Cruel Paradise (Oryolov Bratva Book 1)

“I’m gonna piss on his car.”

Phoebe, my BFF, bursts out laughing on the phone. “You’re gonna what? Em, I love you to bits, but you wouldn’t even remind the bodega guy that you asked for no mustard on your sandwich last weekend. I don’t think you have a rebellious bone in your body. You certainly don’t have a ‘pee-on-your-boss’s-car’ bone in your body.”

I sigh. She’s right. I hate it, but she’s right. “It’s bullshit that Sienna got all the rebellious genes,” I mutter. “My whole DNA is wired to be compliant. Even the thought of talking back to him gives me hives.”

“Aw, babe, don’t sell yourself short. You’re a firecracker when you wanna be. You’re just sucking it up with Prince Douche Bag because you need this job to keep the kiddos in a good place. Food on the table, roof over their heads, all that. You’re a martyr, seriously. They should make statues of you.”

I snort and get off the train at my stop. “I’m good without that, thanks. I don’t need statues of me. I’d just like to not be treated like I’m a second-class citizen at my place of employment.”

“Well, if wishes were fishes, we’d all have something to eat,” Phoebe says sagely.

“The hell does that mean?”

I can hear the shrug in her voice. “Beats me. Something my mom used to say. People from Oklahoma are weird; what can I tell ya?”

Phoebe’s whole family is Dust Bowl-born and bred. She grew up outside of New York, right across the street from Sienna and me, but she inherited the accent and generations’ worth of nonsensical folk wisdom.

“Seems like a pretty reasonable wish, though. It’s just insane for him to tell me I’m not dedicated to his job. I’m there from dawn ‘til dusk every freaking day. I dream in spreadsheets—did you know that? I literally have dreams about Ruslan’s stupid color-coordinated calendar and to-do lists. Even when I’m sleeping, I’m working. It’s insane.”

“Preaching to the choir, baby girl. But go on; don’t let me stop you.”

People are looking at me funny as I mount the stairs from the subway station and climb back up to street level, but I don’t care. All the things I wish I could tell Ruslan are pouring like word vomit from my lips.

“He’s just so freaking smug! Where does he get off on that? Like, do you think he just goes home and looks in the mirror to cackle and twist his mustache like some evil comic book villain? Like, ‘Muahaha, another successful day of ruining my secretary’s life. Well done, Ruslan, well done indeed.’”

“He has a mustache?”

“Pheebs. Focus.”

“Right. Sorry. It’s just that I had a very specific mental picture of him, you know? Tall, dark, that sexy, suggestive sort of smile that’s like saying You wanna get outta here? without actually saying it… Six-pack abs, forearm veins—oh God, I do love some sexy forearm veins—and like, maybe a hot tattoo somewhere, but in a place where you gotta undress a little bit to see it so it’s sorta like—”

“Pheebs. Not helpful.”

“Right. Sorry.”

The problem is just how accurate her description is. I’ve known since the very beginning of my employment at Bane that Ruslan is an asshole. But I’ve also known that he’s a stupidly attractive one.

I’ve seen enough glimpses of his tattoos to want to see more. I’ve seen enough glimpses of that smile—it’s rare, but it exists—to want him to turn it in my direction. Just once. Is that so much to ask?

Apparently, the answer is a resounding “yes.”

Wearily, I thump up the stairs to my apartment. It’s odd to be getting home before the sun has set. The kids are still in afterschool for another forty-five minutes and Ben is at a “job fair” (which is what they should officially rename the neighborhood bar), so I have a rare chunk of time to myself.

“Tell me something about you,” I request as I unlock the front door.

“You’re changing the subject,” Phoebe accuses.

“I absolutely am. Indulge me.”

She exhales. “Let’s see, let’s see… Went out with that hotshot chef dude last weekend.”

“Oh? You do love forearms, don’t you?”

“Guilty as charged. It was a good date, honestly. Oysters, as it turns out, are indeed an aphrodisiac.”

“I take it you got lucky?”

Phoebe snorts. “He got lucky, you mean. It’s not everyone who gets a chance to dine on the sweet nectar of my—”

“Yup,” I interrupt hurriedly before she gets going too far gone to be stopped. “I get the picture. Also, I’m not saying everyone gets to, but by my count, lots of people do. There was the accountant—”

“He helped me do my taxes!”

