Chapter 2

Six weeks later.

 

Cecily lay snuggled in Pyotr’s arms, her body still tingling from his enthusiastic and skilled lovemaking. She blinked and inhaled the heavy fragrance of their spent passion. Pyotr’s light snore worked like white noise, masking the sounds from outside that wafted through the open windows and the typical noises of a multistory condo minium. She sighed. She missed the sound of crickets and the railroad just a mile from her childhood home. She missed the lowing of the cattle just up the road. She missed the fresh country air, even when it made her sneeze.

Moving from small-town Batesville to big-city Cleveland had been a major adjustment. The excitement of moving to a major metropolitan city on Lake Erie had long since faded. The sounds of city traffic and the impersonal bustle of city life palled.

Cecily disliked the discontent that simmered within her. The restaurant Pyotr’s boss had opened offered a wonderful opportunity. Really, as a new graduate, there was no other way she’d have been hired as head chef anywhere else. She knew that Maksim and Olivia had done so only out of kindness to Pyotr who loved her.

She wasn’t sure how she felt about that love.

Not quite as naive as her roommates assumed, Cecily had originally figured that a passionate fling with the Russian thug would add to her growing collection of life experiences. Grandma Polsen, whose advice was usually good, had recommended that she live fully before settling down to cook, clean, and pop out babies. Then she’d have something worth reminiscing about, stories to tell her children and grandchildren. She had seen what became of her high school friends and close relatives: they never went anywhere, they never did anything, they had no interests beyond their small, routine lives.

She wanted more. She looked at the big hand palming her breast and frowned. She knew what those hands did and their value to a criminal organization that profited from drugs, illegal arms, and human trafficking. Grandma Polsen and her entire family would disapprove. Oh, hell, she disapproved. But Pytor treated her like a queen; it was hard to muster the courage to stick up for her principles.

Listening to the urban sounds beyond the window, Cecily missed the peace of her rural hometown where the birth of twin foals at the Patterson farm featured as the most exciting topic of conversation for weeks.

Cecily wasn’t sure she loved him back.

Oh, he made her body sing, that was for sure. She’d had three boyfriends before Pyotr, one in high school, two in college. They were ineffectual, clumsy boys compared to her tattooed, Russian thug with his bulging muscles, broken nose, and wicked, wicked tongue.

A delicious frisson ran through her at the thought of just what Pyotr could do with that talented tongue.

But there was more to a lasting relationship than sex and food. She knew that Pyotr’s attraction to her had begun with her cooking. Few men looked twice at her round face, curly blonde mop of hair, and size fourteen body. Pyotr claimed to appreciate those generous curves. He said her full hips were perfect for grasping when he pounded into her. He murmured praise over her large, pendulous breasts.

Not for the first time she wished she were slender and willowy like Gia. When she first met Gia, she’d wanted to hate the brainy marine biologist. But she couldn’t. Gia was just too damned nice.

She’d wanted to hate Latasha, too, but the feisty woman had quickly and firmly ensconced herself as Cecily’s best friend, helping her with the technical aspects of the food science courses and then fiercely defending her when a group of college boys made fun of the “fat cooking school student.”

Pyotr would have pummeled them and then offered to string their teeth into a necklace for her. Latasha just flayed them with her sharp tongue. The threat of sending her gang-member brothers after them hadn’t hurt, either. Cecily did not know whether Latasha’s brothers would have “put a hurt on” those idiots, but she liked knowing that Latasha would offer their violence to protect her.

She didn’t need them anymore, she reminded herself. She had Pyotr and Pyotr had Vitaly, Gennady, Iosif, Bogdan, and others she’d yet to meet. Wrapped in Pyotr’s possessive embrace, she felt cold when thoughts of Vitaly and Gennady crossed her mind. Sure, Vitaly had fallen in love with Gia and she with him, but she imagined that the big man had been sculpted from an iceberg. That man was cold, with a cruel twist to his mouth and that thousand-yard stare that promised death and worse to anyone who so much as irritated him. Gennady, she’d heard, broke women; Pyotr had mentioned he put the “sadism” and “masochism” in the S and M part of BDSM, which made her think of those naughty BDSM romances she tried to read after Fifty Shades of Grey came out in movie theatres. She quickly learned she didn’t like the kind of stories wherein the so-called hero was a sadist and the heroine enjoyed being hurt.

Cecily didn’t like pain. She wasn’t sure how any woman could. Pyotr occasionally gave her plump bottom a light slap, but he didn’t spank her until her skin turned red or do anything else to hurt her. For a man who looked like a brute and often performed brutal acts in service to the Russian mob, Pyotr treated her gently. His grizzly bear size made her feel dainty and feminine. His compliments made her feel beautiful. He did not criticize her occasional lack of understanding. Of course, neither had Gia or Latasha, but she’d noticed the occasional glances they shared when their sharp minds quickly caught on to a scientific concept that she just could not quite grasp.

She did not need to know the exact science behind why one patted a steak dry before setting it in a skillet for a good sear. She just needed to know that a dry surface seared better than did a wet one for locking in the juices and flavor.

Feeling a bit too warm and more than a little sweaty, she rolled over. Pyotr’s arm slid aside, leaving his hand splayed over her mound. The man was always touching her, even in his sleep.

Cecily didn’t know whether she liked his possessiveness.

Her mind racing, she gently rolled out of bed. With his military-trained awareness, Pyotr awakened immediately.

“Chto ne tak?” he asked.

“Nothing’s wrong,” she replied, keeping her voice gentle. “I just need to use the bathroom.”

“Otlichno,” he replied and went back to sleep with nary a pause.

True to her word, she did go to the bathroom and took the opportunity to wet a washcloth and wipe her skin clean of saliva, semen, and pussy juice. Their copious fluids made for terrific sex, but not so much the afterward. At least Pyotr didn’t make her sleep in the wet spot. He was considerate like that.

Cecily decided she’d gotten too comfortable here in Cleveland, here in Pyotr’s apartment. She was settling down before she’d even lived. Tomorrow morning when he went back to work, Cecily decided she would use that time before heading to the restaurant to sign up with some job search websites, search through Craigslist, see what restaurants in other cities were hiring. She wanted to travel, see New York, experience Austin and Savannah, swelter in Honolulu and Las Vegas. She wanted to tour the Sonoma and Napa regions and taste grapes still warm from the sun. She wanted to explore the flavors of regional cuisine cooked by experts in those regions.

She wanted to get away from the brutality of the Bratva. She wanted Pyotr to choose her over the criminal brotherhood. She wanted to earn her place as a professional chef. Cecily looked into the mirror and disliked what she saw.

Mistress.

Freeloader.

Criminal accomplice.

She looked down at her hands, absently noting the nicks and small burns from grease spatters. She wished she knew when she’d lost her self-respect.

Looking back up at her reflection, Cecily found the word she was looking for. She felt restless.