The Arrangement (31 page)

He’d stumped her there. She wasn’t quite sure how to respond for a second. It was a loaded question in more ways than one. Did she see or hear things she shouldn’t have or didn’t want to along the way? Sure. Had she been given some of the best moments of her life with a man who, when alive, had been known as one of America’s most notorious crime bosses? Yes.

“It was … different, at times. Good, but different.”

“Mine, too,” Anton admitted. “I wasn’t just raised by my parents. I was raised by many men. Bratva men. Gangsters. But they were gentlemen, too, as hard as that is to believe. I heard ‘try this, boy’ more times than I can count and probably should have said no more than I did; I learned to disassemble and reassemble an assault weapon by the time I was twelve; school pretty much bored the hell out of me because I was leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else in the maturity department, at least in my own mind. Sure, I had a lot of normalcy in between, but I was a mafia child all the same.”

“Didn’t that bother you?”

“No.”

The answer was so simple. It struck a chord with Viviana.

“I loved having so many different personalities around me to grab onto. I quite liked my life, just the same as I do now,” Anton continued when she stayed quiet. “I respected the values I was taught. And it wasn’t just about this crime world I deal in, either. A lot of those guys were the first men I ever really knew besides Daniil and Nicoli, and I was quick to watch them … to want to be them. I was grateful they’d been put in my path; I wouldn’t be who I am now had they not been.”

“So, who are you exactly, or have you figured it out yet?”

Viviana hadn’t meant for her tone to turn so silky and demure when the words tumbled out without her even thinking about them, but they had anyway. By the way he swallowed a rumbled sound behind her, she knew he didn’t miss the change in her voice, either.

“How am I supposed to even answer when you’re not looking at me? Turn around.”

“What—”

Before she finished her sentence, Viviana found herself turned in his strong arms, the magazine forgone to the bed sheets. Darkened blue stared back under the lamp’s light, a mix of desire and curiosity burning behind the irises. Given that she was wearing nothing but a pale pink, silk camisole with matching panties and he was in only his boxer-briefs, she was all too aware of how her question had affected him.

The hardness starting to stir under the thin fabric had her heart rate picking up at an alarmingly delicious speed. It didn’t take much time at all for him to get going, and once he was, so was she. Anton had that lustfully swirling effect on her every goddamn time.

“Hey!”

A devious grin answered her back before his hand was slipping under her camisole to trail an aching path straight up to her breast. A teasing thumb rolled over her pebbled nipple, flicking the sensitive bud and getting it a little tauter with every rough, calloused stroke. Viviana was quick to melt into the heat of his hand as the other curved to her back and splayed wide open.

“So, who are you?” she asked again.

“I’m me,” he said huskily. “Anton. Boss. Son. Prince. Sir. Asshole. A different mask covers my face every day of the week. A lover. Awfully jealous at times. Quick fists when someone pisses me off, but a calm head otherwise. I like bourbon more than vodka, but I wouldn’t dare tell my father that. I hate to sit still unless it’s with you. I have a thing for guns, fast cars, and good music. Preferably all three mixed together. A girl with brown eyes and an Italian last name owns my heart. What else do you want to know?”

His lips had come to rest dangerously close to hers. She could smell that dark roast coffee he’d been drinking not ten minutes before dancing on the edges of his mouth. With one hand pressing at the black rose that covered his right pec, Viviana had him pushed back to the pillows as she shifted just enough to straddle him.

“There’s always more to learn, Anton.”

“What is it you want to know that you haven’t already been told?”

Viviana grinned, rolling her hips over his groin and watching his dark lashes flutter closed at the action. Air cut through his teeth as a thick groan fell into the quiet room. Juices leaked from her overheated sex as her hands grabbed tighter to grind his hardened length against where the silk covered her crotch.

“Won’t you tell me about the kind of man I’m marrying?”

“Oh, I think you know,” he replied darkly.

“No, not always. I see too many faces and sometimes I wonder which one you really own. Not that I don’t like them all in their own way, but still. Sweet as sugar and charming as a snake. That’s a dangerous combination. I’m not all too sure at all of just what I’ve gotten myself mixed up in.”

