Page 21 of Bribed & Bred By the BRATVA
When I shatter, it’s with his name on my lips, my body convulsing around him. He groans, surging up to kiss me, swallowing my cries as he thrusts hard from beneath.
“Take it,” he growls, voice breaking. “Take all of me.”
I cling to him, nails digging into his shoulders between the scars that are already there, moaning his name as he drives me through the climax and into another.
When he spills inside me, it’s with a snarl of triumph, crushing me against his chest like he’ll never let me go.
I collapse against him, shaking, wrecked, and yet more alive than I’ve ever felt.
It isn’t just sex.
It’s power. It’s surrender. It’s the terrifying, intoxicating truth that I crave him as much as he craves me.
Aleksei
The call comes just after dusk. Roman’s voice on the other end is clipped, irritated. A meeting soured, a deal gone sideways. He could handle it himself, but he wants my presence.
I don’t hesitate. Isabella is warm in my bed, her skin still damp from the bath, her body tender from taking me twice already. But when duty calls, I answer.
“Stay here,” I tell her, pressing a kiss to her temple. “I won’t be long.”
Her eyes are wide, searching mine. “Be careful.”
The words slip under my skin like a blade. No one tells me that. No one cares enough to. But she does.
I leave before I can say something dangerous.
The meeting is in one of our warehouses, the air thick with oil and rust. Roman stands with arms folded, jaw tight, Nikolai flanking him like a shadow. The men across the table are too young, too stupid, thinking they can bluff us.
It takes less than ten minutes before knives flash. One grazes my ribs when I step in, my fist answering before the man can blink. His jaw cracks under my knuckles. He goes down spitting blood, and the others scatter like rats.
By the time it’s over, Roman is cursing about wasted time, Nikolai is laughing, and my hand is raw, skin split across theknuckles. A shallow cut burns along my side where I dodged too late.
I don’t bother bandaging it. Pain sharpens me. It reminds me I’m alive.
When I walk back into the house, the lights are low, the air scented faintly of freesias. Isabella is waiting in the sitting room, curled on the couch with a blanket. She looks up, relief flooding her face, until she sees the blood.
She’s on her feet in an instant. “Aleksei—”
Her hands are small and frantic, lifting arm, stroking my face, tugging me down to the couch. “You’re hurt.”
“It’s nothing,” I say. “Superficial.”
She ignores me, fetching a cloth from the bathroom, pressing it gently to my side. Her touch is feather-light, careful. It burns worse than the knife because it makes me want to sink into her softness and never climb out.
“You’re bleeding,” she whispers, voice trembling.
“I’ve bled before.”
“That doesn’t make it less terrifying.”
She undoes my shirt quickly, pushes that and my jacket off my shoulders and down my arms.
Her hands shake as she wipes the cut clean, her lip caught between her teeth. The sight of her tending me, fussing over me, nearly undoes me. I could kill a dozen men and come home to her touch, and it would always feel like salvation.
I catch her wrist, stilling her. “Isabella. Look at me.”
Her eyes lift, wide and wet.
