Page 27 of Knocked-up Bratva Bride

I gave him a flat look, but Irina, seated beside me now, her legs crossed like a queen on a throne, leaned in with that wicked spark in her eyes.

“Come on,” she said, voice low and taunting. “Or are you scared to play with the waitress?”

I turned to her, slowly, grinning. “You think you can handle me?”

“Guess we’ll find out,” she purred.

So we played. Stupid questions. Stupid dares. Strip a sock. Take a shot of hot sauce. Tell your worst date story. Irina held her own and was somehow charming through it all. She got me to admit I once punched a guy over a stolen cannoli when I was seventeen. I made her confess she used to sneak into rich hotels just to swim in their rooftop pools.

Somewhere between laughter and vodka, the world outside that room blurred into nothing. It was just her and me.

Then Matvey grinned like the bastard he was and turned to Irina. “Dare.”

She narrowed her eyes, feigning suspicion. “Nothing illegal, I hope.”

“Nope.” Leo smirked. “If you lose the next round, you have to sleep with Damien.”

Laughter erupted around the table.

I tilted my glass, amused. “You don'thaveto, obviously.”

Irina didn’t blink. “Fine. But ifyoulose,” she pointed a manicured finger at me, “you have to let me draw a mustache on your face in permanent marker.”

“Deal,” I said without hesitation.

It was a coin toss—stupid and juvenile. I didn’t care about the game, not really. But when the coin flipped, landed tails, and Irina bit her lip to hide her smile...there was a pause.

She looked at me. Not the young man with the money or the title or the room full of power—butme.

And I saw the moment she decided.

“Guess I lost,” she said softly.

“You sure you want to do this?” I asked, something serious threading through the heat.

She leaned in, her lips brushing the shell of my ear. “If I didn’t, you’d already have a mustache.”

After thinking about it and deciding that I wanted it as much, I took her hand. We left the room like ghosts slipping out of reality.

“I’m on birth control,” she said, later, in the privacy of the suite upstairs. “Just in case you’re wondering.”

I wasn’t. I didn’t care then.

It wasn’t the kind of sex that came with strings or promises. It was heat and laughter and the kind of tangled sheets that made you forget your last name.

She didn’t make my blood boil or excite me enough to evoke the “feelings” poets talked about.

No woman held, or would ever hold, that kind of power over me.

But Irina was great company, and the sex was good.

***

After emptying the vodka from the bottle into the glass, I hurled the bottle at the wall closest to the door, watched it shatter into a million pieces, and frowned at the mess on the marble floor.

Fuck.

In front of Elena, I kept my shit together. Pretended that I didn’t want to march up to that table, snatch her away from that regular-looking clown in the blue dress shirt and black tie, and fuck her hard in that hallway.