2. Chapter Two
Chapter Two
Tatiana Andreeva
I watched the small, pixie-sized woman leap onto the back of one of the attackers, tackling him out of sight.
I’d never seen her before, and I knew everyone in the Bratva.
Even though I wasn’t a soldier, I was still very much a Bratva woman.
I went through all the training, did all that hard work.
I even went through the initiation, only to later discover it wasn’t what I wanted to do with my life. Not really.
It surprisingly was none of those things that made me decide not to go down the same road as my dad. It was simply because my heart wasn’t in it.
I wanted to explore fashion. I wanted to design my own clothing line, like Brooke Davis, and move to one of the fashion capitals of the world. Paris or Milan. Hell, I’d even take London. Anywhere that would take me away from the man who’d broken not only my heart, but my soul.
Nikolai Volkov was every woman’s wet dream.
Huge, broad shoulders. Hard, firm muscles.
Dark hair. A face that put all of those Hollywood movie stars to shame.
Square jaw. Flawless tanned skin. High cheekbones.
He was tall. Hunky. Fierce. His eyes were what I loved the most, though.
It was so easy to lose yourself in them. Sparkling blue, like the ocean.
I’d had a crush on him since I was sixteen years old, following him around like a little puppy dog.
He barely noticed me though. I was just his sister's idiot best friend. He’d just grunt a “Hello” any time I was over, and that was it.
He wouldn’t even look at me, always having his head stuck in that laptop he carried around everywhere he went.
Some time after I turned nineteen, though, that all changed.
I’d been staying over one night and he cornered me in one of the many dark hallways of their home, looking all gloomy and mysterious.
“What are you doing wandering around all alone, Tati?”
A shiver ran down my spine. I stopped dead in my tracks, goosebumps pebbling my skin. The hallway was dark, so dark I could barely make out Nikolai’s silhouette as he leant against the wall in front of me.
I was acutely aware of the fact that I wasn’t wearing any pants. I’d woken up in the middle of the night, mouth as dry as the Sahara Desert. I always slept in my underwear, so I hadn’t bothered to put on a pair of pants before going down to the kitchen to grab a glass of water.
If I’d known the big, bad wolf was stalking the halls…I still wouldn’t have. Let’s be honest, I’d been trying to get Nikolai’s attention for years. And it wasn’t until recently that he’d started to return that attention with long, heated looks that burned my insides. He set my whole body on fire.
“I could ask you the same thing. Do you usually stalk around in the dark at three in the morning?” I asked, arching an eyebrow. I didn’t cover myself because I wanted him to look at me, to see me as a woman and not just some little kid.
Nikolai took a step forward and a sliver of light brought his face into view.
Fuck, I’d never get over how handsome he was.
He took my breath away every time I saw him.
My heart slammed in my chest, beating so hard that I could hear it in my ears.
I wanted him so badly, to feel him touch me, his hard, calloused hands on my skin.
His eyes ran down my body and up again in slow perusal, like a man committing every single detail to memory. “Sometimes. Depends on who I’m stalking.”
Why did that statement piss me off? Who the fuck was he stalking when he wasn’t there?
I took a bold move and stepped closer. His head tilted to the side curiously, his gaze running over my legs again, almost as if he couldn’t help himself.
It was the most exposed I’d ever been around him.
Did he like what he saw? I couldn’t tell.
There might have been a glimmer of interest in his eyes, but I wasn’t sure.
“Are you stalking me, Nicky?” I whispered softly, trailing a hand slowly down my front.
I stopped at the waistband of my underwear, running a finger over the exposed skin of my lower belly.
I wanted to test him, to see if he really was interested.
I didn’t chase after men who didn’t want me. Not anymore.
Nikolai watched my movements like a predator watching its prey. Deathly still. Laser focus. Muscles bunched, like he was ready to strike at any moment.
“Don’t call me Nicky,” he growled low in his throat, his eyes still locked on my hand.
“Why? I kinda like it. Nicky, Nicky, Nicky—”
A muffled gasp flew out of my mouth when he rushed me, his hand curling around my throat as he pushed me up against the wall. His body was flush against mine, his breath fanning over my face. I could feel every glorious inch of him. All those hard, toned muscles, built from a lifetime of training.
He’d never been that close to me before, never touched me before. The excitement bubbling inside me exploded to the point that I could barely breathe.
