Laney
I wake up to sunlight beginning to filter through the floor-to-ceiling windows and the feeling of being watched.
My eyes flutter open, and the first thing I see is Yakov propped up on one elbow, staring at me with an intensity that should probably be unnerving, but instead sends heat pooling low in my belly.
"Hi," I say, my voice rough from sleep and screaming his name.
"Hi." His hand comes up to brush hair away from my face. "How do you feel?"
I take inventory. Sore in places I didn't know could be sore. Exhausted but also somehow more rested than I've been in a week. And hungry. Starving, in fact.
"Like I got hit by a truck," I admit. "A really good truck."
His mouth quirks. "That's one way to describe it."
"How long was I asleep?"
"Six hours. It's just past dawn." He traces patterns on my bare shoulder with his fingertips. "I've been up for about an hour. Made some calls."
That wakes me up fully. "Laurie—"
"Is fine. I talked to Luka. Everyone at the safehouse is doing well. Most of them are still asleep. Your sister included." His thumb brushes over my collarbone. "The medical team are happy everyone is recovering well. No complications."
Relief floods through me. "Thank god."
"I also called Adrik. Updated him on everything." His expression shifts slightly. "He wants to meet you."
"Your brother?"
"My oldest brother." At my confused look, he explains: "He’s the boss of our family since our father passed. He has the final say over the big things, even though we mostly work autonomously."
"Oh." I process that. "Should I be nervous?"
"No. He's... intense. But he'll like you."
"How do you know?"
"Because you fight like a badass to protect what’s yours. Figuratively and literally. You probably didn’t notice last night, with the adrenaline and just wanting to spend time with Laurie, but Kaiden’s nose is indeed broken."
Embarrassment floods my face. "I didn't know he was on your side." I feel terrible about it.
"You did what you had to do with the information you had available. I told you to wait for me, Kaiden got ahead of us and didn’t know. But you did the right thing. Though I’d prefer you not to risk your own life going forward, please." He leans down and kisses me, soft and slow.
I kiss him back, my hands coming up to thread through his hair. He's showered since I fell asleep, his hair is damp, and he smells like soap and something darker, more classically masculine underneath.
"I’m sorry for the tears and stuff," I say when we break apart. "I don’t know where it all came from."
"You can always be vulnerable with me, Laney. And to be honest, I think it was quite a normal response. Once your body was relaxed you weren’t able to hold it all in. But if you would like to talk to a therapist or anything, I can arrange that."
"No. I don’t need that, I think I just need to see Laurie and make sure I’m not imagining it all."
"The women are all still sleeping, and the medical team want to keep an eye on them for another twenty-four hours, but we can visit after breakfast." He strokes his fingertips over my face as I nod with a weak smile, lifting my chin to touch my lips to his again.
The kiss deepens, and I feel him hardening against my thigh.
"Again?" I breathe against his mouth.
"If you want." His hand slides down my body, cupping my breast. "I can never get enough of you."
I’m sore, exhausted, and overwhelmed by everything that's happened in the last twenty-four hours. But the moment his thumb brushes over my nipple, all of that disappears.
"Yes," I whisper. "Yes, I want."
He traces my body with his hands like he's studying for a test, learning every curve and hollow, every spot that makes me gasp or moan. His mouth trails down my neck, over my collarbone, to my breasts. When he takes my nipple into his mouth, sucking gently, I arch off the bed with a low moan.
"Sensitive," he murmurs against my skin.
"Very," I agree.
"Good." He switches to the other breast, giving it the same attention until I'm writhing beneath him, wet and wanting.
His hand slides between my legs, and I'm already parting them to give him full access. I’m so ready for him, despite the soreness. He's careful, working me with his fingers until I'm gasping and begging and he grasps my hips and pulls me over him.
The length of his solid shaft presses against my slick folds as I straddle him, grinding a couple of times, chasing the sensation from when my clit rubs against him.
"Take what you need," he says. "Let me watch you ride me like the formidable queen you are."
The stretch makes me wince when I adjust myself and begin to slide down his cock, but it's the good kind of pain.
The kind that reminds me I'm alive, that this is real, that last night actually happened. That I didn’t let anything stop me.
Not a strange new city, or my boss and the police telling me I was overthinking things.
