Twilight Sins (Kulikov Bratva Book 1)

The man across the table from me is rubbing his hands raw trying to figure out what he should do here.

I don’t know why. It’s simple. I’ve told him exactly what he’s going to do.

“There isn’t a choice here, Feliks,” Nik chimes in, growing frustrated. “Yakov is giving you a better cut of the money than Akim ever has. There is no decision.”

Feliks obviously disagrees. He is shaking. Has been since he walked into the hotel room an hour ago. I didn’t even need to freak him out by laying out the years’ worth of transactions I gathered together into a tidy little folder.

If he refuses my deal, I’ll make sure they are “anonymously” handed to a federal agent. But I think if I tell him about that little incentive now, he’ll combust, piss himself, or both.

I would usually take a meeting like this at the mansion, but I don’t want business like this too close to Luna. Especially when it has anything at all to do with Akim Gustev. She asks enough questions as it is.

I answered them last night because she made it well worth my time. This morning… I don’t have an excuse for that. Having her in my bed felt right. She asked questions I could answer, so I did.

Now, the image of her lying in my bed, the duvet around her waist and her smooth skin glowing in the early morning light, is stuck in my head.

Goddammit.

Fucking her out of my system might take longer than I planned.

“I have a lot to think about,” Feliks mumbles, bringing me back to the here and now.

“Like how to end your arrangement with Akim?” Nik asks. “I’d suggest a tasteful fruit basket with a little card. He’ll like that.”

Feliks shakes his head so hard his mustache trembles. “No, he won’t.”

“You’re going to be working for me. Do you think I let people fuck with the people in my employ?”

“No?” Feliks guesses.

“Fuck no,” I tell him. “I can handle Akim Gustev.”

That’s what I’m doing right now—handling him. Before I cut Akim off at the legs, I’ll take a few warning shots. Feliks has been working with the Gustev Bratva for years. The Gustev grunts jack cars and clone them. Then it’s Feliks’ job to sell them for a cut of the money. Nik also found out Akim is laundering money through Feliks’ used car lot. Taking Feliks out from under Akim isn’t a death blow, but it will fucking sting.

That’s what I want. A slow, agonizing death by a thousand cuts. I want him to know it’s over long before the end actually arrives.

Feliks runs a shaking hand through his thinning hair. “Your numbers make sense. I’ve been wanting to cut back on the cloned cars for years, anyway. My wife doesn’t like that the feds are always sniffing around. But Akim has threatened me. He’s threatened my family. If I cooperate with you, I don’t know what he’ll do.”

“The question you should be asking yourself is not what will happen if you cooperate with me, but what will happen if you don’t cooperate with me, Feliks.”

“What will happen?” he asks.

“If you refuse my deal, Akim will be the least of your worries.” I lean forward. “Do you understand?”

He understands. Five minutes later, Feliks and I shake hands to usher in a new era of cooperation between us.

Nik escorts him out and comes back into the room a minute later shaking his head. “That poor bastard is terrified. I don’t know why he got into this business at all.”

“Akim probably gave him the same choice I did.”

“Not one, you mean?” Nik laughs.

“Exactly.” I nod. “Which is why I want you to keep an eye on him.”

“On Feliks or Akim?”

“Both. Everyone.”

He leans against the doorway, arms crossed. “You think Feliks will get chatty about our meeting?”

“It’s a possibility,” I admit. “If he does, I want him dead. We can’t afford for Akim to know what we’re up to before we’re ready.”

“Is that why we’re at a hotel instead of your office?” Nik swipes his hand across the white comforter. “So Akim doesn’t see his partners showing up to our house?”

It’s close enough to the truth, so I nod.

Nik chuckles. “Liar. We’re here because you don’t want your girlfriend to see you breaking kneecaps.”

“This has nothing to do with Luna.”

He hits me with that same annoying look that means he isn’t buying a word out of my mouth.

“The only kneecaps that are going to be broken are yours,” I growl. “Luna is under my protection. I’m protecting her.”

“She’s under something, that’s for damn sure,” he mutters.

I ignore him for his own sake and clap him on the back. “The Feliks tip was good intel. Let me know as soon as you have something else. The more we chip away at Akim’s web, the easier it will be to tear down.”

“Will do.” He lets me get all the way to the door before he adds, “Let me know how Luna looks in the lingerie you bought her.”

I freeze with my hand on the doorknob. “I fucking told you not to follow me.”

I never explicitly told him not to imagine Luna in lingerie, but that’s a new rule, starting now.

“I didn’t,” he says. “But when Yakov Kulikov goes to a sex shop, word spreads. People see what’s happening, brother. Well, most people do. Everyone but you.”

I get home late. The living room is dark. There’s no one in the backyard. No one in the kitchen.

I walk down the hallway towards the bedroom and tell myself that I’m doing a million things other than the truth. Which is that I’m looking for her.

There’s a pile of dirty clothes just outside the bathroom door. Jeans, underwear, a pink sports bra. I hear water running inside.

Security told me Luna spent the entire day working in the garden. I had the gardener, Bruce, give her all of the supplies she would need to revamp the flower patch.

It was a chore I offered to keep her out of my hair. If Luna is busy outside, she can’t weasel her way under my skin. Or so the thinking went.

Now, I’m the one with my hand on the doorknob.

Like a junkie reaching for his next hit, I open the door.

Luna yelps and throws an arm over her chest before she realizes it’s me. Then she relaxes back into the water. Her head is resting on the rim and her toes are balanced on the opposite end.

