Page 28 of Scarlet Promise (Yegorov Bratva #4)

Chapter Twenty-Two

ALINA

I wake in a warm cocoon. Albert’s in the middle, and Ilya’s legs are over mine. My head rests on his chest.

When I move, Albert makes a sound of disgust at being disturbed and jumps down, wandering off, no doubt in search of food. I bet his doggy ears pick up Svetlana moving around in the kitchen below.

I don’t hear her, but he’s a dog, and food is up there on his list of interests.

“Good morning,” Ilya says, his fingers trailing down against my cheek.

I smile up at him and find his gaze on me.

I laugh. “How long have you been watching me? Because Albert was definitely awake.”

“Albert’s lazy,” he murmurs. “He woke me moving about, but when I didn’t get up, he stayed. If you wake up? He’s pretty damn sure food’s on the menu, and you’ll follow him.”

“Smart, not lazy, and you didn’t answer my question.”

“A while.”

He kisses me, a brush of his lips that makes my entire body sing.

“Creepy,” I say.

“Me?”

“You. It’s creepy to be awake, staring at me while I sleep.”

He moves in close, bringing me up against him and his erection, which sends shivers of need and delight rippling through my bones.

“Is it creepy to watch you and touch you?” he asks.

“While I’m sleeping?”

“Of course.” He bites my ear, licking along the edge of my lobe, and a bolt of pleasure shoots through me. “It’s the best way. Here, let me show you.”

He tickles me.

I squeal and then gasp for breath as I laugh and wiggle and try to get away. I’m not overly ticklish, but there’s just something about the way he does it, about the way my skin and flesh are hypersensitive around him.

Ilya wraps his arms around me and kisses me deeply as he sprawls me on top of him. The kiss is open-mouthed, hot, and the good kind of invasive. I can’t get enough of his tongue, and my whole body throbs with the memories of the night before.

He pinned me to the bed, licked me, and finger-fucked me into orgasm after orgasm until I didn’t think I had anything left. Until my legs were jelly and shaking and my breath was gone.

And then he fucked me.

Now, as his fingers slide down over me, trailing a path down my spine, over my ass, I know what he’s going to do.

His muscles bunch as a warning that he’s going to flip us and go down on me, but suddenly I don’t want that. I mean, I always want that, but this time, I want him . I want to taste him, to go down on him.

So I push at him as I break the kiss. Pulling out of his embrace, I place my hands on his shoulders as I slide down him, dropping kisses on his skin, taking the sheets with me.

I pause for a moment at his abs to drink them in.

They’re a master class of perfection. A pinnacle of male beauty. I trace the delineated eight-pack with my finger, then I move closer and trace each defined muscle with my tongue.

Then I slide down to his cock.

Thick, hard, beautiful. A monument to male virility. I lick that, too, trailing up from the base to under the head and down the other side.

I wrap my fingers around the hard heat of him, the shaft like hot steel and satin.

He tastes like salt and the clean scent of him, so I know he’s already been up, probably worked out, showered, and stripped back down to get back into bed with me.

And that…

It strokes my ego.

I lick his head as I move my hand up along his shaft, and his soft groan is like music, a plea for more.

I want to do more. I want him deep. I want to drive him crazy the way he does me, so I start slowly sucking him into my mouth.

“Oh, fuck yes, malyshka ,” he says in Russian. “Fuck me with your mouth. I want to brand you everywhere. Fill you so the world knows you’re mine.”

His words should make me laugh because they’re so over the top, but I love them, and I want him to do that too. I want him to do all the dirty things that he can think of.

Brand me.

Use my mouth like a cunt.

Come down my throat so deep that I won’t be able to breathe.

I want to be his in all the ways.

My body is fevered, wet, ready. I suck him deep, taking him in as far as I can and then pulling back all the way to the tip.

His hot steel fills my mouth, stretching as he enters each time, and there’s room to slide my tongue to the underside, to suck him hard, to slam him into the back of my throat. My gag reflex triggers, and from the sounds he makes, my involuntary swallows heighten his pleasure.

He thrusts upward, going deeper, harder, his movements growing jerky. I’m ready. I squeeze his tight balls?—

“Alina.”

With effort, he pulls me off him, throws me to my back, and slams into me. Hard.

And shudders. His entire body vibrates, taut as a steel wire.

“Just… Fuck. Give me a moment. Wicked little malyshka .”

I want him to come. I’m on the edge just from giving him head. Ripples of pleasure already race through me, like pebbles over water.

But that’s not his plan.

Finally, he relaxes, and then he kisses me as he starts to move.

And I lose myself in him, matching his moves, the thrusts and pulls, the ebbs and flows, the pleasure that rains down on my desire until I’m just a singing mass of ecstasy.

When I come, it’s with him, and it just happens, like some kind of chain reaction.

I shatter, the spasms setting off the spurts of his seed, the twitch of his shaft.

And when I come back down, there’s only happiness and Ilya.

My tea waits for me on the kitchen table. Though Ilya’s tucking into a bowl of something as he looks at his phone on the counter, Albert stretched over his dog bed in a patch of sun, there isn’t any food for me.

