The Life (10 page)

“Please, you’ve got to … I need you to … move, Anton,
please
.”

The low whisper of his soothing shush did nothing to help the ache and need clawing through her chest, piercing at her skin like a cloying want that she could almost taste. Viviana whimpered, her legs moving under his guidance to wrap around his waist again.

“Holy fuck …
yeah
.” Anton groaned.

For a brief moment, he simply held them connected. Bodies tight, his hand running over the inside of her thigh to soothe the ache where he’d previously grabbed, and their gazes meeting to watch emotions flicker on past with words unsaid.

Wave after wave of surprise fueled desire washed over Viviana’s suddenly hazy senses. Her entire body felt like one long, melting sigh as Anton finally began to pull out. Slowly—painfully fucking so—he began a quiet, gentle rhythm of long, smooth thrusts that filled her clenching channel with every flex of his hips.

Viviana wanted him harder, so much faster. She wanted to beg, to cry, and
need
.

“Breathe, baby, you
gotta—”

Fuck, wasn’t she?

Everything was lost when Anton touched her, even the most basic of instincts—
fucking
everything
.

A cattish whine clawed at her throat. Viviana felt her fingers curl tighter around the edge of the desk, nails scoring into precious wood as those slow strokes of his began coming faster, sharper, and
harder
.

“There, huh?
That’s what you wanted. Feel me, baby.”

Viviana couldn’t respond behind her gritting teeth. The mewling whines crawling from her throat were growing by the second. Anton answered each one with a stronger thrust than the one that came before.

With the departure of his cock, her inner muscles grasped at his length, wanting him back, needing him there. She was so wet, the scent of her arousal clinging to the air and edging at the tip of her tongue. The echoing noise of their fucking resounded at the very base of her mind.

Eventually, the haziness saturating her vision and wits cleared. Instead of simply feeling him everywhere, Viviana could see her husband, too. The blue in his irises burned with its raging desire, that predatory gaze of his locked onto the spot where their bodies connected.
His lips, parted, trembling. Both of Anton’s hands rested to her hips, holding tight as his fingers dug beautifully rough into her skin.

Like he wanted her—only her.

And he fucked her like he owned her.

Viviana loved it.

“Fuck, I needed this,” Anton ground out through his teeth.

“Needed
me
.”

The flick of his eyes
raising to meet hers was instant. The impact of his stare was like a shock straight to her sex and heart, as if every single inch of her nervous system was reflected from his.

“Only you.”

The scratching whines in her throat were building into a crescendo of high cries and moans that tumbled over her lips with every thrust of his cock. The controlled snaps of his body meeting hers had sent anything weighing less than a paperweight dropping off the desk. Viviana could feel the muscles in his lower back where her heels were pressed flexing with every movement.

With a shift of hips, Anton seemed to be searching her gaze for something. Another flex of his body into hers, the angle changing once more, and Viviana’s eyes flew wide as the tip of his cock grazed her g-spot before his shaft stroked the fleshy spot entirely. Every time he filled her, Anton had her body totally aware, her legs shaking, and her mind screaming.

“There we go,” Anton said as Viviana reacted to the change in his thrusts by tossing her head back. “Mmhmm, you love that. Holding onto me so damned tight, Viviana. You’re ready to fucking blow—I want your sweet come all over my fucking desk, baby.”

“Anton … Jesus. Oh fucking God—
almost
.”

There was a pressure building in the base of Viviana’s spine. Strong and foreign, it coiled like a tightening spring ready to snap. Now, she wanted him closer, to feel him as her body released and fell from his high spun web. Jerking at the restraints still holding tight, she was reminded that she couldn’t just touch him if she wanted.

“Closer, please,” she managed to plead.

Those warm, strong hands of his trailed up her sides, roaming over her breasts, up her collarbones and neck until they grasped each side of her face to hold her head still.
When she came, the orgasm rushed her blood with a soaking flood of euphoria. Frantically trying to keep the slipping grip she had on the desk, Viviana curled her fingers tighter around the edge. With Anton’s mouth seeking hers, she cried his name so brokenly, surprised to find his movements had slowed enough to draw out the constricting waves of her orgasm for himself.

Jerky and praying Viviana’s name, Anton buried his face into the crook of her neck as he worked his way into his own orgasm a few thrusts after hers had finished. While she caught her breath, Anton pulled away from her body. A trickle of fluids leaked between her thighs to the desk and she felt him hum his approval along her collarbones. Stopping to bite and suck at her skin, her husband
sighed a happy noise.

Dammit, she still just wanted to
hold
him.

Viviana whined. “Get these fucking things off.”

Anton grinned against the swell of her breast. “Okay, chill out.”

