Taken By the Bratva Boss by Sarina Hart

Chapter Eleven

Leon

Watching her sleep is intoxicating. She’s beautiful. Gorgeous. And I never think with my dick. I don’t let my carnal urges rule my behavior. Usually, it’s easy because there isn’t anything magnetic going on. Nothing I can’t work my way through. But Olivia Hudson is a phenomenon. She’s an enigma. She’s more than I can resist.

And I want to please her.

It’s so odd.

I’ve been with women. Dated for sport, for purpose when I wanted more. But never has anyone had this effect on me.

I don’t care for it.

I don’t want to fucking think about how weak it makes me.

Instead, I look at her again. Watch the sliver of sunlight coming through the curtain hit her hair, make her cinnamon highlights a shade richer. She’s fucking beautiful.

And I want her to wake up. I want to see the look on her face when I tell her what I have planned for tonight. I’m not looking for the thanks or the adoration I normally crave when I give a gift. I just want to see her joy.

“You’re staring at me.” Her voice is soft, deeper than normal. Morning deep. And it makes my usual morning boner less about morning and more about her.

“Yeah.” I smile and push her hair off her forehead. “I am. You’re beautiful.”

She closes her eyes. “Do you lie, Leon Krilov?”

“I do not.” Not to her. I don’t have a reason. When I have a reason to lie, I’ll end it. It’s what I do.

Her eyelids pop open, and she’s smiling. My heartbeat downshifts, and my entire body lurches.

There’s a reason I’m still lying in her bed when I have my own and had plenty of opportunity to stay there when I went to retrieve part one of her surprise. Two reasons. And they’re pointed at me, watching my face, sending images to her mind to help her decide if I’m lying about lying.

I reach under the pillow my head is on, and I pull out her cell phone. I have a tracker in it. And if she tries to dial 911 or any police number, my phone will ring.

I trust her enough to return the phone, but I can’t go all in yet. Not yet.

She looks at me, then her phone, then me again. “You’re giving it back?”

I’d already decided before last night. “Yes. I think we’re at a place where we can trust each other.”

If that old adage was true, my pants would be in flames right now. Fortunately, they’re lying on the floor a few feet away. But still.

“Thank you.” And like it’s the most natural thing in the world, she leans in, presses her lips against mine and smiles.

I clear my throat because the intimacy of this moment is uncomfortable, and I don’t do this kind of thing, so I don’t know how to act or escape gracefully. “Anna is going to be up soon. I need to go.”

And like my ass is on fire, I leave her room and go to mine. No kiss. No lingering look. A clean break. I’ve left so quickly, I forgot to give her the part two of her surprise.

And I’m an asshole.

So, after my shower, I go back. Peek in and she’s still in bed, reading her phone. “Del Amico is in town.”

I know. And it’s because of me, she knows. “Yes.” This time, I am prepared for the radiance of her smile. I can sit beside her on the bed. Because I’m in control of the moment. I’ve planned it. “Do you know Del?”

“I wish.” Her eyes are wide. “He’s a fabulous artist. He has this way of using light and color that makes me feel and think. It’s so passionate and emotional.” She sits up, her enthusiasm visual and contagious.

I don’t hide my smile, don’t pretend I want to. “He has a gallery showing tonight downtown.”

“I know. I already looked for tickets.”

She shakes her head. Del’s shows are expensive to attend, which makes them exclusive events.

“I thought we could go. With Anna.”

I want to encourage her love for art. Expose her to the side of life the family money can provide for her. The finer things. The education. The ability to purchase tickets to see a show by a man I’ve known since I was a kid who still didn’t give me a discount but invited me to his after party.

She throws her naked body against mine and wraps her arms around me. “To see an Amico in person is…” When she pulls back enough to look at me, her wicked smile is as lovely and—not her intention, I’m sure—wholesome as every other. “Orgasmic.”

And so is her kiss. If not orgasmic, definitely enough to make my cock say a big Good Morning. I use my body to push hers back against the pillow. “I have to go to work.” And before I can change my mind, I stand. Walk to the door then turn back in enough time to see her shake her arms like Rocky Balboa and kick her legs like a Rockette. “I’ll pick you up at seven.”

Hopefully, I can be finished with work by then. More, I hope I can focus on work enough not to make a fool of myself in front of my little brother.

Before I can make it out the door, she sits up. “Leon!” Her voice is frantic. Panicked. She’s having an oh shit moment. I turn to look at her. “I don’t have a dress. Anna doesn’t have a dress.”

Fuck. I won’t be able to concentrate on work anyway. I can phone it in for a day. “We’ll go shopping.”

“Together?” Her left eyebrow disappears under the hair that’s fallen over her forehead again.

“Together.” I don’t examine the surprise in my gut. I never miss a day of taking care of my responsibilities. Ever. “Get ready and I’ll make arrangements.”

She is one smile away from ending up back in bed with me, shopping be damned. “You’re fucking amazing, Leon.”

