Page 2 of Watched and Bred by the Bratva (Bred by the Bratva #7)

“ A mani, girl, how are you doing?”

“Nothing. The usual—”

“Please stop,” she cuts in. “I’m a busy mom. I don’t have time to beat around the bush. Spill. What happened at the appointment? You know, the fertility clinic you just told me about?”

I mumble under my breath. I probably should have kept it to myself until I was sure.

“Exactly,” she says. “Which is why I’m going to hound you until I know every detail. Now stop stalling and tell me what happened.”

“I met with Doctor Overton—she’s the last step—and she assessed that I’m mentally stable enough to do this.”

“Oh my God,” she screeches. “You’re serious? You’re really going through with it?”

“I think I am.”

“Why? Why are you doing this? Why can’t you just find some rando, get pregnant, and live your life?”

“Because I don’t want the mess, Amani. This is easier, smooth, and clean. Nobody involved except me and my baby. I don’t want ties, or visitation fights. What if twenty years later he shows up demanding custody?”

“Twenty years later, your baby will be twenty, and an adult.”

“Fine. Twenty months later. I still won’t chance it.”

“Then find some foreign exchange student about to go home. Enjoy a sexy weekend together, and let him get you pregnant. When he leaves, you move on.”

“This is easier. And there’s no one I want to sleep with anyway.”

“No one?” Her tone rises in a way that usually means her eyebrow is climbing.

I roll my eyes toward the ceiling. “Fine. Lately, I’ve been thinking about Nikolai.”

Her screech is so loud I pull the phone from my ear. “No. Absolutely not. Stay far away from any Ismailov. If you got pregnant by one and kept the baby from him, he’d consider it stealing. An Olympian wouldn’t be able to run fast or far enough away.”

“You said any rando. At least he’s a rando I’m attracted to.”

“When did you even see him?”

“He comes in at least once a week. Sometimes more.”

“Interesting. A man that wealthy, choosing a tiny coffee shop near a college campus. Does he talk to any other girls?”

“No. And it’s not like with you and Dimitri. He barely speaks to me. Gets his coffee and leaves.”

She makes a noise. “That’s what I thought about Dimitri, and he was low-key stalking me.”

“Well, Nikolai isn’t stalking me. And he’s not breaking anyone’s fingers over me.”

“Mhm.” She gets quiet. We don’t usually talk about Josh and the punishment Dimitri doled out for touching his woman. “Alright, I’ll drop it. But before you get knocked up by a lab vial, consider your other option and just go for it.”

I hesitate a beat, then say softly, “And no… I haven’t talked to my mom about this.”

“Zara,” she sighs, knowingly.

“She’s still enjoying being a newlywed,” I add. “I don’t want to put this on her—not yet. She’s taken care of me my whole life. She deserves a break.”

Water splashes in the background. “Gotta go rescue my floors,” Amani says.

“Kiss my nephew for me,” I grin into the phone. “Tell Sandy I said goodnight.”

“Girl, hush, don’t let Dimitri hear you call him that.” We laugh and hang up. Dimitri’s aversion to the nickname is well known.

Dr. Overton’s words echo in my head—try flirting with him a little. Maybe if I walk myself through it...

I set the phone on the kitchen counter, pretending I’m at the coffee shop.

I fiddle with my blouse, slowly unbuttoning one button.

“Here’s your coffee, Nikolai,” I murmur aloud, leaning forward so he can see the swell of my breasts, pressing them together as I pretend to pour his drink.

“Is there any other way I can serve you?” My voice dips husky as I toss my imaginary hair.

I go from siren to silly in seconds. Laughter bursts out until my eyes water. Yeah, right, I mutter. “He’d probably button my shirt back up and give me fatherly advice about not catching a cold.”

Still… my body thrums, my panties dampen. It’s been a long day. I need a meal, shower, and bed.

When I’ve hit all three goals, I pad into the bedroom. My towel clings to me before I pat myself dry and drop it to the floor. Pajamas can wait. Practice can’t.

“Practice, practice, practice,” I mutter, stretching out on the bed.

My fingertips trail from my knees up to my hips, skirting the heat pooling between my thighs. “Too fast,” I tell the empty room. “Why don’t you taste these delicious fruits first?”

My hands rise to my breasts—cupping, squeezing, pinching. “That’s it, Nikolai,” I whisper, testing the name in my mouth, letting it roll like a lover’s name. “Harder.” I imagine his fingers taking over, thick and blunt, tugging until the pleasure sharpens and twists.

I pinch again, rougher. The jolt makes my back arch. My body wants. Craves. But still—still—it’s all pretend.

