Sweet Depravity: A Dark Mafia Romance Read online

  The entire time, I could hear the money calling out to me like The Tell-Tale Heart. What had started out as a silly impulse now had me completely freaked out. First thing tomorrow before class, I would head back to that pawnshop, turn in the slip, and get those cufflinks back. With a towel wrapped around my torso, I swiped my palm across the steamed mirror before checking my phone. It was seven p.m. I had to hurry. Vaska would be here in an hour and there was something about the man that told me he was the punctual sort.

  Brushing out my wet hair, I wrapped it in Velcro rollers and quickly dried it. After taking the rollers out, I grabbed a section and rolled it into a perfect victory roll off my forehead and inserted a few strategic bobby pins. I did the same for the other side, framing my face before using a red silk scarf as a headband. I knotted it below and to the side of my ear, letting the ends trail over my shoulder. Applying a liquid black eyeliner for a quick cat eye and some crimson red matte lipstick, I raced into my bedroom to get dressed.

  It was seven-forty p.m. I had to hurry. He would be here at any moment. Inside my walk-in closet, I snatched the first outfit that caught my eye. One of my favorite dresses. It was an off-the-shoulder sailor print that had navy blue bands with white buttons across the upper arms, a bright red and white striped print across the torso, and an A-line navy blue skirt. I paired it with a pair of red ballet flats.

  Dumping the contents of my Hello Kitty purse onto my bed, I picked up my wallet, keys, and lipstick and tossed them into a smaller novelty purse shaped like a cherry. As I headed down the narrow hallway, I leaned into the bathroom and grabbed my phone. The screen lit up. It was seven fifty-five. Fuck. I was almost late. He would be here any minute.

  Peeking through the curtains, I saw the same elegant black sports car Vaska was driving earlier pull up behind a rather ridiculously out of place gold Ferrari. A car that ostentatious stuck out like a sore thumb in our slightly rundown neighborhood. I couldn’t even imagine the loser who probably drove it. Hurriedly I headed to the front door and quickly locked it, then ran down the hallway. Instead of turning right, which would have led to the front entrance walkway that Vaska was probably strolling up this very moment, I turned left. Thankfully, the emergency exit in the building had been broken for years, so no alarm sounded when I hit the crash bar, crept out the back, and made my escape.

  I crossed the lawn and slipped between two brick buildings before hailing a cab on the other side of the street. Settling into the backseat, we were several blocks away before my heart stopped racing. It started up again when my phone pinged. I pulled it out of my purse to see a text from Vaska.

  Bad girl.

  I stared at my phone for the rest of the ride, anxiously waiting to see if he would text me again. Perhaps asking where I was, or why I broke our supposed date, or even if I had his cufflinks, but there was nothing.

  My stomach clenched. Usually when a man didn’t text you it was because he was just being a pain in the ass, selfish boy. This felt different. Vaska not texting me again after that felt more… ominous.

  Shaking off the feeling, I paid the cab driver and stepped onto the sidewalk in front of my favorite bookstore. I thought about hiding from Vaska in the library since I had a paper on the use of voiceless alveolar lateral fricatives in language due for one of my English courses, but thought better of it. There was no way I’d be able to concentrate. Emma was working tonight at her job at the Newberry Library, so that would have been an option, if Dimitri hadn’t texted me looking for her. I warned Emma he was going all Angel from Buffy season two episode fourteen. He was totally showing up there, and the chance that Vaska could be with him was too great to risk it.

  I swung open the glass door and stepped inside the hushed atmosphere, leaving behind the bustle, car horns, and generous chaos of the Chicago city streets. This was definitely a better plan. I would spend the evening killing time, hiding amongst the stacks, sipping a café latte with an extra shot of vanilla.

