Ivan: A Dark Mafia Romance (Underworld Book 1)
Ivan: Chapter 16

Mist to mist, drops to drops. For water thou art, and unto water shalt thou return.

Kamand Kojouri

I’ve only been back at the compound an hour when Andrei calls me to tell me that a battered white van has pulled up to the gate.

When I get down there, Andrei and Vadim are flanking the van, pointing their ARs at the driver’s side. I tell them to hold back, thinking that it might be rigged with explosives as well. But I can see someone sitting in the driver’s seat, their hands raised.

As I walk through the gates, that person motions that they want to open the door.

I nod my head at Andrei, to tell him not to fire.

The van door creaks open.

Sloane steps out.

Whatever kind of day I’ve had, hers has obviously been worse.

She looks like she’s been working in a coal mine—skin streaked with soot and dirt, a burn on her right forearm, and her tangled black curls twisted up in a knot on top of her head.

She’s wearing some shapeless knitted cardigan over top of a cheap sweatshirt with the Russian flag on the front—the kind of sweatshirt they sell to tourists at the market stalls around the Hermitage. And then beneath that, she appears to have on men’s sweatpants and a pair of gum boots.

Yet she’s grinning at me, her white teeth gleaming in contrast to her filthy skin.

“Hey!” she says. “Did you miss me?”

I try to keep my face stern, since Andrei and Vadim are standing right there.

“You went to a lot of trouble to climb up the chimney, just to come right back again,” I say.

Her smile falters just a little.

“Oh, you saw that, huh?”

“Obviously. There’s cameras all over this place.”

I nod toward the cameras stationed on every corner of the old stone walls, two of them pointing at us right now.

“Did you see the part where I almost fell off the roof?”

“Yes.”

She winces, embarrassed.

In truth, that part of the video had my heart rising in my throat, though I knew from Andrei that Sloane had made it safely over the wall.

I was furious with her, watching her escape.

She could have broken her neck, when she knew damn well I would have let her go if she just asked.

Probably.

“Why are you back?” I ask her. My frustration makes my voice even gruffer than I intend it to be.

“Well,” she says, her confidence wavering, “I sort of need your help.”

I let out a hoot of laughter.

“You need my help?”

The absolute brass balls on this girl.

“Yeah,” she says, tilting her head to the side, and smiling sweetly at me. “But don’t worry. It might be useful for you, too.”

I sigh.

We both know I’m going to let her inside. Making her stand in the driveway with her hands in the air is pretty pointless.

“Come on,” I say, with a jerk of my head. “Andrei can bring in your . . . plumber’s van.”

“Thanks,” she says to Andrei. “Careful with the shift—it likes to stick in second.”

Andrei looks over at me, bemused. I just roll my eyes.

I stride off toward the house, Sloane tripping after me in her too-large boots. They make a ridiculous clomping sound as they stick in the muddy yard.

“So,” she says. “How did your revenge go?”

“Actually,” I say, wheeling around on her, “it went perfectly.”

“Good!” she says, smiling up at me.

It’s so fucking infuriating.

She sneaks into my house, tries to kill me, and then right when I’m starting to like her, she runs away. Then when I’ve decided to let her go, she’s back again.

It’s like she’s determined to do the opposite of what I want at all times.

Which is infuriating, enraging . . .

But I must admit, at least not boring.

The last thing in the world I expected tonight was for Sloane to roll up in a plumber’s van.

And now I’m extremely curious to hear what she’s been up to.

We bump into Dominik coming through the front door. He stares from Sloane back to me again. And then, annoyingly, he starts grinning too.

“Hello!” Sloane says, putting out her hand. “You’re the brother, right?”

“That’s right,” Dom says, shaking her hand and looking over at me. “And you are . . . Ivan’s girlfriend? Or escaped prisoner? I always get the two confused.”

“Hmm,” Sloane says, also looking at me. “Unclear.”

Jesus. I’m already regretting letting her inside.

“Did you eat yet?” Dom asks her.

“I could eat more,” Sloane says.

“That’s always my answer, too,” Dom says.

I follow them into the dining hall, where Dominik gets us three plates of stroganoff, crusty black bread, and three pints of beer.

Sloane tears into her food, not seeming to care how dirty her hands are at the moment.

Dom watches her devouring the food with an expression of delight on his face. I’m not sure what he’s enjoying more: Sloane herself, or how much her presence has the potential to infuriate and embarrass me.

In between massive bites of food, Sloane is giving Dom a recap of her afternoon, and me as well. She’s telling it all as if it were just an amusing adventure, but hearing that an incendiary grenade went off in her kitchen, that she would have been flash-fried if the bathtub hadn’t already filled, makes me sick with rage at whoever dared throw that bomb through her window.

I know it must be Remizov, but why? Because Sloane failed to kill me? Or because he knows that she and I have developed . . . whatever it is that’s happening between us.

If it’s the latter, then that puts a cold spike of fear into my chest.

Because Remizov has already shown how willing he is to capture and kill someone to put the screws into me.

Dom is enthralled by Sloane’s narration. He’s laughing and egging her on during the part about her escape from OUR compound. I don’t know if I love or hate the fact that my brother likes Sloane, too. I guess it’s a good thing. He’s a better judge of character than I am, generally speaking.

I have to admit, I’m glad she’s back. Extremely glad. More than I want to admit to myself. I’m trying not to show it on my face, but I think I might be smiling too. Not as much as Dom, but a lot more than usual.