“I didn’t know if you were eating or what you wanted. I can make your usual—some toast, eggs, whatever.”

“Did you fire Svetlana?” I pick up my tea and wander over to him.

“I can make breakfast. She’s not my slave,” he says with a laugh.

I pull down his bowl and look into it. “What’s the sludge?”

“Porridge. Oats are good for you.”

I take his spoon and try some. There’s a little maple syrup on it, and a dusting of cinnamon, but it’s bland enough to taste good.

He hands me the bowl.

“No,” I say. “I just wanted to try it.”

“I can make more. I can make you more if you’d prefer it plain, which is disgusting.”

There’s a pot on the stove, and I lift the lid, handing him back his bowl. “I think I want plain, and I’ll have the leftovers.”

I start to eat it from the wooden spoon, and he just rolls his eyes.

“What are your plans for the day?” he asks. “Is Demyan demanding you home at a certain time?”

I blow out a breath. I snuck a look at my phone and saw the messages from him. My bodyguard is waiting, apparently.

He can do that, but he can’t let me have my money.

I clench the spoon tight. “I’m going to try and come up with a solution for the shelter. I’m not sure what, since Demyan won’t let me access my trust fund.”

He frowns. “It’s yours. He can’t cut off the money paid to you each month.”

“I want to access a sizable chunk, and for that, I need his signature.”

“I’ll give you what I can. We have money. It’s just tied up.”

I put the spoon and the pan down and touch his arm. “I know how it works.”

“It’s not just the bratva, but the inheritance isn’t released until the twelve months are up, so it’s just the money the bratva brings in.”

Most of that ends up not being liquid. I know. I grew up with this. Personal finances are one thing. The illegal coffers are carefully handled and hidden, and like most rich people, accessing disposable funds of size takes time.

Or in my case, a stubborn brother.

“I know,” I say. “Believe me, I know.”

“I just…” He sighs, sets his bowl down, and pushes his hand through his hair. “I can help you finance a loan. I have enough of my own money for that.”

“No.”

“We are married, Alina. What’s mine is yours.”

“Maybe,” I say, snuggling up to him. “But that’s not the point. Point is, I should be able to get my money, some of it, early. I’m only asking for a portion, and there’ll still be so much money left that I won’t know what to do with.”

All that money, carefully hidden and handled, like my ridiculous trust fund.

It’s bigger than what Dad set up, because Demyan, who’s unbelievably rich in his own right, gave me his for my eighteenth birthday.

At least he didn’t claim I owed him.

Ilya laughs.

“What’s so funny?” I demand.

“The club.”

I stare at him. “Demyan’s baby? The nightclub and exclusive club that half the rich across the US are members of? And the other half want that membership to his club?”

“Yep. You could sell that to really piss him off.” He laughs again.

I join in, but inside, I’m not laughing.

I am an owner in the club. It’s name only, really.

A security measure in case Demyan ever got into trouble, or when Dad was alive and he got into trouble.

Money’s laundered through there, and it rakes in millions a month.

The girls who work the joint are the kind made from fantasies, and if they choose to take a client to the next level, then it’s even more money for them and us.

I say us.

But really, I don’t see a cent.

The forty-nine percent in my name is on paper, but…legally, it’s mine. And legally, it’s above board in there. The girls, if they do solicit, do it discreetly and on their own. They get most of what they charge, and the men make donations.

Beyond that, I don’t ask questions.

But selling my share would make the money I need. Demyan’s hit by offers to buy into it all the time, and even for a fraction of ownership, people are willing to pay exorbitant amounts.

Demyan never entertains it.

But I just may.

This could be my solution.

“Can I use your lawyer?” I ask.

Ilya narrows his eyes as he picks up his coffee. “Sure, but why?”

I grin, shrug, and sip my tea. “If Demyan won’t release my trust fund money, maybe he needs a push.”

“A…push?” There’s a warning in his tone, but I ignore it.

I nod. “I want your lawyer to draw up the paperwork for me to sell my share of the club.”

“Fuck, Alina, have you lost your mind?” Ilya shakes his head. “Demyan will lose his shit if you do this.”

“Then he can do two things—release my trust fund like I asked or buy my shares.”

And if he pisses me off enough, I’ll start a bidding war.

“Maybe I’ll sell to Erin. Whatever. If he needs the buffer of an innocent, then she’d be perfect. Or his kids and Erin. However he needs to work it. Or, you know, give me my trust. It’s not hard, and I no longer care. I’m sick of him micromanaging my life.”

“This won’t end well,” he mutters.

“Or maybe he’ll wake up to only himself and then do things right.”

He sighs. “Fine.”

Later, I call Ilya’s lawyer. She echoes Ilya’s thoughts on it all.

“Ilya said we can draw the papers up and sit on them.”

“No,” I say. “Draw them up and then present them to Demyan on my behalf.”

“You’ll need to come to my office.”

“When?”

“Any time today.”

“I’ll be there in half an hour.”