disappeared. I vault onto the stage with one palm planted on the black-painted wood.
“Repeat after me,” says the twitchy priest. I wonder what Kotov has over him to force him into performing this travesty of a ceremony.
The bratva are particular about legalities, none more than Rafail, who learned the habit from his father.
Kotov clearly has the same paranoia. Ensuring we’re legally wed gives us protection from Feds who might try to pressure Nina into testifying against us if we’re ever arrested.
I repeat my vows quickly. Nina says the words woodenly. I can sense her desire to run. As soon as the priest pronounces us man and wife and makes us sign the papers—he guides Nina’s hand to the correct spot where she scribbles her name blindly; I want to cut his hand off for touching her—he flees.
“Leave the blindfold on, anghel.”
“I can’t take it off,” she says bitterly, raising her tied hands. I whip out a knife and cut the ties from her wrists.
“Now you can touch me. I want you to imagine we are alone. Focus on me. My touch. My voice.” I lead her to the bed covered in red sheets.
They had better be fucking clean. Hard to tell under the harsh stage lights, but they appear to be brand-new.
Nina’s steps are unsure until she reaches the bed and crawls to the center on all fours.
I tug off my shirt, unfasten my belt, and palm the length of my cock, letting the men see that I’m bigger than any of them.
“Built like a fucking bull,” one mutters.
“He’s going to destroy her,” another says.
I stroke the curve of Nina’s bottom. “Don’t listen to them. Only to me. Follow my instructions.”
She nods once with her lip caught apprehensively between her teeth.
I rake my gaze down her body, snagging on the taut pebbles tenting the silk. From this angle I can see down the gap to the way her ripe breasts swell. How well she’ll fit in my hands. God, she’s delicious. Everything I ever imagined and more.
But that’s not why we’re here. She’s a virgin.
That’s the entire point of this auction.
I bought her body. Her innocence is mine to claim.
Presumably, by forcing us to do this, Melor also wants to make sure her first time is so awful she never wants to have sex again.
He wanted to ruin it for us before we had a chance to be together.
I won’t let him have the satisfaction.
The only question now is which of my many perverted fantasies about fucking this woman will frighten her the least.
I shuck my pants and climb onto the bed, tugging her off balance so that she’s lying in front of me. Nina’s soft gasp and the slight tremble in her body tell me her composure is hanging by a thread. “You don’t need to fear me.”
She should, but right now I need her to be brave, not scared.
“I don’t,” Nina snaps.
“There’s your fire.” I caress her cheek. Her hair tickles my chest where it falls down the curve of her neck. I tip her face closer to mine and kiss her. The crowd cheers, but I don’t hurry. I keep the kiss soft despite my ache to possess her now. This instant. Immediately.
When Nina has settled a bit, I let my free hand drift down to trace the tops of her ripe breasts. Taut dusky peaks tent the silk. I don’t pull it down, for I refuse to share. This woman is mine, only mine, no matter what underhanded means I had to use to claim her.
“Show us more!” a man shouts. Though she’s still blindfolded, Nina raises her middle finger in his direction. I chuckle and kiss her nape.
“Don’t you dare show them a damn thing, anghel. This nightdress stays on. Only I get to see you. Understand?”
“I’ll do whatever I want,” she insists stubbornly. Oooo, says the crowd.
“You want them to see you? Does the idea turn you on?” I drop my hand to her waist and trace her hip beneath the hem. Her lips twist into a stubborn pout. Prideful, my precious doll. She doesn’t know what she wants.
She tips her hips so that the globes of her ass make firmer contact with my cock.
“Good,” I mutter, and nip her earlobe for a reward.
She is bold enough to experiment. I slide my hand beneath the white silk to cup her pussy over the triangular scrap.
Easy enough to shove it aside and take her like this when the time comes.
For now, I trace her outline through the wet silk.
“I am pretending the television is on,” she says. “We are alone. You picked me up from my father’s house and took me out to dinner.”
“Your fantasies are very dull, Nina.”
“My reality is exciting in the worst ways,” she retorts.
I think of her paintings in that gallery.
How there is always a menacing dark figure in the otherwise cheerful landscape, an eerie sense that all is not as it seems. I always believed the darkness was her imagination but now, seeing how her father treats her, I wonder if the bright safety is what she imagines while trying to ignore the darkness, just as she is doing now.
She is turning me into an art critic. I mentally scold myself to save the psychology analysis for later and concentrate on what matters—getting her through this travesty of a wedding. I slip one fingertip beneath her thong. Wet heat jolts through me. A low groan escapes my lips.
