Unprotected with the Mob Boss: A Dark Mafia Romance (Alekseiev Bratva) by Fox, Nicole (classic books for 12 year olds .TXT) 📗

unhooks her bra and tosses it to me. Her breasts sway with her movement. It’s hard to not imagine my mouth on them, my hand cupping them both as I’m fucking her from behind. Just a finger brush against the nipple to feel it stiffen under my touch.

My face must be an open book, because it takes only a moment for her smile to widen. She’s glowing with pride at turning the tables on me. All I can do is laugh and shift around to try to hide the growing steel between my legs. I can’t let her know just how dramatic of an effect her body has on me.

“It looks like my tactic is working,” she says confidently. “Deal again.”

I shuffle the cards, but I keep my eyes on her. She smiles at me. She knows she has me. God, I could fuck her over and over. I could fuck her so hard, it would destroy that ten thousand dollar couch and I’d just move on to fucking up the next piece of furniture.

“I think you’ve shuffled enough,” she mentions, her finger trailing between her breasts.

“You’re far too confident,” I say. I lean forward to place the two cards between her breasts. I let my hand linger as I feel her sharp inhale.

“Don’t hate the player, hate the game,” she says. “Specifically, the person who invented the new rules.”

I pull my hand back and place two cards in front of me.

“Let’s get you naked,” I say. I flip over three cards. “Raise?”

“Nah.”

I check my cards before flipping the next card.

“Raise?” I ask again.

“Nope.”

I flip the last card and look up at her. It’s hard to focus on her face.

“I’m not going to raise,” she says. I lay down my cards.

“Two pair,” I say.

“Mmm.” Her eyes crinkle as she smiles wider.

“You have a better hand.”

“You don’t know that,” she argues.

“You’re smiling like you won the lottery. You weren’t smiling that much in the beginning, so you either have a better two pair or three of a kind. I’m going to go with the latter.”

“Three ladies!” she says, laying down her queen. “I should have raised. That means I have to make this question a good one.”

“Go ahead.”

She contemplates me, her eyes skimming over mine like she can see right through me—see all my thoughts clanging against each other.

“Tell me about your parents.”

“That’s not a question.”

“Okay. What was your childhood like?”

As much as I want to, I can’t pass on the question. It would violate our agreement on the game’s rules. “Chaotic.”

I gather up the cards, pushing them together until they’re stacked.

She reaches forward, her breasts baiting me. She snatches her bra from my lap and starts putting it back on. We lock eyes.

“If you don’t play by the rules, then I’m not going to,” she says.

“I answered the question. If you wanted a different answer, you should have asked a different question.”

She finishes clasping the back of her bra. She fixes the straps. “And I took off my clothes. Now I’m putting them back on. I’m certain my father won’t find it strange at all that I don’t know what your parents do.”

She picks up her shirt. The fear yanks at me again like a parachute being pulled. I’m not this cowardly.

“They’re both dead,” I whisper. “You can spin any love story about them that you want to.”

“Did they die because of …”

She trails off. The word Bratva stings the room. I stare at her, watching her features change from angelic to human—downright untrustworthily human.

I see my parents in her face—two backstabbers who were born to destroy each other.

I shuffle the cards but I don’t answer her question. There are two sides to every story. In this case, both sides are ugly.

My ringtone starts to play. I pull it out of my pocket.

“Ilya,” I answer.

“Members of the Colosimo family have taken the VIP tables at Black Glacier.”

There’s a small edge in his voice, but he’s mostly calm.

“I’ll be there,” I say.

I set the cards down and stand up. I have to give Duilio’s son credit for the strategy. It would be reckless for me to attack them without knowing what they want and even more reckless to attack them in my own club. It’s intimidation with a low risk of retaliation.

“You’re leaving?” Allison asks. I focus on her, almost forgetting she was there for the briefest moment.

“Business,” I say. I bend down, cupping her face. I crush my mouth against hers, punishing her for that teasing glimpse of her body. Her fingertips touch my waist, scrambling to bring me forward. I move my hand down, slipping it under her shirt and grasping her breast. I give it a quick squeeze as my mouth moves toward her ear. “You deserve a lot worse than that.”

I pull away. Her eyes are glazed with neediness and her mouth is tinged pink.

I turn and walk out of the den. As I feel her lip balm on my mouth, I try to play over the last few seconds. I hadn’t decided to kiss her. It was instinctual. This city—my city—is a jungle, and out here, instinct can be life-saving or fatal. In this case, I don’t see it saving my life.

As I get into the car—a gleaming Cadillac that has been hibernating in the garage—my thoughts trail back to my parents. I loved my mother. I don’t blame her for anything. But she’s still a reminder that Allison can only be a sexual partner.

Anything more is risky. Show her too much of the man behind the curtain, and I invite danger into my own home. A woman who needs more from me than I can give …

And my blood on the ground when she inevitably stabs me in the back.

* * *

If Mariya’s Revenge is my pride and joy, Black Glacier is my shame and misery.

I keep it open for the Bratva, but the police are suspicious of any nightclubs under the Alekseiev name because of my father. If I could drop it,