A small set of metal keys were produced from a drawer. Taking the time to readjust his softening cock inside his boxer-briefs and to pull up his pants before zipping them up, Anton winked at his wife. Finally, he unlocked the cuffs from her wrists one at a time, much too slow for Viviana’s liking. Feeling terribly sticky with sweat, she couldn’t help but notice the heavy scent of their fucking hanging in the air.

“I’m a mess,” she said as Anton clipped her bra back in pace and began the work of buttoning up her blouse. “And your office smells like sex.”

“I love it,” he replied, smirking up through his lashes. “Love that you’ll walk out of here looking like I just fucked you, because I did.
Love that you made my office smell like us and anyone with two brain cells to rub together will know it.”

Heat crawled over Viviana’s cheeks. “You
are
horrible.”

“Never denied it.”

As he wrapped his arms around her shoulders, laying a soft kiss to her temple, Viviana sunk into the embrace willingly.

“You know I was kidding about the money, right?” she asked.

“I never thought it mattered. It wasn’t like you asked before. Don’t you know how successful you are, Viviana?”

“Excuse me?”

“Your businesses, baby,” he clarified, leaning back to raise his brow at her. “What is it, five clubs, seven restaurants, and two strip clubs spread out across Brooklyn? Something like that. You’re a very successful entrepreneur. I just work under you, technically. On paper, anyway.”

Viviana had to let his words absorb to understand what he was telling her. Shocked was an understatement.

“Do you mean—”

“Yes,” Anton interrupted with a single nod. “When Ivan transferred all my assets into my wife’s name, he transferred
all of them
. I don’t know if you read the fine print in our prenuptial agreement or not, but you never have to worry about money again. Everything that’s mine is yours and it always will be, even if I’m not. Legally, you bring in anywhere in the range of nine to twelve million in profit a year. Your financial profile is all handled by Ivan’s offices.”

“And you?” she dared to ask, not even sure she wanted to know.

Anton licked his lips, glancing away from her gaze as he admitted, “Our trade is a multibillion dollar a year business. Am I taking that big of a slice? Hell no. I am taking a hefty enough chunk of it to make me a competitor amongst many, however.”

Viviana didn’t know what to say. She’d previously thought he was ignoring the discussion of money, but now she knew he just simply didn’t care because it was either hers, or it was money she wouldn’t want to touch, anyway.

Static crackled in the air, surprising Viviana out of her internal thoughts.

“Anton, are you two finished up there, yet?”

Ivan’s voice coming through the conference speaker not only seemed slightly annoyed, but a little bit flustered as well. Viviana couldn’t hide the embarrassment that had her inappropriate giggles building at Ivan’s attempt at an innocent question.

Anton sighed, reaching over to hit the reply button. “Finished doing
what
exactly?”

Ivan spluttered. “Uh … Well, you know … Christ, why do you have to make this so awkward?”

“Did Kalvin come back?” Anton asked.

“Yes,” Ivan replied, “and he’s been waiting at least ten minutes for you.”

The conference phone was clicked off. Anton’s smug grin grew a little more as he leaned forward to kiss his wife all slow and sweet. “Thank you for taking your punishment so well. Smile pretty when you go downstairs, huh?”

Viviana huffed in mock offence, her hand coming up to smack at his chest. “Can I at least have my panties back?”

“Nope, they’re mine, now.”

Chapter Seven

“That was fast,” Anton said, sitting down in the booth. It’d been exactly a week and a half since his wife’s tires were slashed. He expected the sit down with the Italian mafia boss to take at least a month to set up properly. “I appreciate it.”

Conrad Carducci sipped from his to-go cup of coffee and said nothing long enough for Anton to order his own cup. “This is me extending trust,” he replied, tossing a glance across the booth. “We’ve worked together before—”

“I paid you off, once,” Anton corrected. “I killed your cousin and you took his spot after I did so. I wouldn’t call that working together, but more like circumstances that fell into place for you thanks to me.”

“I knew you were going to do it. I could have stopped you, or ordered someone to.”

“But you didn’t. Did you even have to fight for Sonny’s throne?”

Conrad barked a spiteful laugh. “Fuck no. They wanted him gone. I was the next logical choice. Some were already trying to plan it, but the feds were so far down our throats over Roman’s death it was ridiculous. I think they were close to coming down on Sonny for that—they just needed something else.”

“Better they didn’t. He still would have been running it from behind bars.”

“Truth.” Conrad offered the admittance without shame. “So, extending you my trust, Russian. A quick meeting, no pre-planning. I don’t own this place, but it’s safe, and my guys are outside out of earshot. Yours are three tables down.”

Actually, just Ivan was there, and he was too far away to hear the conversation. They both handed over their guns before coming in to the café. Whether or not Anton considered that to be a show of trust was something entirely different.

