Andrei: A Dark Mafia Romance (Dark Mafia Kingpins Book 1) Page 2

  “We should probably get home as well. Do you want a ride?” Lily said.

  I waved my hand, dismissing the offer. “Jenny lives a couple of blocks away. It’ll be good of me to walk.”

  Lily looked worried. “Are you sure? I don’t know if I feel comfortable about you walking the streets at night. There’s no telling what could happen…”

  “I’m a big girl. I think I can take care of myself. I’ll be fine. There’s no need for you to worry about me.”

  She took a step forward and took my hand in hers. “Call me when you get home, okay? And tell Jenny ‘hi’ for me, will you?”

  “Of course, but that dork of a host will probably already be asleep with a book on her chest.”

  That got her to laugh, and we both shared a smile before going our separate ways.

  I stood under the light of the street lamp and watched them turn into tiny specks that eventually disappeared into George’s beat-up Toyota Corolla. It was definitely time for him to get a new one, but for some reason, he was emotionally attached to that piece of junk. If it were up to me, I would have fed that thing to the junkyard a long time ago. I imagined it getting compacted into a cube of metal as I adjusted the strap on my heels and started home.

  Overhead, a few passing clouds obscured the moon, making the night that much darker. Shadows loomed from alleyways and threatened to sweep me up in their ominous tendrils. I stuck to the edge of the sidewalk and kept my pace relatively quick, eager to get home at this point.

  At the intersection, I turned onto a deserted street, leaving the night club behind.

  Am I even going the right way? I asked myself as I searched through the black hole I called a purse. Where the hell is my phone?

  I found everything else from receipts to perfume samples but no goddamn phone. I swore under my breath, seconds away from spilling the contents of my purse all over the ground.

  It has to be here somewhere, I told myself, but it wasn’t making it any easier to find the damn thing. And knowing my luck, I was spending all this time trying to find it and it was probably dead or something.

  In the end, I gave up and continued down the street with nothing but the click of my heels as company. A gust of wind whipped through and chilled me down to the bone. Goosebumps prickled at the back of my neck. I glanced over my shoulder, but as far as I could tell, there was no one there. Still, the feeling of paranoia propelled me forward.

  I was maybe a block away from my destination when suddenly, a man materialized from the shadows of a nearby alleyway. I nearly screamed as I took a step back and held my hand to my heart.

  “Holy crap,” I muttered underneath my breath. “I didn’t see you there.”

  It was the man from the nightclub. The one who had brought me a drink.

  What’s he doing here? Did he follow me? The questions buzzed around my skull like angry wasps while I waited for him to say something.

  Instead of responding, he grinned like a maniac.

  I took another step back, and the heel of my shoe got caught in a crack. My ankle twisted in a horrible sort of way, threatening to throw me off balance.

  “Careful, I wouldn’t want you to fall for me… too hard.” He laughed at his own joke. “Here, let me help.” He held out his hand.

  By the way he swayed on his feet, it was clear that he was drunk—very drunk. But somehow, he still possessed this sense of charm that made me comfortable enough to trust him. I pressed my hand against his. Immediately, his fingers tightened like a vice grip. I flinched, but he did not loosen his grip as he yanked me back onto my feet. We crashed together, chest to chest. I gulped as I got a whiff of the booze on the breath. I wanted to wiggle away, but his arms were like a couple of steel bands that would not budge.

  “What’s the matter?” he whispered like this was all perfectly normal.

  “I would really appreciate it if you released me,” I answered, trying to keep my voice as level as possible.

  “Now, why would I want to do that?” His grin deepened into something positively fiendish.

  Run, Cora, run! came that little voice at the back of my voice. He’s up to something, and you really shouldn’t stick around to find out what.

  That voice of mine was right. The way he looked at me was unsettling. It was time for me to get the hell out of there.