“I didn’t know you were back yet. I thought it was a maid or something.” Her breasts float like half-moons on the clear surface of the water.

Luna isn’t trying to hide herself from me.

She trusts me.

I don’t know when the fuck that happened, but here we fucking are. She is naked and smiling in my bathtub.

Nikandr thinks Luna and I are in a relationship. He’s wrong—I know that and Luna should know it—but it’s not unfounded.

I’m supposed to be keeping this woman alive. That’s it. So why am I standing here with a throbbing erection like I’m a fucking teenager?

“Yakov?” Luna is still smiling. “Is everything okay?”

No. But it will be.

I cross the bathroom and haul Luna’s naked, dripping body out of the water.

“What are you doing?” She’s confused, but still laughing.

She trusts me.

I don’t say anything as I carry her into the bedroom and throw her down on the bed.

“What are you—” She laughs and throws her head back. “This is insane. I’m soaking wet, Yakov.”

“You’re about to be.”

I spread her legs wide and swipe my tongue up her center. Any protest dies on her lips immediately as I lick and suck and feast on every inch of her until she’s writhing off the bed.

Luna reaches down to put her hand in my hair, but I push it away. I pin her hands together across her stomach and hold her down. I eat her out until she’s screaming out to the ceiling.

“Holy shit.” She starts to sit up as I pull back. “Yakov, that was⁠—”

I don’t give her any room to finish the thought. I crush my mouth against hers. Our tongues plunge together and our lips bump hard. It’s messy and violent. Luna starts tearing at my clothes. She drags my shirt over my head and unzips my pants. When she palms my bulge, she smiles. “Your turn.”

“It’s always my turn,” I growl.

I flip her roughly onto her stomach and slide her to the edge of the mattress by her ankles. Her yelp of surprise blurs into a moan as I fill her in one sharp thrust.

This is enough. This will suffice. Grabbing her, taking her in any and every way I want—this is going to drive her out of my mind.

Then Luna fists the comforter and arches her back. She lifts her hips so I somehow slide even deeper.

“Fuck.” I press my thumbs to the divots at the base of her spine and pull her against me.

She moans. “You’re so deep, Yakov. Don’t stop.”

I won’t. I can’t.

That’s the problem.

Right now, Luna is in my hands. She’s helpless against me. And I can’t stop.

“Right there,” she cries, her thighs shaking. “I’m coming.”

She tightens around me and I don’t stand a chance. I spill into her while a string of curses pours out of my mouth.

When we’re done, Luna presses her still-damp hand to my chest. “Thank you for that. Wow. Thank you.”

I grabbed her without a word, threw her on my bed, and fucked her. And she thanked me.

She trusts me.

The most fucked part of it all…

Is that I like it.

Luna has been asleep for hours.

I’ve been wide awake.

Lying in bed at first, then standing in the kitchen with a drink in my hand. And then another. And another.

Now, I’m in the living room with the lights off and the TV on low.

It’s something I’ve done a million times before. When the house is too quiet and I can’t sleep, I turn on the TV and wait for exhaustion or the sun. Whichever comes first.

The difference tonight is that the house isn’t quiet. Luna is breathing softly in my bed. I listened to her, in and out and in, for hours. The entire time thinking, What in the hell am I doing?

There’s a reason I don’t bring women into my house or into my life. There’s a reason I haven’t had anything beyond a one-night stand in years. Luna is the first woman I’ve touched more than once in as long as I can remember.

But that reason feels harder and harder to hold onto when Luna is in front of me. Or, fuck me, naked in my tub. My cock twitches like the traitor it is.

I drop down onto the couch and lay my head back on the cushion. The alcohol was supposed to cut through whatever emotional bullshit was brewing inside of me, but it’s made it worse. Driving into Luna earlier, I was pissed. I was mad at myself for bringing her here. I was mad at her for pulling me in.

Now I’m… I’m drinking alone in the dark watching an infomercial while Luna sleeps naked in my bed.

Then a white blur flies off the floor and lands on the cushion next to me. Two deep blue eyes peer up at me.

The fucking cat.

As if things weren’t bad enough.

“Don’t you have a box somewhere to go shit in?” I snap. “Or a hairball to hack up?”

Gregory stares at me, tail swishing behind him.

“The only reason you’re here is because of Luna. If it was up to me, you’d be a starved-out husk in her apartment by now.”

The cat blinks.

When I ignore the fact that he’s leaving fur all over my couch, I can admit that he’s a pretty animal. A pretty cat I still wish was anywhere else besides in my house, but still…

I snap my fingers and point at the cat. “There we go. That’s what it is. Luna is beautiful, but that doesn’t mean I want her around. Any more than I want you around.”

She was a beautiful, naked woman in my bathroom. What else was I supposed to do with that? Play fetch?

I toss back my drink. Mystery solved. I’m a man with a functioning dick and Luna is gorgeous. Of course I wanted to fuck her. That’s normal. But the moment she is gone, it’ll be out of sight, out of mind.

That doesn’t explain why I was thinking about her this morning during my meeting. And throughout the rest of the afternoon.

But I’m just drunk enough to ignore that. Then Gregory takes the opportunity to step into my lap.

“Do I have ‘Pet Rescue’ stamped on my forehead?” I shove the cat off my lap, but a minute later, he’s back and kneading my leg with his paws. I let him do it until he’s tired, scowling the whole time. When he’s satisfied, he coils himself into a tight ball on my thigh.

“Don’t get used to it. You’ll be gone soon. Both of you.”

Gregory just nuzzles his head against my palm and purrs.