“It’s gonna be interesting to see how we pull this off,” Anastasia said, glancing over at Roksana as a waitress approached their table. The curvy waitress’ spiky, bleached blonde hair was in stark contrast to her vivid scarlet lip gloss.

“Shots of Ciroc, all around,” Roksana ordered for the group since the waitress seemed focused on her.

“Out partying with the boys, huh?” The waitress grinned down at Roksana as she leaned in and placed cocktail napkins around the table, giving the group an eyeful of surgically enhanced cleavage. She glanced speculatively at Dmitriy and Oleg and then back at Roksana.

“You know how it is, somebody’s gotta keep an eye on these boys,” Roksana quipped casually as she scanned the room, taking in every detail about the floorplan and clientele. The two men exchanged bemused looks.

“I know that’s right! Oh, I’m Lilly,” she said, smiling broadly at Roksana. “Let me know if you need anything else. Anything at all.”

Silence reigned awkwardly for a long moment as Lilly stood there, her eyes locked on Roksana’s long red hair. Anastasia sent a wide-eyed look in Dmitriy’s direction. He just shrugged and sat back in his chair, glancing over at Oleg with barely concealed amusement.

“Well, okay then. Um, I’ll be right back with your drinks,” Lilly giggled and sashayed back to the bar to get the drinks, her hips rocking back and forth as she navigated the tight space between tables. She sent a small smile over her shoulder at Roksana before giving the bartender the order.

Roksana continued to case the room, scanning the tables for familiar faces and memorizing details about the ones she didn’t know. Inevitably, her gaze locked with her husband’s unblinking stare. Oleg’s eyes singed her skin with their possessive heat. Anastasia picked that moment to try her hand at levity, teasing in a sing-song voice, “Oh, my, I think the waitress has a thing for your wife, Oleg.”

“Why the fuck do you feel the need to start shit with him, Anastasia? Would you just stop?” Roksana fumed. She knew her husband all too well and his jealousy knew no bounds. Be it a man or a woman staring at the stunning creature he had married, the results were always the same: a strong urge to wrap his hands around the offender’s neck and squeeze until their lips turned blue.

It was true, Roksana attracted attention. People seemed to always find something intriguing about the fiery redhead. As a married woman now, she was officially off the market. Of course, she had always been off the market as far as Oleg was concerned, ever since he had first seen her.

Dmitriy leaned in and brushed his lips against Anastasia’s ear as he shook his head. “Woman, do you have a death wish or what?”

“Okay, okay, I was just playing,” Anastasia assured them quickly.

Oleg glared at his wife. “You know me by now. I do not play. Especially when it comes to my woman.”

“Duly noted, lapochka. You know you have nothing to worry about.”

“There won’t be any fucking threesomes,” he grumbled, still not taking his eyes off Roksana. “What’s mine is mine.”

“Here you go,” the clueless waitress announced when she returned to the table moments later. She carefully placed the shots on the table, fussing prettily with her tray as her eyes lingered on the vibrant redhead again. Roksana’s eyes widened when an extra shot was placed in front of her.

“On the house,” Lilly murmured with a wink as her cheeks heated.

“Thank you. How nice,” Roksana said, smiling benignly as the voluptuous blonde reluctantly backed away from the table and returned to the bar.

Oleg muttered, “Well, there goes her fucking tip.”

“Oleg…you know I’m not leaving here without tipping that girl.” This time it was Roksana glaring at him. She would never leave a hardworking woman hanging. She was all about sisterhood and ‘girl power’.

“Come on, Anastasia,” Roksana said, “let’s look around and see if we can find this guy.” They got up and strolled over to the bar, knowing that bartenders were always the best place to start.

Anastasia had earned a special place in Roksana’s closed-off heart. Roksana had trained the woman who had been beyond lost with nowhere else to go. When the chips were down they were unequivocally dedicated to each other. Their Bratva family was like no other, and yet in many ways it was consistent with how a traditional family operated: they could rag on each other, but let an outsider try to start any shit and they would come together and fuck them the hell up.

Kolya’s table was perfectly positioned for him to watch the curvaceous brunette give Bjarke a lap dance in the small, private room. With the curtain partially open, it was easy to see…and yet, somehow, hard to watch. He had watched her stage routine earlier as if in a trance, memorizing every detail of her supple body. As she worked the pole, he had shifted uncomfortably in his seat more than once, waging a silent battle of wills with a hard-on that seemed to have a mind of its own.

