AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I’m not put off by the edge in her tone. On the contrary, I find the fight in her attractive, even if it will prove futile against a man of my status. She’ll find that out just as soon as I take her from the bar to somewhere a little more… private.
“I’m saddened that Angus never told you about the full extent of his business, but perhaps I can enlighten you,” I say, turning my aggressive tone upside-down and smiling at her. “But I’d like to know exactly who I’m talking with. What’s your name?”
“Oakley,” she says, filling two glasses up with water and sliding them across the bar.
Pasha takes one and starts drinking, but I don’t touch mine. I’m more interested in getting my hands on sweet little Oakley. She seems like a fun, if not a bit too easy, challenge. I love a woman who knows how to talk back just as much as I love putting them in their place.
“Alright, Oakley. Let’s talk,” I say, weaving my fingers together on the bar and leaning in.
6
Oakley
Savva’s cruel smile strikes me as being just as dangerous as the gun gleaming from the holster on his hip. His eyes are the color of copper, and they feel hotter the longer I look at them. I risk erupting into flames if I can’t escape his wicked gaze.
But how can I escape from Savva when nobody is willing to help me. There’s at least two dozen men in the bar, and not a single one of them has stood up to Savva. Do I have to be the one to fight him off by myself? Retrospectively, it would’ve been a good idea to buy a gun and carry it with me when I decided to run a bar that primarily caters to large, imposing bikers.
Now, it’s too late.
“I think we’d better go somewhere a bit more private,” Savva says, his words slow and deliberate, like they have a double meaning.
Even though my stomach feels like there’s a lead weight pulling it down, I do my best to sound confident. “We can talk right here in front of everyone, but if you cause any trouble, I will have to call the police.”
I already know that won’t be good enough for him. He hasn’t so much as flinched at the mention of police, and something tells me I wouldn’t even be able to press the first number before he grabbed me and shook the phone out of my hand. After that, I don’t even want to know what he’ll do to me.
“I’ll give you one chance to turn around and walk that tight ass down to the office,” he says, his eyes searing my skin as he looks me over. “If I have to tell you again, it won’t be with words.”
He can’t be bluffing, but what’s the chance of me getting out of this in one piece once he takes me back where nobody can see us? I can’t go willingly. I’m no pushover, and no amount of bullying is going to convince me that it’s better to let him have his way with me instead of standing up for myself.
I take a step back, searching the avoidant faces at the bar for anyone who will help me. I get nothing from the crowd, and before I’m able to speak up, Savva jumps over the bar and grabs me by the waist.
“Get away from me!” I scream as he picks me up.
I pound my fists into his broad back as he hoists me over his shoulder, but he acts like he’s carrying a bag of feathers, easily gliding around the bar and out the door toward the office. Not a single person comes to my aid, despite my cries for help, and the terror of being alone in a room with Savva grows so big that I lose the ability to fight. I go limp as he carries me into the office and shuts the door behind us.
I’m in a daze as he tosses me into the leather chair behind the desk, but I quickly snap back into a state of high-alert once he slams both of his hands into the armrests and brings his face so close to mine that our noses touch. “It’s time you learned about the Bratva,” he growls.
I’m too petrified by fear to ask him what that means.
He stares at me, positioning himself to take up as much space as possible, until I look away, searching my lap for safety. I find none there. I have nowhere to go, and nobody to help me. I hate to admit that my mother may have been right.
God, what would she think if her daughter wound up dead in the godforsaken Nevada desert, all because she was foolish enough to think she could run her late father’s bar on her own?
“Listen to me, and listen to me good,” Savva says, his voice so low and deep that I feel it more than I hear it. “Angus Dredd, your father, took out a loan with the Bratva – that’s the Russian Mafia, in case you weren’t aware. Anyway, he borrowed a hefty sum, and was being good and making his payments untilyoushowed up and thought it’d be cute to cross me. Well, let me make this clear for you, slut.Nobodycrosses the Bratva. Ever.”
For some reason, the wordslutpulls me out of my fear, emboldening me to defy him once again. “Don’t call me that. My name is Oakley,” I say, looking up at him again.
He pulls his head back, a grin of disbelief on his admittedly sharp jaw. “Don’t call you what? Slut? I’m only calling you that because you are one. I know a bitch when I see one,” he says, reaching down into the waistband of my jeans and finding the ribbon-thin band of my thong. He pulls it up toward my bellybutton until I can feel my panties dig in between my labia.
I bite my lip to suppress a whimper that would prove his point immediately.
He laughs, letting go and snapping my panties against my skin. “Don’t ever tell me I’m wrong, Oakley. Don’t you dare. I know more than you could ever hope to learn in your lifetime. I’ve seen every angle of humanity, inside and out, and let me tell you, not all of it is as pretty as you are.”
My heart pounds in my throat, but despite my overwhelming fear, something else stirs inside of me, some glimmer of awe at his masculine power. Never in my life have I met a man who made me feel so terrified and viciously aroused at the same time.
Savva tilts his head to the side, his expression softening just the slightest bit as he studies my face. “I don’t think your intentions are ill, so I will forgive you for your ignorance. Now that I’ve enlightened you, however, I expect you to either continue what your father started, or step away from the bar and allow me to reclaim the money that’s been invested in it. The choice is yours.”
The smell of smoke, dust, and spicy cologne on his body waft toward me as I turn over the options he’s given me in my head. I’m distracted by his presence, unable to think clearly. His eyes keep wandering over me, studying me in a cold, objectifying way, like I’m a nude statue at an art exhibit.
