Alexei: A Mafia Love Story: Dark Erotic Romance (3 page)

Instead, Alexei seemed content to just stare at her bared breasts. “Beautiful. Generous. I will taste them soon, but you don’t deserve such consideration yet. Until you learn to mind your manners, you’ll receive no pleasure. Only pain.”

She glared at him, wishing she had an intelligent retort. The best she could come up with was, “I’d rather suffer than be subjected to your version of pleasure.”

“Then I have no doubt you’re in for a treat,
lisichka
. Until you learn to control that tongue, pain is all you’ll know.”

She was saved from having to make a response by the car abruptly stopping. Within seconds, the back door nearest him opened, and she tried to scramble off his lap to make a break for it.

He held her easily, making sure she saw him roll his eyes as he clamped her closer to him before climbing from the car, still holding her against him. Her shirt gaped open, and she crossed her arms over her chest to hide her nudity.

“Will you be a good girl and walk, or should I start stripping you right here?”

It just about killed her, but she straightened her spine and wiggled her feet, an unspoken demand to be put down. He set her down beside him, one hand still firmly gripping her upper arm. At least it provided enough space for her to be able to cover herself as he marched her into a large house. It was dark, obscuring many of the details, but she was certain she saw high walls surrounding them, along with a crow’s nest perched at the top of each corner. There appeared to be men holding large guns as they walked the walls, and it was disconcertingly like entering a war zone.

He pushed her in front of him, making her walk a step ahead, keeping her focused on the trajectory he had set, though she had no idea of their destination. He continued to maintain his firm hold on her arm as he dragged her up three flights of stairs before stopping in front of a door that was painted black and had no knob on the outside. Her eyes widened when Alexei pressed his hand to a metal plate, and it was only then that the door opened.

Clearly, the door was secured by biometrics, and she didn’t have to ask to know hers wouldn’t be a match. Considering the sophisticated security system, she expected him to be leading her into a network of cells or something, perhaps surrounded by torture devices, though she had no knowledge for him to torture from her. Instead, he took her to a nondescript room that could have doubled as guestroom in any of the nicer homes in the area. There was a large bed with a white duvet, blonde oak furniture, and a television on the TV stand.

He herded her through the room before she had much of a chance to look around, taking her to a bathroom. It was all white marble and silver taps, and dizzyingly expensive, though somewhat impersonal. “What are you doing?”

“Seeing to your head.”

Alexei positioned her in front of the sink, giving her a glare that seemed to warn her not to move, before he opened the medicine cabinet. As he searched through the meager contents, she did a visual inventory, but found nothing that could be used as a weapon. It held nothing more than a few bottles of things like pain reliever and allergy medicine, along with bandages and travel-size toiletries, and a small first-aid kit.

“Don’t even think about it.”

She looked away from the bottle she’d been reading to look at him. “Think about what?”

“Overdosing. There are only a few capsules in each bottle, and even if you mix them all together, it wouldn’t be enough to kill you.”

She glared at him. “I’m not going to kill myself to get away from you.”

He nodded. “It’s good to know you’re strong,
lisichka
. It will make it that much more of a challenge and more fun to tame you.”

She rolled her eyes as he dabbed at the wound on her forehead with something that stung. “You’re not going to tame me. I already told you I’m not a pet.”

He took a moment to smooth the Band-Aid on the wound before he gave her a cocky grin. “With a little petting and caressing, you will be
lisichka
.”

She glared at him. “I’m not a fox.”

“With all those claws and all that hissing, you do a very good impression of being a wild animal,
milaya moyna
.”

“Tara,” she said through gritted teeth. “Just call me Tara.”

“Tara is not a name for a lover. You will be my lover, and so you will be called sweet things.” His expression changed, becoming darker and foreboding. “As soon as you become sweet.”

She tried to cross her arms over her chest before remembering her hands were still bound. “Are you ever going to cut me loose?”

He nodded, reaching into his pocket to pull out an ornate knife with skulls and roses carved into the handle. It was a beautiful, lethal piece of work. She struggled to hide any fear as he opened the blade and slid it between the plastic binding her hands to cut her free. She stared at it a moment longer as it moved away before she started to rub her wrists. “And my ankles?”