  I was just about to shove him off when he bent down to kiss me. It was a total surprise. One second, he was staring at me, and the next, he had his tongue down my throat. He tugged on my hair as the kiss intensified, matching the hunger I had seen painted in his eyes. I was in such a state of shock that I became a statue.

  Then, his hand wandered down to my ass and gave it a squeeze.

  “Whoa, buddy!” That was the snap back to reality that I needed.

  I managed to free myself from his grasp, but that was it. As much as I wanted to turn on my heels and run in the opposite direction, something kept me rooted in place. I struggled to breathe through my nose, and it came out as a ragged wheeze that barely escaped my lips.

  “Don’t be like that, baby girl.”

  “Don’t call me baby girl,” I said, trying to add a certain edge to my voice but it sounded awfully wimpy.

  He laughed and took a step forward, closing the distance between our bodies. “What did you say? Because I don’t think I heard you correctly.”

  I managed to shuffle backward.

  “Where are you going?” He growled as he towered above my body.

  I continued to shuffle away, not really paying attention to where I was going. It was too late by the time I realized I had backed myself straight into the darkness of the alleyway.

  His grin deepened. He had me exactly where he wanted me. The walls closed in around me. There was nowhere left for me to go.

  A laugh bubbled up from the back of his throat as he leaned forward and pinned me against the wall. The bricks were rough, scratching against my exposed legs.

  “Mmm, that’s better,” he murmured as he started getting grabby. His hands had absolutely no reservations about exploring every inch of my body from my ass to my chest.

  “C’mon, you don’t want to do this. You’re drunk. Think about what you’re doing.” I tried to placate him, but he seemed deaf to my words. “Please. We had a good time at the bar. Let’s not let the night end like this.”

  What are you doing? came that voice at the back of my head. Don’t be nice to this creep! Use your purse as a weapon and get the hell out of here before he does something stupid and you wind up a victim on one of those late-night crime shows.

  My logic was right, and yet, I couldn’t find it in me to raise a hand against him. I played the role of badass with my friends, but I was much more a lover than a fighter. Truth be told, I had never gotten into a physical altercation—it just wasn’t me.

  “Please,” I said, putting as much emphasis as I could into the word. “Don’t do this.”

  3

  He leaned forward so that his face was nearly buried against the side of my neck. “You act like you don’t want it.”

  Slowly, his fingers wrapped themselves around my wrists. Before I could react, he had my hands pinned above my head. His eyes burned with what could only be every dastardly intention he had running through that head of his.

  Run!

  But I couldn’t—I couldn’t even fight against him. I shook my head because that was all I was capable of doing.

  “Please, I want to go home. I won’t tell anyone what happened here. I swear. No one will ever know.” My voice wavered. I was close to tears, but I reined them back because I did not want to show this man any sort of weakness. “So, please, just let go of me.”

  This time, he was the one to shake his head. “I don’t think so.” Gently, his lips brushed against my skin. As he reached my collarbone, his teeth nicked against it.

  My body became as stiff as a rod.

  “Relax, baby, I’m cool,” he said as his fingers continued to tighten around my wrists. I w
as sure he was leaving behind bruises.

  “It’s not that,” I say as if reassuring the man. “It’s just that I barely know who you are and I’m not exactly on birth control… So, it wouldn’t be a very good idea for us to do this. I doubt you want a baby on your hands. Paying child support and all that—it’s not a hassle you want, I’m sure.” I was babbling on and on in the hopes of stumbling upon an excuse that would placate the man, but his expression was unmoving. “And I haven’t shaved, and I doubt you want to take an adventure through that jungle…” It was a pathetic attempt at trying to save myself, but I just couldn’t stop.

  My mouth became incredibly dry when I dared to look down and saw that he already had his cock out. It was super veiny and was topped off with quite the bush. Any possibility of being turned on by this guy was thrown right out the window.

  “You talk too much,” he said as he stroked himself with one hand.

