Amelia's his business partner of sorts, there to sit pretty—as a distraction and temptation and often an excuse for gunfire.
She doesn't mind so much anymore, likes the possessive shit Ivan pulls, even on his own men. She'll smile and let her coat slide off a shoulder and watch men take bullets to the chest while the look of innocent shock never leaves her face.
She realizes everything, of course, and Ivan does, too, proud as he ever was of a once hired stripper. He still pays her well, only in furs and diamonds instead of tips in the backroom of a smoky club.
..
She dances for his men, too, and she remembers a time when Ivan had taken one of his men in the alley behind the bar and come back alone and a bit more pleased with himself.
He tells her what happened some time later with her in his lap, says the man talked about spreading her legs and fucking her dry, wanting to come on that pretty little face of hers and then fuck her again.
She smiles and laughs when Ivan says he shot the man in the foot. "Only the second night you knew me."
And Ivan smokes and says nothing in return, only grips her thigh a little tighter.
..
There's something about owning her that Ivan enjoys more than simply fucking her or showing her off in expensive furs and Amelia realizes this quickly—it's that he has a little say in everything she does. Submissiveness was never something she was very fond of, though, and she thinks Ivan enjoys her sharp responses and back talk more than he lets on.
"It's not as fun when I just do everything you say," and she pouts, dancing on the pole in his private room, breasts bare and nipples hard.
"But much easier," he says, and his cigarette is almost too small to smoke. She knows he'll ask her to light his next one, but she'll laugh and keep dancing, long legs around the pole and he'll remember not to ask that again in the middle of a routine.
He will when she's back on his lap, though, and she'll slip a warm hand in his breast pocket for his pack of matches and kiss him before she strikes the box.
..
She isn't really sure what they are, but she doesn't make any effort to put it in to words. They're simply there, they fuck and they touch and Ivan's fond of her—her dancing and her kisses and her as a beautiful excuse for dead men and she thinks that's enough.