Alexei inclined his head once, but his gaze caught hers, and his expression was serious. “If you try any of that shit you did on my man, like kicking me, you will hurt. Do not misbehave.”

It was so tempting to just kick him in the head when he knelt down, but she forced herself to push through that reaction. It was immature and purely sparked by him telling her not to. She had a tendency to overreact and be quick to anger, as was the curse common to redheads, but she had to rein in that urge if she was going to survive this and manage to escape. For now, she should be trying to make him think she was no threat and wouldn’t be trying to run away. She couldn’t quite see managing that impossible task, but she could try being smarter about her interactions with the Russian gangster kneeling at her feet.

A moment later, he had removed the plastic and stood in front of her again. “Now what?” she asked reluctantly.

“Now I go back to my life, and if you’re lucky, I remember you’re here. If not, you simply cease to exist, Tara Noland.”

He spoke so casually, and with so little regard, that she didn’t have much trouble believing he might actually forget he had left her here. He might abandon her to starvation or who knows what other horrible fate?

All of his blustering and sick words about making her his pet might have been simply to toy with her. A man like him, it was likely as soon as she was out of his sight, she would be far from his mind. She should be grateful for that, even if it meant she was being left here to die slowly, but she couldn’t deny a dart of regret when he turned and exited the bathroom without speaking to her again.

Surely, it was simply self-preservation and not wanting to be abandoned to a slow and painful death, rather than regret at not ever seeing him again, should that come to pass. Any other reason would be pure madness.

What the hell was he doing? Alexei went straight to his room and the bar there, pouring a generous serving of vodka before pacing around his suite as he chastised himself for snatching her and bringing her to his home. His motherfucking home! What had he been thinking? It would have been simpler and cleaner to just shoot her at the club. She could have fallen beside that scum Slava and been dealt with by the cleaner who was even now sanitizing the location.

He hadn’t been able to think about hurting his little fox though. From the moment he’d put his arms around her to keep her from running away, he’d been lost. If he were being honest with himself, he had probably been lost before that.

He couldn’t help watching her when she came to his club, and she’d been destined to be his from the moment she had crossed his path. She just hadn’t realized it until tonight. As difficult as the situation was, and put him in a precarious position of having a witness to his elimination of Slava, he didn’t exactly regret the turn of events. It brought Tara under his control.

Control? He snorted softly as he tossed back the expensive vodka like it was water. Controlling Tara would be a challenge, he had no doubt. She was guaranteed to fight him every step of the way, which would make her submission that much sweeter.

Just thinking about her yielding to him, her words adoring, and her expression full of passion for him, sent another sharp ache through his groin. He’d had an almost constant hard-on since the moment he first touched her, and holding her wiggling body in the car had done nothing to ease the throbbing.

If she hadn’t been such a disrespectful little bitch, he would be buried balls-deep in that sweet pussy right now. His cock jumped at the thought, and with a groan of impatience, he went to his bathroom, shedding his clothes along the way. He turned the water on hot, unable to resist the urge of picturing her inside the stall, perhaps on all fours with her ass in the air. That would be a lovely sight, to see those lush globes pointed upward. He couldn’t wait to explore all of her curves, and to feel her pussy wrapped around him.

He stepped into the hot water, allowing it to wash away the stresses of the day as he clamped a hand around his shaft and stroked himself while thinking of her. Soon, he would allow himself to have the real thing, but not until she had learned to mind her manners. His little fox needed some obedience lessons before she deserved rewards.

***

No one had bothered her through the night, and she eventually crawled into the bed when exhaustion took over. She hadn’t wanted to sleep, with it making her feel even more vulnerable, but the reality was she couldn’t do anything to fight off anyone who came for her anyway. A few hours of sleep would serve her better than complete exhaustion.

The bed had been delightfully comfortable, and she probably would have slept for hours longer if a creaking sound hadn’t caught her attention. She sat up abruptly, clutching the coverlet to her bared chest. There had been no way to secure her shirt closed, and she wasn’t going to bare all voluntarily.

A scraping caught her attention, coming from near the door, and she cautiously eased out of bed to peek over the footboard. A tray sat on the floor near her door, and as she padded closer on bare feet, she saw a built-in hinged section at the bottom of the door, so things could be passed in and out of her room without opening the entire door. Disappointment welled when she realized it would be that much harder to escape. Her only chances would come when Alexei came to visit her, if he did. He still might forget all about her in this deep, dark hole.

