Flynn
I want to kill Sasha and Maxim for the interruption. They are another couple from the Kremlinroommates of Story and Oleg. They often come to our gigs, but I didn’t see them last night. Maxim is high up in the bratvaI’m guessing second-in-command. Sasha is an actress. They’re dressed in jogging clothes and are breathing heavily, obviously out here for a run.
Nadia scrambles off my lap and onto her feet. I don’t follow because I need a moment to shield my boner.
“Nadia!” Sasha gasps when she realizes the girl I was groping on my lap wasn’t some random hookup from the show. “I didn’t recognize you with your new hairstyle. It looks great!”
Maxim glares at me and growls, “Oh no” in a forbidding tone, like I just crashed into his car.
I normally like these two. Sasha is fun and personable, and Maxim is semi-approachable when she’s on his arm. Right now, though, he looks like he wants to kick my ass. Story of my life with these guys lately.
“Flynn.” He lifts a stern brow. “I know you’re a player.” He points at Nadia. “Do not play with this one.”
“Okay.” Nadia gives a nervous, breathy laugh.
“I mean it.” He trains his finger at me now.
“Maxim,” Sasha protests.
“No, no,” Nadia rushes in. “I asked Flynn to have sex with me.”
Aw, Christ.
“As friends,” she clarifies. “We are friends with benefits.”
“I can’t see how they need to know that,” I mutter.
“Okay,” Sasha says, tugging on Maxim’s arm as she backs up. “You heard her. It’s Nadia’s choice.”
Maxim looks from me to Nadia and back again, still frowning. Apparently, he isn’t finished. He pins me with a dangerous look. “You hurt this girl, and I will rip your spine out of your body.”
“Provocative imagery.” I stand, unfolding my long form from the bench, my boner now under control. “Not the first time my life has been threatened when it comes to Nadia.” I meet his gaze without aggression but also without fear.
These guys want to protect Nadia, and I respect that. Something bad has happened to her; that’s quite clear. But they have no idea what’s going on between the two of us, and it really isn’t any of their business. Also, Nadia gets to choose for herself.
“Yeah, every guy in the building will take turns eating your liver with a fork.”
“Too much,” Sasha chides, wrapping her arms around Maxim’s waist and trying to pull him back.
“Enough,” Nadia says with authority.
It must be a new tone for her because both Sasha and Maxim snap their gazes to her with surprise.
“No disrespect, but the only person I’m going to listen to about Nadia is Nadia.” I say it firmly with a hint of challenge in my gaze.
I’m not stupid. I know I would lose a fight against this guy, but that doesn’t mean I’d go down without swinging.
Maxim contemplates me for a moment. “You do you, Flynn,” he says. “I’m just telling you what the consequences will be if she gets hurt.”
“Noted.”
“Okay, moving on!” Sasha tugs Maxim away, giving Nadia an enthusiastic wave and thumbs up as the two leave.
“I’m sorry,” Nadia moans, turning back to me. A blush covers her peaches and cream complexion.
I shrug. “It’s all good.” I’m not going to get my feathers ruffled over people looking out for Nadia. I’m glad she has so many saviors.
Her phone rings, and she startles, like no one ever calls her. I make a mental note to change that. I’m already planning the late night calls from bed. The kind where you tell each other everythingall your deepest thoughts and feelings.
She scrambles to pull it out of her jacket pocket and answer. “Hi, Adrian.”
I can’t hear her brother’s exact words, but his tone is loud and tense, like last night, when he couldn’t find her outside of Rue’s lounge.
“I’m at the lake with Flynn,” she says.
There’s a pause, and then I detect surprise in Adrian’s answer. He speaks a little more, and then Nadia says, “okay” and hangs up.
When she looks at me she wears a mischievous smile. “They are leaving the apartment.”
It takes me just a second to catch her implication. She wants to go back there. We can be unsupervised.
I take her hand. “Let’s go.”
Nadia walks beside me with a light step, darting glances my way. She’s excitedshe wants to have sex. I haven’t had planned sex like this since I was in middle school. Yes, I started young.
I’ve had a lot of sex with a lot of different girls. They aren’t conquests to me. I’m not trying to “hit that” or notch the bedpost. It’s just something that happens naturally. I vibe with someone, I want to share pleasure. I don’t get attached. I’m careful to ensure they don’t, either.
My mom says it’s in my DNA. She and my dad broke up and got back together nine times during our childhood before they finally called it quits for good, and it was always over dad cheating. With him, sex seems more like an addiction. Like he craves or requires the sex to prove something to himself. My gut tells me it’s related to the band. They never made it big, but playing in the Nighthawks did bring him women, so he uses sex to make up for dashed dreams.
