Vik by Belle Aurora

1

Nastasia

I was goingto fuck a bitch up and have fun doing it.

The bitch in question?

Viktor Nikulin.

My ex-boyfriend. My ex-best friend. My ex-everything.

But, why, Nastasia? He seems like a decent guy. A caring friend. A god in the sack. Someone you can tell your innermost secrets to. And, Lord above, that smile. Why must you fuck him up?

Because breaking up was never easy, and although I did my best to remain civil for the sake of our friends and closely connected families, Vik was being difficult.

Look, I’ll admit I cried for a while.

Okay. I cried for a long freaking while. I mourned and grieved and lamented and all that shit. But then I woke up one day and chose to be a mature and accepting person.

On that very same day, Vik woke up and chose violence.

It took months of unease until I finally snapped, but when it happened, everything I’d been feeling came out of my mouth like buckshot out of a shotgun.

It had been a hundred and three days since our official breakup, not that I was counting. And for a while, it was awkward. That awkwardness turned to anger. And because there was clearly something wrong with me, seeing Vik angry did something odd. The kind of thing that made you bite your lip and squeeze your legs together tightly.

Now, when we fought, it got intense. Vik knew this. He played on it. And, dear Lord, sometimes I played right back.

My eldest brother, Sasha, decided to host a business meeting under the guise of dinner at his house—if you could call the three-story monstrosity a house—to talk about upcoming events and new ideas for the club. Attendance was not optional. When Sasha requested you, you came. That was just how things were.

Was it all a little kingpin of him?

Yeah.

Did he secretly love to wield that kind of power?

Have you met the guy?Of course, he did.

Business was booming. Bleeding Hearts—once a sleazy strip club, now a classy burlesque joint—had one hell of a transformation in the past year. And although it was Sasha’s baby, we were involved in one way or another. After all, we all worked there, and like a well-oiled machine, each of us were a cog in the engine, making it run.

To see the business fail was not an option. Our family prided itself on going legit. And unless we wanted to take a step back into a seedy underworld where people did nothing more than sell weapons, violence, drugs, and women, we had no backup.

It had to work.

My front door opened, then shut. “Oh my God,” I heard a feminine voice mutter, and when fast footsteps came rushing up the steps, my brow furrowed. Even more so when she panted out, “It’s okay. It’s fine. We’re okay.”

The hell?

Stepping back from the vanity in my bathroom, I heard the footsteps get closer and closer, and when she stepped into view, wide-eyed and looking terrified, I moved toward my sister-in-law, Mina, with a feeling of deep panic sitting heavy in my gut.

Shit. Something was wrong.

I didn’t even notice the white bag she was holding until she freaking threw it at me. I caught it clumsily, making the contents jostle, and when I all but blustered, “What’s wrong?” she stood there, chewing on her thumbnail, murmuring under her breath.

Her long brown hair was tied in a low ponytail, and I looked over her yoga pants, black tee, wearing one sock, and slides. She looked a mess.

Then, suddenly, she regained focus and said, “Out.” When her brown doe eyes landed on mine, she put her hands to my arms and gently pushed me backward until I was just outside the open door. “Out!”

For a tiny thing, she was remarkably strong. The door slammed in my face, and I just stood there, confused as hell, mouth agape.

Firstly, excuse the shit out of me. This was my house, dammit. She had some nerve pushing me around in my own home. But when I heard her whine through the door, my anger left as quickly as it came.

I wrapped my fingers around the doorknob and slowly tried to open it. “Mina? Are you okay?” I jiggled it. “Shorty?”

There were three of us in the family. Sasha, the eldest, who took over the role of patriarch when our father died. Lev, the middle sibling, whose quirks made him both infuriating and endearing as hell. Lastly came me, the youngest. The girl who grew up with mobsters and criminals and thought nothing of it, because although it wasn’t normal, it was normal for me.

When you’re a teenager and your brothers are members of a subsidiary of the Russian Bratva… well, you could imagine how colorful life must’ve been.

On the day our father died, Sasha had been expected to take over control of Chaos. It seemed like the natural course of events, and Sasha never did things half-assed. He was in, which meant we were in.

I’d seen shit, heard shit, and taken part in shit that no teenager should have ever been part of. And it didn’t take long for Sasha to come to the same conclusion.

It took some convincing, but Sasha talked himself out of the role, and soon enough, without a proper leader, Chaos was falling apart. Bratva soon heard of the mismanagement and bickering between its firms, and the motherland came calling. And when Bratva tells you to stand down and disband, that’s what you do.

