Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Anna
I t’s the perfect summer day. White fluffy clouds glide aimlessly across the blue sky. It’s not too hot, no chance of rain and I’m excited for the game. Not so much for me, but for my kids. My team.
Everything is going to plan until the ‘ringer’ my father was supposed to secure for me shows up and I want to call the whole thing off.
My father told me he would be sure to get me someone that would help our team win. I didn’t think he meant one of his goons from the poker table.
I watched the enormous blacked-out SUV pull up, then when the driver’s door opened, and the broody, dark-haired hunk stepped out, I knew immediately who he was.
Cyrus Saman.
I know because my father talks too much and tells me every monolithically boring detail about his poker games, along with descriptions of all the players. It’s fine, I take care of the profit and loss accounting for his games, so I guess he thinks I need to know more than I really do.
From what he’s told me, Cyrus is arrogant, and an asshole, at least when he’s playing cards. I’d never seen him before last night.
I was later than usual getting to the penthouse making sure the chips and money for the night were ready then securing them in the safe where only my father had access.
My father has told me many things about Mr. Saman, besides his skill at cards. He dabbles in many businesses. Some legit, some not. I know he has a thing for jewelry. Rare pieces, gems with a story behind them, antique items from history and of course, the bigger and more expensive the better.
Legit or not, that doesn’t bother me.
My father’s never been one to operate completely above the law himself, and my inherent talent for numbers had me keeping the family and business books from the age of fifteen, so I knew early on where our money came from.
I re-focus on the enormous, lumbering man walking near the dugout and wonder why he’s staring at me like I’m the cherry on top of his hot fudge sundae.
I will admit, I spent more time than usual in the shower with my handheld last night after he locked eyes with me as I left the penthouse. I felt a tap dance start down between my legs and it didn’t give up until I found relief as the warm water pulsed against my throbbing clit. Now he’s standing here, arms crossed, and I wonder where he got the shiner because it wasn’t there when I saw him last night.
Sweat breaks out on my forehead and my palms turn clammy as I make a ‘T’ with my hands and look around at my rag-tag team of volunteers and residents from the Welsh Children’s Center.
I grew up with so many advantages. My mother taught me to always be mindful of others and because of her, our holidays were often spent at soup kitchens and shelters, including the Welsh Children’s center for displaced youth, exchanging our time for someone else’s comfort.
Over the years, the Children’s Center took hold of my heart thanks to a little red-headed boy with glasses and a lisp, who one Christmas morning when I was fifteen, there to help pass out gifts, that I was the prettiest girl he’d ever seen.
Now, I volunteer as head of their outreach department. Technically, I’m employed there, but I negotiated a salary of one dollar just to keep things above board for their non-profit paperwork. I also mentor and tutor several young people on math, life skills, career prep…anything and everything I can offer.
“I’ll be back. Just practice throwing,” I say to my team moving toward the sidelines, my stomach doing this wiggly, clutching thing like it did when I went to my first One Direction concert back when I was all glasses and braces and self-doubt.
I’ve never been attracted to the type of men in my father’s world. Bad boys. Dangerous men. That fascination has never been my thing. They are not my type. But, truth is, I have never found my type.
In fact, I promised myself at a very young age that if and when I decided to pursue any sort of romantic life, I would be choosing from the right side of the law.
A doctor, maybe. Teacher, possibly. Maybe an astrophysicist.
Morally gray was not going to be my favorite color.
I grew up in that kind of world and as much as I love my father and my family, I would never wish that life on my own kids. You grow up too fast. See too much. Even when they try to shield you from most of it, kids know.
My childhood was a frenzy of mobsters and gangsters coming and going at all hours. We had security guards and systems but that didn’t stop my father from getting two bullets in his chest when I was ten and my brother coming home beaten to within an inch of his life when some shady deal went south and he had no back up.
Although none of that stopped him from loving that life. He moved to Chicago to branch out the family business, and he becomes more entrenched in the darkness as the years go by.
I told myself my life would be orderly. Charities and truthful 1040’s. W-2 jobs with health benefits and 401K’s.
Unfortunately, none of that matters to my father, who is applying an inordinate amount of guilt and pressure for me to accept an engagement to one of his old business partner’s sons.
Alex Sokolov.
Ugg.
Arranged marriages in my family are as old as time itself and even my mother is not backing me up on this one. I can’t blame her. She had a small stroke a year ago and her mind hasn’t ever quite been the same. She sees everything through rose colored glasses now and even though she can carry out most of her daily activities like she used to, she’s just a little left of center most of the time.
I’d love to go to college, start my own life but in our family, the women don’t leave until you are married and right now, working at the center and keeping track of my father’s finances leaves me no time for my own dreams.
I’ve used every stalling technique in my arsenal to put off this arrangement with Alex, but next weekend there’s a special ‘dinner’ planned at our house and, reading between the lines, I’m pretty sure it’s going to be an engagement party.