That might be why I never try too hard at anything. I sensed my dad’s frustration and wanted no part of it. I play music because I love it, not because I’m trying to get to a destination. The fact that we’ve started gaining popularity since we did the Youtube collab with Skate 32 almost makes me uncomfortable. I don’t want to get used to this success in case it evaporates and leaves me disappointed.
I’m not entirely sure what I’m walking into with Nadia. I try not to overthink it. I’m the kind of guy who goes with the flowI play off others and improvise as necessary. I don’t have an agenda here. I didn’t come to get laid, but I’m also happy to be of service.
When we get back to the building, the front doors are open. The big guard dog is sitting at the front desk. The guy who hates me.
“Hi Maykl.” Nadia gives him a wave and shy smile as we come in, and his eyes nearly bug out of his head.
“Nadia,” he says in surprise. “You were out.”
I don’t like the way her face colors, and she seems disconcerted. I wonder if her anxiety might be more pervasive than I’d realized. It sounds like she doesn’t go out at all. Except that doesn’t make sense because she’s come to my shows a number of times. She definitely leaves the building.
“Yeah.” She sounds breathless. “I went to the lake with Flynn. You know Flynn? From the Storytellers?”
The giant, heavily-tattooed Russian nods without giving me a smile.
“Hey.” I lift my hand.
He doesn’t return the gesture.
Whatever.
I follow Nadia to the elevator, and she pulls out her keycard to get us on.
“Heavy security in this building,” I observe.
A shadow crosses her face. “It’s good,” she says. “We are safe here.”
I hate that she hasn’t felt safe. That security is something she clings to and needs. I want to remedy it for her, but I don’t know how, other than to keep distracting her in the moments when she’s afraid. Just like I distract my mom from her pain.
I kiss her again because it always seems to work, and she lightens up. When the elevator door opens, her laugh is breathy, and she breezes off.
“Come on.” She looks over her shoulder with a smile as she jogs toward her apartment.
I follow her in, whistling when I see the view from the floor-to-ceiling windows. “Damn, this place is fine.” I look around as I take off my leather jacket and drape it over the back of the sofa. I’ve seen Story’s place, which is just a bedroom connected to the top floor penthouse where a bunch of the head bratva live. It has every luxury, but I figured it was because the building’s owner lives there. Now I’m thinking every apartment in the building must be pimped out. The apartment isn’t huge, but it has a large, open living area with a kitchen to the left and the living room straight ahead. The kitchen features granite countertops and expensive cabinets. “The rent here must cost a fortune.” I can’t even guess how muchten grand a month for a Chicago high rise with Lake Michigan views?
“We don’t pay anything,” Nadia says. “Ravil gave Adrian this place when he joined the bratva.”
“Wow.” I don’t even want to think what that means Adrian must do for the guy. His soul has definitely been sold. “Ravil takes good care of his people.”
“Yes.” She drops her jacket and hat beside mine. “Want to see my room?”
I catch that hint of naughtiness in her again, and it makes me smile as I follow her into a large bedroom. It seems to have huge windows as well, but the shades are completely closed. The room is filled with fabric and a sewing machine stands on the desk.
“You sew?”
It suddenly makes sensea lot of her clothing has that one-of-a-kind lookwith special cuts or added fabric pieces. Like the leggings she’s wearing todayshe probably cut the slits in them herself.
“Yes. I studied fashion design in Russia, and I used to do alterations for wedding gowns.”
I scan the bulletin board which has dozens of pictures ripped from fashion magazines, along with hand-sketched items.
My eye’s caught by a guy with a guitar. “Is that me?” I unpin the drawing to inspect it. Instead of my usual hipster casual clothing, the guy is wearing a slightly punk lookmore like what Story sports to the shows. Skinny black jeans and a red sleeveless collared shirt with the collar turned up.
“Oh! Um, yes.” She snatches the drawing and crumples it up.
“Hey,” I protest.
“I want to style the band if you do another video,” she blurts, tossing the drawing in the trash. “I have ideas.”
“Yeah,” I say.
She goes still, like she hadn’t been expecting me to agree so easily. “Yes? I can?”
I shrug. “Sure. Yeah. I mean, I don’t know how much we can pay you. We’re only just starting to make a living from the shows.”
“No, nyet. You don’t pay me. I want to do it. You will let me?”
I make a scoffing sound. “Of course.” I shrug. “I don’t know when we’re doing another video, though.”
She blinks at me. “Would you wear them for a show?”
“Maybe? I don’t knowour shows are pretty casual.”
She gnaws on her lower lip, and I feel like an asshole.
“You know who always needs new costumes, though?”
“Who?”