His tongue ran across his bottom lip as he stared at my mouth, eyes burning with what I was sure was want, desire. “Careful, Tatiana,” he rumbled. “I like to punish little girls like you.”
“Do you?” I whispered, exhilaration filling me up inside. “Show me.”
His deep, throaty chuckle made my pussy tingle. His hand caressed down the front of my body slowly and I arched forward, desperate for his touch. I’d dreamed of this moment so many times, it bordered on obsessive.
He gripped the fabric of my underwear and pulled back, letting it go with a snap. I yelped and he covered my mouth with his hand. “Shhh. You don’t want to wake anyone, do you?”
I shook my head, breathing heavily.
“That’s right. You’re going to be my good little girl right now, aren’t you, Tati?”
I nodded my head eagerly. My ability to speak was out, but I needed him to know that I would do whatever the fuck he asked, as long as he kept touching me.
“Good.” He kept one hand covering my mouth as he moved the other down my front slowly, torturously, with an agonisingly light touch that had me squirming. “I’ve been wondering how you taste.”
“You have?” I mumbled.
He nodded, his eyes piercing into mine. “Ever since I saw you in that little red dress. Do you remember that?”
How could I fucking forget? That was my nineteenth birthday. It was the first time I’d managed to get his attention. The first time he actually looked at me and saw me. I’d been riding high on cloud nine ever since.
“Should I find out? Hmm, Tati? Should I find out what you taste like?”
I tried not to seem too eager, but fuck I was. I wrapped my fingers around his wrist and pulled his hand away from my mouth. “I think you should.”
“I think I should too.” His hand disappeared down the front of my underwear and I moaned when his finger lightly grazed my clit. He gave me a reprimanding look and I bit my lip to keep from making another sound.
God, his touch felt so good. So unbearably good.
He dipped his finger inside me. I panted, my hips swirling as pleasure shot up my spine. He pulled it out far too quickly and brought it up between our bodies. His eyes stayed plastered to mine as he sucked his finger into his mouth and released a deep, masculine groan.
“Perfect and sweet, just like I thought.”
Fuck. This.
I reared forward and slammed my lips to his, unable to hold back for one more second.
He kissed me back eagerly, his tongue pushing into my mouth.
He took control of the kiss quickly, holding my head tight in his hands, slanting it this way and that way to get better access.
I moaned and he swallowed the sound before it could be heard by anyone else.
He pushed up against me, smothering me against the wall, his hard body grinding into me.
Fuck, he felt amazing.
The sound of someone laughing had him ripping his mouth away with a snarl. His hand moved along the wall beside me and he pushed a button hidden under one of the light sconces. Then he was backing me into the wall.
I had no idea what was going on. I was just along for the ride as he shoved me inside and the wall shifted back into place, leaving us locked in some sort of hidden passage. His hand was back, covering my mouth again as the voices got louder and louder.
Oh, god, we are so going to get caught. Why that turned me on, I had no idea.
I didn’t want to stop, didn’t want it to be the end. If this was the only moment we were going to share together, I was going to fucking remember it. And I was going to make sure he remembered it too.
I took his free hand and put it back where it had been a moment ago. His eyes darted down to me in surprise and his lips curved into a wicked, feral grin.
“That’s Drea.”
I shook my head, the memory that had just taken me over disappearing in an instant. Where the hell had that come from?
Nikolai was already moving towards the house, a frown set deep on his brows.
“Drea?” I questioned.
“She’s Aleksandr’s plaything.” Lukyan walked beside me, checking the chamber of his gun. “He’s very protective of her, so don’t try and sleep with her or anything.”
I chuckled. “Okay, then.”
When we finally made it inside, Drea was trying to drag one of the attackers into the next room. She was such a small little thing, barely five feet and covered head-to-toe in tattoos. She had a real punk-rock kind of vibe.
I was a little surprised. The few women I’d seen Aleksandr with didn’t look anything like her. Not that that was necessarily a bad thing. The women Aleksandr tended to go for were a bit on the stuckup-ish side.
Nikolai picked up a gun from the floor and pointed it right at her. “What are you doing out of your room?”
She didn’t even seem phased. In fact, she didn’t even look at him, continuing to try and pull the unconscious man across the floor. “What”—pull—“the fuck”—pull—“does it look like?” she growled with exertion.
“It looks like you’re trying to save one of the attackers.”