29. Adrik
ADRIK
U ninterested in pausing with the calls I had to follow up on during the time that the chef would have my dinner prepared, I stayed in my office and leaned back in my chair.
“Thank you for looking into this matter,” I told the informant who was only now getting back to me from the other side of the world.
It was easy to feel like we were remote here in the desert, near the border and working out of Las Vegas, but everything was connected.
From Bogota to Moscow. From Toronto to Madrid.
Crime families never lasted long when they stayed within one area, and that was something that my father handled well.
Reaching out to claim friends and determine enemies. Branching out to investigate who was an enemy of our enemy.
Global connections helped us to diversify, but it seemed that with what Elena found out about this network that had been growing for years, right under my father’s nose, others were utilizing that same approach.
For the better part of two days now, I had been contacting old allies and former targets who owed me favors.
In the vein of learning more about the individual who was gathering finances against the Bratva, I was calling those who might be able to shed more light about the possibilities of a secret network or alliance forming.
It seemed impossible for no one to know about this, but based on what Elena was forwarding to me and emailing me, this was an awfully complicated web of secrecy.
Changing names. Switching to other service providers. Jumping around with legal representation—which almost always seemed like a red herring.
If my uncle was alive and scheming to create a large network, he was taking every detail into consideration and plotting this down to the most minute matter.
This wasn’t the work of one man, though, and part of what I was hoping to find out through these friendly calls was to see who else could be working with my uncle.
If it’s him.
Done with another call, I set my phone down and wished that part of this mess didn’t feel like a question.
Not knowing if my uncle was alive added immense stress to my life. He was supposed to have been dead for many years. He was supposed to have been dismissed long ago as a traitorous stain on a difficult time in our family.
But if he were alive and working against us?
I growled, letting out a deep exhale as I set my head back.
I didn’t want to know how much worse this could get.
Anticipation had filled me since the doctor explained my father’s fate. The prognosis after his stroke wasn’t a rosy one, and from that day, I counted on being the next Pakhan. As I should.
What I hadn’t counted on—yet—was having to prepare the Bratva for a potential conflict like my uncle rising from the dead.
Recognizing that a war was coming added an extra dose of hell to the worries I shouldered.
But I couldn’t have called myself a leader, even an interim one, if I dismissed all that Elena was presenting to me.
Someone had been gathering and redirecting finances for many years, seemingly to counter our wealth and power. And if it wasn’t my uncle, I had to consider how facing this enemy would turn out.
If he’s him…
I shook my head, scowling.
What is it? He wants to present a real challenge to the Bratva throne? Why now? Because Father is dying? That wasn’t planned. That stroke just happened. Father never told anyone about his cancer discovery.
Tension tightened in my body as another thought hit me.
Maybe someone knew about his status, though. A doctor or technician could have leaked that information, and if it got into the wrong hands and Gregori wanted to pick up where he left off with his last attempt to get the throne…
I refused to let that happen. It couldn’t.
I was next in line. The dynasty passed on from father to son.
And if there were no sons, then to brothers and then the sons again.
With four of us brothers, Gregori would need to wait for my father’s death and take out all four of us. That wasn’t happening.
But maybe that had been part of his plan back then. To kill Grandfather and Father and swoop in before I was even close to an age to lead.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway, and before I could prepare myself for anyone coming into my office, Elena was there.
She jumped back slightly in surprise, seemingly unaware I could’ve been in here. “Oh.”
She lowered her gaze, but with another second, she faced me again.
Hmm.
She’d walled me off. I got that. And I couldn’t blame her with how stupid I’d been about approaching her. Yet, she was still professional enough to be a good little employee and give me the attention I was due as her boss.
“Nikolai mentioned that you’d be at dinner,” she said.
“I worked through it.”
She nodded. “Ah. Um. Well, I was just coming to drop off these files and reports for you to go through when you have time.” She came only close enough to set the files on the edge of the desk.
“I will know which route to proceed with once you’ve given me your input about the possible leads I should follow. ”
I watched her, wishing she could be the partner I needed and wanted. But I was the one who’d fucked that up.
“Thanks,” I muttered.
She nodded once more, but before she turned to leave, she bit her lip and hesitated. “I’m sorry that I’m stressing you out.”
I raised my brows. I wasn’t sure how to interpret that. Unless my brothers were talking shit and telling her that I missed her and wanted her—admissions I hadn’t told them out loud—she could only be assuming that I was so hung up over her.
She gestured her hand at the papers she’d just left me. “With all the evidence I’m finding and the money trails with this network… I’m guessing it hasn’t been easy to consider such a, um, collective enemy wanting to bring you down.”
Oh.
Yeah, of course that’s what she meant.
“I know it doesn’t matter?—”
I gritted my teeth and might not have masked my growl very well.
“Um, I know my apology doesn’t change anything, but I am sorry to be the messenger and bring you bad news.”
How the fuck do you think I feel, then? I didn’t just deliver the bad news about her father dying. I’d made it happen and warned her when it would.
I didn’t feel bad about killing Morovov.
But I felt like shit that it was pushing me away from her.
“I appreciate that,” I replied sincerely.
Her apology wouldn’t change anything. She was right about that. But I appreciated her integrity and perception, her ability to give a shit even when she hated me.
“Is there anything I can do?” she asked.
I lifted my head to stare her down.
