BAD APPLE: The Complete Series (Parts 1-5) (5 page)

Misha

I watch Irina sleeping in my bed, her dark hair spread across my white sheets. What man in his right mind wouldn’t want to spend hours watching her angelic face as she snores lightly and drools onto the pillow?

Adorable.

I stripped her to her underwear about ten seconds after the pills took effect. I use this time to study her and figure a few things out after she let me know that she wants to be my friend.

Friend
.

As if a friend can do everything I want to do to her. As if a friend can get his cum into her to make babies.

When I’m under control and firmly settled in the chair beside the bed, I start planning again. And rooting through her bag. What I find there makes my head spin with anxiety, but I squash it down when I realize that she’s on a course of antibiotics.

And now that I know that she’s into me, like so into me she almost used a piece of plastic to sort herself out, I’m feeling all kinds of confident that I’m on the right track.

Now I just have to get her under me before Vadi goes Mission Impossible on poor Ri and we end up going to plan B.

By the time lunch rolls around, I’ve gotten through my workload for the day, gone to her apartment to pack some things and get rid of the bastard pink phallus, and cooked her a soup that Mama swears would cure anything.

“Hey, angel, you feeling any better?” I ask when she struggles to sit and peers at me through sleepy eyes.

“Meh, my ass is a goner but my ankle feels a little better now that I’m not banging it into shit,” she mumbles, her eyes going wide when I lay the tray over her lap.

“Is that…?”

“Yup.”

“Oh God, I only get this when I’m at death’s door and Mama’s not angry at me. Thank you!” she moans, lifting the bowl to her mouth and not bothering with a spoon.

My Ri likes to eat like a normal person, and I’m giving serious consideration to buying her a bib when she finally drains the broth and starts attacking the innards and vegetables with the spoon, her groans of rapture making me regret not rubbing one out earlier.

Who knew watching a woman attack her meal would be such a turn-on?

When she’s done, I place the tray on the floor and lean in, wanting to surround her with every inch of me.

“We need to talk, angel.”

She starts fidgeting with the bedspread and peeps up at me with those amazing eyes, the honey-brown color doing terrible things to my control.

“Talk? Listen, Misha, I told you…er, okay so maybe I didn’t tell you, but I thought you understood that I don’t want a big relationship or anything. I mean, I like you and I like your family. I even think Nik may be totally into Vadim or something, but…that’s not the point. I’m totally rambling here. I don’t want a big committed relationship or anything, because…well because I don’t, so you need to stop looking at me like that and promise me we’re friends.”

“Friends? After you gave me a show?” I tease, watching her cheeks pinken delightfully.

She has no need for lingerie or looks beneath her lashes, and quite frankly I am doubtful that my little clutz would even know how to attempt such a thing. Thank goodness for us both, I’m seduced by just the memory of her splayed legs and her teary red face.

“I didn’t give you a show! I thought you were one of the girls. And anyway, how the heck did you know my number? Or where I live? And how did your number get into my phone and on the family ringtone?” she demands, looking weary and put upon all at once.

Adorable.

“I am not one of the girls. I know where you live because I asked Vadim to find out from Nikita, and I put my number in your phone and on that ringtone after you scuttled out of my mama’s kitchen looking like the hounds of Hades were on your tail, angel. Hurt my ego that you weren’t even the slightest bit interested in me after the way you ate me with your eyes on Thursday,” I pout, fighting off a laugh at her facial expression.

She leans over to comfort me, completely playing into my hands.

“Oh, Misha, that’s not true. You’re completely sexy and I’d have to be dead not to be interested,” she soothes, squeaking when I pounce and pin her beneath my body with a howl of triumph.

Her hands hit my chest but don’t push me away. I almost come on the spot when she starts stroking me, her fingers scraping over my nipples and sending shocks of electric need straight to my groin.

“But you aren’t,” I lament, inching myself over her by increments as her distracted stroking keeps her mind occupied long enough to get me between her legs.

It feels so good as my cock hits the heat of her sex seeping through the sheets. I have to grit my teeth to stop from thrusting into it.

“I am, really I am. I just can’t do it, though,” she mumbles dreamily as her uninjured hand reaches my wild hair and starts stroking.

My groan is unstoppable and I lean in, loving the scrape of her short nails over my scalp.

‘Tell me why,” I murmur, my eyes zeroing in on her lips as she licks them, my groin begging for friction.

She’s still dreamy-eyed and snuggly as I apply the smallest amount of pressure at her core, and I love the way she sighs when I lean closer and stop a breath away from her lips.

“My family’s a bit…”

Her voice trails off when she notices the proximity of our mouths and I see her eyes widen a second before my mouth crashes down on hers. We both groan at the contact and I take advantage of her gasp, thrusting my tongue into her with a need that is incendiary.