Now, any Russian firms out there were acting on their own. They no longer had the backing of the big guns. And although I had a feeling Sasha sometimes missed that life, I knew he did what he did for me.

Because family was everything.

The door to the bathroom shot open, and Mina, anxious as a gazelle drinking from the waterhole, stood there holding a plastic cup filled with a light-yellow liquid. I spotted the rectangular box in her other hand, and my brows bunched.

Her voice shook as she begged quietly, “Help.”

It took me about ten seconds for it all to click.

My brows rose, and I let out a humble, “Mina.”

“I know.” She nodded with tears in her eyes.

I tried to speak, but nothing came out.

She nodded again. “I know.” Higher in pitch this time.

I found my voice and asked gently, “Are you sure?”

She let out a watery laugh. “Um….” Reaching for the white bag, she turned it upside down, and the contents fell to the white-tiled floor of my bathroom. Nine different brands of pregnancy tests told me she wasn’t sure.

“Okay,” I said calmly.

“I’m scared,” the little woman croaked out, and, goddammit, it broke my heart.

“Look,” I tried to reason with her, “this is not an issue. You’re married. You’re in love. You’re not some teenager who did it with the quarterback under the bleachers, got knocked up, and is now being sent away to live with her grandma.”

But Mina wasn’t listening to me. She moved to sit cross-legged on the cold floor, opening each box and taking out one test, and when her fingers began to shake too much, she started to rip open the cardboard with her teeth.

My brows rose.

Oh yeah. This was fine.

Breathing shakily, she tried to read the instructions and talked to herself. “How do I do this?”

“It depends. Some of them, you dip in and wait, and others, you put a couple of drops into the little hole.”

She stilled, then blinked up at me. “You’ve done this before?”

My eyes widened a moment, and all I said was “Yeah.”

Two men. In my entire life, I’d only ever been with two men. One, to whom I was briefly engaged, and we used a condom each and every time. The other was Vik, who had my head swimming with nothing more than a glance of his fingers down my spine. He hadn’t used a condom with me since I was nineteen years old, so, yes, I knew how to use a pregnancy test.

I helped her. I told her she didn’t need to use all nine, but she just kept handing them to me, and before we knew it, the counter of my bathroom sink was covered in white plastic sticks.

We waited a full three minutes, and we did this in complete silence. One look at Mina told me that nothing I said would distract her from what was going on inside her head.

And when the timer went off and I began to check the tests, relief fell over my expression. I looked over at her and smiled kindly. “See? All good, li’l bit.” I held up a test. “You’re not pregnant.”

Her face blank, she took the test from my hand and stared at it. She then stood and looked over all the others, her face remaining passive. But when she sat on the closed toilet lid, her bottom lip started to tremble.

Oh, sweet girl. “You had a scare. It’s stressful,” I said in way of understanding.

“You don’t get it” was her soggy reply.

I choked down the scoff threatening to rush up my throat. “I do. I really do. But it’s okay, Mina.”

She shook her head and blinked away tears. “It’s not okay.”

“It is,” I reassured her with a squeeze to her knee.

Mina looked down at the floor, her face crumbling, and her hands came up to cover her eyes as she began to cry.

No, not cry.

She was sobbing. Body-wracking sobs.

My brow furrowed in perplexity. “Hey,” I crooned, moving to squat down in front of her. “What’s going on?”

She continued to cry, and when she removed her hands, she rolled her red eyes, shrugged, and let out a laugh that held no humor. Her voice shook. “I don’t know.”

And then it hit me.

I spoke slowly. “Did you want it to be positive?”

Her eyes closed, and she dipped her chin, nodding as she began to weep again.

Well, shit.

My arms went around her, and I held her tightly as she cried openly. I began to feel her loss on a personal level, and when my own eyes began to sting, I sighed softly, then asked, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

She spoke into my shoulder, miserable. “We’re not trying, but I haven’t been feeling well, and it made sense that I might be… and I was scared, but once I thought about it… then I was kind of happy about it. And thinking about how nice it would be for Lidi to have a brother or sister… I started planning where the nursery might go and wondering who the baby might look like… and now—” She took in a deep breath and let it out shakily. “—it’s over before it began.”

I squeezed her, gently rubbing her back.

Her incoherent babbling should not have made sense, but it did. And it was heartbreaking.

I pulled back, taking hold of her hand and swiping away a stray tear trailing my cheek. “Look,” I told her. “If you want it, this is going to happen for you. Now just wasn’t the time, okay?”

Mina started to calm. “I guess.”