  His tip was purple, and although we had yet to do anything, a drop of pre-cum hung from his hole. It was clear he was the sort of guy that was easily excited, and if I had to guess, the kind that blew his top in about thirty seconds, which meant he would fill me up with his seed really quick and that was the last thing I wanted to happen.

  I shuffled sideways, but all I managed to do was wedge myself into an awkward position against the corner of the wall.

  “I have an idea.” His face was illuminated by a bit of moonlight peeking through the clouds, and instead of making him look beautiful, it just made him look sinister. I gulped down the fear threatening to block my airways.

  Breathe, Cora, breathe. He’s not actually going to do anything.

  “If you’re so worried about the birth control, then how about I just fuck you in the ass?”

  “What? No!” I snapped with a frown. “I definitely don’t know you well enough for that.” I held out my arms to keep him from coming any closer, but he just slapped them away like a kitten pawing at a helpless mouse. “I don’t know what kind of mixed messages you got at the bar, but I’m not that kind of girl.”

  “I beg to differ.” He was closing in, and I didn’t know what to do about it.

  “And what the hell? We’re in the middle of an alley! What about this place makes you want to fuck?”

  Most of what I said didn’t make any sense, but at this point, it wasn’t about making sense; it was about getting this guy to lay the hell off me.

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass about that,” he said as he roughly pushed me around.

  My cheek was smashed against the brick of the wall. I groaned as a burning pain penetrated through my skin.

  “Please,” I said breathily, but his hands were already fumbling around underneath my skirt. “Please!” I pulled back, trying to keep my panties out of his reach.

  His fingertips brushed against the inside of my thighs. This wasn’t a game, and no amount of sweet talking was going to get me out of this. Desperate to keep him from doing the unthinkable, I tried to push myself off the wall.

  “Bad girl.” He smacked my ass so hard that I felt the sting of it even through the thick material of my skirt. “There is no getting away from me.” His voice was acidic as he whispered against my ear, “You’re mine.”

  Suddenly, I was hit with the stone-cold wall of sobriety. Any hint of tipsiness that had made me compliant vanished into thin air.

  “Absolutely mine.” One of his fingers hooked around the waistband of my panties. He tugged on it, and the fabric dug into my sensitive folds.

  This is happening. This is really happening.

  Panic threatened to paralyze me.

  This can’t be happening.

  I squeezed my eyes shut as if that might make the nightmare disappear.

  It didn’t.

  Fear drove me to action. I struggled a bit as my panties were pulled off my body.

  You can’t let this happen.

  “Hold still, will you?”

  I squirmed even harder, and somehow, in my struggle and his misdirected attention, I was able to elbow him in the face—hard. He immediately backed away and held a hand to his bloody nose while his cock remained at ramrod attention between his legs.

  “Fucking bitch! You’re going to pay for this, and you better hope that you haven’t fucking broken it.”

  I hope I did was the only thought I entertained in my head as I ran.

  Ran as fast as I could.

  4

  Since my nightclub lunatic was blocking the way to the street, I was forced to run the other way. It was no easy task considering that the alley was covered with bags of garbage that loomed overhead like mountains. Dirty newspapers littered the ground making every step a precarious one, and it wasn’t made any easier by the heels that I wore.

  I took a moment to kick them off, but that was definitely a big mistake because it allowed my attacker to catch up.

  Well, don’t just stand there and stare at him, you idiot. Run!

  I listened to that voice of reason and pumped my arms, trying to gain speed in any way possible, but I was far from being an athlete. I had nearly flunked out of high school gym class. My lungs burned, and my feet protested with the pain of stepping on unknown objects. I ignored them both and kept on running.

  For some reason, I glanced back and saw that he was close on my heels.

  “Fuck!” I swore under my breath. “Double fuck!” Up ahead was a chain link fence that separated one half of the alleyway from the other.

  I didn’t have the time to think. It was a move or die situation.

  So, I grabbed hold of the fence and started to climb. I really had no idea what I was doing, but apparently, all those action movies had taught me something after all. That thought didn’t last long as I perched on the top, unsure of what it was I was supposed to do next.