The stunning brunette was facing her customer, which gave Kolya a perfect view of her ripe ass as she worked. Every time the asshole tried to rest his hands on her hips or slide a hand up toward her breasts, she would brush his hands away as if she were swatting a fly, all the while continuing the relentless grinding of her hips.

The room felt claustrophobic to Helena as she rolled her eyes and straddled a semi-conscious Bjarke. The steady but half-hearted grinding of her hips went on for several minutes until his body finally surrendered to the effects of the alcohol he had consumed. When his head lolled back, Helena stood and breathed a great sigh of relief, then moved toward the curtain with the intention of summoning one of the bouncers to deal with him.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Sambor’s deep voice rumbled from where he stood just beyond the curtained entrance. Helena looked from Sambor to Bjarke and back again, thinking that it was perfectly obvious what she was doing.

“He passed out. I’m done.”

“The fuck you’re done. You just got in here, what, five minutes ago? This guy’s one of the Bratva fighters. I don’t care if he’s in a fucking coma, he paid for 20 minutes so that’s what he’ll get. If he happens to wake up along the way, the only thing he’s gonna see are the tits and ass he paid for working him over. You got it?”

“Sambor, you can’t be serious--”

“You want to see how serious I am?” he snapped as his eyes lingered hotly on her breasts. Instinctively, she stepped back and crossed a protective arm over her chest. He took a step toward her, malevolence seeming to seep from his pores as he leered at her. “You think you’re too good for me? Is that it? I tell you what, you climb back on. Go on. Now.” He gestured with his hand for her to continue the lap dance. “No, not that way. You’ve gotta loosen up if you’re gonna earn your keep around here. I want you facing away from him.”

“But I always face the customers so I can see what they’re doing--”

“This one’s not going to do anything. Hell, he probably won’t even remember being here. But you’re going to climb back on and ride him like you fucking mean it -- now. I’ve got a meeting out back, but if I get bored I want to have something to look at. So get to it.”

He watched as she reluctantly braced herself above Bjarke’s lap, then lowered herself to straddle his spread thighs.

“Now, move. And don’t stop until the light goes off.” He pointed up at a small red light above the doorway that remained lit while the room was occupied but would turn off when the customer’s paid time was up.

Sambor enjoyed her discomfort as he indulged in a parting glance down her body, lingering on the areas the commonwealth of Kentucky insisted on covering. She needed to be taken down a peg or two, starting now. A few minutes outside her comfort zone would do the bitch good.

Helena rested her hands on her thighs and started the mindless rolling of her hips once again, this time facing away from Bjarke’s slack-jawed face. Her eyes narrowed. Sambor had insisted on this madness just to humiliate her, but she was damned if she was going to let him win. So, she closed her eyes and got to work rocking her hips against a man who wasn’t even awake. As she moved, she pondered her grocery list for the week and other mundane household tasks that would await her when she got home. As far as Helena was concerned, Bjarke might as well have been a piece of furniture.

Bjarke was oblivious to it all. His legs were bent at the knees but spread wide, so Helena’s thighs were stretched wide apart as she straddled him. She usually made a point of never facing away from her clients like this, because they would usually insist on her backing up until her ass was in full contact with their body. She wasn’t comfortable with that much contact, especially if they were sporting a hard-on. That wouldn’t be a problem with this one, though; his dick had passed out too. She was positioned on Bjarke’s lap at mid-thigh, which kept her contact with his body minimal.

When the DJ’s current song ended, Helena stilled and opened her eyes to check the light above the door. A shudder ran through her body at the sight that greeted her just beyond the half-closed curtain. An enormous, thickly muscled man sat at a table maybe 20 feet away. He was by himself. He hadn’t been there when Bjarke had dragged her into the private room, so he must have just sat down.

His messy, wavy brown hair and intense, amber eyes were a lethal combination. Even from a distance, she could see that his eyes were an unusual shade of golden brown, like a fine whiskey as the sun shone through the bottle. And those eyes were trained on her with a look so hot and carnal that, if she had been dressed, her clothes might have spontaneously hit the floor.

A discreet yet deliberate cough from just beyond the curtain clued her in to the fact that someone else was watching her too. One of the bouncers must have noticed her becoming distracted because he raised an eyebrow inquisitively and then tilted his chin in the direction of the glowing red light.

Helena swallowed hard, nodding at him before returning her gaze to the stranger at the table. He wasn’t classically handsome in the conventional sense, but his face was quite beautiful in its own way with a square jawline and strong, prominent nose. At the moment, his full lips were pressed into a flat, forbidding line as he glared at the departing bouncer’s back.