For a brief second, he seemed to consider her words. Despite how turned on she was, body hot and ready, sex already throbbing with the need to have him deep, hard, and fast like only he could give it to her, she wanted to hear what he’d say, too.

“Is this really about me, or is it about you?”

Viviana pressed her hand to his chest again. “A little bit of both. I feel like I don’t know who I am now, and your upbringing was similar to mine, in some ways.”

She tried to look away, embarrassed at her own admission. With a chiding click of his tongue, he gently turned her face so she was staring at him again.

“Yes, you do. You’re the same girl with a little more past, that’s all.”

A sigh passed her lips as she replied, “Your opinion, Anton.”

“Sorry.”

Not wanting to start another argument, she decided to drop it. Her body was still hyperaware of his thick erection sliding gently along her silk covered sex, rubbing beautifully over her swollen clit. Anton was good at keeping her mind distracted, anyway.

“So, a dangerous combination for my sensitive heart …”

“You’re right; it is because I’m a risky kind of man. I’m not a good one and I don’t pretend to be. I’ve got stars on my shoulders and a rose on my chest for a reason.” His hand left her shirt before he spread his thumb and pointer finger to give Viviana the view of an inverted cross tattooed between the digits. “Marked for a worthy hit,” he added, not sounding smug or prideful, just honest. “But, I’m a better man than others. I love you best and hold you tight at night.”

“So, my man, then?”

“Always and only.”

“And what’s this man of mine like, anyway?”

Anton laughed a dark sound. It rocked her straight down to the pulsating ache between her thighs. While her question hadn’t meant to bring on their suggestive banter, she didn’t mind the change. Again, Viviana found herself shifting on top of him to relieve some of the tension in her body.

“He’s pretty fucking sinful and downright dirty when he wants to be.”

With a lifted brow, not even bothering to hide the way his words provoked her desire a little bit higher, she leaned forward into his body. Getting right up close to his ear as her wandering hands slipped lower to the spot where Viviana wanted them connected, she couldn’t miss the catch in his breath when her fingers grazed over the bulge in his boxer-briefs.

“What’s that?’

“He likes waking you up with his name in your mouth and hearing those sounds you make right before you break, because when you come it fucking soaks him totally. Nothing ever tasted so good on his tongue. Those juices of yours get so damned tart and heavy when you burn through your orgasm like it’s a fever.”

“
Mmhmm
.”

“He’s not going to always say the right things. He might even disappoint you more than he wants to admit, and sometimes he acts like an ignorant, insensitive asshole.” Anton’s lips curved with a wicked smile as she pulled away. “Like I said, he’s not always a good man, but he’s a better man in a lot of ways, and he’s yours.”

“Well, I think I like him just fine the way he is. This is who all those men raised, huh?”

“This is him,” he agreed with a shrug. “My raising might not have been perfect, but it worked just fine for me. Gave me everything I needed in one way or another. I learned exactly who I wanted to be, and who I didn’t. I’m quite pleased with the outcome; in the end, after all, it got me you.”

When her hips rose just enough to allow her hand to slip underneath his boxer-briefs, Viviana whispered, “That it did.”

• • •

Anton let her shift and move enough for her hand to get a comfortable, tight grip on his cock while her other one lay flat on his abdomen, keeping her hovering above just high enough. His fingers dug into her waist as she pumped his shaft slowly, a teasing burn licking from the base of his cock straight up through his spine.

When his own hand released its grip to find the heat between her thighs, Viviana sighed. She had soaked right through those panties she wore. More of her sex’s fluids gushed as he stroked her slit, feeling the strained bud of her clit through the thin fabric. The prettiest pink stained her chest and neck when his two fingers were quick to sweep the fabric aside and thrust inside the silken wetness of her pussy.

Knuckle deep, he watched her body sink onto his hand and Anton swore he could feel the pulse of her heart thumping against his palm. Her hips rolled, and he could see it in her blinking brown eyes that she wanted him moving those fingers of his to get her revving and ready to go.

Anton had other plans. “Get your hand down here, baby.”

“What?”

