Bratva Boss’s Secret Triplets by Bella King
Prologue
April
Arainstorm threatens outside my bedroom window as I put myself together, meticulously applying eyeshadow until the edges of the colors blur perfectly into each other. I examine my face in the warm glow of my makeup mirror light, pulling my skin in different directions as if I had plastic surgery to correct the tiny but infuriating inconsistencies in my appearance.
I’m meeting a friend for drinks tonight, and I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it. Kelsey and I were close in college, but once she met her husband and had her first baby, I started to feel as though she was trying to distance herself from me because I don’t “get it”.
We used to have so much fun together, but now, it feels like every time I talk to her, the conversation devolves into something about raising kids or health insurance or deals at the grocery store.
It’s all so…bland. She’s a shell of herself, and I’m not sure how to face it whenever I see her.
I choose a long-sleeved black velvet shirt and light blue jeans, doing my best not to overdress as not to intimidate Kelsey, who has made a concerted effort to let me know how much she hates her appearance and body now that she’s had a baby. The poor girl’s whole body language has been stolen from her and replaced with one she can’t speak properly.
When I knew her as herself, she was an effervescent, bright girl who walked into every room with her head high and her tits out, feeling the eyes of everyone on her and not giving a single solitary fuck about it.
Now, she crosses her arms over her chest, closing her shoulders in like she’s wearing a straight jacket. It’s sad to see, but stuff like that seems to happen to women all the time. I just hope it never happens to me.
When I leave my apartment, a few raindrops have started to fall in a scattered, undefined manner on the pavement. It’s been getting cold out recently, and I’ve secretly been elated at any suggestion of bad weather. I’ve missed how cozy and dark the autumn months are, even if it inevitably leads to a horrendous, never-ending winter.
A chill blows through me as I walk to my car, my nipples poking through the thin material of my bra into my shirt. I choose not to panic or hide myself; I need to appreciate my body before I lose it like Kelsey did. I know she’ll get it back, but it’s weird to me that she ever lost it in the first place. I guess getting pregnant wasn’t something that ever crossed my mind. I don’t have time for all that.
I arrive at the bar we chose, a little wine lounge that is halfway between both of our houses. I’ve never been here before, but when I walk inside, I immediately feel as if I’m pretending to be much more elegant, social, and put together than I really am, or have ever been.
The bar is frosted glass from one end to the next, and there’s an industrial yet sleek feel to the entire place. The lighting is low, and the seating is all a deep red velvet. It’s intimidating, like I’m not supposed to be here.
I find an open seat at the bar, two open chairs next to each other at the end of the bar, near the storefront window where I can watch the rainfall as I wait for Kelsey.
The bartender approaches me, a friendly looking man with a short beard and tattoos covering both arms. “Can I get you something right away?” he asks, smiling at me warmly.
“Oh, sure, I’ll just do a whiskey sour for now,” I request. I can’t order something strong before Kelsey gets here; my alcohol tolerance is terrible.
“Yeah, of course,” he replies, walking away to start making my drink.
As I look around the bar, I try to identify the kinds of people who are in this place with me. I see a couple sharing drinks together at a small table near some stairs. The man’s expression is smug and self-involved, the woman’s unimpressed and bored as if she’s waiting to hear her number called at the DMV.
At the table behind them, there’s a group of women who appear to be celebrating their friend’s engagement. A woman in the middle of the group with sleek black hair and high cheekbones smiles endlessly, while a blonde woman next to her laughs so disingenuously that she could almost be seen as mocking. Pure, uncut jealousy like that can’t be concealed.
Thirty minutes later, Kelsey is nowhere to be found. I figured she would be a little bit late, because of the kiddos and all, and I had forgiven her for that already. Since I don’t know firsthand what it’s like, I’ll just let her come when she can.
Fifty minutes after I had arrived and drank three whiskey sours purely out of boredom, I text Kelsey. “Hey, where are you?” I ask, unsure how to ask a question like that without being a little bit annoying or confrontational.
Ten minutes after I text her, she responds, saying “oh, was that today?? I double booked myself and my son just threw up so I have to rain check. Sorry!”
I could scream.
I never get the chance to leave my apartment for any reason. After college, I became a bit of a recluse despite my abject need for human contact. Drink dates and dinner plans are sacred to me. Having someone forget about them is a huge insult.
I throw my head back and close my eyes, inhaling deeply. The whiskey in my bloodstream has warmed me from the inside out, and the meditative breaths I’ve employed to keep from screaming have made me dizzy.
Before I’m able to hastily pay and leave, I see a man staring at me from across the room, near a glass fireplace. He’s unreasonably attractive, a strong jawline and piercing green eyes complemented by a perfectly tailored, expensive suit that contains his well-muscled body effortlessly.