“You’re turned on,” I growl and drag my finger up her slick center. “Wet for me. Almost ready to take my cock.”
“Liar. I don’t even like you.”
I circle her clit lightly. She gasps and rocks her hips forward, trying to increase the pressure. “Admit it, Nina. You want me. You did back in that room when you tried to bribe me with a blow job, and you do now.”
“I am a twenty-one-year-old virgin. If you had been compelled to wait for sex, you might not be particular about the circumstances, either.”
A wolf whistle echoes, reminding us that we’re not alone.
I press against her pussy and drive my hips against her lush ass.
The pressure is so good. I could rut against her bottom and come like this.
Paint stripes down her back. I won’t. I have waited for too long to make her mine to pass up the opportunity now.
Even if the circumstances are less than ideal.
Mercilessly I play with her clit, dipping down to tease her dripping center where I feel the thin barrier of her innocence. Nina’s breath quickens.
“Are you going to tease me all night or get this over with?”
Brat. I sink my teeth into her shoulder.
A playful nip to remind her who is in charge here.
She stretches one arm upward and brings my lips to hers.
Better. I reward her willingness by sending her over the edge with a few firm presses against the secret pearl at the apex of her sex.
Her body tenses as the climax takes her.
“I am going to fuck you now.”
She hesitates, then nods once. “Do it, Andrei.”
I tug aside the strap of her thong and slick the head of my cock down her center. She sinks her nails into my arm. Bracing for pain. I kiss her neck until she relaxes fractionally, letting her cream coat my length. Getting her good and ready while driving myself to the brink.
When her breaths quicken and her pussy is ripe for the taking, I shove forward, breaching her in one stroke. She gasps.
“Bear with me, anghel.” Nina meets my thrusts with growing enthusiasm.
My vision hazes and my eyes roll back as I sink deeper into her tight passage.
I circle her throat with my hand. She’s so tiny in my arms. My perfect Russian doll.
“So fucking good,” I mutter. “You’re delicious, my darling doll. ”
Her low moan is the only reply. Cheers from our unwanted audience are punctuated with boos and catcalls: “Take off the dress, Volkov dog.” “We don’t want to see your balls; we want to see you fuck her.”
Fine. “Let’s give them a show, Nina.”
Still blindfolded, she nods. I bring my hand to her throat with my forearm nestled between her breasts and hold her against me. The beauty taken by the beast. I am her nightmare come to life.
“I am going to kill your father,” I murmur in her ear, too low for anyone else to hear us. “I am going to fill you with my seed. You will bear my heirs, and we will rule the Kotov faction. Do you like that idea, Nina?”
She whines with need. Her hand clenches over mine.
“Come for me,” I say. My own climax is coming, barreling down my spine and pooling in my balls, desperate for release. But she needs to come first. “Touch yourself, Nina. Like you did when you were sucking my cock. Push yourself over the edge so I can take you home and fuck you alone.”
Tentatively, she removes her hand from where she’s been digging half-moon craters into my skin with her sharp little nails and stretches her arm downward.
She rubs her clit in time with my increasingly frantic thrusts.
Her body tenses, her lips part, and I squeeze her throat just a little to remind her who is really in control.
“Now,” I snarl. “Come now.”
She obeys, shattering with a ragged gasp as she clenches around my cock.
I spill hot seed inside her. No protection.
Not even a discussion of the idea. I’ve never been so fucking turned on in my life.
I want to breed her like an animal in the throes of a rut.
The orgasm takes hold of me. Blinding. Wrenching.
I fuck her hard, much more vigorously than I should have done for her first time—but I can’t help myself.
I have wanted her for so long, and now she belongs to me.
In every way.
Cheering and applause ripples through the audience. I kiss her shoulder and slowly withdraw. Fear flashes through me when she doesn’t move, but she isn’t dead, only stunned. I gently release her. Nina collapses onto her side, half on her stomach, her arms drawn up to hide her face. Limp.
One blue eye cracks open beneath a fall of ash-blond hair. I brush it aside. “Are you alright, anghel?”
“No,” she says, pushing herself upright and avoiding my eye as she takes in the white nightgown twisted around her torso and riding up over her hips. The stupid stripper shoes that she never took off. “Then again, I have always been at the mercy of monsters. This changes nothing.”
With this scathing review of my performance, she rolls off the twin bed and strides to the back room. My stomach knots, watching her straight spine as she walks away.