“Here,” I murmur to him, to the man who isn’t here, “come take me apart.”

In my mind, he kneels between my thighs like it’s sacred ground, not something casual or easy. His mouth moves over my skin—chasing goosebumps, tasting sweat and heat. I imagine him murmuring something low and Russian, reverent and dirty all at once.

His features rise like heat off pavement—soft, thick, dark wavy hair that begs to be touched. Hazel eyes that shimmer with something magnetic. A body sculpted like he was built, not born. And that small scar on his chin, just off-center, like an imperfection made to make him more perfect.

I imagine tangling my fingers in that hair, both hands buried to the wrist, and holding him still. “Let me teach you,” I whisper aloud. “Let me show you what I like.”

He groans into my skin. His tongue moves with lazy purpose, flattening, curling, teasing. “Yes, Nikolai. Yes. You’re such a good student.”

I spread wider, guiding his imagined mouth. The wet heat of it almost real, almost enough. “Not too soft—faster—slow—yes…”

My fingers mimic him—circling, pressing, teasing. I try a faster rhythm, then slower. One hand between my legs, the other pinching a nipple. The buildup is there—but it’s like chasing a figure only to capture a ghost.

His mouth reaches the top of my thighs. “Your tongue feels so good. Heavenly.” I picture his face kissing through the soft curls decorating me. “Shave? Maybe… but only if you make it worth it. Because razor bumps are hell.”

The thought breaks the spell for a moment, and I roll my eyes at myself. Focus. Relatable or not, it’s not sexy.

Then again, maybe it is. If he wants all of me, he gets the real me—concerns, awkward humor and all. If he wants to taste me, he better earn it.

I go back to the fantasy. My thighs tremble. I twist against the sheets. I want to fall apart, to fly over that edge and—

Nothing.

The heat stays in my belly, thighs, chest—but it doesn’t crest. Doesn’t crash. I grow still. My fingers fall away. My chest heaves like I’ve run a race with no finish line. Disappointment stings my eyes, and I throw my arm over them as if I can hide.

“Doc,” I whisper to the ceiling. “I lied. I’ve never had an orgasm. Am I still normal? A late bloomer? Or am I broken because fingers don’t do it for me?”

Sighing, I sit up and grab my nightie. My fertility tracker app blinks at me from the phone.

Two weeks to ovulation. Two weeks until my dream comes true.

Nikolai is, of course, the first customer of my shift. It feels like he waited in his car until I arrived. I’m barely in my apron before he waves me over from his corner booth.

“Hi,” I whisper, my voice cracking. “Your usual today?”

He watches me with a heat that’s probably my imagination conspiring with last night’s fantasy. “Yes. Black. No sugar.”

His eyes follow the sweep of my tongue over my lip before lifting back to mine. My hands shake as I pour his coffee, and hot liquid splashes onto his cuff.

“Oh my God—” I grab napkins, one, two, ten, trying to blot it up until his fingers wrap around mine, stilling me.

“Zara. It’s fine. Are you?”

“Yes, yes, I just… you don’t need any—we have ointment, a lot of ointment,” I stammer, still dabbing until I force my hands back. My skin tingles where he touched me.

He lets me retreat, but his gaze follows.

The bell over the door rings and Wissam walks in. Relief floods me, and I overcompensate, skipping toward him with a grin too wide. He wraps me in a hug.

“I didn’t think I’d see you before you left,” I say.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” he says, kissing my cheek.

“Graduation next Saturday, turn in my keys, then I’m gone.

My flight leaves Sunday, so I’m drowning in packing.

Been trying to get everything sorted—sell the car, close accounts—it’s been nonstop busy.

” He smiles ruefully. “But not too busy to celebrate with my friends. Amani already sent me an invite to your party, but I haven’t had a chance to RSVP. Consider this my yes.”

We fall into easy banter, but his smile fades when he glances at Nikolai. He lowers his voice. “That guy’s intense. You’re safe with him?”

“He’s fine. He’s Amani’s husband’s cousin.”

His voice drops to a hush. “Her husband’s in the Bratva.”

I shush him. “No talking about Bruno,” I advise. “Besides, he’s one of my best customers. He may seem a little intense, but he’s a nice guy.”

He searches my face, then glances back at Nikolai. “If you’re sure. I just—I don’t like leaving you here with him staring at us so hard that if his eyes were a gun, I’d have a bullet boring into my skull.”

“I’m sure,” I insist. Despite Nikolai being in the Bratva—possibly—I trust him. My gut says I’m safer when he’s around. “Now, didn’t you tell me you have a million things to do? Don’t add worry about Zara as one million and one.”