  After getting my drink, I wandered among the narrow stacks to the back right-hand corner of the shop. Selecting Nick Groom’s The Vampire: A New History, I settled into a cozy, slightly worn upholstered bucket chair and started flipping through the pages. The book was brand new and only available in hardcover. As a poor graduate student, I didn’t plunk down twenty-five bucks unless I was certain I’d enjoy the book. I tried to engross myself in the chapter pertaining to Stoker’s Dracula while thinking of the time when I would have my own classroom of English students to teach, but it was no use.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about another dangerously elegant man with a hypnotic gaze and seemingly supernatural influence over me. I had literally known the man for barely twelve hours, and yet he consumed my thoughts. There was just something so intense about him, an irresistible sexual pull. That I couldn’t stop thinking about him or this morning was proof positive I needed to stay far away from him. I would retrieve his cufflinks from the pawnshop and find a way to return them to him without actually seeing him. I knew in my heart… and lower… I couldn’t trust myself in the same room with the man. I nodded. It was settled. I would return the cufflinks and walk—no, run—the other way.

  I was so caught up in my thoughts I failed to notice the change in the store’s atmosphere until it was too late.

  There is a certain lullaby of sounds to any bookstore. The soft tones of conversations in hushed whispers. The whoosh of the steamer on the espresso machine. The muted ching of the cash register when the drawer opens. The sound of flapping bird wings a book makes when it’s dropped with its pages open.

  One by one those sounds disappeared, as if snuffed out like a candle.

  I checked my phone. It was only eight forty-five p.m. Granted, it was a cold Tuesday night so there hadn’t been many people in the store or the café part when I entered, but still they had at least another hour and a half before they closed.

  Leaning forward in my chair, I strained to listen.

  There was only silence.

  The chimes sounding over the entrance doorway gave me a moment of ease until the silence resumed. Then there came the unmistakable harsh metal clack of a lock being flipped into place. Careful not to make a sound, I slid the book I had been reading onto the top of some books on a nearby shelf and stood. My heart was pounding so loudly in my chest it was hard to listen for any other sounds. I opened my mouth to call out, but it was too dry to speak. I licked my lips and tried again, calling out a hesitant, “Hello?”

  No one answered.

  No. One. Answered.

  Then I heard it. A heavy footfall. Then another. The measured step of someone wearing shoes… not sneakers like pretty much a hundred percent of the college students who liked to come to this bookshop.

  One step.

  Then another.

  Closer and closer.

  I shifted backwards, bumping into the bookshelf behind me. It rattled slightly.

  The steps stopped.

  I held my breath.

  Then the footsteps started again.

  Oh, God.

  What was happening? Were people still here in the store and just forced to keep quiet because someone was holding a gun? That was the only scenario that made sense.

  I needed to figure out what my options were. I could call nine-one-one, but if I spoke that would give away my location within the store. I was fairly certain what I’d heard was the front door being locked, so I couldn’t risk making a run for it in that direction. I could try to get to the unisex bathroom, but the door was really flimsy and the lock usually broken. On the rare occasions I used it, I would always lean over and hold the knob, ready and eager to call out an ‘occupied’ at a second’s notice. There was probably another way out through the kitchen. If I crept alongside the bookcase, maybe I could circle around.

  Leaving my purse where it was, in case I needed my hands free, I put my phone in my pocket and crept along the edge of the aisle, straining to hear any more footsteps.

  Then a low, measured v
oice broke the silence. “I know you’re in here, Mary.”

  My hand flew over my mouth to stifle my cry. It was Vaska. A thousand questions flooded my brain. How had he found me? Why would he make everyone leave the store? Did he know I’d pawned his cufflinks? Was he now here to murder me because of it? It sounded trivial, but there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that Vaska was a dangerous man.

  Dimitri, Emma’s boyfriend, was dangerous too, but somehow he seemed like a different kind of dangerous. The kind that was dangerous to other people, but not to her. It was obvious he was enamored of Emma and would never hurt her. I could not say the same for Vaska and me. I was simply the girl he’d fucked this morning who’d then stolen his super-expensive eleven-thousand-dollar cufflinks on a lark and ditched him later.

  Oh. My. God.

  He’s totally going to kill me.

