I turned, finding Marisha directly behind me, her steps having hurried as she’d seen where I was taking us. A bench sat in a deserted area, a small canopy overhead that had seen better days but shaded the seating nonetheless.
I reached for her as she came into my arms automatically, our mouths meeting in a frenzy as we kissed each other. Her hands moved over my back as I held her face and tipped her head back, exposing her throat for me to lay kisses upon and she groaned into the air.
Russian words slipped from between my lips as my mouth roamed her skin.
“Fuck, I’ve missed you,” I ground out, laying another kiss against her waiting mouth. My tongue slipped in, desperate for hers. We kissed passionately, our mouths moving in tandem as I nibbled her bottom lip and our teeth clashed in our urgency.
My cell was vibrating in my pocket, distracting us both. I’d turned it on silent so I could give her my undivided attention, but this was even worse. a distinct and irritating buzzing vibrating in my chest next to my heart. Every plunder of my tongue distracted by the vibrations.
“Fuck, I’m sorry, Marisha,” I finally said, pulling out of the kiss. I tugged the cell from my jacket, seeing that it was my father calling and I looked at her and placed a finger to my lips as I answered. “Yes, Father.”
“The deal with the Italians is falling through. I need you and some of the men to meet me there in an hour,” he ordered. “Those bastards need to feel the full force of the Russians now. No more silly games.” He sounded pissed, and I couldn't blame him. We’d been working on this deal for several months and now it was about to break down. I should have been more concerned, yet all I could think about was Marisha and getting my hands on her curves.
“Did you hear me, Alexander?” he snapped angrily. “I need you to step up now and be a man. Get over there or I’ll have someone else do it. Ivan perhaps,” he taunted ruthlessly, knowing how much I’d disliked Ivan’s shunning of me at the restaurant the other night. He’d treated me like a goddamn child, instead of his future Bratva king and boss.
“I’ll be there,” I gritted out, “I’ll be a couple of hours though. I’m not local.”
He huffed out his annoyance. “Well, where the fuck are you?”
Excuses ran through my head, but none seemed good enough to appease him. I looked over at Marisha reluctantly, regret filling my bones. I was going to have to leave her here. This was my duty. I was my father's right-hand man. I’d be taking over fully from him one day and I couldn’t afford to fuck any of that up.
Father was talking away angrily in Russian to someone else in the room. “I need to deal with another issue first. Karik said he is going to arrange a meeting with the Italians for later tonight, Alexander. Get yourself back here now, I want you here. I’m going to show you what we do to men that back out on their agreements.” And with that he slammed the phone down.
I scoffed, irritated by his final comment. As if I didn’t know what happened to men that backed out of a Bratva contract… tonight would be bloody.
Marisha must have heard him hang up because she came and put her hand on my back. “Everything okay?”
I turned to her, taking a deep breath as I ran my fingers through her thick red-gold hair. “Yes, just business.”
“Do you need to go?” she asked, complete understanding in her tone.
God she would have made me a great wife. Regret and anger washed through me. If only I had been the one to save her from certain death instead of Ivan. But I was too busy fucking every woman in sight and getting drunk to really notice what was going on around me, outside of my direct responsibilities with Father. I hated that version of me. That version of me had lost me the chance at happiness with this woman, sentencing her to a life with a Bastard like Ivan, and me a life without her in it. It was becoming more and more obvious that this thing between us could only continue for so long, and the time was coming for it to stop, no matter how much we didn’t want it to. I couldn’t continue putting her in danger, and with every kiss and every touch, every illicit phone call and picture, that was what I was doing.
I already knew that I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if anything happened to her.
“No,” I said, “not yet, but we won’t have as long as I wanted.”
She nodded, her hands going to my chest. “Then we better make the best use of our time then.”
I smiled with satisfaction. She was perfect in every way. A mixture of obedience and defiance. Of hungry need and suppleness to bend to my whim. I reached down and cupped her face in my hand, pressing my mouth to hers once more.
This time the kiss was softer, less desperate but still with the same intensity, despite the urgency of it all. Once again, we were stealing quick kisses before having to separate. Hiding when we should have been free to be together. Fucking quickly in secret instead of taking our time whenever we wanted.
I hated this.
I wanted her for my own.
“Hey, hey,” she said, looking up at me, “where did you go, Alexander?”
I gripped her slim waist in my hands and picked her up, carrying her over to the bench. She squealed loudly and then caught herself, biting down on the excitement so we wouldn't be heard.
I sat down on the bench and pulled Marisha onto my lap. Her legs astride me, skirt bunching up automatically, she leaned down and our mouths joined in a hungry convergence of need and desperation.
I’d let myself fall too deep, too fast, and even though I knew we were in trouble, I couldn’t stop myself. And neither could she, it seemed.
If someone had told me weeks ago that I could feel this way over a woman, I’d laugh in their face. But now…
“It won’t always be like this,” I promised, but we both knew that was a lie. This was how it would always be. This was all it could ever be. Until the day we ended it.
