Gregor looked amused and eager, nodding and letting the boi he just met lead him around. Gregor gave off strong Dom vibes to me, but I could see him exploring both sides of the slash. What was the line? Bisexual people didn’t have to choose one.
“Well, he’s sorted.” I turned to Maksim and took his hand, leading him to the lounge area. He was my nurturing, rough sex giving top, but I was his Dom. “Do you want to play here, or wait until we get home, Daddy?”
“Hmm, lots of newbies around, could give them a show?” Maksim considered the options and pulled me against his bulky frame. “Let’s wait until home, though. If you want to scream and hurt for me.”
“I like the way you think, Daddy.” I pulled his head down to kiss me, my heeled boots giving me more reach. He sank into the kiss and I thanked my lucky stars for him. For how fate gave me his love and acceptance.
When I started grinding on his bulge, practically climbing my sexy beast, he stopped the kiss and cupped my face. “Are we people watching while Gregor explores, or am I taking you home right now?”
Sighing, I rolled my eyes and stepped back, “People watching until we check in with Gregor.”
My cousin wasn’t in the lounge, but someone else was. I gasped, “Speak of the devil.”
“Which devil?” Maksim asked, suddenly on alert for hidden enemies. “Where?”
Lifting our joined hands, I gestured to the sexy silver fox leaning against a far wall by a dungeon entrance, sipping his drink and taking in the crowd. George Greco was in X Club.
Maksim cursed under his breath in Russian, “Do we need to leave?”
Tilting my head back and forth, I considered the options. “If we leave and he sees us fleeing, it looks weak. If he continues to come here, we’ll cross paths again. Might as well bite the bullet.”
“No bullets,” Maksim growled. He had a concealed weapon permit, but I was pretty sure he’d left all guns at home. Clubs and bars were full of drunk people who could hurt themselves if they got the weapon off of you. “So, we approach as friends?”
“Maybe not friends,” I conceded, starting to lead us over. George was a sexy older man, silver-haired and dressed impeccably in a black, three-piece suit. His fierce expression gave nothing away, even when he spotted our approach. “Cautiously cordial.”
Despite what I said about not wanting to appear weak, I had to know what the straight-laced and always heterosexual-acting man was doing in the decidedly kinky queer club.
CHAPTER ONE
VASILY “BASIL” KISELOV
It was unseasonablyhot for San Francisco on my graduation day. June was usually cooler in the Bay than the rest of the country, and foggier, but there we all sat. In our long black robes and tight black hats with the sun beating down on the hundreds of us gathered in hard metal chairs, it was starting to smell like a locker room.
My mood matched the weather we all expected, gloomy and prone to sending you indoors, away from crowds. I was not a fan of the sunniness around me, both from my fellow graduates and the sky.
My parents had sent me to California for a fancy school at age seven, to be trained under the Bay Area wing of the family business. I went back to see them for a month every summer, but at fifteen my dad said I was too old for needing care from my parents, and I hadn’t seen them since.
Should I really be surprised? They didn’t bother to come over from the motherland to see me graduate with a Master’s degree in Business—with highest honors I might add—since they hadn’t bothered when I got my high school diploma or Bachelor’s either. I didn’t bother attending for my BA, after the disappointment from High School when they declined my invitations. Dad was busy traveling to the former Soviet nations, working directly with the higher ups.
San Francisco used to be big for the family and the whole Bratva, but Felix Kiselov changed that. I was a Kiselov by birth, so this was where most of us were sent, but I didn’t think they cared too much. Felix made them money, though not by selling guns and women like his father did. I knew my business degrees would be more valuable to the family now, since he was mostly out of the crime arena.
“School of Business, please stand,” a disembodied voice called out and my area got up before shuffling out to the center aisle. I wasn’t short, but I wasn’t tall either, so I didn’t see the speaker announcing names until I was turning in front of the stage to ascend the stairs. He wasn’t my thesis advisor, a chubby, older woman who always had cookies in her office. Instead, it was a gray-haired and thickly mustachioed professor I hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting before. He was on J names, so I would have my turn soon.
We made our way up the steps to the line of Deans, handing over the notecards with our phonetically spelled names. They never got mine right, anyway, in English either. I wasn’t Vay-seel-lee or Bay-sul, I made it easy enough going by Basil.
“Vase-ill-lee Kiss-eh-luv,” the man’s pronunciation was close enough, “San Francisco State School of Business, Summa cum laude.”
“Woo, Basil!” A booming cheer caught my attention, and I whipped towards the voice as I stumbled off the stage. My extra stole and cords for earning those honors almost slipped off, but I regained my balance.
A few rows up, I saw my Bratva superiors, who were also blood relatives. Felix Kiselov, the boss, next to his head bodyguard, Maxim. They were partners, and it still shocked me the higher-ups back home hadn’t taken him out for the relationship. They were sitting with a great uncle and two cousins. I didn’t know they were coming to see me graduate, and I felt a sharp pain in my gut. They’d been some of the only ones to come for my high school ceremony, too.
My cousin, Gregor, was cupping a hand to his mouth and cheering for me, “You cum loudly!”
Groaning, I rolled my eyes and studiously avoided looking at my family again while I took my seat and a few hundred more names were read. When I was thoroughly soaked in sweat and ready to hide away in my dorm room, the announcer told us to stand and move our tassels.
After pulling the tassel off to keep, I tossed my cap into the air and unzipped my robe. I wasn’t headed back to my dorm, though. That era was over.
Starting that afternoon, I was moving in with Gregor. The same mature cousin in his late thirties who made a sex joke at my graduation. Joy.