  I didn’t have to date a lot of men to know that men like Vaska didn’t enjoy having their egos bruised. Hell, that was the theme of half the action-adventure movies out there. I was nothing to him, a nobody. He would probably shoot me dead and not think twice about it.

  Before I could decide what to do, he spoke again. “You’ve been a very bad girl, krasotka. Come out now and face your punishment before you make me any angrier than I already am.”

  Face my punishment?

  My punishment?

  Like my murder?

  No, thanks.

  Forcing my legs to move, I crept further down the aisle as I peeked over the tops of the books on the shelves, hoping for a glimpse that would tell me his position within the store. As I got to the end, I bent my body in half and poked my head out. He was several aisles over on the other side of the now empty store. Small café tables and the espresso counter lay between us. If I bolted out of my hiding place fast enough, I could make it to the kitchen and out the back door. Thank God I wasn’t wearing heels right now.

  I closed my eyes and said a quick prayer before sprinting across the store. I heard Vaska’s shout through the loud rushing in my ears, but it only spurred me on faster. I raced around the scarred wooden counter into the bright lights of the small kitchen. Daring a glance over my shoulder, I saw Vaska, dressed in a button-down white shirt and a pair of jeans, vault over the counter as if it were nothing. I ran past the stainless steel tables and launched myself at the back emergency door. I slammed my body weight against it. It didn’t budge. I shouldered it a second time. Nothing. I scanned the door, but it was one of those industrial metal doors. There was no obvious lock.

  I was trapped.

  “It looks like I have cornered a cute little rabbit.”

  I turned to see Vaska standing a few feet away, arms crossed over his chest. He’d rolled his sleeves up to expose all sorts of tattoos, both gray and black and colorful. I knew enough from Emma’s book on the subject to know the gray and black ones were probably prison tattoos.

  He is going to murder me, and they’ll never find my body.

  My frenzied gaze swept over the kitchen. In desperation, I snatched up a knife from a nearby cutting board filled with lemon slices. I held it out in front of me with both hands, pointing it directly at his chest.

  Vaska’s eyes narrowed as he slowly shook his head. “You shouldn’t have done that, baby.”

  Chapter 7

  Mary

  “I’ll give the money back! I didn’t mean it! It was just a stupid prank.”

  Vaska’s gaze shifted to the weapon in my hand. “Put down the knife.”

  I shook my head as I backed away. “No.”

  He uncrossed his arms and fisted his hands at his sides. “Mary, I will not ask again, put down the goddamn knife.”

  I tightened my grasp on the handle as my palms sweated. “I have the money. I’ll give it back, I wasn’t going to keep it. I’ll get your cufflinks back, I promise.”

  “I don’t give a fuck about the money and I already have my cufflinks back.”

  “You don’t? Wait, you do? How?”

  “Keep the money. I don’t want it.”

  This made little sense. He wasn’t here about the money? He wasn’t here to murder me? “If you don’t want the money and you have your cufflinks, then what do you want?”

  Vaska’s lips lifted in a slow smile. “You.”

  The one word hit my gut like a lightning bolt, sending blistering heat from my core to my toes. I had to force myself to remember he was not the type of man to be trusted. I was nothing but a conquest. He’d have his fill before the week was over, leaving me feeling used and brokenhearted.

  My chin jutted out. “I’d rather just give you back the money.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Then I guess it is a good thing I don’t plan on asking your permission.”

  My eyes widened. He took a step forward, and I stumbled back, lifting the knife higher. “Stay away from me.”

  His dark gaze hardened. “No.”

  “This is crazy. You could have any woman you want. They probably fall into your bed. Go choose one of them. Why do you have to chase after me when I clearly don’t want to be with you?”

  He raised his arm to rub his lower jaw with his right hand as his gaze slipped from my face down my body and back up, leaving a trail of warmth on my skin as if he had physically touched me.

  Keeping his gaze trained on me, he unbuttoned the top buttons of his shirt, exposing tanned skin with thin swirls of dark hair.

  “What… what are you doing? Stop that!” I ordered.