“The burlesque dancersBlack Velvet Burlesque. They perform at Rue’s Lounge on Friday nightsno, it’s Thursdays nowit used to be Fridays. Have you ever been?”
“I don’t know what this is.”
“Burlesque? It’s cool. I would say it’s like a cross between performance art and stripping. Tastefully bawdy. Sometimes funny. Always entertaining.” When Nadia stares at me blankly, I say, “You have to see for yourself. I’ll take you this week, okay?”
She nods, eagerly. “Yes, I would like that.”
Huh. That feels like a date. Not that getting coffee this morning and walking to the lake didn’t. I’m a guy who literally never dates. It’s one of the lines in the sand I won’t cross. I don’t lead girls on, which means sex is for sex only. There’s no dating as foreplay or any other make-believe relationship shit.
I’m not cut out for relationships, so I don’t give women the impression that I’d ever stick around.
But Nadia and I are friends. Friends with benefits.
I’d get coffee or see a show with Ty or Lake. So there’s nothing wrong with taking Nadia to see a burlesque show.
Still, I get those warning bellsthe same ones I got when I agreed to this whole friends-with-benefits plan. Like there’s a catch somewhere that I’m not seeing. Something’s going to stick me, and I’ll realize I fucked up.
For the moment, though, I can’t see it. All I see is beautiful Nadia, taking off her boots, wanting my help in finding her pleasure.
And I intend to make sure she finds it.
I toe off my Converse high tops and open the shades a crack to let in the light.
“You don’t want it dark?” Nadia’s hands tangle in front of her waist, making me reach for them.
“I want to see you, but do you want it dark?”
“No,” she says quickly. “No. I hate the dark. I”
Seeing she’s going someplace unpleasant, I pull her against my body and kiss her again. I could kiss this girl all day and all night.
With some women, I skip the kissing completely or pass through it quicklyand just get straight to the main event. But with Nadia, it still feels like there’s so much left to discover.
Like I’m that middle-schooler again, just learning what it means to kiss. Marveling at the softness of her lips, the responsiveness. Drinking in her mocha taste, stunned by the honor of having her body up against mine.
She returns the kisses, standing on her tiptoes, getting more animated. She starts making little soundslike she’s excited or impatient. I pull her sweater off over her head and toss it to the floor. Her bra is the cutest thing I’ve ever seenpale peach cups covered with see-through black lace and a little satin bow at the base between her breasts.
“Oh my God, what is this, Peaches? You’re so damn pretty.” I mold my hands around the bra cups and squeeze, and she gives a husky laugh. “So…” I kiss from her jaw down the side of her neck. “Damn…” I slip my finger under her bra strap and pull it down her arm to kiss across her collarbone to her shoulder. “Pretty.” I take a big bite of the meat of her shoulderfirm enough to make her gasp, gentle enough not to leave a mark.
I work open the clasp at the back of her bra and slide the other strap off her shoulder, so it drops to the floor. Her breasts are pale and peach-tipped. She gets nervous when I look, so I turn her to face out, toward the window that faces the lake. I cup both her breasts in my hands and squeeze, working her nipples into firm points between my thumbs and forefingers as I kiss along the side of her neck and nip her ear.
“Tell me what you want, Peaches.”
She nods. “I want to do this.”
Oh. Okay, I didn’t know doing it or not was still in question. Good to know.
“How do you want it, Nadia?”
She shakes her head. “I…I don’t know.”
“Okay,” I say. “You don’t have to know.” I stroke my palm up the flat plane of her belly, then back down, angling my hand into her leggings. I start over her panties, cupping her mons. The fabric of her panties is both smooth and rough. Satin and lace.
“Aw, Peaches. Are these matching?” I shove her leggings down her hips to get a look.
Damn.
“So sexy.” I drop to a squat to pull her leggings and socks off her feet, leaving her in nothing but her panties. Then I trail my tongue up the inside of her leg, starting at her ankle and making my way with flicks and nips and brief sucking all the way to the apex of her thighs.
“You want my mouth here, pretty girl?”
She works to swallow. “Um…”
I wait because she seems unsure.
“I don’t know.”
I open my mouth and nip her pussy through her panties.
“No,” she says quickly, and I instantly back off. “Um, I just want… to, um, you know.” She flaps her hand and says something in Russian.
“Talk to me, Peaches.”
She darts to the bed and climbs on it. “Let’s… you know…”
“We might need to work on your dirty talk,” I tease, following her to the bed. I peel my sweater and t-shirt off over my head and toss them to the floor with Nadia’s clothes.
My dick is harder than a rock because Nadia is a wet dream in just her panties, but I leave my jeans on for the moment to remind myself this isn’t for me. It’s for her.
I would love to get her off with just my mouth or my fingers. Give her some pleasure without feeling the need to reciprocate.
