Page 8 of Mountain Daddy (Broken Boss Daddies #1)

LILLY

O nce again, he never called.

In his defense, he never said he would. There was no note the last time around. No promise.

All I’m left with is the memory of his touch burning on my skin.

His breath, hot against my lips.

His words, dirty when he asked how I wanted it.

I'm serving the hotel guests at the bar, trying not to look toward the VIP section. Table 9 has customers tonight—three men I don’t know.

None of them Nikolai.

Where the hell is he?

I shouldn’t care. Definitely shouldn’t be counting the days since I woke up alone in his bed.

But he’s a bad idea I can’t shake.

“Lilly, you're spacing out again,” Trish says.

I force myself to focus, to move through the motions of my job. Pour drinks. Smile at customers. Pretend I don't scan every tall, dark-haired man who walks through the door hoping it's him.

I force myself to focus.

Pour the drinks.

Fake the smiles.

Go through the damn motions.

And pretend I’m not scanning every tall, dark-haired man who walks through that door. Have been for the past week.

It’s never him.

Maybe he's done with me. Maybe two nights was enough to scratch whatever itch I was.

The thought shouldn't hurt as much as it does.

It’s not just the sex I’m missing—though God knows that was next-level.

It’s the way he looked at me afterward. Like I wasn’t just some waitress from the wrong side of nowhere.

“Mine,” he'd growled.

And he fucking meant it.

I think.

But if I was really his, wouldn't he be here? Wouldn't he have called?

My shift ends at midnight. I grab my purse. Put on my coat. Head out into the Chicago night. The city hums like it’s on edge.

That's when I hear it.

The sound of a fistfight.

I freeze, listening.

I should walk away. Get in my car and drive home. Mind my own business.

Instead, I creep toward the sound, staying in the shadows.

Across the street, in the mouth of an alley, I see him.

Nikolai.

He’s standing over a man crumpled to his knees, face bloodied. Nikolai’s in a pristine white shirt. Like the violence never touched him.

Except for his hands. Split and dripping red.

“Where is it?” Nikolai roars.

The man on the ground mumbles but I can't hear.

Nikolai kicks the man’s ribs. My stomach lurches at the sound of bones cracking.

“I asked you a question.”

I watch, frozen. Transfixed. Horrified. Nikolai slips a hand into his jacket. I pray it isn’t a gun.

It’s not.

No.

It’s something worse.

He pulls out brass knuckles.

This isn't the man who made love to me. Who whispered my name like a prayer. Who held me afterward like I was something precious.

This is a monster.

Nikolai slides the brass knuckles over his fingers like he’s enjoying this. The man on the ground scrambles backward, dragging a streak of blood across the concrete.

“Please,” the man begs. “I don't know anything about?—”

The brass knuckles connect with his jaw. His head snaps back with a wet crack.

I can't move.

Can't breathe.

Can't look away.

Nikolai’s not wild. He’s surgical. He doesn’t snarl. Doesn’t shout. He simply dismantles the man till he stops making sounds.

Nikolai stops. Checks his watch.

Like he has somewhere else to be.

Like he didn't just beat a man unconscious.

That's when he turns and sees me.

Our eyes lock across the dark street, and everything inside me turns to ice. He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t look surprised.

No guilt. No shame.

Just calm, steady… like it doesn’t matter what I saw.

I should run. Shit. I should get the hell out of here. Head back to the club. To my car. To safety.

Away from this man who casually destroyed another human being.

But my feet won't move.

Nikolai walks toward me. Unhurried. Confident. Like he knows I won't run.

I’m afraid he's right.

“Lilly.”

“Is he dead?” The words come out as a whisper.

Nikolai stops in front of me. Tilts his head like he’s trying not to laugh. “No.”

“Will he be?”

“Anyone could die anytime.”

The casual way he says it makes my knees weak. This is who he really is. This is Nikolai Vetrov. Bratva enforcer.

Monster.

“You shouldn't have seen that.” His hand wraps around my upper arm. Not painful, but firm. Unmistakable.

“I was just leaving work?—”

“I know.” He starts walking, pulling me along. “My car's this way.”

I should resist. Should demand he let go of me. But the shock of what I witnessed has left me numb, compliant. I let him guide me to his car.

He opens the passenger door and helps me in like some old-school gentleman. Like he didn’t just beat a man half to death thirty seconds ago.

Maybe I didn’t get the memo. Chivalry’s not dead—it’s just covered in blood.

He slides into the driver's seat, starts the engine.

“Where do you live?”

I give him my address without thinking. My brain feels disconnected from my body, floating somewhere above this surreal nightmare.

We drive in silence. I stare out of the window, try to make sense of what I saw. The same hands that made me come apart a week ago… tore another man’s face open.