“My wife’s tires were slashed,” Anton said as a cup of coffee was placed in front of him. “Every one of ‘em right down to the rim. I managed to get it fixed and have her car brought back home before she noticed a thing out of place. Also, a photographer was seen behind our home taking pictures of Viviana. Do you happen to know anything about that nonsense, Conrad?”

The Italian’s eyebrows flew up to his hairline. “I haven’t any need to be bothering Viviana. And I don’t think my new wife would appreciate me doing any harm to her niece.”

Anton didn’t realize Conrad married Sonny’s widow. Then again, both he and Viviana stayed far away from her family.

“Funny, it seems like something one of your younger guys might do for some enjoyment. I don’t mean to say you would order it done, but maybe they thought it would catch your attention given whose tires it was.”

Conrad drummed his fingers to the table, glancing out the window to where his men stood beside a black car. “No, someone would have bragged about it, surely. Even if they were young and not yet made. They can’t help but talk, the fucking idiots.”

Strangely, Anton believed Conrad. The man never lied to him before, and Conrad said it himself, he had allowed the Russian boss to practically do as he pleased in regards to Sonny. There was no backlash from the Italians, thankfully. He had a sneaking suspicion the Don had his hand in that pot, too.

Well, shit. If it wasn’t from Conrad’s side, then Anton had done nothing but waste his time. On the better side of things, that took away one more person who wasn’t fucking Anton around and each man would walk out of the meeting alive. No issues and no attitude was good for business.

“Thanks for this,” Anton started to say, waving his cup and standing.

“Wait …” Conrad cleared his throat as glanced down at the table as Anton sat again. “There might be something, but I don’t think it’s related at all to this. Or at least it doesn’t seem like it.”

“All right.”

“A couple of months back there was a little talk, but it wasn’t about Viviana.”

Anton cocked a brow.
“About me?”

“I don’t know for sure,” Conrad said pointedly. “It was just in general. Since it really wasn’t about me, or for me, I kept my nose out of it. I figured nothing was going to come of it, either. Considering how long it’s been, well, I thought nothing had come of it.”

Anton was growing frustrated with the useless chatter. “And?”

“Like I said, there was talk, but it was small and no one really knew where it came from to start with. Apparently there was expected to be …
changes
… in the Russian leadership soon. Or, that’s what they took it as.”

Anton
froze, the hot coffee he sipped burned his tongue. Changes in leadership only meant one thing. Death. “They being who?”

“Again, I don’t know. Word spreads and it turns into more gossip than fact, you know that. Like I said, I didn’t think much of it at the time. I still don’t, Anton, even with this tire issue you mentioned. That’s a bit petty, if you think about it.”

“Jersey Bratva family or my Bratva?” he asked, surprised at the threatening tone he took on.

“Fuck, I wish I knew. I’ll ask around, but it’s likely been too long now. But if it is yours, you know as well as I do, it comes from the inside first.”

That it did.

Standing from the table once more, Anton said, “Thank you for meeting me.”

Conrad shrugged, offering a thin smile that held reluctance. “Forgive me, but I hope we don’t need to have another one. My family has mixed with the Russians long enough, I believe.”

Anton wholeheartedly agreed. The one Italian he mixed well with was his wife, and she was only half.
“To keeping to our own territories, then?”

Conrad nodded and bumped his cup against the one held out to him without hesitating.
“To territory.”

*

“This is damned good.” Ivan moaned, tapping his fork to a Tupperware container.

Anton grinned as Erik nodded his agreement, his mouth too full with pie to speak. Sucking the bit of sweetened pasty off the tip of his thumb, the mob boss didn’t even bother to hide his smug pride at the simple gesture of other men fawning over his wife’s cooking.

It might have been a little primal, but Anton didn’t give a fuck.

There was no doubt about
it, his wife could cook her ass off. Viviana had skills in the kitchen. She also had a tendency to make homemade pastries and sweets to decorate their kitchen with the scent of sugar and its accompanying goodness. There was nothing quite like him coming home to find their house saturated in the smell of fresh apple pie with cinnamon drifting along the edges of the wafting aroma.

It wasn’t like Viviana was Suzy Fucking Homemaker. Her plans for their life didn’t include a dozen children and her staying home with his kids while she was barefoot in the kitchen. But it was clear she’d picked up one hell of a thing or two from her Italian born and raised mother.

Anton was grateful for that.

Well, grateful that was if his wife didn’t have gestational diabetes.

Viviana hadn’t been out of his office for twenty minutes last week before her doctor’s office had put in a call to his cell phone wanting confirmation that she filled her prescriptions. Apparently Viviana wasn’t answering their calls, so they assumed her husband would have the answer. If their fight about Vanessa when she showed up at his office had been bad, the one that ensued when he got home was something far worse.

Pissed off would be an understatement.

Anton didn’t get pissed off at Viviana. It had been just as much unexpected as it had been hard. It was the first time in their marriage that he felt like she was purposely hiding something from him—something
important
. She should have told him immediately. That was her body and his son and he goddamn well deserved to know the moment she did.