Not even the men who tried to take me from the bar…
A shiver runs through me when I reach the root of his cock and grind in a circle. I’m so full of him that my brain feels like it will dissolve into glittery sparks I won’t know how to put back together again.
I begin to move with larger rolls of my pelvis, my head dropping back as I let myself be consumed by the sensations of it all.
"Look at me," he commands.
It takes actual effort to lift my head forward and open my eyes. I find him watching me with that intensity I’ve never known before. Like I'm the only thing that matters in the world. His eyes graze over my body, his teeth clamping on his bottom lip when he takes in my breasts.
"You're so beautiful like this," he says. "Taking me so well. Made for me."
"Yakov—"
"Say it again." His thumb finds my clit, circling with just the right pressure. "Say you're mine."
"I'm yours." The words come easier this time. "I'm yours, Yakov."
"Not good enough." He thrusts up suddenly making me choke on a moan. "Louder. Tell me you’re my dirty queen who can’t stop riding my cock even when she’s sore and swollen and still leaking from last night."
Heat floods my face, my chest, everywhere.
"There’s no shame here." He is watching the space where my pussy slides over his cock, his pupils blown wide and his mouth slightly open.
"Look at how you ride me like you’re trying to ruin us both.
" He slides a hand up to palm my breast roughly, thumb flicking the nipple still tender from his mouth.
"You feel that? How fucking full you are? That’s me claiming every inch inside you.
Again. And again. Until your cunt craves to be filled by me over and over. "
I whimper, hips stuttering, chasing the building pressure.
He smirks wicked and dangerous. "You’re shaking already. So greedy for it even when you’re wrecked. You want me to flip you over? Pin those pretty wrists above your head and fuck you into the mattress until you scream my name so loud the neighbors call the police?"
His hips snap up harder on the last word, punching the air out of me.
"Or maybe," he murmurs, voice dropping to gravel, "you want me to keep you right here, straddling me, stuffed full, grinding desperate and needy, until you come so hard you soak my thighs and cry about how good it hurts."
He leans up, lips brushing my ear, breath hot. "Choose fast, Laney. Because I’m about two seconds from deciding for you… and when I do, I won’t be gentle."
His thumb presses down harder on my clit at the same time he rolls his hips in a slow, filthy grind that hits every swollen spot inside me.
"Tell me what my greedy queen needs," he rasps. "Or I’ll make you take everything."
The dirty promises combined with his thumb on my clit and his cock hitting that perfect spot sends me over the edge. I come with a cry, clenching around him so hard he groans.
"Fuck, Laney." He thrusts harder, faster, chasing his own release. "You feel so perfect when you come. So fucking perfect."
I'm still riding the aftershocks when he buries himself deep, pressing me down hard on him, and comes. His thick cock jerks inside me with each pulse of cum. His groans turn feral, his eyes don’t leave where we’re connected.
He finishes with a stretched out, "Fu-uu-uuck," and then holds me in place on his cock as we both come down.
I stay where I am, not ready to let go of the moment, tracing his scars and tattoos with my fingertips.
"I could get used to this," I say without thinking.
"Good. Because I'm planning on keeping you.
" He gently begins to lift me from him, and I mewl at the loss.
"Careful, Laney. Making sounds like that will have me feral again and you need a break.
" He disappears into another room, returning with a glass of water and warm washcloth, handing the water to me while he gently dabs at my center.
"You take me so well, but you’re very swollen now," he observes. "Such a pretty pussy, I could look at it all day."
He drops the cloth onto the bedside table and kisses my forehead.
It briefly crosses my mind that I had a life before Laurie went missing. She and I had a plan and it didn’t involve falling for the Bratva man who helped me save her. But I want exactly this. Him. This bed. This view. This feeling of being claimed and cherished at the same time.
"When can we leave for the safehouse?" I ask, because if I don’t fill the silence with something I’m scared that I might confess my thoughts.
"Whenever you're ready. But first—" He kisses my forehead. "Shower. Breakfast. Then we'll go."
The shower is another revelation.
Yakov has one of those enormous rainfall showerheads. He washes me carefully, mindful of the bruises on my throat and the soreness between my legs.
It's intimate in a way that has nothing to do with sex. The way he works shampoo through my hair. The way he soaps my back. The way he just... takes care of me.