“If you want a baby, you need to talk to Lev, get off the birth control, and start trying. Like, really trying. You get what I mean?” She snuffled out a small laugh, and I smiled widely, then swallowed down the sickness in my throat at the thought of my brother shooting his boys into Mina, but that was how it was done. “Go home and seduce my brother. Enjoy the process.” I sobered quickly. “It’ll happen, Mina. I just know it.”

I helped her wash her face, gave her another comforting squeeze, then sent her on her way, leaving me to clean up. As I disposed of the used pregnancy tests and wiped down the sink, I smiled at the thought of another niece or nephew to spoil. I’d have to get that from Lev and Mina, because—let’s be honest—Sasha wasn’t going to give me that.

It wasn’t that he was a manwhore or that he had commitment issues. Actually, it was the exact opposite.

I hadn’t seen Sasha with a woman in years, which didn’t mean much. I was sure he still got some. He was just uber discreet about it. And unless he was willing to introduce us to a woman, he sure as shit wasn’t going to have a baby with her.

So, when I arrived at Sasha’s later that night and saw the cars parked out front, I knew I was likely the last to arrive, as per usual. I let myself in and heard Sasha say, “You live down the path, Nastasia. Must you always be tardy?” That confirmed it.

He stood wearing a scowl with both hands on his hips like a disappointed father. Looked like one too in his dark-gray suit and impatient stance.

I removed my coat and placed it in the hall closet, then walked toward him, wearing a wide smile. “Nice to see you too, brother.” When I got close enough, I stood on my tiptoes and kissed his cheek briefly. He continued to glare at me, his golden eyes darkening slightly. I rolled my eyes and walked past him. “Relax. God, I’m here now. Let’s eat.”

Following the sounds of conversation into the living room, I entered the room and stopped in my tracks.

“There you are,” said Mina.

“Nastasia, must you always be late? Mina’s hungry.” That was Lev.

Anika was next. “Hey, honey.”

Then Cora. “About time you got here, bitch.”

But my eyes were fixed.

Vik moved to sit up the moment he heard my name, my three-year-old niece, Lidiya, hanging upside down in his muscly arms, giggling, her curly pigtails dangling from her head. And my uterus awoke.

Fuck me with a jackhammer.

Please, God. I beg you. Have mercy.

It was hard enough seeing the dark-haired, blue-eyed, built man be his beautiful, tattooed self, but playing with a child?

Ugh.

My heart stood no chance against that. None at all.

“Nas” was all he said. His whisky-smooth voice may as well have been whispered into my ear as goosebumps lined my arms. His intense gaze caressed me from across the room. I felt him everywhere.

This wasn’t new. This was how things were with us. We had an extreme effect on one another.

The best thing we could do for the sake of everyone around us was simply get along, and for a while, we did just that. But lately, Vik had been itching for an argument.

How could I tell?

Because he was doing everything possible to push my buttons. He made no effort to hide it either. If he wasn’t questioning my every decision, he was blatantly flirting with the dancers at Bleeding Hearts or making crude jokes to get a rise out of me. I knew he was hurt, so I kept it together, but my God, my patience had worn thin.

In short, Vik was punishing me. Again.

From behind me, with the king of all sighs, Sasha announced, “Let’s eat.”

The conversation was moved to the dining room, and once everyone was seated, Sasha got right to it. I should have been listening, but I wasn’t. I was too focused on the man sitting opposite me who looked to be undressing me with his eyes.

I swallowed hard and squirmed in my seat, staring down at my untouched plate.

When I chanced a look at him again, his eyes dipped to my throat, and the way his lips tipped up at one corner told me he noticed.

God, he looked amazing in black fitted jeans, a light-gray Henley, and the white Lacoste court master sneakers I’d bought him just because I thought they’d look good on him.

Spoiler alert—they did.

With his dark hair cut into a low fade with texture on the top, my hands clenched into fists under the table as I itched to run my fingers through it. I could almost feel his neatly trimmed stubble scraping along my inner thigh.

A shudder swept over me.

I picked up my fork and held it in distraction.

And Jesus wept.

My eyes landed on the Cupid’s bow of his full mouth. It was sweet torture just looking at him. As the tip of his tongue came out to wet his bottom lip, my fork fell from my hand and onto my plate with a clatter. Then everyone was staring at me.

“What do you think about that, Nastasia?” Vik asked, blinking slowly, knowing full well I hadn’t been listening.

Uh….

“What?” was my very smart, very croaky response.

“About what Sasha said,” he prompted, his fingertips playing with the condensation on his glass.

My eyes narrowed slightly. “I think it’s great.”