“The zookeeper…”

“He promised I’d get to see his pet monkey!”

“The therapist, the oil rig worker, the PhD student…”

“Okay, okay, I get it. I’m a filthy whorish witch and I should be burned at the stake,” she says hastily. “But one, it’s the Year of Our Lord 2023, so slut-shaming is no longer socially acceptable. And two, sue me for living a little. I’m young and hot and I want to see what’s on offer. You should do the same.”

I giggle. She knows I’m not actually shaming her—it’s mostly jealousy talking. I haven’t been laid in so long that I’m terrified I’m sprouting cobwebs between my thighs.

“I know,” I say with yet another weary sigh. “I should. I just… can’t, you know? I mean, I don’t have time and even if I did, I don’t exactly have prospects beating down my door for a chance to take me out on a date.”

“You would if you put yourself out there, babe,” Phoebe says in her soft voice. “I know it’s hard. I know you miss Sienna. I know you’ve got the kids to think about and Ben to ignore. But just… try, okay? Promise me you’ll try. If there’s anyone in your life who you could see yourself trying with, it’s worth taking a shot. Tomorrow’s never guaranteed, love. You and I know that better than anyone. So you owe it to yourself—and to all the people who love and depend on you—to be happy.”

I drop my purse on my kitchen table and plop down on the armchair. Something wet crunches under me, which turns out to be a half-eaten Taco Bell burrito. Ben’s handiwork, no doubt, along with the rest of the mess in the house that I literally just cleaned yesterday.

Grimacing, I extricate the taco and lob it into the nearby trash can. “You’re right. I’ll try.”

“Pinky swear?”

“Yeah. Pinky swear.”

“Okay,” says Phoebe, sounding satisfied. “I’ve gotta go to Hot Girl Yoga. I love you with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns. Give the little ones my love, too. Ta-ta.”

Then she hangs up.

I let my hand fall into my lap. The phone slides into the gap between cushion and armrest, but I let it stay wedged there.

It’s silent without my best friend’s voice in my ear. Weirdly silent. I can’t even remember the last time there was this little chaos in my vicinity. And if I close my eyes and ignore the mess, it’s even more blissful.

For a moment, at least.

Then a face pops up on the black screen of my mind’s eye.

It’s Ruslan because, like I told Pheebs, he haunts me even when I’m off the clock. He’s smiling that smile she described. That come-to-bed-and-let-me-show-you-what-I-can-do-to-you smile. The camera of my imagination pulls back and floats down.

Imaginary Ruslan is wearing an ivory white button-down shirt with the top two buttons undone. Enough to see a dusting of dark chest hair and the edge of a tattoo I can’t quite make out. He flexes his forearms in front of him. Those knuckles crack, louder than I expected, and I let out a surprised little gasp.

I like when you make that noise, he croons. Shall I see if I can make you do it again?

I’m nodding before I’m even realizing what I’m doing. “Make me moan,” I plead.

I’m also touching the inside of my knee before I realize what I’m doing. But it’s not my hands that are doing it—or at least, it doesn’t feel like it’s my hands. It’s Ruslan’s hands, huge and powerful, palming my thigh and drifting up under the edge of my pencil skirt.

You’ve been a naughty assistant, he growls, breath minty in my face where it mingles with the woodsy spice of his cologne. There’s a faint laugh on the edge of his voice, like he knows that this whole thing is crazy but he’s just going with it because it’s hotter than it is ridiculous. You’ve been so very, very bad. Step into my office and shut the door.

The rest of the world disappears like I just followed his orders. Gone is my messy apartment and the lingering smell of burrito cheese. Ruslan is all I smell now.

That cologne.

That breath.

Beneath it, that musk that sets my nerve endings on fire.

“Are you going to punish me, Ruslan?” I whisper.

You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You’d love it if I bent you over my desk and unzipped that skirt until it puddled around your ankles. You’d love it if I spread my palm along your bare ass in a tender stroke before I raised it up and spanked you hard enough to make you yelp again. You’d go fucking crazy if I let my fingers wander down to knock your thighs apart and drag one slow, teasing fingertip through your wetness. You’d love all that, wouldn’t you, Ms. Carson?