I do my best to push away the thought of being a sort of broodmare, sold off to secure the family fortune or whatever, and narrow my eyes at the magnificent if not somewhat frightening Cyrus Saman marching my way in the sunlight like a walking monolith.
He’s six foot seven inches of thick muscle and darkness. He has the jutting brow but it’s balanced with a chin dimple like a Neanderthal Kirk Douglas.
He’s hard edges packed into worn Levi’s and a gray t-shirt filled out with mile wide pectoral muscles and thighs like tree trunks. His head is in proportion to his massive body and is topped with dark hair that makes my fingers twitch wishing I could reach out and see if it’s as soft as it looks.
“Are you…where is Niko Farkas daughter? Niko sent me,” he says in a voice that could melt a diamond, and I curse at my Judas nipples for tingling and standing up front and center, poking through my jersey.
“I’m his daughter. Anna.”
“No, you are fucking not.” His pinches the bridge of his nose for a moment mumbling something I can’t make out.
The hairs on the back of my neck prickle as he eyes me like I’m the creamy center of his favorite eclair. His day-old beard is obnoxiously sexy, as is the crooked angle of his nose and the glint of white teeth behind annoyingly kissable lips.
“I know who you are.” I toss the softball into my mitt a couple times, snapping my gum against my teeth. “You know how to play, I take it?”
“Yeah. State champs all through high school. Played all four years at college.”
“Why didn’t you go pro?”
“Took a line drive to my temple during the last game of my senior year. Was out for two days. Took me a couple months to recover. No one wanted to touch me after that. Too risky.”
“Huh.” I cross my arms, tapping my mitt on my left shoulder as a pulsing in my core has me trying to squeeze away the growing flutter down low. “Risky. I can believe that.”
I toss a look over to the other team, who have been giving mine condescending looks since they arrived. I smile and wave, which seems to deflate them a bit. I may look like a pampered princess but I have a competitive streak as wide as the Montana sky and a stubborn streak as tall as Everest.
When I turn back, Cyrus makes no attempt to hide the way his eyes rove over me. Wherever they touch, an invisible tongue licks and flicks over my skin—not that I would know firsthand what that feels like. But, suddenly, I’m pretty sure it would be amazing.
“So.” He squeezes his jaw bone with long, thick fingers, rubbing them back and forth, making a raspy sound on his stubble. “I’m ready to do you.”
What did he say?
I open my mouth but he quickly corrects himself, “ This. I mean. I’m ready to do this .”
A rush of blood and arousal races down from my center and into the slip of fabric between my legs. I double up on my squeezing and wonder again how he got the black eye, then wonder why it makes him even more attractive.
“We here to play or jerk off?”, one of the assholes from the other team shouts as I spin around.
“Are you kidding me with the language?” I throw up my hands, pointing toward my bench and the stands where kids from the center as young as five are watching.
And listening.
“Watch your mouth.” Cyrus steps up next to me and I swear to God he grows taller as he settles to my left, easing his body in front of mine.
My cheeks flame as my pulse thumps in my ears, both from anger but also because, oh my God. He smells so good , I start to get dizzy and I swear to Christmas, I get that little spiky pain just inside my hip bone you get when you’re ovulating.
“Doesn’t look like you are much of a fighter, so you might want to check yourself,” Cyrus says as Doug, the organizer of the other team, steps our way. But this is no place for a brawl, so I reach up and grip Cyrus’s forearm, his head snaps around, his dark eyes turning nearly black.
“This isn’t the time or place. Let’s take the high road and get the game going.” I wave Doug off and put on my biggest kiss-my-ass smile. “Let’s just get things going. We have kids here and it’s supposed to be fun.”
A low rumble comes from somewhere deep inside Cyrus, and the hard muscle in his forearm twists under my fingers as he turns with me and we work our way back toward the dugout as I wave the team in.
“We’re winning this game,” Cyrus mumbles under his breath, low and thick, and it makes me shiver in the heat. “I don’t care what we are playing for. We’re winning.”
“Well, I don’t know if you noticed but the reason I had my father recruiting me a last minute ringer is because the opposing team is made up of high-school players that just won the regional championship. Seems Doug over there, didn’t get the memo this was supposed to be fun and friendly.”
I leave out that Doug is the head of the fund-raising department at the center and has been gunning for my job. At full salary, it would be a big step up for him. He came on board two years ago, stomping in and trying to imply I didn’t know what I was doing and that I was misusing funds.
I took the high road as I usually do.
To an outside observer, I fit the dumb-blonde bimbo-y stereotype, but I’m none of those. Besides the blonde. Makes people underestimate me.
I gave good ole Doug week to settle in, get to know me, then when he tried to humiliate me in a senior staff meeting, thinking I was some delicate flower, I blasted him with both barrels. Setting him straight on exactly where I spent my budget down to the last nickel.
Let’s just say, we haven’t been rubbing noses or elbows since.