It was a déjà vu moment, taking me right back to the last time she was in this office alone with me. When she’d offered to help me however she could when she noticed how angry I was.
“Other than researching this and investigating everything better than a trained professional could?” I asked as I stood.
She nodded, looking at me so eagerly like she was searching my face for a clue.
Now that I’d embraced the sensation of déjà vu, of feeling like I’d gone through this exact moment with her before, I wasn’t ready to let go of it.
I wasn’t ready to let go of her.
Of the chance of us .
She stood still, watching me warily as I walked around her.
Angling close enough but not so much that I’d brush against her, I noticed the barely hidden desire in her eyes. She was still just as aware of me as before. She was still drawn to me. Like I was to her.
I knew how this ended last time. But I wasn’t a moron. I could learn from my mistakes.
I passed her to close the door and lock it.
She stayed stock still, right where she was without turning to face me.
This time, if she let me get my hands on her and my dick inside her, I was not letting go. I wasn’t letting stupid, nagging worries about complications and being distracted hold me back.
She wasn’t making me weak. I was making myself weak by needing her and never letting us have something more than a quick, hard fuck. Because that would never be enough where she was concerned. My need for her was a visceral, breathing monster of lust that burned and ravaged me from the inside out.
I walked around her, not hiding my hungry and lusty stare at all. Coming to stand behind her, watching the goosebumps pepper over the exposed skin at her neck, under her collar, I let her shiver in anticipation.
“You can’t help it, can you?” I whispered.
She turned her head slightly but didn’t pivot. “What do you mean?”
“You can’t help it. Even when you hate me, you want to please me.”
She swallowed hard, and I smiled at her nervousness.
While she hesitated to answer, I slid her long, wheat-gold hair to one shoulder and bunched it around my fingers.
“Do you?” I asked again.
She nodded, just barely, already breathing so hard. “I… I don’t hate you,” she whispered.
“Then you shouldn’t mind the orders I give you.” Using my grip on her hair, I spun her until she collided with me. She slammed against my chest, putting one hand on my pec.
Slowly, with my fingers in her hair but without making her wince at the pull on her scalp, I urged her to lower to her knees. “Right now, I’m ordering you to pleasure me, Elena.” Her blue eyes seemed so much brighter as she opened them wider in surprise. Desire showed in the blush on her cheeks.
“Take my cock out and suck, sweetheart.” It left my lips as a bossy growl, but she didn’t wait. Keeping her gorgeous gaze on me, so vulnerable and obedient, she lifted her shaky fingers to my pants and unzipped me.
I ground my molars as lust and adrenaline spiked through me. I stood as still as I could, my heart racing, as her soft fingers pulled my dick out. Still, with her eyeing me, she stroked her fingertips up and down.
“Just so you know, in case I disappoint you…”
Fuck that. She was already exceeding my expectations. I was about to come right now with just the sight of her on her knees and near my dick.
“I’ve never done this before.”
Fucking. Hell.
I tried not to fist her hair too hard as she put her lips over the domed head.
She didn’t wait, going further and sucking me in almost instantly.
Her inexperience showed, but it only made it hotter.
She licked and laved. She sucked and swallowed.
By the time she moaned, as if she too was feeling turned on by this, I wondered if she’d lied.
Beginner’s luck or what, she was blowing me better than any experienced seductress I’ve ever met.
I held her hair, just to ground myself, as she fucked me with her mouth.
When she brought her other hand up to put it on my ass, she urged me to thrust into her faster.
She took me as deep as she could go, but with the stretch of her lips over me, she was damn near gagging on me.
Her eyes watered, but with her hand stroking me near the root, she kept at it with lust glittering in her gaze on me.
“Fuck!”
I pulled out, needing to come inside her. Before I could explode and shoot my cum down her throat, I backed up.
She panted, frowning up at me, until I reached lower and picked her up.
“Were you a virgin when I…?” I was too busy turning her around, bending her over the desk, to fully think straight.
“I was,” she said, panting as I flipped her skirt up and ripped her panties off.
“Fucking—” I growled, staring at her luscious bare ass as she thrust it up at me, widening her legs.
I patted at her feet, urging her to step apart more.
Then I slammed into her, driving all the way. Balls deep, I gripped her hips and closed my eyes.
So tight. So wet.
She was perfection, wrapped around me like this.
As she moaned, moving up toward me and indicating that she was delirious for me to move, I squeezed my fingers and knew that I wasn’t only her first.
She made me so rabid and feral that I could swear I’d be her last, too.
I rammed into her, fucking her tight inner walls that gloved me so slickly. Wet slaps filled the air as I watched my dick disappear into her over and over again.
Too soon, she started to come. Her thighs quivered as she cried out. Her pussy clenched me, giving off the first flutters of her orgasm.
“Oh!” She lowered, as if she couldn’t brace herself over the desk anymore. “Adrik. Yes!”
I let her stay flat, covering the mess of papers and other desktop items. Pulling her hips back to me, I set up a faster rhythm, rutting her as hard as I could until she came again.
This time, I followed her. Hovering over her as I saw stars from the exertion of such a brutal fuck, I held her close and let my dick empty every drop I had deep inside her.
Blanketing her over the desk— my desk—I closed my eyes and relished the sense of completion that I had with her. The perfection of being one with the woman I never wanted to lose at all.