Page 5 of Vitaly

“Fuck,” I growl, stomping forward and jerking the knife from the rubber.

I go back to my spot twenty feet away, my teeth clenched as my eyes close. When I open them, the blade reared back to throw, I glimpse the person in the doorway and falter. The knifesoars through the air but crashes against the target and falls to the ground.

Nikita glances at the knife with a disapproving frown that pulls my heart up my throat, but when he looks back at me, it sinks into its place and starts working double time.

“Pakhan.” I lower to one knee and bow my head. I’m panting from exertion, but as he comes toward me, his cane echoing off the wall with each step, I force my breaths to even.

He doesn’t stop until my sweat drips mere inches from his shoes.

“Why do you bother with this, ?????”

I tense at the name. ????… Kitten. I hate it.

“My purpose is to serve the Bratva. If the day should come that I must fight, I want to be ready.”

“Your purpose is to serveme.” He puts his cane under my chin and lifts so I’m looking at him. It’s lucky his eyes begin to roam because I don’t know how well I hide the contempt from my face.

It’s a privilege to serve the Pakhan. In some ways, I’m being ungrateful. If my father could see the thoughts inside my head, he would disown me. If Nikita could see them, he’d behead me.

But sometimes I feel that I am more than the duties I’ve been given. So much more.

“And you serve me very well,” Nikita adds.

He pulls his cane away and lowers, not an easy task for him with his bad knee, so this is an honor. A symbol of what I mean to him that he would never express with words.

Nikita Petrov, Pakhan of the Petrov Bratva, is not a man who kneels.

He cups my chin and runs his thumb over my jaw. “You’re my best girl, Mila.”

When he leans in, I close my eyes and relax my lips, but the sweat on my forehead feels wetter than ever.

“Should I clean up first?” I ask, just before his lips meet mine.

He laughs, sending warm breath over my lips. “You think I care about sweat?” When he reaches into his pocket, I already know what he’s grabbing. The knife clicks open with a flick of his wrist, and I reveal my neck when he prompts me with a pull of my ponytail.

There was a time when these games terrified me. Whenheterrified me.

I was thirteen when I came to this family, days before the devil I came to marry got his father killed and ran away like a coward. Then I was seventeen when Nikita’s father died, leaving him as the last Petrov male and making him Pakhan. That was six years ago. I’ve been his ever since, and I can’t say he doesn’t make me shudder as badly as he did back then, but Icansay I know him. Probably better than anyone does. I know when he wants to hurt and when he wants to play.

He slices the knife across my collarbone, not too deep but deep enough to make me suck in a sharp breath through my teeth. Blood runs down my chest, beneath my sports bra, while Nikita’s tongue glides up my neck, his mouth stopping at my ear. “I don’t even care about blood.”

He takes my jaw in a tight grasp and jerks me to face him while my eyes close and I part my lips. He kisses me with a ferocity that’s so familiar it feels like home, and I feel the tiniest bit of warmth overtake me. Warmth that comes from something I want so desperately but will never have.

Power.

Just a taste. Just a sliver. Never enough to truly mean anything. Certainly not what I was promised as a girl, certainly not what I dreamt. But enough to lift my chest with my heavy breath and enough to bring my hands to cup Nikita’s face.

I slowly raise onto my feet, letting his hands circle my waist as he uses me as a brace to lift himself as well. Not that we’d everdiscuss that he needs my help. He’s a strong man. And young for a Pakhan, only in his late thirties. His disability drives him mad.

He palms my breasts while I work the zipper on his slacks, our mouths never leaving each other’s as I urge us to the pull-up bar. I’m pushing it. Leading him like this, it isn’t smart, but the fact that he lets me is turning me on like crazy.

When we stop beneath the bar, I lift my arms so he can rip off my bra, then we hurry with the rest of our clothes. After one last kiss, my hand curving behind Nikita’s neck, I pull away and hop to catch the bar.

My muscles flex as I hold my weight while Nikita grips my hips, my legs winding around him as he impales me. I let my head fall back and moan as he fucks me roughly, savagely. If one doesn’t look closely, they might mistake it for passion, but it isn’t. It’s pure possessiveness. I am his. I will always be his.

And he will never be mine. But in these moments, these tiny moments, it feels like maybe I get just a piece of him.

“Come for me, ????,” Nikita growls before biting down on my breast. My teeth clamp as I groan out my pain, but when the sting subsides, I register his pace increasing. He’s getting close.

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