I want to devour every inch of this sweet mouth and suck on the succulent flesh of her lips, and then I want her to suck on my tongue. All while I fill her with my cock.

I settle for the heaven of her mouth and possess every inch, groaning my pleasure when she starts squirming beneath me, her heat pushing up into the bulge beneath my slacks.

I’m so turned on right now, I hardly care that my seed is filling my nuts and threatening to boil up my shaft when she moans again and those soft thighs wrap around my hips.

I want them there, just as they are, only naked so I can finally see if her skin is as soft as I think it will be. I see myself spending hours with my face stroking along those plump thighs, basking in the satiny glide as I eat her to heaven and back down to earth.

“Misha…”

“No talking, angel. Just feel,” I mutter, recapturing her lips and setting in with my slow, heavy grind against her sex.

She goes stiff for all of two seconds, then realizes and gasps again when I find her clit with the head of my cock and start sliding hard, pushing myself as close to her as I can get.

I have the crazy urge to rip her bare and fuck her. I want inside so badly, I’m almost terrified by the need. I want to own her, bathe in her, and surround myself with her. I want so deep inside her, she’ll be imprinted on my skin, her scent seeping from my very pores.

The thought is so jolting I stop thrusting for a second.

It’s not just about the shop or that deal or my nephew and his happiness. I need this sweet woman to be mine, for my days and nights to be spent with her, loving her.

I go back to my thrusts and the mad attack of my tongue in her throat when she pumps her hips back up at me. Only now it’s not enough, not by a long shot.

I need.

My had slips under the sheet as I’m sucking at her tongue and I inhale her shriek of shock when my fingers slip inside her panties and through her creamy lips, my heart throbbing in time with my cock when it presses into her sheath and is immediately coated with wet heat and such tightness as to strangle the digit.

Ri goes a little wild then as I keep kissing her, her hips and sex moving over my hand, grinding, seeking her pleasure. And I give it to her, praying to God for the strength not to lose control when she wrenches her mouth from mine and screams as her sheath contracts on my finger, flooding my hand with her heat, her climax so strong that I feel like I’m being sucked into it with her.

I love this, love seeing her face contort, her skin flushing a pretty pink as she bites her lips and slowly comes down from her peak, her body relaxing enough to release my finger.

“I-I…” she stutters when I raise my hand and look down at her, grinning cheekily when I take my fingers into my mouth and suck her sweet taste from my hand.

She tastes good, all musky clean woman. Pure and delicious.

“We may be friends, Irina
moya
, but to deny us this pleasure is not permitted,” I growl, closing my eyes regretfully when the last of her essence leaves my tongue. “Tell me you will let me make love to you and I will ease off.”

It’s a complete lie, of course. I have no intention or time to allow her to pull away, but I want in her soon, so I am willing to do what I must to get her there.

She blushes and starts chewing her lip.

I have her.

Irina

It was the best and worst thing that has ever happened to me. It felt so good.

For a split second I can’t find my wits to remind myself why I firmly resolved last night not to have anything to do with him.

The problem is that he’s overwhelming and way too….too everything right now.

And he wants more, so much more of that mind-blowing pleasure. How’s a girl to say no when just a finger can do that to her? I want more, too. I just can’t deal with the thought of family dinners and strollers right now.

I can’t say why I’m fighting against commitment with Misha when every other relationship I’ve been in always had me thinking of the future. All I can say is that when I look at him, it scares the hell out of me.

He’s too much for this small city girl to hold and I know it. And I know, too, that if he keeps this up I’ll fall recklessly in love with a man who will break my heart.

“Angel?”

I shake myself and look back up at him, my heart in my throat as I see those clear blues smiling down at me.

“You’re going to hurt me,” I whisper finally, meeting his eyes.

“No. Angel—”

“You will. You won’t be able to help it, Misha, just as I won’t be able to help falling for you. We’re not the same and you know it. You’re a fast and loose kind of guy with a lifestyle to suit, and I’m just a twenty-five-year-old baker with two cats and a family that makes my life impossible. We don’t suit.”

“Angel, I would never hurt you in any way.”

“You wouldn’t want to, but it’s inevitable if we start anything sexual. I’m not equipped to be with a guy like you, Misha. Friends is all I can do,” I say regretfully, watching his jaw bunch before he takes a deep breath and meets my eyes.

“I’ll take what I can get.”

***

The next two days are freaking magical in a weird way. Misha is a tyrant and completely insane when it comes to his care of me.

I’ve had to watch him move around his penthouse all freaking morning in nothing but his sweats and some very delicious tattoos.

So now here I am with my new hot friend, and I’m being really naughty by sneaking out of his pricey penthouse to the curb where Nik’s waiting for me in Delilah.

“Jesus, chickie! You sure you should be walking around on that ham?” she demands, giving my wrapped ankle a glance.