I’m chewing my lower lip frantically. My own hand dances up and touches the edge of my panties, then dips below and pushes them aside. I’m throbbing wet. Aching wet. The whisper of air-conditioned breeze on my pussy is almost enough to send me over the edge.

But that’s the problem, Ms. Carson. You’d love it way, way too much. What kind of punishment would it be if you enjoyed every second of it? I have a better idea.

I’m on the literal edge of my seat, grinding and bucking against my fingers. Imaginary Ruslan has me eating out of the palm of his hand. I’d do anything for him. Say anything. Be anything.

“Yes, sir,” I rasp. “You’re right, sir. What did you have in mind?”

I’m going to start with what I just described. Bend you, tease you, spank you. Then I’m going to press you face-first flat against my desk while I drop down behind you and put my tongue where my fingers just were. I’m going to lap up every drop of you. At first, it’ll be just the tip of my tongue. Just a fluttery light kiss to your pussy lips. I’ll graze your clit and you’ll push back against me, searching for more. But I’ll pin you right back to the desk and snarl, Don’t you dare fucking move unless I tell you to. And what will you say to that?

“I won’t move, sir,” I croak desperately. “I’ll do exactly what you want me to do. I’ll stay there while you eat me.”

That’s a good answer, Ms. Carson. It’s the only way you’ll get me to keep going. But if you’re a good girl, if you listen and obey, then I will keep going. My kisses between your thighs will turn into long drags of my tongue over you. Then I’ll spread the lips of your pussy apart and go deeper. I’ll push a finger between your folds, then another, and crook them to stroke against the deepest parts of you, the parts where just touching them makes you twitch like a live wire. I’ll go faster and faster, pistoning in and out of you, while I devour your wetness, until your legs are trembling and those moans are loud music in my ears. How does that sound?

“It sounds so fucking good, sir.” I’m pumping in and out of myself. “Please do that. Please, please.”

You’re going to be right there. Right on the edge. You can feel it, can’t you? The biggest orgasm of your life is right there for the fucking taking. All I have to do is lick you in a certain way while I do my fingers just like this and you’re going to come for me like my special little princess, aren’t you? I know it. You know it. We’re both just waiting for the right moment. And it’s coming, I promise you that. That moment is coming closer and closer and closer and closer and I’m licking and fingering and you’re moaning and spasming and we’re almostrightfuckingthere and then…

“And then what?” I scream. “And then what?”

And then I’m going to stop. I’m going to stand up and back away. I’m going to leave you there, a dripping, ruined fucking mess, as a reminder that, just like your heart and your mind and your body and your soul and your free time and your hopes and dreams… that just like all of that, your orgasms belong to me.

I come harder than I’ve ever come in my life, even as my lips form the most heart-wrenching “Nooo!” I’ve ever heard before.

It’s like getting hit by a bus, if the bus was aimed directly at my clit and was also a trash compactor squeezing me from the inside out while lighting me on fire and then freezing me to ice from head to toe.

Imaginary Ruslan is every bit the cruel bastard that real Ruslan is. He said he’d keep my orgasms to himself, but I feel like I stole this one from him. The euphoria of it rips through me in one endless lightning bolt after the next, until finally, what feels like an hour later, I come back to something like normal consciousness with drool on my lips and my fingers wet and sticky with my own desire.

I stand on legs that are just as shaky as he said they’d be. My throat hurts from moaning and I’m sore as all get-out. As I stand, my phone clatters to the floor.

I reach down to pick it up—

And freeze in horror.

Ruslan’s name is lighting up my screen.

And the call is active.

The reality of what is happening clicks in my gut immediately, but it takes a few delayed moments before my head comes to terms with it.

For seven minutes and thirty-two seconds, I’ve been on a call with Ruslan Oryolov.

For seven minutes and thirty-two seconds, I’ve been masturbating to the absolute filthiest fantasy I’ve ever had, starring Ruslan Oryolov.

For seven minutes and thirty-two seconds, my phone has been recording every last moan and gasp and breath and twitch I made while I begged for his mercy and pleaded for him to make me come.

Did Ruslan hear the whole damn thing?