9. Konstantin
KONSTANTIN
A few days after the pool incident, Rose perches on the end of my desk with her legs crossed at the knee and a folder balanced in her hands.
She wasn't kidding when she said she wanted to help.
She's thrown herself into poring over everything I have on the last traitor we killed, as well as the destroyed cookhouses, which now total fourteen.
The sabotage is painfully obvious but the culprit remains hidden, even from me.
"So let me get this straight," Rose says as her mouth twists slightly to the side. "Six cookhouses were targeted before you had that man killed?"
"Yes." I rest back in my chair with my fingers steepled together, watching her. There's something about her that I can't quite put my finger on.
At a glance, she's warm and happy, bubbly and eager to spend time with me. But underneath all of that, something stirs.
A shadow I can't quite see no matter how long I watch her.
It could be my paranoia, given how little we know about one another, and it's not a shadow I want to force into the light.
Not if we have the rest of our lives together.
"But after that, several cookhouses still got attacked.
The men on your side that died… and the areas…
" She flips through the paperwork and then swivels to face me with a toss of her head that puts all her hair over one shoulder.
"They're all connected to either this guy…
" She holds up a picture of one general.
"Or this other guy?" The second picture she holds up is more crumpled, but another one of my generals gazes out from the photo.
"Correct."
"So why not just kill them both?"
"Everything I have on them is circumstantial. Taking them both out sows distrust with my other generals. If they think I am insane enough to kill my own without explicit cause, then their loyalty wavers and I have four swords in my back."
Rose nods slowly. "Makes sense." Her lips purse and her cheek indents as if she's drawn flesh in between her teeth. "I know what you could do."
"Which is?"
She looks up at me with a smile. "Throw a party."
"A… party?"
"Mhm!" The folder slaps closed in her hands.
"Think about it. All you need is a little alcohol and some fake information and your generals will talk to the right people, for the right price.
Not money though." She points at me with one long finger.
"You need to set the scene. If I've learned anything about men, it's that they like to brag and the easiest thing to brag to is a pretty, impressionable woman who will hang on every word and never doubt.
You need to sow a little bad info—nothing too specific but nothing interesting enough that they will talk to one another.
Just the right amount so that they will leak it.
Then you throw a party. Drinks, good food and pretty girls who know how to work a room, and the information will spill. "
"You think they will spill their innermost secrets to a pretty girl?"
"Mhm. And if they don't…" She trails off and places her hand on my desk, leaning over it to gaze closer at me.
"Those girls just need a little sleight of hand to plant a little bug on some unsuspecting phones, and you're good to go.
It's simple really. Almost too simple and kind of boring, which is why your big brain never thought about it. "
I scoff slightly and glance down her body, mapping out the little cherries decorating her dress before looking back up to her gorgeous eyes. "My big brain?"
"Mhm. You're so caught up on the fact that both your suspects are generals who started working for you after you came to the States, that you're not thinking of how to use that to your advantage."
"Is this where you tell me Americans party better than Russians?"
"Not exactly but— oh shit, sorry!" As she leans back up, her elbow catches on the side of a black mug holding my pens and sends it scattering off the desk and onto the floor.
Before I can say anything, she chases after it and lands on the floor with a soft thump, then immediately starts cleaning it all up.
"Rose—"
"I got it," she insists. "My point still stands, by the way. Even from down here. As she reaches past my legs and into the alcove beneath my desk, the last pen escapes her. She crawls after it just as knuckles rap against my door and it swings open.
In the second it takes for the door to fully open and Ethan to walk in, I pull my chair closer to my desk and trap Rose down there, blocking her from view.
The last thing I want is for Ethan to think she was up to anything sordid, especially since everyone's impression of her is wary after the pool incident.
Rose grunts ever so softly, but she tenses up against my leg the moment Ethan speaks.
"Boss."
"Ethan."
"We've lost three more. I have Craig and his team on the trail of a full weapons trailer that just left the docks.
They're going to track it to its point of delivery, and from there, we'll be able to hopefully get hints on who the Italians are dealing with.
We only know one side of the deal, and before we get too weapon-heavy, I want to make sure we're not going to make any other enemies. "
"Understood."
"You've also been reached out to by the Yakuza—something about an old deal you made with them back in Russia, and now that you're in the States, they want the terms changed."
"Changed?" My brows twitch. "Do they think the terms of our deals are different now I am here?"