"You're good at this," I say. "At taking care of people."
"Only you." He rinses the soap off my shoulders. "I don't do this for anyone else. Never have."
"Never?"
"Never." He turns me to face him. "You're different, Laney. You make me want things I didn't think I was capable of wanting."
"Like what?"
"Like mornings. And breakfast. And seeing you in my bed every day for the rest of my life."
My breath catches.
"Too fast?" He cups my face. "I know it's too fast. I know we barely know each other. But I also know what I feel, and I'm not going to pretend I don't feel it just because it's unusual."
"What do you feel?"
"That you're mine. That I'm keeping you. That I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure you never want to leave." His thumb brushes over my lips, then he switches of the shower and steps out, leaving me wanting more as he grabs a towel and wraps it around me.
Breakfast is eggs and toast and coffee so strong it could wake the dead. We eat at his kitchen island, me in borrowed clothes, one of his t-shirts that hangs to mid-thigh, him in fresh jeans and a henley that shows off his arms.
"I need to get my stuff from the hotel lobby. I came straight from the airport to here yesterday, so I left it with the luggage department," I say between bites of eggs. "And we should figure out what to do about Laurie's apartment. All her things are still there."
"We'll deal with Laurie's apartment today when we go to the safehouse." He refills my coffee. "What do you want to do? Go back to Sacramento? Stay in Vegas? Something else?"
"I don't know." I've been so focused on finding Laurie that I haven't thought about after. "I was working my notice in Sacramento, preparing to move here and join Laurie."
"It might be wise to find another apartment for Laurie..." He meets my eyes. "And if it’s okay with her, I’d like you to move in with me."
Surprise has my eyebrows flickering. "Move in? You’ve only known me two minutes," I exaggerate, because it might as well be true.
"Things work different in my world, trust me, two minutes is a life time, and I want all of my lifetimes with you." He is looking at me in that way again, and I have to swallow to make my mouth work.
"About that," I say, breaking eye contact as I try to figure out what I’m trying to say. "What is your world? Gangs and guns and danger?"
"Sometimes danger," he admits with a half shrug that says it can’t be helped. "My brothers and I, we are Bratva, the traditional thieves-in-law. We don’t do trafficking of humans or weapons. That doesn’t mean what we do is legal. We work in the gray areas."
"Gray areas?" I ask, though I’m not sure if I’m ready to hear what that means.
"Sometimes the only way out of something, is through it. But being Bratva is in my blood. It’s a brotherhood.
And it wasn’t something I was willing to let go of, which is why I never intended to take a wife or have children.
When my brothers fell for their women, I told them they were all batshit…
" he trails off, shaking his head with resignation.
"But…" I encourage him, not feeling entirely unperturbed by what he is telling me.
"Then I saw you. Told myself attraction means nothing. Then I met you and it got harder to tell myself it was a meaningless attraction. Then I saw you straddling Kaiden, beating the shit out of him and I was half driven mad with jealousy, but the other half of me thought you were otherworldly in your strength and courage. And that’s when I knew.
" He drops his fork onto his plate and pushes it away from him.
"Knew what?" I ask. He told me last night that’s when he knew I was his… but what does that actually mean?
He leans across the island and takes my hand in his.
"You hold the other half of the thing that lives inside of me.
You are the one person in the world who I would give it all up for.
That I would cut out my heart and hand it to you willingly.
You electrify my life in a way I never knew possible.
You woke up something else too…You make me want a legacy. "
His phone buzzes, breaking the the moment as his words continue to weave around me, not quite sinking in. He checks it, and his expression darkens.
"What's wrong?"
"Zajmi." He shows me the screen. It's a text from an unknown number with a photo attached, a grainy image of what looks like a warehouse exterior. "He's taunting me. Wants me to know he's still operating."
"What are you going to do?"
"Hunt him down and end this." He pockets the phone. "But not today. Today is about you and your sister and making sure everyone's safe. Zajmi can wait."
"Will he? Wait, I mean?"
"He doesn't have a choice. I'm coming for him regardless." His eyes are cold when he looks at me. "And when I find him, he's going to wish I'd killed him quickly like the others."
A shiver of dark anticipation runs through me. I like knowing this man would destroy anyone who tried to hurt me or my sister.