Raised by the Mafia

6. Tea with an Asp (Ryan)

Asps are pretty if you're into snakes. Personally, I used to snap their heads off. Now I'm taking tea with one, and she's as pretty and as slippery as the snakes come.

Once settled at our table in the café, Nazarevich leans back in her chair, leg over leg. Her small foot, packed into a pointed suede boot, swings delicately in a windshield wiper motion. Two buttons on the side come and go from my view. So does her slender ankle on the crumpled top of that mini-boot. Lord knows what you call them, but they're clearly designed to drive a man nuts with temptation to touch that slenderest bit of a leg sheathed in nylon.

Nazarevich's unsophisticated tease fires me up so much, I'm stomped. Has it really been this long since my last hook-up? I try to remember, but the date, the name and the details are fuzzy, and, frankly, far too boring. It was a quick fuck and nothing more.

The boot tease is deliberate, I decide after observing the circle her toe draws and the angle of her hip. She knows that the slit in her skirt parts when she sits like that. Fuck.

I despise women whose carnal radar is this good. Doubts endear us to our marks. Chase is eternal. Knowledge is cold. By outing my lust, she makes herself the last woman on Earth, I'd satisfy it with. That's if she were on the list to start with. She's a mafia princess, for God's sake. So, it's a pass.

Kamila's a cold creature, but one could never guess that from the way she studies the tea selection with the server. Such a sweet smile—she values innocence, even if she fails to imitate it. Interesting, but I've had enough of watching her side-show, so I switch to studying the shop.

It's a pleasant place, I can tell at once, by the airy light filling it and the absence of greasy smells.

The table is plastic, but of a lovely cream shade, so you get the idea that they are environmentally friendly in some way. The chairs are comfortably padded for the skinniest of asses, even mine. The artwork on the walls is almost inspired. In a word, this coffee shop is cheery-bright, a polar opposite of my mood.

Nazarevich, on the other hand, fits right in with her chirpiness. And I don't believe it for a second. What is she covering up with fake cheer? And from whom? Not me, for I'm obviously a tool in her grand design.

"Polish Black Currant for me, please. Medium and medium," she orders. She took her time, but she got it in before the waiter grew weary of her. So close to a perfect woman, yet so far.

I wanted an espresso since I've walked through the doors and smelled coffee. But once the laminated card extolling the virtues of the fragrances, hints and earthiness is passed over to me, my mind wavers.

"I'll try the same as the lady, thank you." The British know their teas, but so do the Russians, even if this fact is overshadowed by many other things Russians are famous for, none of them good. It can't hurt to try what she expended this much energy on picking.

Nazarevich gives me an approving smile. "And a snack platter to share, please," she slips in before the waiter speeds away to the kitchen.

"Hope you brought your appetite," I say. "I don't eat in the mornings."

Also, I don't eat out of the palm of anybody's hand, least of all when that hand is bloodstained. Or touches the dick of a guy I hate.

The carmine lips pucker in faux sympathy. "Oh? Middle-age weight gain is catching up to you already?"

"No, just a force of habit. I'm slim by nature, thanks to my perfect Korean genes." I leer at the outline of her hip. After all, she'd been showing it off for me for a good ten minutes. "Some of us are just lucky."

Her hip is perfectly fine, with a long curve asking to be stroked, but find me a woman who doesn't think her hips are too big, and I'll pay you cash. Or write you an IOU, given the state of my finances.