"Something about…" Ethan glances down at his phone.
"A change in shipping times that needs to be compensated.
They're claiming you led them astray with the original deal if you planned to come here.
I'm thinking it might be worth adjusting the boundaries of our deal with them as a gesture of good faith, at least while all this with the Italians is going on. There's also a problem with the…"
I should focus on what Ethan is saying.
Every drop of it is important, and things I need to tend to, but even as his lips keep moving and his voice dulls to a blur, I can't decipher a single thing he's telling me.
Because of Rose.
Trapping her under the desk to save her some embarrassment has signed my own execution at this rate, because now she's toyed with my zipper, dragging it down from its home and pulling my cock out from my boxers, all without making a sound.
It's impossible to focus on Ethan while Rose's soft, plush lips press lazily against my shaft and walk up the length to my crown that swells as all heat and blood rushes south.
I place my hands flat on the desk and lean forward, attempting to adjust my hips away from her so she will stop.
But Rose moves with me, and then tightens her fist around my cock like some kind of warning to stop moving.
My mouth runs dry and I swallow hard while glaring at Ethan.
He's completely oblivious and reels off the next point on his urgent to-do list.
Everything he's saying might as well be in a language I don't speak with how much I'm able to understand him.
Rose's lips wrap around my cockhead and her tongue rolls against my slit, then it flattens and the subtlest vibrations move against me as she delicately hums.
Her other hand dips into the heat of my pants.
Her fingers curl around my balls, squeezing just enough to get my hips to jolt on their own.
Ethan glances up at my movement, then back down at his phone while he continues to read off the next important item.
I can't think.
My brain fogs.
Her lips remain wrapped around the crown of my cock while her hands stroke slowly up and down my shaft. Her palm rolls against my balls, squeezing and kneading at gentle intervals and for a few moments, I think I can handle it.
"Well?" Ethan's locked-on gaze draws me from the fog. "Do you want me to call him?"
Unable to recall a single thing he said these past two minutes, all I can do is nod slowly. "Yes. I trust you to do that."
Ethan nods, and as he continues to speak, Rose lowers her hand and draws a few inches of my cock into her mouth.
I sink my teeth into the inside of my cheek and frown tightly, but I'm powerless against her.
She bobs her head nice and slow, dragging her lips with each upward stroke and swallowing around the crown of my cock on every downward motion.
Her hands remain on me, stroking what isn't in her mouth and caressing every inch of me until the fire burning low in my gut is a full-on inferno.
She's talented. So talented that a surge of muted anger licks through my chest at whoever taught her to do this so well.
It hardly matters since she belongs to me, but if I ever came face to face with them, I'd kill them.
Her sucking is slow and deep, drawing me deeper into her mouth and then letting me fall past her lips so she can kiss the tip of my cock and then return me to the delicious heat of her mouth.
She's driving me insane and all I can do is dig my nails into the surface of my desk while Ethan sighs deeply.
"That's all I can do," Ethan murmurs. "Oh, and I put out a request to Rose's family for dinner but I haven't heard anything back yet. Do you want me to go and invite them in person?" Ethan lifts his gaze and then frowns when I meet it. "You alright, boss?"
"Yup."
"You sure? You look a little flushed."
"I am fine," I managed to say, barely hiding how strained my voice is. "If there is nothing else?"
"Well, about Rose's family?"
"I will deal with it. Thank you, Ethan." I wave him away and he flashes me a smile, but he doesn't leave fast enough for my liking.
I'm so close to exploding in such a short time that every part of my lower half trembles and aches from the constant sucking and bobbing from Rose's mouth.
As soon as Ethan closes the door, I push away from the desk but Rose follows, keeping her mouth latched onto me.
As she sinks down once again, I slide my hands into her dark hair and cradle the back of her head, then I prevent her next rise and instead thrust my hips upward and shove my cock deep into her throat.
Rose chokes and a convulsion shudders through her body, but I hold her there, and as her throat works against the intrusion, massaging my cock in tight waves, I finally reach my end.
I come down her throat with a trembling gasp and hold her in place until every last pulse has poured down her throat.
Only then do I release her.
She draws her head back with a hoarse, wet gasp and then gives me the most dazzling smile I've ever seen.
"Rose… are you insane?"
"Maybe," she admits while licking her lips, then she leans forward and delicately kisses my softening cock. "You really shouldn't let me get bored."
She might actually kill me, and at this rate I'll be happy to go.