Russian Bad Boy's Untouched Love (13 page)

Russian Mobster's Arranged Wife

By: Bella Rose

All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2016 Bella Rose

Chapter One

Kaylee wiped out a pint glass with the terry cloth towel hanging over her shoulder. It was forty-five minutes to close on a Wednesday night and the haze of smoke hovering near the ceiling of the old pub was pretty much at maximum capacity. She was tired. She was at the end of a double shift and she was ready to close up and get home.

A few regulars still lounged about the inside of the pub. The old place sat on a corner in Boston’s South End and Kaylee sometimes wondered if the pub had been around since colonial times. It certainly seemed as if their customers were probably descendants of the revolution. They liked to come in, grab a pint and talk crap about the economy, the unions, and pretty much life in general.

The bell over the door jangled and Kaylee looked up. She didn’t particularly want to deal with another customer tonight, but this guy definitely didn’t seem to fit the profile. She blinked a few times to clear the haze of sexual prowess that hung on this man like a shroud. He walked like a living sex god, if such a thing was possible. From the lazy rolling gait, to the way his muscles seemed warm and languid. Something about him made every forgotten hormone in her body sit up and beg.

“Let me get a shot of vodka, and leave the bottle.” He swung onto a barstool, gesturing to the shelves behind the bar. “The good stuff please?”

Kaylee snagged the bottle and flipped it deftly in one hand before setting it on the bar top. Then she grabbed a glass. “Can I see some green?” She cocked her head expectantly. He might be a serious hottie, but she still needed to get paid.

The guy gazed at her as though she were some kind of science experiment. Then he pulled out a bill and set it on the counter. Kaylee tried not to snatch it up, but she didn’t see a lot of hundred dollar bills in a week. Pub business was modest in a place like Southie. Forcing herself to be cool, she lifted the bill to the dim overhead lights for examination.

“If you don’t believe that one is real, I have another,” he muttered. “Or five.”

“This’ll do.” She started to shove the bill in her pocket and thought better of it. “You want change?”

“No.”

Even better, as long as the guy didn’t go through the rest of her stock of top shelf vodka. Maybe he’d get too drunk to notice if she swapped him the cheap stuff. This kind of green would get her closer to what she needed to finish paying off the balance on her mother’s nursing home bill for the month.

“What is your name?” he asked.

“Kaylee.”

“Very nice to meet you, Kaylee. I am Ivan.”

“Okay.”

She gave this Ivan customer a long perusal, wondering where he’d come from. They got a lot of immigrant types in the pub, but not like this guy. Sexiness aside, she knew what a custom suit like that cost. And she couldn’t see his shoes, but she would bet good money they were expensive. He looked like an angel with his white-blond hair, but those dark eyes were evaluating everything he saw with careful calculation. She wondered if he spent that much effort pleasuring a woman.

Ivan put his elbows on the bar and leaned forward. “It seems rather unwise for the owner of this establishment to leave a woman here alone late at night.”

“Who says I’m alone?” She gestured to the other patrons. “You don’t want to tangle with the regulars if you’re trying to mess with their bar.”

“Or their bar wench?” he suggested with the hint of a smile.

Kaylee snorted. “Yeah, that’s me. The local grog wench.” The she pulled out the baseball bat she kept beneath the bar and laid it on the countertop. “Although if you’d like to go a round or two I’d be happy to show you to the door.”

He threw his head back and laughed. “I’m only—how do you Americans put it—messing with you.”

“Is that right?” She wondered if her expression told him that she thought about his sanity. “For the record, we don’t typically mess with people we don’t know.”

“Ah, I guess I haven’t been here long enough to learn all the nuances.” His manner sobered and he poured himself another shot of vodka.

Damn. He’d definitely snagged her curiosity. Was he deliberately trying to get her interested? “If you haven’t been here long, where’d you come from?”

“Where do you think?” The smooth accent coating his words grew more pronounced.

“Obviously Russia, but I would have no way to accurately say where your accent is from. I don’t have that much experience with dialectical pinpointing.” Kaylee didn’t add that she thought his accent was pretty damn sexy.