The stranger’s amber eyes locked onto hers once again and this time neither of them could look away. Without conscious thought, she clasped the tops of her thighs and began to move, purely by instinct. Her hips rocked back and forth, her body arched sinuously with each thrust, her eyelids becoming heavy as she stared at her mystery man.

Lilly approached him to take his drink order but he waved her off without so much as looking at her. When Bjarke shifted slightly beneath Helena and a snore rumbled from his chest, she barely noticed.

As the stranger’s gaze roamed her body, sexual hunger seemed to light his amber eyes from within. But this man’s interest didn’t make her feel cheap. He made her feel sexy as hell and, God help her, incredibly turned on. Insatiable. She rolled her shoulders back and pressed her chest forward, gratified to see him shift slightly in his chair in response.

Helena no longer cared about the stupid red light above the curtain. The only thing that registered in her mind was this man who looked at her like he could eat her alive. And, oh, she wished he would.

Kolya wanted to storm into the tiny room and yank her off Bjarke’s lap, then maybe toss her over his shoulder and head for the nearest cave. He wanted nothing more than to kill the fucker to make absolutely sure he would remember nothing about his time in that chair. Kolya knew the drunk asshole was nothing more than deadweight beneath her, but still, he didn’t like it one fucking bit…but he couldn’t look away.

From the instant their eyes had met, communication between Kolya and Helena was effortless. Kolya couldn’t understand it, but he wasn’t going to question it either. His whiskey-brown eyes guided her movements. To Helena, it seemed that her hands had a mind of their own, going wherever his gaze wordlessly told them to. She slid her hands over her breasts, feeling the rush of liquid heat between her legs as she imagined what it would be like to guide her nipple between his full lips, and wishing the stranger’s hands were cupping and kneading her flesh. Her fingertips circled the tips of her breasts, flicking softly at the glittery pasties, then trailed down her abdomen to flutter along the edge of her G-string.

Kolya’s eyes narrowed as he focused on the path her fingers traveled across her silken skin, smiling slightly when he noticed her chest rising and falling with her shallow breathing. He leaned back farther in his chair as sexual dominance rolled off him in waves. Resting an elbow on the arm of the chair, Kolya slowly trailed a fingertip back and forth across his lower lip.

His eyes met hers for a long moment before he dropped his gaze to her pussy lips glistening beneath the sheer G-string. Triumph surged within him when he saw her chest jerk and heard the unmistakable sound of a gasp escape her lips. He raised his eyebrows in silent challenge. He knew what he wanted next, just wasn’t sure if she’d do it. So, he waited.

Her head dropped back as she rocked her hips, arching her back as she ran her hands up and down her velvety inner thighs. Kolya glanced around to make sure there were no other customers enjoying the erotic spectacle unfolding before his eyes. If he had his way – and he would -- her beauty would be for his eyes only from now on.

As he’d hoped, the bouncers were busy at the door. The crowd was enthusiastically following the bumping and grinding of the current stripper onstage. As far as Kolya was concerned, the main event was right here, right now. What happened next created a seismic shift in his world. Nothing would ever be the same.

Helena watched her mystery man as he watched her. She didn’t know what had come over her. Could she possibly give him what he wanted? She glanced around. Anyone could walk by at any moment. Anyone could see. In that moment she realized two things: the idea of getting caught turned her on, and…she wanted to please him. Desperately.

Her decision made, she licked her lips and slid her fingers down inside the front of her G-string. Cupping her bare mound, she bit her lip and looked at the stranger from beneath her lashes. Her hips continued to move back and forth, causing delicious friction as her hand moved up and down her slit. She used two fingers to push her taut, snug pussy lips apart, then slid a fingertip around her slick opening. With a moan, she sank two fingers deep inside her core as she thrust mindlessly against her own hand.

One look at the mystery man’s face and she knew he wanted this as much as she did. Tomorrow she would wonder what the hell she had been thinking; but for now, she didn’t want to think, she just wanted to feel. She wanted him to watch her, wanted someone to finally really see her.

Grasping first one nipple then the next between her finger and thumb, she squeezed lightly, twisting and tugging until they stood out in long, hard points that strained the confines of the pasties. She covered her clit with two fingers, rubbing them up and down as she rocked her hips with increasing speed. The stranger’s jaw clenched and his nostrils flared with suppressed emotion as her fingertips danced over her clit in small, fast circles. Her breathing was ragged as she pressed harder against the slick flesh, hurtling toward an orgasm that was just out of reach. She struggled to hold out…watching and waiting…

His nod was so slight that she almost missed it. Suddenly it was as if someone had flipped a switch. Helena’s eyes squeezed shut as her core convulsed with raucous pleasure. As an orgasm ripped through her, the sensation was nothing short of agony but she never wanted it to end. She rode out her climax with mindless abandon, groaning despite her best efforts to stay silent, wincing as if in pain as her core quaked against her hand.