Because I’m a little cocky and a lot arrogant, I shoot her a wink, keeping the after-party info to myself. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”

An hour later, we’re in a child’s boutique. And it turns out, I might not make enough money to keep Anna happy. She’s picked out four dresses. Refuses to pick or to let us pick. At some point, we’ll need to discuss her tantrums, but right now I can’t deny her. Not any more than I could deny her an eleven-a.m. ice-cream cone before her chicken nuggets and French fries. Or her foam bullet shooting toy gun. Or the eleven hairbands she insisted she needed.

“Anna, you can only wear one dress tonight.” I don’t mind buying her ten dresses, but she’s insisting on a wardrobe changes throughout the evening.

Olivia shakes her head. “Listen, ladybug, if we buy all the dresses now, we won’t have a reason to go shopping anymore. And you can’t change clothes tonight while we’re out – that would be silly.” Olivia throws in an eye roll. “Tonight is about the art. And the show doesn’t open until seven. So, even if you nap this afternoon and we stretch your bedtime to nine instead of seven thirty”—which I’ve already agreed to pending naptime — “you can’t go all diva and upstage Del Amico. But, maybe next week, we could come back. I have a friend who takes pictures. We could do a photo shoot. Maybe a fashion show?”

She looks at me, and I’m wowed. She has found the way to head off the shit storm whipping up around us.

Anna smiles. “A photo shoot?” She looks at herself in the mirror, takes her white gloved hand and lays it over the green lace and satin bodice of the dress she’s wearing currently. “I’ll be a model.”

“You bet.” Olivia says it with such conviction and adoration I am ready to whisk her into a hug then immediately collapse.

I’m a thirty-one-year-old man in the prime of his life, but thanks to my overnight acrobatics with Olivia and the twenty miles I’ve walked through Chicago’s shopping district, I’m the one who needs a nap.

When Anna runs back into the dressing room—she’s a big girl who doesn’t need help—I pull Olivia into my arms and kiss her. “That was amazing.”

“The kiss?” She buffs her nails on the front of her shirt and wobbles her head back and forth.

She knows damned well what I’m talking about. “The way you are with Anna.”

“I have a friend who’s a photographer. It’s no big deal. In case you didn’t notice, I promised your money to buy more dresses.” So long as Olivia looks at me with those beautiful wide eyes and that smile, I’ll buy Anna all the clothes in the world.

But now I’m thinking in terms of the future. Woah. No. No. No. I pull back.

“You okay?” I don’t answer because I can’t, and she frowns. “You look like you ate a lemon coated in onion juice.”

“Uh… I’m fine.” I’m a liar. I’ve lied to her now. After I told her I don’t lie. Fuck. “A throat tickle.” I clear my throat and step back.

“Okay.”

It’s not okay. I’m losing my shit. My edge. I don’t know if I’m the kind of guy who can have what my father had. Who can keep the business from affecting the family. I just don’t know.

She smiles and pulls her lower lip between her teeth as she watches me. I don’t have a resistance for it. For her. No immunity to protect me.

Especially when we get to the next store. One with dresses for Olivia.

Every color and every style. Nothing looks bad on her. And I want to buy them all. Mostly because I’m sitting in a dressing area on a bench thinking of how I can peel each one of these from her body. Whether I can lower a strap and slip it down her body, or whether I’ll have to fumble with a zipper. And there will be fumbling. No way to avoid it.

She steps out again, and Anna is behind her holding the back of the dress, so it doesn’t drag the ground. This one is a shade of darkened steel, beaded and jeweled, cut low in the front and backless. I can’t breathe. She’s wearing the fuck out of that dress.

As she stands in front of a full-length mirror, she twists her top half trying to see her bottom. From my vantage point, it looks good enough to nibble.

“How does this one look?”

I smile. Why a woman like Olivia would ever be self-conscious, I can’t understand. She’s beautiful and curved in all the best places. Her hair shines like the sun. And her eyes sparkle. No dress will ever be worthy of her.

I stand because I need to adjust my dick. Instead, I move behind her, look at us together, then lean down the few inches I need, and whisper in her ear, “You’re beautiful.”

She shakes her head and flicks her gaze to meet mine in the glass. “No, Leon. You’re beautiful. I’m just trying to not embarrass you. Does this dress work?”

She smooths her hand over her stomach where the fabric is already flat, and I take her hand and bring it around behind her, palm out. When I put it over my cock, she takes a short, shallow breath.

I keep my voice low enough only she can hear, but I mean every word. “It works. It really…” I kiss her neck. “Fucking…” Then her bare shoulder. “Works.” I turn her toward me and kiss her, consider walking her backward into the fitting room and would, if not for Anna watching from behind us.

Her fingers lay against the back of my skull, and I smile when she pulls me down so she can whisper, “I want you.”

“Is it nap time yet?”