“Dialectical pinpointing?” he said with amusement. “You are more than you seem, aren’t you?”

She shrugged. “If you say so, but you still haven’t told me where you’re from.”

“St. Petersburg,” he said quickly. “I’ve been here on business for several months, but your government is refusing to extend my visa.”

Kaylee didn’t miss the slight hitch in his voice when he said the word “business.” The guy was Russian, here from Russia, and the government didn’t want him around. That suggested something specific. She laid her hand unobtrusively on the handle of the bat.

“There is no need for that.” He jerked his chin toward her bat and took another shot of vodka. “I can assure you I have no desire to make trouble for myself tonight.”

She leaned forward, unable to stop herself. His eyes gleamed in the lights. The sight was fascinating. They were so dark, like pools of night in his face. In contrast his skin was pale. The planes of his face were angular and strong. This was a man that backed away from nothing in life. She could respect that.

“Yo, Kaylee!” A voice from the other end of the bar demanded her attention.

Swinging away from Ivan, she focused on Tyrese. The big man was giving Ivan the evil eye in a way that did not suggest a warm Boston welcome. Kaylee roused herself. “What can I get for you, Ty?”

“I need another beer.”

“I’ll put it on your tab.” She didn’t bother to comment on the fact that Ty had already poured himself another draft. More than a few of her regulars felt entitled to that sort of thing. She let it go simply because it wasn’t worth the fight.

Then Ty cocked his head. His eyes were wide in his dark face. “This guy bothering you, Kaylee?”

“Not at all, Ty,” Kaylee assured him. Ty was quick to anger and even quicker to react. “We’re just having a nice chat.”

Ty grunted, but he took his beer back to his seat and resumed his bitching about the umpire at the last Red Sox game. Kaylee turned back to Ivan. She noticed he’d grown rather tense during her little chat with Ty. Interesting.

IVAN WONDERED WHAT this woman was thinking. That was a rare thing for him. Usually people in general, and women in particular, were easy to read. Kaylee was anything but.

There was something incredibly enticing about this bold as brass woman with the frank temperament and penchant for cutting straight to the point. She wasn’t necessarily much to look at. Especially not in her plain jeans and T-shirt. Her hair was dark brown and long. She’d pulled it up into a ponytail and more than a few strands straggled around her face as though she was at the end of a very long shift. She was tall, probably five feet eight to his six feet. There was plenty of athletic muscle on her frame as well as a pair of voluptuous breasts and a nice rounded behind that invited grabbing.

She had gone back to wiping glasses in what was probably her cleanup for the night. He found he didn’t like losing her attention. “Have you worked here long?” he asked, immediately berating himself for not coming up with something better.

“Since college.” Her voice was almost terse. “It’s not exactly the job I would have picked to make a career out of, but sometimes choices are thin on the ground.”

“That’s true enough.” He thought about his own situation. “Sometimes we do what we have to.”

“I’m sorry,” she snorted. “You’re wearing a suit that probably cost more than a month’s tips. How is it that you think you got screwed over?”

“That’s a pretty judgmental statement, don’t you think?” Her confrontational manner fascinated him. Nobody ever challenged him these days.

“Just an observation.” She lifted a shoulder carelessly. “I don’t care what you do although the evidence so far points to something illegal.”

“Is that right?” Oh yes. This woman was more than she seemed. “And should I be worried that you’re trying to trap me?”

“For what?” she snorted. “All I care about is the color of your money. What you do on your own time is your problem.”

“What if what I want to do happens to be you?” The words were out before he could reel them back, but once said Ivan discovered they were very true.

“You don’t have any hookers in your business plan?” The mockery in her tone grated on his pride, but didn’t cool his lust.

He raised an eyebrow. “If you’re asking whether or not I could pay for any woman I wanted, the answer is that I don’t know.”

“How can you not know something like that?”

“The woman I want for tonight is you. What’s your price?” Ivan was aware that he’d just given her a grave insult, but his instincts suggested it was a good gamble.