  My attacker was nearing the top. All he had to do was reach out his arm, and he would be able to pull me down.

  “Why can’t you just give up already?” I called down as I ripped off the necklace that still hung around my neck and threw it as hard as I could. It bounced off his forehead and slowed him down a bit, but it wasn’t enough. I still needed to figure out how to get down.

  The ground looked so fucking far away. I really didn’t want to risk jumping for fear of breaking an ankle or something. I would really be screwed at that point.

  He rattled the fence, and I nearly lost my balance.

  “Ah, fuck.” With no other choice, I made the leap.

  I scraped my knees against the ground, but that was about the extent of my injuries—thank God. I scrambled to my feet and continued to run, but I didn’t have much juice left in my tank.

  Thud!

  “Great,” I mumbled as he landed on his feet behind me. For a drunkard, the guy was pretty damn mobile.

  Once again, he was right on my heels. Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought I felt the huff of his breath down my neck. Frantic to escape his clutches, I willed myself to run a little faster, but there was nothing left for me to do. My muscles were cramping up on me, and there was a stitch at my side.

  But you’re so close!

  Up ahead, a well-lit street materialized. I was so damn close that I could almost taste it.

  Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

  I tripped slightly at the sound of someone walking nearby. It had to be. What else would make a noise like that?

  This was my chance.

  “Help!” I screamed. “Please, help me!”

  I took a deep breath and filled my lungs with air in the hope of renewing my screams. I had to make this person hear me because they were my only lifeline. Without them…

  Snatch!

  I screamed. “Let go of me!”

  I tried to land a kick, but he kept hold of my skirt and used it to reel me into the darkened alleyway where no one would be able to see us.

  “No!” I protested. “Stop this!”

  I struggled with the last of my strength, but it did little to help deter the maniac.


  “Did you really think you were going to get away from me?” He hissed against my ear. “I already told you, you’re mine, so quit fighting it.”

  “Help!” I shouted as loud as I could. My breathing was so ragged and my heart so loud that I couldn’t hear whether the civilian I had heard walking on the street was still there or if they had high-tailed it in the opposite direction. “Somebody help me!”

  “No one is going to help you.” He snarled as he pressed his hand against my mouth, silencing any future pleas.

  My eyes nearly bugged out of my skull because I knew that this was it. If he kept me quiet, then no one could come to my rescue.

  “Please…” I mumbled through his fingers. “Don’t do this to me…”

  He snickered. “There’s something you should learn about men like me. We always get what we want, and tonight, I want you.”

  His personality had taken a complete 180. Back at the bar, he had been charming, but now he was downright menacing. I guess that was how predators lured you in, and I had fallen for it, hook, line, and sinker.

  Now I was going to pay the price for my stupidity.

  This has to be some horrible, horrible nightmare. You’re going to wake up at any moment, safe and sound in your bed, I told myself in an attempt to calm down, but the self-talk wasn’t really helping when I felt every inch of the creep’s body and the raging hard-on that kept poking against my thigh.

  Rip!

  With a jerk of his hand, my skirt was torn right down the front. It fell to the ground and was kicked aside by my aggressor.

  “You won’t be needing that,” he said as he bit down on my earlobe and tugged on it.

  Usually, I loved a guy who used his teeth but suffice to say, this time around, all I wanted to do was gag.

  His hand tightened around my mouth, muting any of my protests.

  “You’re going to pay for hurting me.” He rocked his hips against my backside. “And I mean it, you little bitch. You’re going to regret this night for the rest of your pathetic life and fuck it, I don’t care what happens to your body so long as I get the fix I deserve.” Abruptly, he had me bent over a couple of wooden crates. “Oh, and you better fucking take it, or we’re going to have a real problem. Do you hear me?” His every word was laced with a clear venomous threat. It felt like I was being coiled by a viper. His left hand remained glued against my mouth while his right explored my semi-exposed ass.