“It’s fine. He wouldn’t let me remove it no matter how many times I told him it’s fine. Let’s go!” I huff, ignoring the twinge in my shoulder as Delilah sputters off after a long and painful jerk of displeasure.

I’m looking back and checking to make sure no one’s watching, like a freaking criminal. But he’s relentless. He’s effectively turned me into a lazy slob the last two days, and now that it’s Monday and he’s off to the office I have my escape. Finally.

“Dude, that man is so gonna kick your rear end when he finds out you’ve escaped the asylum. He’s already planned a week-long break for you and reworked the opening and closing schedule so that you’re free to lie on your ass till next Sunday. You’re so fucked when he finds you. I can’t wait to hear what he can do with all that pent-up aggression,” she breathes, shivering mockingly as she eyes me up and down.

Controlling bastard. Cute, but still infuriating.

“Get me to work before I kick your butt, potty mouth. Me and Misha are friends and that’s all there is to it.”

Friends. Just friends.

Why you having those naughty dreams then, Ri?

We get to the shop twenty minutes later and I hobble out and into the sweet-smelling heaven to the sounds of clapping and my friends groaning in relief.

“Welcome back.”

“Thank God. I made a batch of blinis yesterday that weren’t like yours, and this hyena,” Tatiana growls, pointing at a guy we call Urkel with a balding head and coke-bottle glasses, “he started complaining! Complaining as if we don’t have the right to let our injured friend take two lousy days off to recover from an injury!” she yells. Loudly.

I cringe and scan the crowd of rapt customers, throwing Urkel an apologetic smile before slinking to the back to get started on rescuing my regulars from Tat’s horrifying baking skills.

The creaming has my eyes tearing, but I persevere through the pain and finally get a batch of cupcakes into the oven before looking up and freezing.

Uh-oh.

“You’re working.”

Oh damn.

“Hi?” I choke, the icing bag in my hands shaking when he pushes off the doorframe and stalks forward.

“We had a deal, angel.”

“No, we did not.” I laugh huskily, shaking my head at his gall. “You told me rather imperiously to stay in bed all day and that Greta, your housekeeper, would see to me. There was no deal.”

The man is frustrating as hell. He orders, makes demands, and generally throws his weight around at any given moment, telling me what I can and can’t do.

Just last night I almost died of embarrassment when he sidled into the bathroom in nothing but boxers, gloriously tight white boxers, and started washing my hair because he didn’t want me to wrench my shoulder or swan around with a “greasy mop.”

I stopped yelling only when it registered that he didn’t have a hard-on and spent the next ten tortuous minutes sulking silently as he lathered, rinsed, and conditioned me.

Talk about demoralizing. Apparently my fat ass lying down is all kinds of hot, but when I’m upright and gravity joins the party, it’s a no-brainer.

Stupid pride.

Which I now admit is one of the main reasons I pulled a runner this morning. I can’t take another night of him cuddled up on the sofa with me, watching TV without a care while my vagina tries to abandon ship and slide right onto him.

I had to leave but now the object of my affections, as unwilling as they are, is now standing over me scowling at my exposed left arm and my bare foot.

“We are friends?” He leans into my back and breathes into my ear, sending shivers of pure want through me.

“Y-yes.”

His chest scrapes over my back as he reaches his arms around me and takes the piping bag out of my hands.

“Then as your friend, I want you to know that this is stupid. You’re still injured and in pain, and the bloody doctor specifically warned you not to use your left arm for anything strenuous.”

He lifts me and gently sets me on the table.

“No butts on the work space.”

His hands come down on either side of me and he leans down so we’re eye level, his face a mask of disapproval.

“You have no care for yourself, angel.”

“I do, I just need to be here, Misha. Please understand. I really appreciate everything you’ve been doing for me, and I will forever be grateful that the three hyenas out front didn’t find me in that position, but I have to be here. This is my place, my baby, and I can’t let it go downhill because I hurt myself going…well I just can’t,” I plead, willing him to understand.

He looks deep into my eyes for a long time, just taking me in before his shoulders drop and his head hangs down.

“You will let me bring in someone to help you for the rest of the week. You can coordinate and supervise, but the sling goes back on and you plant your sweet ass on this stool, all day when I am not here to take you to lunch or take you home.”

“But—”

“And you will take the pain killers the doctor gave you.”

“But—”

“Or I will not only call Mama, but I will phone your parents as well and let you explain to them why you’re neglecting your health,” he finishes, leaving me gaping and downright fuming by the time he raises his head and glares at me.

“You—”

“Eh,” he warns, his finger landing on my lips as he stands to his full height, gazing down at me. “You agree to my terms or I will call them all so fast, your head will spin. As your friend, it is my privilege to ensure that you are okay, and I will do that any way I have to. Now agree or prepare for the blitz.”