She knelt by the tray, eyeing the food doubtfully. It looked good and smelled wonderful, but she was cautious. What if it was poisoned? That didn’t seem as likely as another possibility that occurred to her. She remembered reading somewhere that people sold into slavery were often forcibly addicted to drugs to make it easier to control them. Could they put something in her food? She didn’t know enough about drugs to be certain, but she decided not to take the chance.

Despite the rumbling in her stomach, she ignored the tray and went to the bathroom, settling for a drink from the faucet to fill her stomach instead. It was meager compensation, but was the safer option.

As she stripped off for a quick shower, she realized at least someone knew she was here and was remembering to feed her. She didn’t know if that boded well or not, because if she was forgotten, they wouldn’t hurt her. But if they forgot about her being there, she’d starve to death.

She might do that anyway, since she couldn’t be certain the food was safe. The warm shower did little to clear her mind, and she dried off in a hurry before putting on her slacks and torn shirt again. She got the idea of fastening the closures with dental floss as she was brushing her teeth, but there were no holes on the side where the buttons had been to thread the string through, and she had nothing sharp with which to make punctures.

Disgusted, she returned to her room, pleased to find the tray was already gone. That would make it less likely for her to give in to the temptation of eating.

In an effort to distract herself, she poked and prodded through the room in search of anything to do. There were a few books, all older than she was, and four of the five were in Russian. The fifth was a classic that had never been one of her favorites, but she sat down and tried to read, even as her mind churned with thoughts and fear.

Had anyone yet noticed she was missing? Tonya was expecting her to duck out of her life, and her sister was self-absorbed enough to be unlikely to notice Tara wasn’t in the apartment when she came home again—whenever that might be, and for however long, since Tonya was moving to her own place soon.

She couldn’t rely on coworkers to miss her, because she worked from home, where she ran a translation business online. Tara had always had a gift for languages, and she was fluent in Spanish and French, besides English, and there was never a shortage of jobs to keep her busy. She bit back a groan as she remembered the list waiting on her spreadsheet, along with the corresponding files saved on her laptop. If she didn’t get out of here soon, it would destroy her business and her reputation. It was another reason to hate Alexei Varnakov, as if she needed more.

Lunch came and went, and she disregarded that tray as well, still concerned about what might be hiding in the food or drink. By the time dinner rolled around, she was sick of the book she’d been trying to read, and her stomach was rumbling loud protests at her refusal to even glance at whatever smelled so good. She was thankful there was a salver atop so she wasn’t as tempted as she might have been if she had actually looked at the food.

Eventually, a hand lifted the door and reached in to retrieve the tray. She thought about trying to get the person’s attention, perhaps even ask them to let her out, but there was no point. Whoever it was worked for Alexei, and they were unlikely to turn against the mafia man and risk saving his prisoner.

The hours ticked by with excruciating slowness, and she held her breath every time she heard any sort of noise, figuring it would be Alexei coming for her. He didn’t come that night, and she was torn between relief and annoyance at being ignored. It was a stupid reaction, because she should be thankful that he seemed to have forgotten about her, but she couldn’t help being irked that he would just park her in this room and completely forget about her.

Sleep was harder to come by that night, and not because the bed was any less comfortable. It was still the best mattress she’d ever slept on, but hunger made it difficult to fall asleep, as did the expectation that the door might open at any point, even late into the night. It wasn’t until the first streaks of dawn were visible through the window that she finally managed to drop off, sleeping right through breakfast.

***

“Lyosha?”

He looked up at the sound of his diminutive, nodding to his bodyguard, Yuri. “Yes?”

“I don’t know if you care, but the bitch you brought home hasn’t touched her food in two days.”

Alexei froze in the process of typing a message on his computer, looking more closely at Yuri. Considering she had kicked him in the chest, he was unsurprised to find his man didn’t seem to care that she was on a hunger strike. Idiot woman. Not eating would do her no good. “Send eggs to her room. I’ll be there shortly.”

Yuri nodded, his expression blank as he turned and left the room.