He had the best view of her sex. All wet and swollen, juices dampening his hand with the best scent of her arousal. She was slick, hot, and tight. When his cock was buried balls deep, there wasn’t anything quite like the feeling of her muscles and walls holding him inside her soaked heaven.

“Let go of me and get your hand down here,” he repeated, his voice coming out darker than he intended it to.

“You want me to stop … right
now
?”

“I want you to play a bit before I fuck you hard. Hurry up, I’m a fickle man and I’ve had a long day. Maybe we’ll just go to sleep, hmm? My mind could change at any moment.”

Her clear exasperation had him chuckling. That didn’t stop her hand from slipping off his cock, though. Anton waited her repositioning out, watching her legs spread wider as her backside rested on his thighs. His thumb opened up the lips of her pussy with feather-light touches, making her shudder. Settled, Viviana fixed him with a stare that came off a bit too challenging for his liking.

“Now what, Boss?”

“Don’t start with that,” Anton warned. Jesus, his throat tightened and his cock got harder every fucking time she said that. He wondered if hearing that title in her mouth would ever not give him that reaction. “I haven’t got the self-control for it tonight, baby. Unless you want to be bent over the bed with your ass a cherry red, begging like I know you can for me to fuck you good and hard.”

“Don’t tease me with idle threats.”

“Maybe that is what you want, huh? Damn, all you had to do was ask.”

Viviana’s eyes widened. “You
wouldn’t
.”

“Spank you? Yes, I would. And you’d like it.”

Just the way her sex pulsed and clenched around his two fingers said much more than she was willing. Anton used that to stroke against the fleshy spot inside her walls with the faintest hum building in the back of his throat. Her velvet walls turned wetter, fluids smelling so much like that heady sex he loved as he coaxed her g-spot with tender motions.

“You’d never spank me,” she challenged quietly, mischief glinting in her eyes as she looked down. “You can’t
hurt
me, Boss.”

In a flash, his hand was gone from her sex. Just his sharp movements had her squeaking in surprise before she scrambled to get out of his reach. Her lame attempt at an escape was all but lost when he grabbed her around the waist and jerked her back into his hold. Another switch of his hands and her body, and Viviana was spread over his thighs, one hand digging into the sheets as the other grappled onto the side of his leg with surprisingly hurtful force. He kept her pinned down with his arm lying flat on her bare back where the camisole had risen up.

“What did I tell you?”

“Don’t you spank me,” she breathed, nails scratching into his skin with a delicious sting.

Her nails bit into his thigh a little rougher. “Don’t, Anton, I swear to God.”

“That feels quite good, so if you’re worried it’s hurting me … it’s not. You know how much I love getting your marks all up and down my back. Left a bite on my shoulder that stayed for days, girl.”

She whimpered a lovely sound as his palm came to lie above the line of her panties, rubbing under the fabric with a slow speed that was sure to make her nervous. Anton laughed lowly when she hid her face from his view.

“You want me to, don’t you?”

“No …”

“
Viviana
.”

When she refused to respond again, Anton dragged her panties down low enough until they rested on the backs of her thighs. Viviana shifted and tried to pull away again, but the attempt was a half-hearted effort. If she really wanted him to let her go, she’d say so, and he would have instantly. It was just another one of those moments where she was embarrassed by her enjoyment, and he refused to let her shy away.

An opened palm snapped down and cracked her olive-toned flesh just above where he’d bunched the fabric up. Viviana gasped. Her muscles tightened and back straightened, her fingernails cutting into his thigh as the locks of her hair tumbled down to hide her tilting face from his view. His hand slapped down with another marginally harder tap above where he’d previously hit, and her back just barely curved off his legs.

With his fingers traveling down between her thighs and slipping in between her folds, Anton found her wetter than ever. Another one of his quiet hums released as he leaned forward and let her go just long enough to crawl up behind her. Pressing his lips down to the base of her spine, Viviana wasn’t making a move to get away.

“You’re so fucking wet, baby. Ask me to do it again.” The faintest shake of her head was all that answered him back. “That’s how you want to play this? You don’t even want to get away now.”