Anton loved his wife no matter what, even when she was being particularly difficult.

But sometimes she made it hard.

Anton had cut his meeting with Kalvin short, giving the brigadier his forgiveness without an explanation, and then made his way home before the day was officially done for work. He didn’t even care; he had more important things to handle at home. Like his wife and unborn son and her ridiculous need to pretend as if he wouldn’t find out that shit.

Bottom line, Viviana couldn’t eat what she cooked anymore.

So, when he arrived home earlier today after his sit down with Conrad, those familiar, lovely aromas were rolling through their house. He got a tad bit worried. Anton didn’t have to worry for long. Viviana snapped a Tupperware container at him and told him to get the fuck out of her house with it. Apparently those hormones of hers were making an appearance again.

The pie and all its sugary poison that Viviana couldn’t enjoy anymore had remained untouched in its container.

“
Gonvo
,” Erik muttered, the Russian curse coming off a whole hell of a lot like approval. “My God, Larisa is going to skin you alive if you keep feeding me this sugary crap, Anton. She’s convinced
I’m
going to be the next one with diabetes.”

“Well, no offence, but you’re looking a little pudgy,” Ivan said, side-eyeing his friend with a leer.

“Fuck you, you
govnuik
. I have the body of a God.”

Anton snorted as Ivan retorted with, “A well-worn one, maybe. Don’t call me a shit—”

“Stop it or no more pie.” Anton hid his smirk with a turn of his head. “Just like fucking children, I swear to
God
. The both of you could use a good gym membership and twenty less pounds. Clogging up your hearts like you do, honestly. Now, shut up.”

“The both of us.”
Erik jeered, tipping his chin at his boss. “Listen to you, prince.”

“King,” Ivan corrected. “The little prince grew up and knocked up a half-blood, didn’t you hear?”

The oldest gentleman’s hands flew up in the air, his head nodding. “My apologies—
King
.”

Anton laughed deeply, rolling his eyes in amusement. These were probably the only two men on earth still alive that could tease him with all that junk and get away with it unscathed. Really, he fucking needed the lighthearted conversation and distraction anyway. There surely wouldn’t be a thing easy about the conversation he was going to have with his guys once Boris finished up his business with the girls on stage.

In all truth, Anton loved sitting there listening to the friendly banter between his two spies. Rarely did they all get to sit down and enjoy one another’s company privately without business or other people mucking it up with whatever nonsense. There would be business at this meeting to be sure, but it was private business he wanted to handle with them and them alone.

Viviana’s surprise pastry had simply given him a reason to have Erik and Ivan meet him—
one they wouldn’t deny.

“Speaking of which, quit it with the prince comments around Viviana,” Anton said, his tone turning a little somber. “It’s making her edgy. Her being edgy makes me fucking twitchy. It’s like wading through a kiddie pool and trying not to get pissed on.”

“That’s pregnancy. The piss is unavoidable.”

“Truth.”
Ivan’s agreement followed the jerk of his thumb at Erik who smirked.

Anton flipped them both off. “Just knock it off when she can hear, would you?”

“She does
know
, doesn’t she?” Ivan leaned back in his seat, eyes sweeping the strip club’s floor with boredom.

In another twenty minutes, it’d be opened for business, but as of then, it was just beginning to thrum with life. Anton owned the club, but his brigadier took all the responsibility of running the place.

“Because otherwise …” Ivan continued, turning to face his boss, “she’s going to be one pissed off woman when she’s got hordes of Bratva making rounds to her house after the baby is born to say hello.”

“She gets it,” Anton said, frowning. “That doesn’t mean she has to like it, though. Can we drop it?”

Both men nodded their agreement, settling into silence as the Tupperware container and forks were shoved off to the side. Anton looked down at the pup sniffing around his heels.

A good portion of
Rocco’s coat had grown back, although he still had large patches that would never produce thick hair again, but instead thin, straggly peach fuzz. The tip of his left ear was gone no longer stood up straight and proud like it used to, only hanging limp. The pup couldn’t scent like he once had, never mind seeing and hearing with the sharpness canines were known for.

Poor old Rocco
, Anton mused sadly.

It didn’t even matter about his issues, or the upcoming surgery to remove a bit of shrapnel still lodged in his aching hip, because Anton loved the fucking animal.
Loved him to goddamn death and back. He always would. Rocco had given the boss more than anyone else ever had—next to Viviana, of course.

“Bored?” he asked the animal quietly.

A quiet chuff answered back. With what seemed like great effort, the pup rested back to its haunches and blinked at the flashing lights near the stage. The lupine cant of his head amused Anton as the pup watched the girl sway on stage with the music pumping at the floors. Even with the activity to distract him, Rocco wasn’t settled.