Without releasing his grip on my neck and hair, he crushed his lips to mine, his tongue forcing itself inside my mouth. I submitted, as always, moaning, like he would want, as his lower torso worked against my sensitive clit.

Alik pulled back and amusement flashed across his sharp-featured face. “Myshka, always mewling like a little pussy, huh?” His mouth lowered to my ear and his tongue licked along the outer shell. “Love me fucking you hard? Love me bruising your slit?”

Alik released my neck, only to reach down and squeeze my breast, pulling on the raised nipple. I hissed and cried out, making his smile widen.

“Love fucking you too, Myshka,” he murmured. Then abruptly, Alik pulled his still-hard dick out of me, leaving me lying on his wide bed in his luxurious Brooklyn apartment, trying to catch my breath and recover. He strode across the room, his ripped, tall body all walking perfection and he ran his hand over his buzz cut dark hair.

Alik grabbed a towel from the closet and wrapped it around his defined waist. I moved myself up the bed and watched him.

Alik had changed so much since we were kids. His large-framed fighter’s body was bulky. His skin was lightly tanned. His face chiseled, aristocratic, handsome even. He was Alik Durov—the man who decided to make me his when we were just a couple of Bratva kids trying to wade through the trials and tribulations of a rough mob life. The boy I never looked at as anything more than a friend, until he forced me to look at him as something more.

We grew up together. His father and my father were two of the three “Red” Bratva Kings of New York. My father, Kirill Volkov, was the Pakhan, the top boss, the one who ruled the Russian underground here in New York. Alik’s father, Abram Durov, was the enforcer, the next in line to the highest seat, the one who would deal with the darker side to the mob, the violent things, the revenge, the kills, the intimidation. He was sadistic, unforgiving and cruel…

Like father, like son.

For years, Alik wanted me. From childhood, he always wanted me close. He was always angry, starting fights and getting into trouble. He would tell me he heard voices in his head, voices that would tell him to hurt people, but when he was around me, he was calm, the voices went away.

I felt sorry for Alik. I always had. Having Abram as a papa would be like living with the devil himself. But I had had someone else, a boy I completely loved, adored… was born for the sole purpose of loving. Then a tragedy ripped us apart when I was a teen. Within days, Alik made his move and, in turn, made me his.

We’d been together ever since.

As a mafiya prince and princess, all of New York’s Russian society looked upon us as the “perfect” couple. Alik would have it no other way. He was obsessed with me. He monitored my every move. I was his Myshka—his little mouse.

And I dared not look elsewhere. Alik would kill anyone who came between us. And this was no threat; it was what Alik did.

He killed.

His place in this life was to kill.

He was a fighter—a death match fighter—but I knew he killed for the Bratva outside of the cage too, killed those the Red Kings really wanted to make suffer.

Alik “The Butcher” Durov was the undisputed five-time champion of The Dungeon. At twenty-five, nearly twenty-six, years of age, he was the most feared man in New York.

I could never, ever leave him. I couldn’t even if I wanted to. In the Bratva life, men led and their women followed, dutifully, in their path. It was the essence of Bratva life, one that served you very well if you played it safe.

Sentimental feelings and notions of ‘true love’ didn’t matter in this life. It was an underground society based on respect and your ultimate support of the ‘family’.

Alik looked me over and his light eyes flared again in need. He stroked his hard dick under the red Versace towel wrapped round his waist. Slowly, he shook his head, his thoughts clearly at war with his needs.

“I gotta shower, Myshka. I have to be out in ten. Serge is coming to take you home. Can’t be deep in your sweet pussy again even if I wanted to.” His eyes then softened. “And you know I want you, don’t you? Can’t ever have enough of you, baby.”

Frowning, I gently asked, “So we’re not going to dinner? We do have a date, remember?” I tried to act disappointed. But all I felt was relief. Relief that I wouldn’t somehow piss him off in public by some arbitrary thing he viewed as wrong, which would warrant being fucked too hard as punishment.

Alik strutted toward me, his packed, scarred abs clenching with the movement, and grabbed my chin, dragging my head level with his, making damn sure our eyes met.