LEV
Ilicked my lips and wanted to growl at Mila’s tastes there. I stopped short in my rush to get to my car and head over to Adrik’s, summoned with breaking news about a distribution channel linked to Gregori and his right-hand man, his second in command, Yusef Antonov.
Fuck this.
I didn’t have to hide anything from Mila.
There was no good damn reason to keep her out of this mess about Gregori.
She was mine. To work for me. As of ten minutes ago and evidenced by the lingering ache in my pants, she was mine to pleasure. Making her come had pleased me, and it was about time I gave up trying to compartmentalize where she’d fit in my life.
I doubled back and strode right back into the dining room where I’d left her.
She stood there, her face flushed and gaping at me in surprise. It seemed like she’d just pulled her shorts up, but it hardly mattered.
“Come on.” I grabbed her hand and dragged her along with me.
She didn’t utter a protest. She didn’t speak up and ask where I was taking her.
While I liked not being questioned or doubted or interrogated, I was getting sick of having to try so hard to get her to open up to me.
To see me as more than the man who’d taken that fucking contract from the Hernandez Cartel moron.
She kept up with me as I rushed to my car. She got in the passenger seat, likely realizing that something urgent was going on.
I started the engine and took off, wondering if having her with me would help this raging need to fuck her, like a reassurance that she was here, or if it would worsen it and I’d need to fuck her in a spare room before I could talk to my cousins and brother.
No.
She was not coming before the matter of Gregori and his network threatening us.
She couldn’t.
But damn it all if I felt calmer to have her with me.
I glanced at her, then did a double-take and gave her a side-eye as I drove. “You smell like sex.”
Her mouth dropped open as she scowled at me in disbelief. “I didn’t ask for—”
“Then maybe you should.” I kept my eyes on the road the best I could. “Maybe you can ask me for it so I don’t bottle up all these fucking fantasies until I’m on the verge of insanity.”
She had yet to lose her incredulous stare. “Are you supposed to tell women that they smell?” She scrunched her face. “Where am I going that I should worry about smelling like sex?”
I snorted and fought a smile. The instant spike of anger that a mention of Gregori could cause was mellowed out with her talking to me. She was opening up to me. I would have her submission.
“To Adrik’s house.”
She winced, glancing down at her lap before facing me. “Maybe you smell sex because you still have…” She pointed at my beard.
“Some of your cum on my face,” I finished for her, marveling that I could be frank like this with her and not feel shut out. A couple of orgasms and she was thawing toward me. It was progress. I gestured at the glove compartment. “Where?”
She followed my lead and got a napkin out, but when she leaned over to wipe at my face while I drove, I struggled with the need to pull over and haul her onto my lap and get my cum on or in her.
She dabbed at my short beard, cringing. “What is my role in going to Adrik’s?”
I shrugged. “You’re just with me.”
“To… look out for danger.”
After that intruder was caught, Adrik ramped up security.
We wouldn’t need to rely on her quick instincts.
“No. You’re just with me.” I didn’t have the patience to explain anything beyond that, and we didn’t have time to, anyway.
I pulled in and didn’t delay getting inside.
She followed me, and I wondered if I smelled like her yet.
If I did, no one pointed it out. We gathered in Adrik’s office and got right down to it.
No one even blinked at the fact that I’d brought Mila with me.
She stood behind me, almost like she thought she had to blend in as a member of the guards.
I rolled my eyes, dragged a chair over, and tugged on her hand to make her sit next to me.
“We’ve discovered a distribution channel linked to Gregori’s network,” Adrik said. “And it might be able to give us leads on where Yusef Antonov is hiding.” He scowled. “Or Gregori himself.”
Elena took over for him, discussing how she followed the money trail with some of Gregori’s shell companies. The channel was meant to serve the San Diego port, and with her tracking, it seemed that she was getting closer to a location for us to strike.
Carina spoke, too, relaying the intel that she had from her former position with the Cartel. She described the specific routes that the Bratva runners were watching to better catch a sighting of Gregori or Yusef.
All of them pitched in with what they were collectively investigating under the umbrella of the issue that was Gregori’s network.
In the end, it was up to me to act as the enforcer.
“Going undercover near the docks would be the best approach,” Maksim said. He was the problem-solver, always a strategist. He and Carina completed each other like that, the go-getters when there was a puzzle to attack.
“Then I’ll go,” Alexei said.
Adrik shook his head. “No. I need you to make sure this shit isn’t linking to the Konstantins.”
“I will go,” I said. Glancing at Mila, I corrected myself. “We both will.”
“You? And Mila?” Adrik volleyed his attention between me and her.
She’d stiffened in her seat, but she still masked her surprise well.
Maybe I was confusing her. She’d been waiting for a job and after I fucked her in the gym last night and ate her cunt out this morning, she could be assuming I had a completely different so-called job for her to fill.
That was partly true, but I wasn’t stupid.
I wouldn’t waste her talent and skill for stealth.
I intended to reap the rewards of having her in my life with regard to both of her capabilities.
“She’s not trained yet,” Viktor said.
“What the fuck do you think she’s been doing?” I asked. “She hasn’t been preparing to sit around and do nothing.”
My phone buzzed.
I glanced down at my text.
Alexei: She’s been entertaining you.
Alexei: You missed a spot on your beard.
I lifted my hand and ran it over my face. Glowering at him while Maksim and Adrik debated whether they should subcontract this assignment instead of me handling it—with or without Mila—I watched him roll his eyes.
Alexei: You dumbass. I’m fucking with you.
I shot him a stern look.
Alexei: But you’re proving that she’s not just training. That she’s doing something to be on your face.
Lev: Stop making excuses. She’ll be fine as a spy.
Alexei: I’ll stop making excuses when you do. Don’t let your dick do all your thinking for you.
I shoved my phone back in my pocket, butting into the conversation. “There’s no need to subcontract for something that is my specialty. And there’s no need to question Mila assisting me on this task.”
“Because that’s who she is now?” Carina asked. “Your ‘assistant’?”
“Look, I don’t like knowing the details,” Elena said with her signature worry-wart tone. If I had a dollar for every time she said that…
“But from what I can tell, Mila would be a good person to spy on Yusef or Gregori.” She glanced at Adrik, as if still doubting that she could speak up as an outsider who’d married into the family.
She would be the wife of the Pakhan, the mother of the heir in waiting.
But she was doing her best to adjust and fit into her role.
Adrik nodded at her to continue.
“You can think quickly,” she told Mila, looking at her directly, as if realizing that was more important than talking over her. “And you’re new to the family, so you—”
“I’m not part of the family,” Mila said quickly.
I gave her a shut up already glare.
“New to the scene, and no one would really be looking for you as a spy in the field,” Elena finished saying.
I nodded. “I agree. And I’m not asking for permission.
Mila is my…” I stumbled, put on the spot.
She was mine, but I couldn’t declare that without inviting more questions.
“She is like my assistant, and I’m confident that she can have my back as I go out to look into this lead.
If Yusef Antonov and/or Gregori are staying near this distribution channel, then they will see that we aren’t sitting around waiting for them to attack or interfere with our business. ”
They could complain all they wanted. It didn’t matter what they said. I would stand by keeping Mila with me. Through the throes of lust, among the twists of seeking her submission, and out in the field near the docks as she could audition as something more like… my partner.