“I don’t know dirty talk in English”
I stop her with a kiss. “Kidding.” I kiss her again. “I was just teasing. You’re perfect, Peaches.”
She wraps her arms around me and pulls me down on top of her for more kissing. I press my thigh between her legs to give her some friction as I sweep my tongue between her lips.
She kisses me backpassionately. Breathlessly.
And then too breathlessly.
There’s a wild, mad scramble of limbs and nails and flying hair as a gasping Nadia fights her way out from beneath me.
“Nadia. Hang on. Are you okay?”
She struggles to breathe, her face turning red.
“Nadia, babe. Come here, let me help.”
It’s too late, though. She’s totally freaked. She scrambles off the bed and runs out of the room.
Nadia
Can’t. Breathe.
Blyad’. Blyad.’ Blyad’.
Metal machinery parts clash and bang between my ears. Chain links clack.
I run for the bathroom, terror seizing all of my body. I’m shaking all over, freezing cold, and can’t draw a breath for the life of me.
I knew it was Flynn, I wanted to be with Flynn, but then suddenly something transported me back to the sofa factory, and it was the cigar man on top of me, smothering me. Covering my mouth, so I couldn’t breathe.
Bozhe moi, I’m so embarrassed. And heartbreakingly disappointed. And I still can’t breathe. I struggle to get control of my body, but it won’t cooperate.
“Nadia!”
Gah. Flynn’s chasing me in here.
I try to shut the door on him, but he throws his arm between the door and the frame, keeping it from closing. I abandon my effort to shut him out and return to the more pressing concernbreathing. Trying to turn down the deafening clash of metal.
But I don’t want Flynn to see me this way.
Dammit, I wanted to have my fantasy where Flynn and I made love and the violent non-consensual acts in my past would just fade away.
“Please,” I gasp. “Pozhaluysta…please.” I grip the bathroom countertop and hang my head, wheezing for breath. Stars dance before my eyes. The room starts to spin.
I hear the front door open and close, but it doesn’t register.
Not until I hear the crack of a fist on flesh and see Flynn’s body slam against the bathroom wall.
“Stop it!” I scream in Russian, throwing myself between my very pissed-off brother and an offended Flynn.
I understand why Adrian attacked. It must look bad with me in nothing but my panties begging Flynn to leave me alone, but for God’s sake!
“Stop,” I repeat in Russian, bursting into tears. I’m thankful for the sobs because at least they move my breath.
I realize now I was struggling to inhale the whole time, but I couldn’t because I hadn’t let my breath out. My lungs were already full of old air.
My body didn’t even know how to breathe. That’s how disconnected I am from it. It’s no wonder after what happened to me. I had to leave my body just to keep my sanity those months I was chained in the basement of the sofa factory, pimped out as a sex slave in a country where I didn’t speak a word of the language.
I should turn to face Flynn. To apologize, but I’m too embarrassed. Too terribly, horribly humiliated.
I invited him into this. This crazy shit-show. I asked him to have sex with me as a favor, then I freaked out, and then my brother punched his face in.
“I’m going to kill him.” Adrian is still full of fury.
“Hold on.” Kat wraps her arms around him from behind, trying to hold him back. As if she’s any match for my brother.
Flynn gets back on his feet. “Dude, what the fuck?”
Adrian tries to lunge around me, but I block him. “I told you I would kill you if you touched her.”
Flynn is less worried about Adrian than he is about me. He yanks a towel down from the rack and drapes it over my shoulders. “Nadia.” He tries to turn me, but I can’t look at him. I jerk away, which only further activates Adrian.
“Nyet. Don’t fucking talk to her,” Adrian snarls.
“Get out!” I sob. “All of you!”
“Adrian, you’re making it worse. You’re not helping,” Kat says.
“You want me out, Nadia?” Flynn asks in a low voice. He has that talent for de-escalating things. Adrian gets louder, but Flynn gets softer. It makes the metal clanging quiet because I have to strain to hear him.
“Yes,” I choke. “Please.” I hate that he’s seeing me like this.
It’s so damn embarrassing.
“Come on.” Kat tugs Adrian’s arm. “That means us, too. Let Flynn leave.”
I step into the shower not because I plan to use it, but to hide from all of them. I sink to my ass on the tile floor, plug my ears, and rock, trying to quiet the screech and scream of mechanical gears turning in my head.
“Nadia.” Flynn gets even softer. He crouches outside the shower, giving me space, and picks up one of my hands. I expect him to ask if I’m okay, or tell me that it’s okay, or do something that will require me to speak, but he doesn’t say anything. He just squeezes my fingers and waits a moment then releases them and gets up and leaves.
The moment he walks away, I bite my hand on a sob.