Owned By The Bratva King by Jagger Cole

15

Yuri

Forget Semyon.Forget all of it, actually. Something has changed in me, but I don’t have to wonder what the cause is. I’m looking right at it.

Lying in my bed, I grin as my eyes drink her in. She’s standing under the spray of the shower in my bathroom, the door open. I watch as she pushes her wet hair back, looking up with closed eyes. Water streams down every single curve of her body.

I’m forty-five, and I’ve just spent the last five hours in bed with this girl. And yet the sight of her like this in the shower still gets my cock hard. I grin and shake my head. Something has certainly changed in me. And it’s all her doing.

I usually spend my days feeling like I’m caught in a mill—the stones grinding me as I use all my strength to keep them from destroying me. That’s life at the top of the most feared, respected, and ironclad Bratva family in the world.

But for the last few days, I’ve simply breathed. I’ve lived in the moment and closed myself away from the pressures and stress of my usual life. Besides, part of the grinding I’ve done to get to this point with my organization is making sure it does run without me. I have Maksim, and my other trusted top avtoritets. I have my nephew, Ilya, who is quickly learning the ways of his family business.

But even with all of that in place, it’s taken her to make me take that breath. It’s her falling into my world that’s given me the ability to press pause, even if it’s just for a few days.

In the shower, she bends over to soap her legs. I groan as my dick throbs. In the last three days since Petya’s party, I’ve spent almost every minute of every day in bed with her. Or else the floor. Or else my office desk, or the sofa. Or against the railing of my private deck. I have had her every way I can, except for taking her virginity.

My reasoning for not no longer has anything to do with Semyon and our dealings. That door is shut. There is no more deal, and I no longer care to involve myself with him or his business. None of it could ever be worth her. The riches of the entire world, or the power to rule it all don’t compare to having her in my arms.

But my reason for not taking that last part of her innocence is simple. Simple, and yet complicated, I suppose. The problem is, in the last few days of her being in my world, something has clicked in me. A spark I thought I’d never find, and a fire I thought I’d snuffed out is very much alive again. I very much like her. It’s much more than “like,” actually.

The problem is, River is ones of the most famously beautiful women in the world. And yet she’s still somehow made it to twenty-one with still being a virgin.

I won’t take that from her after a week of being on my boat. Not when I took her here originally against her will. Not when I’m more than twenty years older than her. Not when she’s my daughter’s best fucking friend. And not when what I feel for her has this sort of gravity.

I need it to be her who asks me for that. Because I can’t ask it of her.

I groan as she steps out of the shower and starts drying off. She looks up, and she blushes shyly when she sees me looking at her. When I grin wider, she blushes deeper. Then she wraps the towel around herself and steps into the bedroom.

“What?”

I chuckle. “Nothing. I’m just amused that a professional model and one of the Vanessa’s Dream Dreamgirls becomes bashful with me watching her in the shower.

She bites her lip. “It’s… different.”

“How so?”

She simmers, her eyes holding mine. “Well, for one because I’m not naked on those runways or in those ads.”

“This is true.”

“Or maybe it’s because the way you look at me is…” she shakes her head and blushes. “Nothing, never mind.”

“Kiska,” I say softly. She swallows and drags those big green eyes back up to me. “How do I look at you.”

“Like you’re never going to stop,” she whispers.

“And other men, with how beautiful you are, haven’t looked at you like that?”

River looks down, playing with her fingers as she stands in the doorway to the bathroom. “I’ve understood the way men look at me since I was young—even before modeling. But those looks just pure desire to have me, or to use me to an end. That’s just lust.”

“I have a confession.”

She looks up shyly.

“I lust when I look at you.”

She blushes. “Yeah, but it’s different.”

I grin. “Yes, but how is it—”

“Because no man has ever looked at me the way you do,” she breathes softly.

Our eyes lock. My lips pull into a smile. Goddamn, I can’t stop smiling with her here in my world.

River blushes and turns to the wall of built-in shelves by the doorway.

“Hey, how about some music?”

She suddenly reaches for the bluetooth speaker connected to my laptop as I sit bolt upright.