As the last ripples of pleasure finally subsided, she opened her eyes. He was gone.

 

 

Kolya stood in the shadows in a corner of the club. Leaning back against the wall, he closed his eyes and struggled to regulate his breathing. After years of wreaking carnage in the ring, one woman masturbating for him had him unable to breathe? What the fuck just happened? A beautiful woman had gone off like a firecracker because of him and he hadn’t even fucking touched her, that’s what.

He wanted this woman. He wanted to be everything she wanted, everything she needed. And, yeah, he wanted to rescue this woman but, fuck, he couldn’t do anything about it tonight without revealing his identity.

Helena. He had heard that blonde waitress say the girl’s name was Helena. Beautiful name. Gorgeous tits. Luscious ass. Pussy that made his mouth water. This woman was beyond perfect. Hazel eyes that burned so bright when she was turned on that he had been able to see them shining from twenty feet away. And long brown hair – no, no…more like fuckin’ caramel – and there were other colors too. Gold and champagne and—What the fuck?!

He was a fighter known for his brutality in the ring, feared for his relentless aggression. And yet something about this Helena woman was reaching out to him. Hell, she had him by the fucking throat. It made no sense. There was a lot in life he didn’t understand but he knew one thing: this woman needed a hero. This woman needed him. And the first thing he was going to do was get her the fuck away from Bjarke.

He knew without even speaking to her that she didn’t fit in here. Her innocence was untainted but it wouldn’t stay that way if somebody didn’t help the girl. He’d heard rumors about the dirt bag, Sambor Bogomazov, that owned the bar. The fucker brought women over from Russia and then tacked more onto the price agreed to get them here, making it damn near impossible to ever repay him.

Her body language when she thought no one was looking made it clear to him that she was miserable with her lot in life. Misery…it was a feeling he understood all too well. And, yeah, misery did love company.

From his vantage point in the darkened corner, he saw Helena get the attention of one of the bouncers before she practically ran back to the dressing rooms. Suddenly Roksana and Anastasia were headed in his direction. He knew their presence at the club wasn’t a coincidence.

Roksana spotted him and nodded her head for him to go. As much as he hated to leave Helena after the surreal, hot-as-fuck moment they had just experienced together, he knew that the Pakhan’s daughter was running this show. He knew they would probably confront the girl since they knew she’d spent time with Bjarke. As much as he wanted to protect her, he knew it was best that he wasn’t seen by his fellow boxer – assuming the asshole woke up anytime soon.

“Take it easy on the girl. She’s not involved in this,” Kolya said to Roksana, his voice little more than a gruff rumble, revealing a gentleness he didn’t usually possess.

Roksana frowned at him for a long moment but relented when he held her gaze without flinching. “Alright, agreed,” she finally acquiesced and he knew she meant it.

Kolya’s loyalty to her father gave him credibility in Roksana’s eyes so she would treat this Helena woman accordingly. Unfortunately, the bartender hadn’t been able to tell her much about the stripper who seemed to have bewitched Kolya. Of course, Roksana knew better than to ask Kolya about what had just gone on between them. She hadn’t been able to see what had captured his attention in the minutes before the girl had practically run out of the room, but from what little she had seen it was obvious that some kind of connection already existed between Kolya and Helena. Interesting. Only time would tell if that would prove to be an asset or a liability.

Roksana and Anastasia left the main room and headed down the hall toward the dressing rooms. Kolya passed a $20 to the waitress on his way out, frowning over his shoulder at the Bratva contingent that remained, two men who were now moving in the same direction the women had just taken. He hadn’t expected them to be there tonight. Had the Pakhan sent them because he didn’t trust him? He hoped not. But maybe that wasn’t it; Glazov’s only daughter had been known to insert herself into situations that caught her interest.

He owed the Pakhan his life and he was disgusted with the fact that Bjarke didn’t feel the same gratitude and allegiance. The fucker didn’t deserve to stay in the States on the Pakhan’s dime. And he had tried to put his hands on Helena. Bjarke probably wouldn’t remember any of it, of course, but that didn’t matter. As far as Kolya was concerned, that made him the enemy. Bjarke Andropov didn’t deserve to be alive.