“You could at least pretend to listen.” Vik’s smile did not reach his eyes. “But then, I know how flighty you are.”

Flighty?

My stomach clenched painfully.

This bitch.

Well, I guess we were doing this. “Are you sure you understood what was said?” My blood went from a quiet simmer to a vicious boil. “Sasha does use big words. I know that confuses you sometimes.”

“Guys,” Mina pleaded but was quickly cut off.

Cora sighed at the same time. “Can we not?”

“Are you getting what you need from this conversation?” Vik lifted his glass and sipped from it. “Maybe there’s another conversation out there that you’d be getting more from. I know how when you’re done with conversing with me, you like to run into a little French conversation.”

Anika gasped lightly.

Holy shit. He went there.

I was officially pissed and leaned in slightly. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“You’re a smart girl. You can figure it out.”

Standing up so roughly that my chair warbled loudly, I pointed at him and spoke through gritted teeth, “Kitchen. Now.”

The footfalls behind me told me he was following, and when I stalked into the next room and opened the door to the walk-in pantry, I all but shoved him in there and shut the door behind us.

“I can’t believe you,” I whisper-hissed, and when I spun around to face him, I probed, “What is your goddamn problem?”

Vik crossed his arms over his chest, looking bored.

Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare look so unaffected.Not when we both knew better.

I hated that.

My expression pleading, I spoke softly. “I’m trying here, Vik. I’m really trying. Do you think this is easy for me?” My feet moved as I began to pace. “I see you at work. I see you at home. Somehow, you’re always where I am. And, let me tell you, having you act like an ass doesn’t help. If I’m being completely honest, it hurts.”

But he was unmoved.

“This is what you wanted, Nas,” he muttered, uninterested. “I never said I’d pretend to be happy about it.”

Was he serious?

No. I never wanted this. “Can’t we just get along? For everyone else’s sake?”

“Get along?” His eyes darkened as he took a step toward me, then another. “Is that what you want?”

Why did he have to be so handsome?

Why did he push up his sleeves like that, giving me an indecent view of his lightly veined forearms? Damn it. He knew how much I liked that.

Also, why did everything have to end in an argument? I was so tired of arguing.

Not that I minded how our arguments ended, because they all ended the same way.

The second I realized what we were doing, I gasped, and my eyes widened. The frown was ripped from my face, and I quickly glued on a huge smile that I did not feel.

A rushed whisper shot out of my mouth. “No, no, no, no, no.” But when he attempted to speak, I pressed my finger to his lips, squishing them lightly as I shushed him. My voice took on a gentle, serene tone. “Inside voices. We’re staying calm. We aren’t arguing. Everything’s good. We’re happy, we’re smiling, and we’re two adults just having a conversation. That’s all.” A strained laugh left me. “We’re having a good time.”

Vik watched me closely, and from the way his brow furrowed, I could tell he was confused by the sudden change in direction. “Why are you acting so weird?”

“I’m not.” My smile wavered but only slightly.

“You are.”

I shook my head, and my cheeks ached. “No, I’m not. I’m just trying to avoid conflict.”

“Why?” His heavy brow narrowed with suspicion. “You never have before.”

My brain-to-mouth filter stammered, and the honest to God truth was worse than any lie I could’ve come up with. “Because if we fight, we’ll kiss. And if we kiss, there is a strong possibility that you’ll end up with your hand in my panties. If that happens, I’m going to come and want you to mount me like a mutt stealing away with a thoroughbred. And that’s the situation I’m trying to avoid here.”

And there it was. I was so weary of the fighting that I didn’t even have the grace to blush.

Of all the things he expected to hear, I could tell it wasn’t the candid confession he just got. I know this because he lost a lot of the tension he wore in his shoulders and returned a smartass, “Why? Sounds like a good time had by all.”

It did.

My sob was purely internal.

It really did.

My faux smile fell. “I don’t want to fight.” I tried to sound composed, but my voice shook.

“But we’re so much better when we fight.” His hulking build came closer and closer, walking me backward until my ass hit the wall. A thrum of awareness went through me, and my heart stuttered. “Remember?”

Uh oh.

I was trapped.

Icy blue eyes held me prisoner as he explained in perfect calm, “I don’t want that.”

My gut sank. “You don’t want us to get along?”

I did not know how to unpack that.

The way he ran his thumb over his lips, leisurely, without hurry, had me wishing for a taste.

“No.” He shook his head, and I felt I might cry until he said, “I want your passion. I want my savage girl. I want you. In my car, in my bed, by my side. I want to be inside your head while I’m thrusting inside your body.” It felt like I’d taken a solid hit to the solar plexus as he went on, ruining me with every word. “More than a decade together and you think I’m just gonna let you go on your merry way because you’re having doubts? Not a chance.”

