Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
Candy
I’m just finishing a cut and a color setting when Sver and Angel enter my old workroom.
I’d left a fair number of supplies, and I’ve done what I could with the hour I’ve had. A bunch of girls are in line for treatments, but several more are just hanging out, catching me up on all the gossip I’ve missed.
Funny, but I missed them way more than I did the gossip.
Sver stops, watching as I cut Kendra’s jet-black waist-long hair.
“Candy,” his deep voice rumbles. “It’s time for us to go.”
A protest rises up from the group, several of the women standing indignantly. I’m sure they like me, but I’m equally happy to think they like my work that much.
“Don’t worry, ladies,” Angel answers. “Candy will be back tomorrow and in full effect. I’ll put a sign-up sheet on the door.”
A happy chatter fills the room, but my brows lift. “Was anyone going to ask me about this?” Cutting hair somehow brought me back to myself.
Sver crosses to me, touching my shoulder. “Sorry, Candy cane. I’ve got work to do tomorrow and Angel has agreed to allow you to be here whenever I’m…unavailable. It’s for your protection, I promise.”
“Candy cane?” Kendra asks. “Is she minty when you lick her?”
“Kendra,” I gasp, flushing a bit. I think I might have forgotten just how much these women are willing to say. “That is just—”
“She’s more sweet than mint,” Sver answers.
Angel clears his throat even as a laugh rises up among the women.
“Candy, Christmas is coming up. Color your hair red and white,” one of them calls out.
I am not doing that. But I do have a really cute dress that is red and white stripes. Not that Sver will be here at Christmas.
Honestly, I’m lucky that he saved my life last night instead of doing what the men I sleep with usually do, which is mayhem and destruction.
And now he seems to have facilitated some sort of reconciliation with Angel…this seems too good to be true, and I don’t dare hope for more.
His hand slides down my arm, wrapping around my bicep. I finish the long layer I was putting in Kendra’s hair. “I don’t think I’m going to have time to blow it out.”
“No worries, Candy cane. Next time.”
Shit. Is that nickname going to stick? I roll my eyes in the mirror and set the scissors down on the tray. “I’ll book my own schedule,” I say to Angel. And then I turn to Sver. “Five minutes.”
He grimaces but gives a quick nod.
Pulling out a sheet of paper from the desk drawer, the girls shout out treatments they need, and I organize them so that I can work through as many as possible. I leave it on the desk so that they know their times and then turn. “My job at the bar?”
Angel frowns at me. “I’ll call and get you a leave.”
“Thank you.” Until I can ask some questions about how long I’m going to be working here, I’d like to have a backup in place. I’ve gone without far too often to be careless with a job, even one I hate. I stop, not in front of Sver, but Angel. “Do you think we could…umm…talk tomorrow?”
He gives a quick nod, but his eyes are scanning the other women around the room. “You don’t need to say it, ladies, I already know what you want.”
“You better,” Kendra says from her chair. “We work here because you protect your girls, Angel. That includes Candy.”
I turn back to see several of the women nodding. Are they protecting me?
Sver comes next to me, wrapping his arm around my waist. I let him pull me out of the room and load me into his car.
He pulls out of the parking lot, but my thoughts are back at the club. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed the place.
Or how relieved I am to know that Angel and I are on decent footing. I don’t have family, haven’t in a long time. I’m not sure when that club started feeling like mine. “Thank you for…everything,” I murmur over the hum of the engine.
Sver looks over at me. “Are you thanking me for last night or this morning?”
I meet his gaze, nipping at my lip. It’s a fair question. “Well, I’m really happy to be alive.”
He winks at me.
“But I’m glad to see Angel again. He’s like…” I look up at the car ceiling. “He’s kind of like a brother, I guess. He probably doesn’t think of me like that, but for me, he begrudgingly keeps me safe, all the while being kind of annoyed with me. I don’t have many connections so…”
Sver’s hand comes to my thigh. “Me neither. Just my daughters who, as you know, don’t speak to me.”
I look over at him, and I have to bite my tongue not to ask really stupid questions or make needy suggestions. Things like…I could be your family.
I’ve tried to love a man before, but the ones I pick are not family material. A Bratva hitman is not going to be the guy who gives me some big romantic moment and then a happy ending.
Most girls would be asking a different question. One like, why would I even want a happy ending with Sver? A man that dangerous…
But I don’t care about that at all. I just want a man who’s good to me. Then again, I can’t seem to pick the kind of guy who actually treats me with kindness and respect.
The problem, I think, is that my life has been too dark. I want a guy who understands the darkness too. Even knows how to fight it.
But every man I’ve tried just turns his dark on me.
“You’re awfully quiet,” Sver says, pulling me from my thoughts.
My hand comes over his. “Sorry. It’s been a crazy day. I’m just ordering my thoughts.”
He squeezes my thigh. “I told you last night that I’m not letting anyone hurt you, right?”
I look over at him. “Last night is a bit of a blur.”
He pulls a remote from the console even as he slows the car down, coming to a stop in front of a steel gate. He presses a button and the gate rises.