Alexei finished sending the message to Vasile, deliberately omitting the signature from the bottom, while using his father’s email account. His uncle was not yet aware of Ivan’s decline in health, and Alexei was in no hurry to inform his uncle. As head of the East Coast, his uncle would be well within his rights to assign an outsider as
Pakhan
to their city, and Alexei wasn’t on board with that. He wanted to protect his father’s legacy, and he didn’t want to kowtow to someone who hadn’t earned his respect, and was simply higher in the hierarchy than him, so could be given authority over him. He didn’t like that thought at all.

Once finished, he pushed away from his desk and strode across the study, opening the door and taking the stairs two at a time. He couldn’t deny a rush of excitement at seeing his
lisichka
again, though he had been deliberately ignoring her. He was trying to temper his own reaction, and he was also trying to humble Tara, so she would learn her place quickly.

He hadn’t anticipated the stubborn woman deciding to go on a hunger strike, and that couldn’t be allowed to continue. She needed her strength for what he had in mind for her, and if he had to push the food down her throat himself, he would do so.

A tray awaited on the floor in front of the door, and he bent to lift it before pressing his hand to the biometric panel that opened the door. A moment later, he stepped inside without bothering to knock. Knocking would show respect she didn’t yet deserve.

She sat in a wingback chair near the balcony, though he had not yet unlocked the French doors for her to be able to use it. He didn’t trust her not to throw herself off. He didn’t think his little fox was suicidal by any means, but she was obviously foolish and a bit desperate, so she might hurl herself three stories down in an ill-prepared escape attempt.

She had been in the process of brushing her hair, and it was striking to see the long strands yielding to the gentle strokes as the silver-handled brush glided through her hair. His groin tightened, throbbing with need at the sight. He had the urge to wrap her long strands around his hand and stroke his cock with them. It was ridiculous to want to fuck every part of her, including her hair.

She wore a startled expression at his entry, and the brush trembled in her hand before she set it on the table beside the chair. She didn’t speak to him, and after a moment of looking at him, she deliberately glanced away. Her expression was a cool mask, but he could see by the slight quaver of her lips she was nervous.

Good. She should be.

He didn’t have to fake any of his anger or annoyance when he slammed the tray onto the table beside her. “Eat.”

She still didn’t look at him, but her lips thinned, and her displeasure was obvious. “No.”

He growled in frustration. “You aren’t here to starve to death,
lisichka
.”

She shivered at the endearment, but she didn’t request he not use it. Instead, she managed to look almost at him, though still glancing more over his shoulder than at his face. It was an annoying gesture, one clearly designed to push his buttons.

“I’d rather starve than live here with you.”

Damn, she was infuriating. Moved by anger, he snatched up the salver covering the plate and tossed it with little regard for its landing. Fluffy scrambled eggs covered the plate, and though he had eaten his breakfast just a short time ago, they smelled good enough to pique his appetite as well. He saw her nose twitch, and he was aware of her shuddering breath before she deliberately looked away from the tray. So, his little fox was interested in food, but too stubborn to eat it. “Why would you want to starve? Do you really want to let those luscious curves waste away,
lisichka
?”

“Tara,” she said through gritted teeth. “I’m not touching the food or anything else you give me to drink. I don’t know what you put in it.”

He stared at her for a moment, his brain processing her words. Before he could stop himself, Alexei laughed. “You think I’m planning to poison you, Tara?”

She shrugged, still not looking at him or the food. “Either that, or maybe you’re planning to get me hooked on drugs or something so I’ll cooperate with you.”

He laughed again, stabbing a bite of eggs onto the fork as he lifted it toward her. “If I were going to do that, heroin would be the easiest way to control you, and that would be a needle, not your food. Now open that delectable mouth and eat.”

She kept her lips clamped stubbornly closed as he pressed the fork closer to her mouth, trying to shove the food between her lips. All he succeeded in doing was poking her with the tines, but only her slightly indrawn breath revealed any reaction even to that.

With a muttered curse, Alexei cupped her chin with one hand, applying pressure to her jaw until her mouth opened. She was shooting daggers at him with her eyes as he crammed a bite of eggs into her mouth and pulled the fork back, closing her mouth and putting his hand over her lips until she started chewing.