“You're scared of me now.”

It’s an assessment.

I turn to look at him. His shadowed face is both beautiful and terrible.

“I should be.”

“But you're not.”

He's right. I should be terrified. But I’m not. I'm remembering the way his hands felt on my skin. The way he whispered my name in the dark.

He pulls up outside my apartment. Kills the engine.

“I should go,” I say, but I don't move to get out.

“Should.”

The word hangs between us, heavy with implication.

Should.

But won't.

He gets out of the car, comes around to my side. Opens my door. Offers his hand.

I take it.

He walks me to my building, waits while I fumble with my keys. My hands are shaking. Whether from shock or anticipation, I can't tell.

“Lilly.”

I look up at him. In the dim light from the streetlamp, he looks like sin incarnate.

Dark hair.

Tiger eyes.

The kind of beautiful that leads good girls straight to hell.

I freeze. Shake. Go breathless and heady. He takes my keys from my trembling fingers, unlocks my door. Pushes it open.

We climb three flights of stairs in silence. Outside my apartment, he takes the keys again. Lets us in.

My place is small. One bedroom, kitchen barely big enough for two people. Nothing like his penthouse suite.

But he doesn't seem to notice the difference.

The door closes behind us with a click. A gunshot in the silence.

“Nikolai—”

“I can leave,” he cuts me off. Burns a hole into my heart from how he stares.

The thought. The idea. Of having him so close. Of depriving myself of one more night scares the hell out of me.

Feels like I’m having something precious snatched away.

I meet his gaze. Shake my head. Ever so slowly. Afraid. Testing what I’m afraid to admit out loud.

And just like that, the tiger in him roars. His eyes turn hungry and he’s standing skin to skin. One hand fists in my hair, angles my head.

My heart races. Hands go clammy. Toes curl.

And then, his lips brush against mine. Teasing, filtering.

I moan and the kiss is no longer precious. It’s raw, wild, starved. His tongue slides across my lips, forces its way in. He slides it over the roof of my mouth. Teeth graze teeth. Fist pulls hair. Heart calls to heart.

It's not gentle.

It's possession.

Claim.

I should remember what I just witnessed in that alley. Instead, I kiss him back just as desperately.

His hands are everywhere—sliding down my back, gripping my ass, pulling me against him so I can feel how hard he is already. The evidence of his want makes me moan into his mouth.

“I can't stop thinking about you,” he growls against my lips. “About this.”

His hand slides between my legs, pressing against me through my skirt. Through my panties, I can feel the heat of his palm.

His touch sears.

My hips buck involuntarily.

“Every night,” he slides down the zipper. “I think of how you taste. How you feel wrapped around me. How you scream my name.”

The skirt drops and I’m on fire with need for him. His hand slides inside my panties.

“Fuck,” he breathes. “You're so wet already.”

I am. God help me, I am. Despite what I witnessed. Despite knowing what he's capable of. Despite everything logical and rational, my body wants him.

Needs him.

“More,” I whisper. I crave. I yearn.

He knows. He always knows.

His hands grip the hem of my shirt, yanking it over my head. My bra follows, torn apart in his haste.

“I need to see you,” he says in a voice to hoarse it gets me going. “All of you.”

He backs me toward the bedroom, mouth never leaving mine. We stumble through the doorway, a tangle of desperate hands and urgent kisses.

The back of my knees hit the bed. He pushes me down onto it.

He stands over me. Lets his eyes rake down my body. Burns an image into his brain.

“So fucking beautiful,” he murmurs.

His hands go to his belt. When it hits the floor, my legs clench with anticipation.

Pants.

Boxers.

All off.

He's gloriously naked, standing at the foot of my bed. A dark god of sex.

“Lift your hips.”

I obey.

He hooks his fingers in my panties, dragging them down my legs. I shiver.

“Spread your legs for me.”

I spread.

My brain shuts down completely, leaving only instinct and need. I'm not a rational woman. I'm just his. Completely, utterly his.

He climbs into bed, settles between my thighs. His hands slide up my legs, thumbs brushing dangerously close to where I need him most.

“Tell me you want this,” he demands. “Tell me you want me.”

“I want you,” I breathe. “Please, Nikolai. I want you.”

One finger slides inside me.

Then two.

I arch off the bed, crying out at the sudden fullness. He pumps them slowly, curling against that spot that makes me see stars.

“So wet,” he groans. “So perfect. My perfect girl.”

“Mm-hmm,” I moan and throw back my head.

His.

God, yes.

Right now, I’m not the girl who plays it safe.

I’m the girl who lets him wreck her and begs for more.

The kind who wants to be ruined.

His good girl—gone deliciously, hopelessly bad.

He teases me with those strong, unrelenting fingers. Slow, then deep. Then just right until my thighs are shaking and I can’t keep my hips still.