She looks over my shoulder. “We’ve pumped her full of sugar and junk food. But we have a twenty-minute ride home…” Her cheeks color. “I mean to your house. Not home. I’m not calling it my home. I just meant…” She huffs out a loud breath. “Fuck.”

“I want you to think of it as home for as long as you want.” But the words stutter out of me. I don’t mean them. I like fucking her. I like shopping with her though I’ll deny it until my dying day, but I sure as fuck am not asking her to move in or to think of my house as hers.

And to save the moment, she laughs. “You should see your face. It’s either terror or constipation.”

I’m playing this off the best way I know how. “Terror is for kids who believe in monsters.” I don’t hide the menace I can call up at will. “I am the monster.”

She nods and looks around me at Anna. “Come on, little lady. I have to get out of this dress so we can stop and buy Leon some laxatives.”

It takes a while for her to come out of the dressing room, long enough I’m ready to go in after her, but when she appears, it’s in her own clothes, and I’ve already paid for the dress. I usher them to the car and spend the ride home listening to Olivia sing Disney tunes with Anna. It’s domestic and familial in ways I’m unprepared for. Cozy. Too fucking cozy.

I start planning ways to insert my usual escape hatch. A way out. A subtle insertion of details which will lend to the demise of whatever this is between us.

But as I open my mouth to spew the shit in my head, she smiles at me, and all the words fade. All the reasons I don’t want her to think whatever relationship things she’s thinking disappear.

As soon as I pull into the garage, Anna rushes out of the car and into the house for naptime, but Olivia lays her hand over mine. “I know… I don’t expect…” She stops, pulls her lip between her teeth again. “Thank you for today. I had a good time.”

“And the chicken nuggets were to your liking?” I joke because I want to tell her how much I enjoyed spending the day with her. How I loved when she asked my opinion. How her smile made me weak. And no way was I saying those things to her. Not now. Not ever.

Not.

My.

Style.

“They were deliciously golden brown and just crispy enough.” She grins and the moment is saved. I’ve not humiliated myself over a woman. But the restraint it’s taking is exhausting.

She leans over the console and runs her finger over my lower lip while she gazes into my eyes.  If she asked me for my debit card passcode, I would be powerless to deny her.

“You want to go up and take that nap now?”

Before I can answer, her mouth is on mine, hot and wet. And I want her. I want to carry her upstairs and shove my cock so deep in her she’s ruined for anyone else.

“I probably should do a little work today.” What? I have no idea what happened to the cock-inside-her plan. My mouth acted of its own accord, and my dick is pissed. My dick is screaming through my brain. Fuck her now!  “Raincheck?”

What?!

She smiles. Nods and kisses me again. My traitorous mouth is reaping the rewards my body wants.

“And I should go make sure Anna has everything she needs.” She pulls that lower lip between her teeth and smiles. “For tonight.”

I smile with her because I can’t not smile. I can’t remember not smiling.

When she walks away, I watch. Every step. Every sway of her hips. Every bounce of her hair, her ass, her tits. She’s a fucking marvel.

And dangerous to everything I am and everything I’ve built. My mouth has control of the brain, thank God. If my cock had its way, I would spend the day in bed with Olivia, and the meet with Flinn wouldn’t happen.

I need to see Flinn.

The afternoon comes, and I spend it planning. Although I don’t know what Flinn wants, I can guess. He wants out. They all eventually want out. Going in with another family is his best chance. I’m his best chance.

By seven, we’re dressed, ready, and standing in a gallery so white and bright my head aches, but Olivia is on my arm, and Anna is holding her hand. Maxim and Adrian are outside, standing guard, watching. The other families won’t act here unless they’ve managed to find out about my meeting with Flinn or my meeting with Flinn is a set-up. Either is a possibility, though not so likely. Still, better to have the guard and not need them than to need them and not have any.

My mind is half on Del’s exhibits and split evenly between finding Flinn and watching for danger.

Olivia invades. My senses, my personal space, the focus of my every cell. Her scent wraps around me. “Is that…?” She points to the couple standing on the edge of a small group. He’s an actor, she’s an actress. They have about ninety kids.

I nod. “Yeah.”

She mouths, “Wow,” then her eyes go wide, and her back straightens. What excitement does for this woman should be illegal. She’s glowing, and she leans low enough she’s speaking at Anna’s shoulder. “There he is. It’s Del.”

She claps her hands and laughs. “Uncle Del.”

Of course Anna knows him. He’s been around the house before. I give Olivia’s hand a squeeze. “I have some business to attend to, then I’ll introduce you.”

She nods and smiles. “Okay. We’ll look at the art until you get back.” There is a sparkle in her eyes. It’s mischief and daring, the most gorgeous thing in the place.

I would stay and stare at that sparkle for as long as she’d let me, but I have to meet Flinn. Aleks is standing in the doorway, still, silent, but it’s time. His appearance is the signal.

Flinn has secrets, and I want to know them all. Tonight is going to be a very good night.