My kitty purred.

Well, shit. What was I supposed to say to that?

Vik reached up, focusing on the place by my temple, pushing a stray hair behind my ear. “We were happy once, and we’re gonna be happy again. I’m good with giving you time, so I’ll be doing that. But this thing that’s happening right now? It’s not a permanent situation.” He paused. “It’s always been you and me, Nas.”

He was right. It had been.

Somewhere deep inside me, I felt something crack when he said the words we had been saying to each other since the very beginning. “Forever and always.”

My mouth dry, I uttered quietly, “Don’t do this.”

Why couldn’t he just let it go? Let me go?

Vik licked his lips, looked me dead in the eye, and broke my heart. “You’ve been my girl since I was a boy, and I’ll be damned if we’re not holding hands on the day we meet our maker.”

Any fight I had left me with those quietly spoken words. And, fuck me, I wanted to cry. If it were possible for a heart to swoon dead away, mine just had.

I found it hard to breathe. My knees almost gave out.

With a groan, I dug the heels of my palms into my eyes. “You can’t say that kind of stuff to me, Vik.” I lowered my hands and looked up at him, imploring. “If you keep saying things like that, I’ll never get over you.”

“Good.”

He moved so quickly I didn’t have time to react, and when he lowered his lips to mine, I’m ashamed to say I lost control.

We kissed like we fought. Mean, rough, and grasping for control.

Never breaking contact, I forced him back into a shelf, and the groceries on it shifted with a thud. His arms snaked around me as he ate at my mouth, one at my back, the other squeezing my ass hard, and it hurt so good. His tongue stroked mine, and my hips bucked. Vik growled into my mouth, and moaning, I reached up and gripped the front of his shirt, both pushing him away and pulling him closer to me.

He picked me up and pinned me against the wall. I hit the back of my head and winced. “Ow.”

“Sorry,” he panted into my mouth, then kissed me so deep, so desperately, that I swore for a single moment our souls merged.

The noises of clanging and banging and crashing sounded around us, and I found I didn’t care if we were making a scene.

My legs wrapped around him of their own accord, and his forearm hefted me higher, holding me up. Having been in this position so many times during the course of my life, I guess it was second nature. My panties were soaked through, and I might have been embarrassed had it not been for the thick, raging erection pressing up against my core.

I didn’t notice the change, but it was clear our kissing had grown softer, a gentler quality taking over, until the slow, wet kisses reminded me of Sunday morning lovemaking. Leisurely and full of feeling.

Tilting his hips, he rocked against me at the very same time his tongue dipped into my mouth, and I saw stars, very nearly coming on the spot.

And then it happened.

What are you doing, Nas?

The intrusive thought soured my mood and doused ice-cold water over my straining libido.

Sad and already mourning the loss of his mouth, I allowed him to kiss me a few seconds longer before I spoke against his lips. “Stop.”

Reluctantly, his kisses slowed, then came to a halt with a heavy sigh, and when he put his forehead to my shoulder, panting, I unconsciously reached up to stroke the back of his neck.

I loved this man. I loved him in a way no other could replicate. But unless he was willing to give me all of him, I couldn’t do this.

I deserved more.

He lifted his head, and his hooded gaze went to my swollen lips. As he opened his mouth to speak, a knock came from outside the pantry.

“Uh, guys?” It was Mina. “It kind of sounded like two racoons fighting in a trash can from out here.” She paused. “Is everything okay?”

Vik slowly let me down, studying my face as if trying to memorize every inch of it. My feet touched the floor, and I released the front of his Henley, smoothing my fingers over the now-scrunched material. When he stepped back, I wobbled on the spot, feeling awfully bereft of the warmth of his body.

We watched each other closely, and when my expression fell, Vik’s turned sullen.

I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing, simply brushing my fingers against his as I swept past him and opened the door to the pantry.

Mina took one look at me, and her brows rose to her damn hairline. “Oh.”

Great. I looked that good, huh?

My cheeks heating, I ran a hand over my hair and refused to look at her. “So, I’m just gonna go.”

“Uh huh,” she muttered distractedly, inspecting me without shame.

And just because I wanted to avoid a situation, I slunk out the back door, just as Mina said, “Wow, Vik. Just wow.”

I didn’t wait to hear his response. I just needed to get out of there as quickly as possible.

I was moister than an oyster, horny as hell, and I needed to do something about that.

Call it self-care.