When I look a bit closer, I see that he’s got tattoos crawling out of the neckline and cuffs of his shirt.
My face flushes hot. It’s been so long since a man looked at me that way that my heart might explode. How do I react? Do I stare back?
It’s not long before he gets up from his seat and walks over, placing himself in the chair that I had saved for Mother of the Fucking Year.
“I’ve never seen you here before,” he says, a subtle Russian accent dissolved in his words.
“Yeah, I was going to meet someone here,” I reply, the whiskey and my painful hyperawareness sending blood right into my cheeks.
His expression changes.
He pities me.
“That sucks, you’ve been here a while, huh?” he continues, leaning on the bar. He’s clearly had a few drinks himself.
“Yeah, it’s whatever though, I was just about to leave anyway. Fuck her,” I reply, a little embarrassed that I’m exposing my hurt feelings to a total stranger; an attractive man at that. If I were in high school, this would feel like a trap.
Sexy man talks to me? Tragedy.
The man smiles impishly, an expression I’ve only seen in the kinds of guys who would buy the same gift for both of his girlfriends.
Yet here I am, letting my mind wander.
It’s such an imposition to be aroused in a bar, especially over somebody you don’t know and can’t read at all. I have no idea what this person’s intentions are, but my body wants to open itself up to him like a flower and let him touch me under the bar where maybe one or two people could see.
God, this is not like me at all!
I haven’t had sex in almost a year, and my desire for it has gotten worse with time, not better. When I broke up with my ex, everyone said that I’d experience a journey of self-discovery, that I’d learn how to fulfil myself with art classes and wine tastings instead of being fucked raw in the back of a 2003 Honda Civic because he lives with his parents.
Countless art classes and wine tastings later, I’m still unable to fall asleep without masturbating furiously.
Almost as if he can read my perverse thoughts, the mysterious Russian man places a firm hand on my thigh and leans in just a little bit closer. He smells divine, like somebody with taste instead of someone with a can of department store body spray that he’s owned since high school. I want to bury my face in his neck just to drink in more. I could drown in it.
“How about I make sure you forget she even exists?” he says, which would admittedly be very threatening if I wasn’t blind with arousal. Clearly, he’s used to getting what he wants from his looks alone; words aren’t important.
“Oh, that’s not necessary, she’s just kind of a flake, that’s all,” I reply, pretending to be oblivious to his advances while I decide if I’m going to be that girl.
I’ve never hooked up with someone that I met at a bar before. It's the kind of behavior of women that my mother would use as a cautionary tale when I was a teen. “Those girls never find husbands, April. They get fucked and the man leaves. Most won’t stay for a conversation afterwards. Be better than that.”
But I don’t think I am.
I open my legs a little bit more, pressing my thigh into his hand as a show of interest. I’m not going to be the girl that dry-humps a stranger on the dance floor, no. But I can play this game too. It can’t be that hard.
The man raises his eyebrows slightly, perhaps a little surprised and disappointed that I’m into it, that there’s no chase. He isn’t an idiot though, and he knows he can dig his claws into me however he wants if he just does it the right way.
The space between us is charged now, heating up and burning us both the longer we wait to attack each other and use our bodies for what they were made to do.
His hands climbs over my thigh and between my legs, resting right where my upper leg would meet my panty line if I didn’t have my pants on.
His hand is so warm. even in a non-sexual way, I would love for him to run his hands all over me so that I could capture the fire in him, warming myself with it for eternity.
Damn, I really do need a boyfriend.
“What do you do for work?” I ask stupidly. I suppose that continuing a conversation before I let him play in my guts will allay some of the guilt I will inevitably experience afterward.
“Don’t worry about it,” he says smoothly, briefly biting his lip as his words wash over me.
I have to pinch the outer muscle of my other leg where he can’t see, just to keep myself from screaming due to frustration, sexual and otherwise.
My mother would be immensely disappointed in me. She was a staunch feminist, and she would have never allowed a man to make her feel this range of emotions after a fifteen-minute interaction.
But I guess I’m different.
The stranger’s hands move further up until he’s firmly caressing me between my legs through the fabric of my pants. At this point, I’m almost concerned that I’m too wet, that it will show through my jeans and emphasize what an unrepentant slut I am.
Despite this, I let him continue. A well-dressed man with a laptop sees what’s going on and makes a face at me. I don’t think I care, but the owner of this bar might, and I’d hate to get kicked out for something so ridiculous.
We need to leave, now.
All it takes is a glance, a shift of my eyes to tell him what I want. With that, he stops, we both get up, and I leave a $20 on the bar to cover my drinks.
That’s it. This is happening.
