It had been a hot as fuck, pleasant surprise. I liked pain with pleasure, so being cut while deep inside her pussy had felt like fucking ecstasy.
And I wanted to do it again.
And again.
And again.
After discovering her note, I put her details into my phone straight away and then put the note into my safe for safekeeping. I’d had a shower, gone down stairs to have breakfast, endured weird looks from my sons and then gone straight to my office. It was 1:27 P.M. and I’d spent the last six hours and thirteen minutes staring at my phone, agonising over whether or not to use the number Autumn had given me.
I would pick up the phone, open a new text, stare at the screen with my fingers hovering over the letters and then slam my phone back down onto the desk. Ten minutes later, the process would start all over again.
I was driving myself crazy, acting like some sort of love-struck teenager.
I groaned, burying my face into my hands.What is happening to me?I was the Bratva Butcher, a man so terrifying, with a reputation so infamous that people walked the other way when they saw me coming.
If anyone saw me like that, tormenting over whether or not to message a woman, I would never live it down.
Determination set my spine straight. I snatched my phone from the desk, opened a new text message, typed five letters and then quickly pressed “send” before I could chicken out.
There. Done.
I relaxed back into my chair and exhaled heavily. I’d done it.
Me: Hello.
Five seconds passed. Then ten. She still hadn’t replied.
That’s okay. She might be busy.
After thirty seconds went by with no reply, panic set it. I abruptly got to my feet and began to pace up and down, mumbling incoherently to myself.
Oh, god, this was a bad idea. I shouldn’t have done it. Can you take back text messages? Is that a thing?
My phone vibrated. I lunged across the desk and snatched it up. It fumbled in and out of my hands, jumping from my left and then to my right. “For fuck’s sake,” I hissed, slamming it to my chest to get it to stop fucking moving. “Get. It. Together!” I chastised.
Forcing myself to take three deep breaths to steady my erratically beating heart, I looked at my phone.
Malen’kaya D’yavolitsa: Hello, Butcher.
A smile spread across my face. Somebody knocked on my office door, and I told them to enter without looking up from the device, too busy wondering what the fuck I was supposed to do.
“Hey, Boss.”
I recognised the voice instantly. “I’ve told you before, Ivan, you don’t have to call me that anymore.”
The man chuckled, moving further into the room. “It’s what I’ve always called you. Kind of hard to stop.”
I grunted in agreement, my eyes still on my phone.
What do I say now? How are you? No. That might make her think I care about how she is. What are you doing? No. Then she’ll know I’ve been wondering what she’s been doing. Argh.
Ivan sat down in one of the chairs in front of my desk. “Everything okay?”
I finally looked at him. He was a big man, with broad shoulders and a hard face. I’d known him for over thirty years, and despite the fact that he had worked for my family for over half his life, I definitely considered him a friend.
He was also Tatiana’s father, and considering the fact that our children were most likely going to get married in the near future, that also made him family.
But I couldn’t talk to him about it.