Until my breath comes in gasps and my thoughts fall apart.

I’m right there, right on the edge, every nerve strung tight.

Begging—broken, breathless, soaked—for more.

For him.

For anything that will tip me over and finish what he started.

And then, like the devil he is, he stops.

“Look at me,” he commands.

My eyes snap open.

He positions himself at my entrance, the head of his cock sliding through my wetness. Teasing. Promising.

“I'm going to fuck you now,” he whispers, his voice like a glinting knife. “So hard you’ll forget your name. The way you need it.”

“Yes,” I gasp. “Please.”

He thrusts in with one slow, brutal stroke—deep and all at once—stretching me wide around him.

It’s too much. Not enough.

The burn borders on pain, but it’s the kind that makes my toes curl and my lips part on a gasp.

Full. Claimed. His.

And God, it’s perfect.

So fucking perfect I could cry.

He's so deep I swear I can feel him in my throat.

“Fuck,” he breathes. “I forgot how tight you are. How good you feel.”

He starts to move then, pulling almost all the way out before slamming back in. The force of it drives me up the bed, makes the headboard bang against the wall.

I don't care. Let the neighbors complain. Let the whole building know what's happening in here.

“Harder,” I beg. “Please, harder.”

He grins, feral and devilishly. “Well, sweetheart, since you asked so nicely…”

He grabs my hips like he owns them and gives me exactly what I asked for. He drives into me.

Hard. Fast. Relentless.

Until I moan and gasp and hiss with each pounding of his cock.

He fucks me filthy. Leaves me clawing at the sheets. My legs wrap around his waist, pulling him deeper, tighter.

He fucks me like he’s branding me from the inside out.

Like he's claiming me. Like he's marking me. He reaches places inside me that no one else ever has.

But it's not enough. I need more. Need all of him.

I grab at his shirt, tear it open. Desperate for his skin.

My nails rake down his chest, leave red marks.

“You marking me sweetheart?” He punishes me with a slam that makes me slide up. That makes the bed groan.

And I want more.

“Yes,” I gasp.

Something dangerous flashes in his eyes. He pulls out. Leaves me empty. Aching.

“Turn over.”

I flip onto my stomach, breath ragged.

He doesn’t wait. Just grabs my hips and hauls me up onto my knees, ass in the air, back arched—offered.

Exposed.

His.

He drags his hands down my spine, slow and sinful, like he’s tracing a racetrack he plans to win.

Over my lower back, across the curve of my ass—palms firm, fingers splayed, claiming every inch like he owns the rights to my body.

Then he thrusts back inside me from behind—deeper, sharper, devastating.

I scream into the pillow, not from pain, but from the pure overload of sensation.

He’s everywhere.

Inside me, over me, all-consuming.

“That's it,” he growls, setting a punishing pace. “Let me hear you. Let the whole world know who's fucking you.”

His hands grip my hips hard enough to leave bruises. I'll wear those marks like badges of honor.

One hand slides up my spine, fisting in my hair. He pulls my head back, forcing me to arch, to take him even deeper.

“Who do you belong to?” he demands.

“You,” I sob. “I belong to you.”

“Say my name.”

“Nikolai!”

“Again.”

“Nikolai! Oh God, Nikolai!”

He releases my hair, both hands moving to grip my breasts. His fingers find my nipples, pinching and rolling them until I'm writhing beneath him.

“Such perfect tits,” he groans. “Made for my hands.”

The way he pounds into that spot deep inside me. The way hands grip my breasts like fruits for the taking. It’s perfect. It’s too much.

My body’s spiraling, that pressure building low in my belly.

Tight.

Hot.

Merciless.

I’m right there, seconds from coming apart, and he knows it.

He's dragging it out. Driving me mad.

And I want to break for him.

Hard.

“I'm close,” I gasp.

“Not yet,” he commands. “Wait for me.”

His pace becomes erratic, his breathing harsh. I can feel him getting close too, his control finally starting to slip.

“Now,” he urges me.

That’s all it takes.

His permission detonates something inside me. I break—hard.

The orgasm hits like a goddamn tsunami, ripping through me, stealing my breath, leaving me shaking, wrecked, undone.

I collapse forward, barely able to moan, when he follows. A grunt. His hips slamming in a few final times, then holding deep as his whole body locks up.

I feel him come inside me, hot and heavy. I shudder harder.

I’m ruined.

Completely, beautifully ruined.

We collapse together onto the bed, sweaty and spent. His arms wrap around me, pulling me against his chest.

“Mine,” he whispers into my hair.

I want to say it back. Want to tell him he's mine too. But the words stick in my throat because I know this isn't real.

By now I know he’ll be gone tomorrow.