  He pulled his shirt from his jeans and finished unbuttoning it. Helpless to resist, my gaze traveled over his heavily muscled and tattooed chest to his flat abdomen. His jeans rode low, showing off the sharp edges of his hipbones. I swallowed.

  He took a step forward. I jerked my head up as I lifted the knife high again, having lowered my arms while distracted by the arrogant display of raw sexuality in front of me. Vaska chuckled as he lowered his head to flick open the button over his jeans zipper, before once again piercing me with his dark hooded gaze. The swollen outline of his hard shaft was evident against his inner thigh. My mouth fell open.

  “We can do this the easy way or the hard way, baby girl, but either way that sweet pussy of yours is getting fucked tonight.”

  I gasped.

  He stepped forward. I tried to step back, but the cold rounded edge of a stainless steel countertop prevented me. I waved the knife at him. “I mean it, Vaska. Stay back.”

  “No.”

  He stepped forward again. He was now only a few inches from the sharp tip of the knife.

  “This is insane. The owner or staff could be back at any minute.”

  He smirked. “No, they won’t, not with what I just paid them to convince them to stay away.”

  I inhaled a shaky breath. “Fine. A customer then.”

  “The door’s locked.”

  My hands shook. “Stop having an answer for everything!”

  He shifted forward. The knife point rested against his skin. “The only thing that will stop me from claiming you is if you kill me. Drive it in deep, krasotka. You’ll need to use enough force to thrust past the bone and sinew to hit my heart.”

  I hesitated.

  With a growl, he knocked the knife out of my hand and snatched me to him. Driving his hand into my hair at the nape of my neck, he forced my head back to claim my mouth. His tongue thrust past my lips, giving no quarter as his other hand palmed my breast. His embrace was warm and strong as he lifted me high, placing me on the counter. His hands cupped my knees and pushed my legs open so he could step between my thighs. His mouth ruthlessly fell on mine again as his hands pulled on the off-the-shoulder top of my dress. I wasn’t wearing a bra, so the movement exposed my breasts. He latched on to my right nipple, pulling and sucking hard, sending shockwaves up my spine. With a hand in the center of my chest, he pushed me to lie back along the counter. He then grabbed my hips and pulled me forward till my ass was on the edge of the counter and my legs were draped over his shoulders. Flipping up my dress skirt, he s
troked my pussy through the thin cotton of my panties.

  “I’m flying you to Paris and buying you an entire wardrobe of lingerie. From now on, I only want to see the finest silk covering this pussy.”

  He slipped his fingers into the hem and tore the cheap cotton off me. I cried out as I fisted the fabric of my dress skirt.

  He lowered his head and slowly ran his tongue up along the seam of my pussy.

  I closed my eyes and groaned.

  “Eyes on me, beautiful,” he commanded, and I obeyed.

  I watched the erotic sight of his head once more lowering between my thighs to lick and taunt each sensitive nerve. Swiping two fingers from my clit to my entrance, he used my arousal to push inside of me. I groaned as my hips lifted off the counter. I was still sore from this morning, but that didn’t stop the wave of pleasure at his touch. He pushed a third finger inside of me as his tongue flicked and swirled around my clit, till I was screaming his name as I climaxed.

  His firm hand reached under my now pliant body and pulled me up to a sitting position. Leaving his hand on my lower back, he reached above us to a small shelf where there was a silver canister with a white nozzle and handle. I had been a server enough times to know it dispensed whipped cream.

  Holding the canister up, he ordered, “Open your mouth.”

  As my lips opened, he pressed the handle, sending a swirl of sweet, fluffy whipped cream onto my tongue. I started to close my mouth, but he stopped me. “No, leave your mouth open. I want to watch the cream melt onto your tongue while I fuck you.”

  He unzipped his jeans and pulled out his cock. Once more, I was struck with a shiver of trepidation over its size and girth. Fisting its length, he stepped forward to position himself near my entrance.

  I swallowed the whipped cream and placed restraining hands on his shoulders. “Wait. A condom.”

  His eyes narrowed. “I don’t have one. I left them at your place.”