Cyrus’s brow knits together, the set of his jaw turns frightening as he points toward the youngest player on our team, Brittany. She’s one of my mentees and tutoring students as well.
She’s tiny for her age due to neglect and malnutrition, but she’s bright with wide brown eyes and wild, curly auburn hair. After two years at the center and working with me and an entire team, she is just starting to realize the world isn’t full of monsters.
“Youngest is first at bat. Then, me.” Cyrus stares at me with a determined look and heat gathers in my center as my heart batters around inside my chest. “Trust me. I have a plan.”
This man is the last thing that should interest me, but God, I can’t keep my eyes off him. He’s lit up something unfamiliar and wicked inside me and I remember how I fantasied about him in the shower last night.
God help me, I imagined his tongue flicking at my clit. I wondered about his cock, if it was as huge and intimidating as he is…his scent is not helping as I soak my panties and try to ignore the ache in my pussy.
“Brittany.” I call to her with a smile and a clap. “You are going to be up first!”
“ Yay! ” She bounces off the bench, fist pumping the sky as I walk over and hand her a small bat, getting her tiny fingers in place.
“Now, remember how we practiced. Watch the pitcher, watch the ball, and swing .”
“Got it.” She nods as I put the oversized batter’s helmet on her tiny head.
I look over to see Cyrus, leaning against the fence where the rest of my team is watching and clapping in encouragement wearing their bright blue ‘Team Anna’ t-shirts.
The opposing team members jog onto the field as I step back, tossing my mitt and ball onto the bench.
I square my shoulders, crossing my arms standing next to this man who seems to be stripping me with his eyes.
I remind myself he’s not my type. Not in the least bit.
We stand in silence as the pitcher winds up and throws a full force fast pitch that passes just inches from Brittany’s face. She lunges forward, spinning herself around with the force of her swing and landing on her rear end in the dirt.
“ Hey! ” Cyrus’s voice booms next to me as I turn to see his bottomless dark eyes flame with anger. “Watch your pitch or I’ll come out there and we can have a man to man about sportsmanship. She’s a little kid… asshole .” He lowers his voice on the last word as my pulse speeds.
This man is a complete stranger, but I already know we are in this together somehow, and I throw my hands up and shooting a glare at Doug.
“Really?” I yell toward where he stands along the first base line. He offers a nonchalant shrug, spitting on the ground near his feet and kicking at the dirt.
Brittany pushes to her feet, looks my way, her helmet crooked but she has a stubborn set to her jaw as she twists her hands on the bat and kicks at the dirt, getting her feet into place, shifting her hips back and forth a few times before nodding to the pitcher as if she’s saying, bring it.
“Just do your best,” I tell her, clapping as she takes her bat raised, eyes forward.
I glare at the pitcher, silently telling him he better take it easy, but as soon as I see his wind up, I know that’s not what’s going to happen. Little Brittany leans in, the pitch is fast, faster than the last and her helmet droops over her eyes.
She releases one hand from the bat, reaching to push the helmet back, shifting her off balance for a second. One shuffle of her feet, one wobble and her tiny head is right in the line of fire.
It all happens in a second. I launch myself forward but Cyrus is ahead of me when the gut-wrenching crack sends up a scream from Brittany, gasps from the crowd as our entire team empties the bench.
Cyrus slides on his knees next to Brittany's small, crumpled form in the dirt.
“Oh my God.” My hands are shaking as I brush her hair back and see the gash above her left eye, a purple lump rising as her eyes roll back white and her tiny body turns rigid.
“I’m going to fucking kill you!” Cyrus’s hand cradles her tiny head, easing her helmet off with his massive body shaking in anger.
There’s a flurry of activity all around us as I lean down and whisper soothing words into her ear as she twitches and curls into a ball. Cyrus stays next to me, holding her like a broken doll.
“She needs the hospital.” He swivels his head, locking on to the pitcher who is now standing at the sideline surrounded by his teammates. “You are so fucking lucky I’m more interested in taking care of her than killing you.”
Brittany’s eyes flutter and she looks up at me, then Cyrus. Spitting some dirt from her mouth before asking, “Did I hit a home run?”
“You sure did,” Cyrus answers before I can. “You won the game.”
She smiles as he gently moves his hands, picking her up as he stands.
“Let’s go get her checked out. I’ll drive.”
This monster of a man showing this much attention to a little girl he doesn’t even know only makes me want him more. The butterflies in my stomach flutter to life as Brittany starts to chatter at him like she’s known him her whole life.
He’s making her feel safe. I see it and I understand. He’s making me feel the same way.
Yet, at the same time, I’m ten kinds of confused. He’s nothing like what I want or need. He’s part of my family’s world. Gamblers and thugs and criminals, albeit all very well dressed. That’s the world I swore I would someday leave behind when I decided to start my own family.
But, here I am. Following him instead of dismissing him. Letting him lead the way because he has this calm dominance that makes me follow him like a puppy.
And I never want to follow.
But with him, I want to do that.
And so much more.