“Shit, wait—”

But she pushes the play button. Instantly, the whole bedroom is filled with…

“Okay what is that?”

I grin, even if I have a slight twinge of embarrassment in my taste in music. Especially to someone her age. I very much doubt she’s ever listened to much Russian folk music.

“What, you’re not a fan of Vladimir Vysotsky?” I smirk sarcastically.

She’s trying to hold back, but she’s clearly having a hard time not laughing. I don’t exactly blame her. Vysotsky is like the Soviet-era Russian version of Johnny Cash. Deep baritone with a country music sound. But, Russian country music, not American. So basically, Johnny Cash singing like a dramatic Bond villain, backed by a klezmer band—accordions, tubas, the whole thing.

I’ve listened to this shit my entire life, and it’s still comical to me.

“You can laugh, you’re not going to get in trouble.”

The dam breaks. Instantly, River is howling with laughter. Tears roll down her face as Vladimir belts out an upswing ballad about his grandmother’s beet farm. She blushes as she looks at me, wiping tears away.

“Oh my God, this is…”

“A classic,” I grin.

“Do you really listen to this?”

I nod, shrugging. “He was my father’s favorite singer. I grew up with this shit.”

Her smile fades. “Oh, geez, now I feel like an asshole.”

“Don’t. It’s comical, and campy. But that’s why I like it.” I smile as the memories of playing in the corner of my father’s office, listening to this stuff, flood back. “I was born when Russia was still the Soviet Union. Towards the end of it, but still. It wasn’t the happiest, sunniest of times. My father though?” I shake my head. “He was born during the second World War. He grew up during the height of the Cold War. He was…” I frown. “Let’s say he wasn’t one for smiling. I can count the number of times I saw his smile on less than ten fingers, actually.”

The Vysotsky track swells comically, blending from tuba band to a gypsy-jazz type sound.

“But this?” I chuckle. “This you can’t help but smile about.”

She grins. “You really can’t. This sounds hilarious, what are the lyrics about?”

“A soldier dying face-down in a trench.”

River makes a face. “Seriously?”

“That’s Soviet humor for you,” I chuckle as the song ends. “For the record, I grew up listening to other stuff too. I’m old but I’m not that old.”

She giggles and turns back to the bluetooth speaker. She starts scrolling through the tracks. “So what else did you grow up listening to?” She turns to smirk at me. “Soviet marching music and more tuba bands?”

“Hilarious. I was an eighties and nineties kid. We listened to smuggled-in Depeche Mode and Nirvana records.”

She grins impishly. “Oh, so classic rock?”

“Careful,” I growl as she giggles.

“I actually love Depeche Mode. More of Pearl Jam girl when it comes to grunge, though.”

“Well, no one’s perfect.”

She giggles again. God, I’ll never get tired of that giggle. I stand, naked as I move towards her. She drags her teeth over her lip, glancing down at my nudity. But I brush past her and scroll to a new track on the speaker. I turn to grin at her.

“I hope you’re ready for this.”

“For what—”

The Russia hopak folk music blasts through the room. Instantly, I drop into the dance position—the sitting position with my arms crossed stiffly. My legs kick out, my thighs staying at the ninety-degree angle.

River losses her mind. She howls with laughter—tears running down her face as she holds her sides. I bark the shouted verses with the folk music. I kick furiously, keeping my face stern and scowling. Which is extremely difficult with how much she’s laughing.

When the song ends, she’s literally on the floor, laughing as the tears flood down her face. I grin and take a dramatic bow. River gets to her feet and falls laughing into my arms. She looks up, and she’s still laughing when my mouth finds hers.

But then the kiss grows deeper. I pull the towel from her and let it drop. Her body presses to mine, and her laughter turns to a soft moan.

It doesn’t matter that I’m not technically fucking her. This is the most intimate I’ve ever been, with anyone. This is lust, but it’s also something bigger. It’s something I thought I’d felt before, but now know I was wrong.

I reach over and push the play button. Depeche Mode’s Precious fills the bedroom as she sinks into my arms.

I don’t know what’s happening to me. I don’t know what she’s doing to me. But I know there’s no going back. There’s no taking any of this back.

Only forward. With her.