“So anyway,” Sloane says, finishing her tale, “after I grabbed some cash and guns from a cache I had in Bronevaya, I figured I should come back here. Since we now have a mutual enemy, and I have some ideas of what to do about it.”

“What makes you think we need your help?” I ask Sloane rudely. It annoys me that she might only have come back here for practical reasons.

“Well,” Sloane says, not rising to the bait, “I thought we could go to my broker’s house together.”

That surprises me.

“What for?” I ask.

“Remizov knew where I lived,” Sloane says, patiently. “I assume he got that information through Zima. Which means that Zima probably has the same information about Remizov.”

Huh. Not an outrageous conclusion.

“Alright,” I say. “We can do that.”

“Alright,” Sloane says, imitating me, but with a ludicrously curmudgeonly tone. “I guess I can accompany you on your brilliant lead. If I’m not too busy being stoic.”

Dom snorts, then stops when he sees my expression. Sloane just leans over and gives me a kiss on the cheek.

Goddamnit. She was only manageable when she thought I might murder her.

“So?” Sloane says to me.

“So what?”

“Did you get the guns back?”

Now it’s my turn to tell her everything that happened this afternoon.

I start out with the basic facts, but I can’t help becoming more animated in response to the expression of delight on Sloane’s face. She wants every last detail.

When I finish, her face is glowing with delight. She’s impressed.

“I knew the warehouse was a trap!” she says. “I hope he’s so pissed about the money. We’ve really got this fucker on the ropes.”

I like the way she says “we.”

“I wouldn’t say he’s on the ropes just yet,” I say, “but I’m sure he’s plenty mad.”

“Ha! Good,” Sloane says, taking another bite of bread and washing it down with a gulp of beer.

“So, when do you want to go to Zima’s house?” I ask her.

“Why not right now?” she says, pushing away her bowl of pasta. The food has reenergized her. You would never guess that she spent her entire day running for her life.

“Why don’t you take a shower first,” I tell her.

She looks down, having completely forgotten the state of herself.

“Ah, right,” she says.

She stands up from the table.

I’m wondering if I should follow her or not.

Then she glances back over her shoulder at me and says, “Where was your room again?”

I take her up to my suite, my hands itching to grab hold of her with every step we take. The moment the door closes behind us, I spin her around and kiss her hard on the mouth.

She responds eagerly, jumping up into my arms and wrapping her legs around my waist. We’re stumbling through the room together, bumping into the end table at the foot of the couch, knocking some books onto the floor and then almost tripping over those. But I don’t care, I can’t stop kissing her even for a moment.

Her mouth tastes warm and inviting. Her skin smells of smoke and the outdoors—wild scents that remind me that she is my little fox, and even though she slipped her trap, she came back to me again, of her own accord.

I’m extremely glad to have her back.

But that doesn’t mean I won’t punish her for her naughtiness.

I sit down on the edge of the bed and then I put her over my knee. I rip down her sweatpants. There’s no underwear beneath, and I give her a sharp smack on her round little buttocks.

She wriggles and squirms, beating at my legs with her fists. But I hold her tight with my left hand. With my right, I give her four more blows on her bottom until her asscheeks are glowing red.

“That’s for running away,” I growl at her.

She shouts, “I’ll run away any time I damn well—“

I cut her off with four more blows, sharper than the ones that came before. She can’t help yelping at the last few, landing on her already tender flesh.

The harder she squirms, the harder I spank her.

She’s furious at me, outraged, but I know this excites her as much as it does me. This woman is wild, dangerous when she wants to be. She’s been in situations that have spiked her adrenaline like the jolt of a car battery.

She’s not going to get excited about boring, vanilla sex.

She needs to feel that sense of danger and dominance. Just as Sloane is my equal in intelligence and determination, she needs a man who can match her raw sexuality. This woman could never be pleasured by an accountant. She needs a fucking gangster.

I spank her until I feel the change in her body—until she’s not trembling from outrage anymore, but from arousal. Her body is tuned up like a guitar string, ready to play.

If I so much as touch her in the places she’s dying to be touched, she’ll explode.

But I’m not done teaching her a lesson yet.

I throw her down on the bed, on all fours. Then I stand behind her, yanking her hips backward to line her up with my body. I plunge my cock inside of her.

She’s so wet from the spanking that I slide right into her, all the way to the hilt, my pelvis smacking against her bottom. I grip her hips in my hand and I thrust into her over and over, fucking her hard and rough.

Her black curls have come loose from her bun. They tumble down her back and hang around her face like curtains.

The proportions of her slim little waist and her full, heart-shaped ass are unbelievably arousing. Every time I fuck her in a new position it becomes my favorite because of how luscious her body looks from each new angle.

I drive into her again and again, feeling like a wild animal myself, like a beast driven to mate. I couldn’t stop if you offered me all the money in the world. I’m out of my mind with lust for this woman.

But I want to see her face, too. I want to see those dark eyes, and the way she bites her lip and bares her teeth in the throes of pleasure.

So I flip her over once more, and I climb on top of her.

And now I’m thrusting into her slower, deeper than ever. I’m pressing our bodies tight together to give her that friction I know she needs. I’m kissing the tender side of her neck, up to her earlobe, replaceing her most sensitive places, replaceing the spots that elicit each gasp and moan.

At the moment where she tips over the edge, I look in her eyes to watch it happen. To see her expression of need to turn to a look of pure bliss, as I fulfill everything she wants and desires in one all-encompassing climax.

And that’s what puts me over the edge too—not her ass or her breasts or even her taste or smell. It’s Sloane herself—her face and expression and voice. The way she gives herself to me.

I want to give her everything in the world in return.