I watch it go up, leaning down in my seat until it disappears into the stone wall above. He drives the car through and then presses the button to bring it down again.
“I’m not a good man.”
“So you keep saying.”
He smiles over at me. “But I can promise you that I will keep you safe until Angel and I have…”
“How come you’re so worried? I thought Marco was never coming near me again?”
Sver sighs. “He isn’t.”
“Then I’m safe, right?”
Sver parks the car, looking over at me. I can see the shadow on his face. “I just want to make sure. And until I know, we’re going to keep you tucked here with me or with Angel. All right?”
I nod, wilting into the seat. I’ve been worried about my safety for so long, to think that he’s handling it makes me feel twenty pounds lighter. “If there is anything I can do for you—”
“I can think of a few things,” he answers and then pops open his door.
My mouth goes dry as his door closes and then he’s around the car, opening my door and pulling me from my seat.
My heels hit the ground, but I’ve hardly got my feet under me when he pulls my body into his, pressing my back against the car.
I wrap my arms around his neck. Is this the deal? Safety for sex? I am so in.
Like all the way in.
Safety has been a precious commodity for me, but also, sex with Sver is other level. To me, this is a win/win.
His mouth crashes over mine, his tongue thrusting between my lips.
The last time we hooked up, there was a lot of talk and a lot of play.
This is completely different. Even as his tongue thrusts into my mouth, his hand hooks behind my right knee, pulling my leg up to open me to him.
His cock rubs my clit through my jeans, making me moan into his mouth.
He pulls back, his dark eyes staring down at me. “I’ll get your stuff later.”
I give a nod as his other forearm wraps behind my ass, lifting me into his arms. I go willingly, my torso pressed to his, my legs around his waist. He starts kissing me again, and I’m not even aware of where he’s taking me as I kiss him back.
I’m not sure if I could even explain what being in his arms feels like…
It’s hot as hell but this man saved my life, helped me reconnect with my found family. Being here in his arms feels like…the best place in the world.
And I kiss him like he’s air and I’d die if I didn’t breathe him in.
He finally breaks the kiss, looking at me, his eyes dark, his breathing shallow.
“Too much?” I ask, my own heart racing.
“No, sweet treat. I just need to unlock the door.” And then, still holding me, he presses a code into the door and then holds his thumb over a pad.
I hear the door click. He pushes it open, and I only have a moment to appreciate the space—a generous loft with vaulted ceilings and tons of light—before my back lands on a couch, his body on top of mine.
His mouth devours mine again, his hips pumping into the V of my legs. I rub against him, loving the friction, but wishing that we had on less clothes, that I could feel him inside me.
He rears up, pulling at my long-sleeve shirt.
I wriggle underneath him, helping him get it up over my head and off my arms.
“Move like that again, and you won’t be getting out of my bed for a week,” he growls as he stares down at me.
“Promise?”
That draws a small smile from his lips even as he undoes the button on my jeans, pulling the tight fabric down my legs. When he gets them off, he lies on me again, kissing a path down my chest and belly.
I dig my fingertips into his shirt, wishing I could put divots in his skin. For some reason, I want to mark him. Leave my memory on his skin.
When he reaches the top of my underwear, he hooks his fingers in either side, but doesn’t pull them down my legs. Instead, he makes them tighter so they’re pressing right where I ache. I whimper, rolling my hips underneath him.
He drops his face down to the thin fabric, sucking my clit into his mouth, underwear and all. It’s so good, I scream, a powerful pulse of pleasure racing through me.
I start thumping his shoulder, hardly able to draw in enough air as I push out. “Take off your shirt. I want to feel your skin.”
He makes this satisfied noise deep in his throat before he lifts up again, ripping his shirt off his body. “You want to feel my skin against your thighs while I make you cum?”
“I don’t want to cum yet.” I shake my head, my chest heaving up and down. “I want to touch you.”
He rips his pants down his thighs, his cock springing out at me. They’re still around his knees, but I’m up, curling my body up and then forward, so that I come to my stomach, my tongue darting out to lick the precum from the tip.
“Fucking hell, Candy.”
“You’re not sweet, you’re salty,” I say, referencing his earlier comment about my taste.
“Take more of me in, double check,” he grunts, winding his hand into my hair as he pushes his mushroom head between my lips.
I open wider, letting him slide into my mouth, my tongue gliding along the veined ridge. Hollowing out my cheeks, he keeps going until he hits the back of my throat.
It’s a lot, but I grab his hip, holding him there as his fists tighten in my hair.
When he finally pulls out, my eyes are watering, my mouth already feeling well used. “What the fuck?” he grits out before he bends down and kisses my mouth, quick and fierce and then he’s back up, pushing his cock back into my mouth.
I take him again, swallowing down all of him a second time and then a third before he lifts up and flips me onto my back once again.
This time when he fists my underwear, he rips them off. Spreading my knees, he slams into me with a force that makes my back molars snap together.
My bra is still on and my socks too. But I barely notice as I wrap my arms and legs around him, inviting him deeper.
My body tells him what my lips are afraid to say.
He can use me as much as he wants. I’d burn myself to the ground for him.