“Are you calling me a whore?” she murmured the question, glancing at the other customers still milling about the interior of the bar.

“No.” What
was
he suggesting? His lips seemed to move without any input from his brain. “I’m simply wondering what your price is. Everyone has a price. Don’t you think?”

There were a thousand thoughts going through her mind. He could see that much though he had no idea what they might be. Then she wetted her full lips with the tip of her tongue. His cock swelled behind the fly of his trousers. A long strand of her ponytail slithered over her shoulder and she pushed it back with an unconscious gesture he found charming. There was something very feminine about Kaylee that appealed to Ivan on a primal level. It was making him far bolder than he would have normally been.

Finally she leaned forward until he caught a hint of her warm, spicy scent. “My self-respect isn’t for sale, but I will let you buy me a drink.”

Her answer took him by surprise. Not that she
had
self-respect, but the strength of her will was truly something to behold. “That’s it?”

“Maybe I’m thirsty.” She cocked her head and gave him a long perusal. “And just because you buy me a drink doesn’t mean I’m going to fuck you.”

“You just insinuated that I was wearing ridiculously expensive shoes,” he pointed out. “I could pay out a lot of money for what I want.”

“Then my guess would be that you’ll only get what you pay for,” she retorted. “So if you pay for it, I wouldn’t expect the sex to be better than your shoes.”

Ivan laughed. How could he not when she was so glib and so bold? “A drink it is.” He pulled another hundred dollar bill from his pocket and laid it on the bar.

She swiped up the money and stuffed it in her jeans.

“What’s your drink of choice?” He felt his lips curve into a real smile.

She slammed a shot glass down on the table and reached for the bottle of vodka in front of him. “I drink whatever’s available.” She threw the shot back.

Ivan watched her expression as she thinned her lips and swallowed the alcohol. He didn’t just want to have a drink with this woman. He wanted to hear her cries of pleasure as he entered her body and claimed her as his own.

“Can we have another drink after you get off work?” Ivan asked, feeling bizarrely like a young man trying to pick up a woman for the first time. He’d never had the sense of being so off balance.

The long stare she gave him suggested there was a lot more going on behind her eyes than he could even imagine. “Meet me here right after close.”

Ivan could not believe the idea appealed to him in any way, but it did. Was he losing his mind?

“I can see you’re used to a little more posh surroundings.” She boldly met his gaze. “But I feel safer here.”

Ivan hadn’t anticipated something so eagerly in a long time. He reached across the bar and laid his hand over hers. “I look forward to our little interlude.”

Getting up from his seat, he stretched his legs and headed out the front door without a backward glance. He would be back and he would enjoy every minute of whatever was to come.

Chapter Two

The two hundred dollar bills in Kaylee’s pocket felt like a heavy weight dragging her down as she closed up the pub for the night. There really wasn’t much to do. She had already stocked the shelves. The tables didn’t require much clean up, and the bartender who opened was responsible for mopping.

She had already run the night’s receipts and was putting chairs up on tables when she heard the soft knock at the front door. Her stomach fluttered with nervous excitement. She rubbed her palms on the thighs of her jeans. Never in her life had she been so unprepared for a date. Except this really wasn’t a date, was it? She knew exactly what she wanted from this man. One night, no strings, and the sort of good time that would make her forget everything else going on in her life.

Kaylee turned the key in the lock and swung the door open. “Come on in.”

Ivan looked the same, but something in his demeanor had drastically changed. He strode into the bar with an almost predatory intent behind his movements. The way he moved was sinuous, like a jungle cat. The sexy glide of muscles beneath the fine linen of his dress shirt made her mouth water.

He turned and cocked his head, gazing at her. “Have you changed your mind then?”

“I thought we were just having a drink.” She raised an eyebrow. “And do I honestly look like I’ve changed my mind?” She crossed her arms over her chest, not sure exactly how she wanted to proceed. She didn’t want a damn drink. She knew that much for sure. She wanted this man inside her. She wanted to forget and she knew instinctively that he could make that happen for her.

“I don’t want a drink. I want you, Kaylee.”