He sighs. “Okay, if you’re sure. You would’ve been one million and two, by the way.”

I laugh and shoo him out the door. “Glad to know where I stand.” He slow-pokes it out the door after another gulp of coffee, leaving me alone with my quiet customer.

I take the half-empty pot to Nikolai’s table. “Refill?”

He declines, then asks, “Who was your friend?”

“Wissam,” I say with a little smile. The name alone brings back a hundred shared coffees and late-night cram sessions. “We met freshman year, hit it off over orientation pizza, and ended up study buddies for pretty much all four years. He’s leaving for Lebanon soon—big move, new chapter.”

“You were never…?” He arches a brow.

It takes me a minute to understand the question. Mainly because it’s so uncharacteristic of him to ask. “No,” I say firmly. “He’s just a friend.”

“And you? Do you have plans for after graduation?”

“Two months off, then I start teaching elementary school.”

His eyes glint. “A man would be happy to have you teach him all the things you want him to know.”

A shiver runs my spine. Odd phrasing. Almost like he—no. Probably a language thing. Except his English is flawless. No accent. I file it away.

“You mean a child,” I correct. “I hope I won’t be teaching any men in my elementary school.”

He gives a half-smile. “Of course, a child.”

He tilts his head again. “And beyond work? Marriage? Children?”

“No marriage. No children,” I lie. I have no intention of revealing my plans to him. And if Amani let it slip, she’ll just have to die and I’ll suffer whatever torture Dimitri doles out as punishment.

He narrows his beautiful hazel eyes but only shakes his head when I shake the coffee pot at him. I walk away trying my damndest not to imagine him plowing into me. Breeding me.

The week slips by in a blur of last exams, work shifts, and sleepless anticipation before Saturday night arrives—the night of my graduation party.

Dimitri wraps his arm around Amani when she returns from putting Alexander to bed. His eyes devour her face as if she left for hours instead of minutes. The same man who once terrified her now owns every part of her heart… and she owns his.

My mom and her new husband already left earlier with hugs and congratulations. As did most of the other guests Dimitri strong-armed into attending. The mix of grim-faced gangsters and optimistic graduates was odd, but it worked. I’m grateful for the success, even as my eyelids grow heavy.

Most people are gone. Wissam slipped out early, looking pale after his tense conversation with Nikolai. I’ll ask him later what they discussed.

Nikolai steps to my side as if summoned. His gaze lingers, then softens. “You look beautiful tonight.”

Heat creeps into my cheeks. “Thank you… and thank you for coming to the party.”

“I wouldn’t have missed it,” he says, corner of his mouth quirking. “Not just because Dimitri threatened anyone who refused his wife’s invitation”—we laugh—“but because I’m proud of you. I had to celebrate my favorite teacher.”

I raise a brow. “You know many teachers?”

“No,” he admits easily. “Never much cared for them… but they’re growing on me.”

My pulse skips, leaving me flustered.

“Ready to go?” he asks after a beat. “Can I offer you a ride home?”

“I’ll call a rideshare.”

“Absolutely not. My driver will be with us. If you’re afraid to be alone with me, he’ll be right there. Nothing to worry about.”

I study his face. “I’m not afraid of you, Nikolai.”

His expression warms but he only gives a short nod before I move to thank our hosts.

Amani hugs me hard, her expression tight. Dimitri pulls her back into his embrace as I follow Nikolai outside.

The early summer night is cooling, air brushing bare arms. He drapes his jacket over my shoulders, his scent wrapping around me like silk. His expression flickers—heat flashing before smoothing. Did I imagine it?

He opens the car door and I slide inside, feeling like prey stepping into a spider’s web. Champagne waits in a silver bucket of ice.

“You had this waiting?”

“I believe in being prepared.”

I shouldn’t, but he insists, leaning in with that patient intensity that makes refusal feel ridiculous.

He lifts the flute toward me, his fingers brushing mine, sending a shiver through me.

The crisp scent teases my nose before I take a cautious sip, bubbles prickling my tongue.

One sip becomes another, his gaze never leaving my face.

When I finish the glass, I notice he hasn’t touched his. “None for you?”

He gives a small shrug. “I’m not much of a drinker, but you should enjoy it. After all, this is your night.”

Encouraged, I let him pour me another. Warmth floods me, laughter bubbling. The fizz coils through me like quick fire, softening edges, blurring my focus around the gleam of his eyes.

“You… you…” My brain works to accuse him of something, but my tongue is too thick.

His mouth is a grim line.

My last thought before darkness takes me: Oh, no.