Helena hadn’t been able to get away from Bjarke fast enough. He had reeked of a foul stew of stale booze and body odor. She had been overjoyed when he’d passed out midway through the lap dance, and had thought that was her ticket out of there. Sambro’s insistence that she continue such an up-close-and-personal level of service when the customer wasn’t even conscious, had been demoralizing. That moment forced her to face the unsavory reality of her circumstances. There was no shame in stripping; however, Sambro’s request had been humiliating.

One look at her brutally handsome stranger had changed everything. He had led her on a sensual odyssey that turned her world upside down and rocked her sense of self down to its foundation. She was a stripper because that was the only way she could get to the U.S., but she didn’t enjoy it. She had never been an exhibitionist. She did not do things like that. Ever. But somehow the unspoken challenge he had issued with that one look had put her in charge and, in the ultimate irony, restored her dignity.

A quick shower in the dressing room had rid her skin of all traces of Bjarke’s stench, but her mind was still reeling from the evening’s events. In terms of making a living, it had been a good night. She was seven hundred dollars richer and had managed to snag a couple of Bjarke’s credit cards before she slipped out of the room. Not bad for a night’s work. She was pretty sure he wouldn’t remember a thing. Based on the broken capillaries that crisscrossed his nose, he was no stranger to alcohol; no doubt, blackouts were a regular occurrence for him.

Before her greedy boss could hit her up for any of her tips, Helena threw her belongings in her bag and snuck out the back door. In her haste to leave unnoticed, she didn’t see the statuesque redhead lurking in the shadows. Suddenly she was shoved backward into a brick wall and held there by an arm pressing hard across her neck.

“Don’t. Scream.”

Helena looked over her attacker’s shoulder and saw two men and another woman there. One man was tall and blonde; the other looked like a Latino cover model. The woman’s blunt, black bob made her look like she had stepped right out of Pulp Fiction. She was beyond outnumbered, so Helena reluctantly nodded her agreement.

Roksana slowly lowered her arm and took a step back. She wasted no time lighting into her. “You don’t know me, but I have no doubt you know of my father—Alexander Glazov.”

“The Pakhan.” Helena’s eyes widened, the words rolling off her tongue reverently.

“Yes.” Roksana studied the woman’s expression and continued. “What did your last customer want with you?”

“What do any of them ever want?” Helena quipped bitterly. “I guess some company because he sure wasn’t big on conversation, just sat there and drank all night. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I was glad for the money but he reeked. It was all I could do to be in the same room with him without gagging.”

Roksana pulled a business card from her back pocket and handed it to Helena. “I want you to stay in touch with me. Let me know what this guy’s up to.”

All Helena could say as she took the card was a barely audible, “The Pakhan.” The legend of the man who was part man, part god burned brightly among those who had been raised to respect the Bratva. To a true Russian, the Pakhan was believed to have a supernatural ability to read minds and interpret intentions. Anyone who had been under Glazov’s scrutinizing gaze knew there was truth in that belief. Whether it was true or not wasn’t important, though, because the possibility struck fear in people’s hearts. And fear was power.

Roksana casually slipped her hand into her pocket and, moving with lightning speed, opened her knife, stepped forward, and pressed the razor-sharp blade to the girl’s throat. “There are two people in this world who matter most to me: my father and this guy.” She nodded in Oleg’s direction. A strange light seemed to gleam in his dead eyes. He never got tired of watching his woman feed off of other people’s fear. She was her father’s daughter in every sense of the word and he loved her more than life.

“I have no intention of betraying my Pakhan, but the boxer is a different story,” the girl calmly replied. “I owe him nothing.”

Roksana couldn’t resist pushing the knife against Helena’s throat just hard enough to cause a trickle of blood to dribble down her neck. Oddly enough, the woman didn’t flinch or look away. Her tenacity when faced with such a threat may have been the thing that saved her life.

“I know where he lives. I got his address off his driver’s license,” Helena said quickly.

“Oh, really. Why did he show you his driver’s license?”

“Oh. Well--”

“Whatever. Just tell me, where does he live?” Even though Roksana already knew the answer, she wanted to see if the girl would lie. Lucky for her, Helena provided the correct address.

“Good girl,” Roksana said as she wiped the knife on the leg of her jeans and returned the knife to her pocket. She joined Oleg and together with Dmitriy and Anastasia they strode away into the moonlight. “Stay in touch!” she called over her shoulder. Now it was just a matter of waiting. And, very much like her father, Roksana fucking hated waiting.