In which there is girl talk. And good news. Or bad news, depending on your point of view.
Lucya…
Four weeks later…
Even if Alexi and I love each other, the rest of the world insists on interfering with our happiness whenever possible. He has to take several mysterious trips, including one that made him miss the non-Orthodox Christmas, but I didn’t really mind. I knew we’d celebrate the holiday in Russia on January 7th.
At least, I hope he’s in town for it. He swears that this much travel is unusual, his father is calling constantly, with new demands and complaints each time.
My bristle of bodyguards goes everywhere with me, scaring other shoppers at the grocery store and making joggers step off the path when we’re walking through Piers Park.
“You have to stop glaring at people,” I admonished Artur, who is shorter but just as bulky as the other men.
“They were running at us,” he says, “that is an unsafe scenario when we’re guarding you.”
“They were running because it’s exercise,” I laugh, putting a huge soup tureen of borscht on the dining table, next to a platter of blinis. I love American food and can eat a burger and fries with the savagery of a teenage boy in a growth spurt. That said, cold nights like this call for Russian comfort food and I’ve lured all four of my security team into eating dinner with me.
My mother’s ringtone on my phone distracts me, and I urge them to get started as I go to our bedroom for more privacy. “Mat’, how are you?”
“Busy,” she says, sounding distracted. “I wanted to make sure you had your fitting for your dress for the ceremony.”
“Yes, it’s done, I promise. I wish I could be helping you right now,” I say, my heart sinking at how tired she looks.
She shrugs, “I’m fine. Most of my time is spent avoiding your uncle. He’s demanded to speak with you a thousand times.”
“You know why,” I say coldly.
“I do,” she agrees, “which is why I have to circle the house in the car when I call you.”
“I’m sorry,” I sigh. “Is he trying to make Inessa spy on Dmitri?”
“No,” she says, “I don’t know what happened there, but Rurik doesn’t speak to her at all.”
“Do you think he’s going to… do you think he’s going to try something?” I ask, “At the wedding?”
“I think it’s more likely that Anatoly Turgenev will kill him first,” she says, sounding more hopeful than concerned.
“I am so sorry, Mat’. You’ve carried all the stress and anxiety alone for the last four years. It isn’t right.”
“It was necessary,” she says, “when you become a mother, you’ll understand. Your child’s safety will be more important than anything else, even above love.” She smiles for the first time and it makes me so happy. “And here you are, with the man you have been madly in love with forever. Do you still love him, now that you know him better? Or was the myth greater than the man?”
I’ve never been able to hide anything from her, and this bursts out of me, “I love him so much. He told me that he loved me, he put my hand on his heart and said it.”
“I’m so happy for you,” she says, her eyes a bit wet. “Your father was like that, proclaiming his love for me. He didn’t care who was around to hear it.”
“I wish he was here,” I say sadly.
Her sweet face crumples and for the first time, I can see how much she’s aged in a few short years. “So do I.”
We say goodbye with promises to see each other soon, and Pytor knocks on the door. “Miss Dubrovina? I am physically holding David back from your share of the blinis and if you want to intervene before the violence begins, I would suggest joining us now.”
Alexi comes home the next day, looking like a stranger, like the ice-cold man I saw in the alley that night outside the restaurant.
“What’s wrong?” I’m almost afraid to touch him.
“My father died of a heart attack last night,” he says.
“I’m so sorry!” I throw caution to the winds and wrap my arms around his middle. “I didn’t know he had a heart condition.”
“He didn’t,” he says, still emotionless and cold. “This means that Dmitri is Pakhan of the Turgenev Bratva.”
Oh, shit.
“That’s bad, isn’t it?” I have to lean back to look up at him because I’m not letting go. Then it hits me. “You think the two are related.”
His blank gaze finally settles on me and thaws a bit. “I do. Dmitri is insisting we hold our father’s funeral and carry on with his wedding the next day.”
“Everyone is going to talk,” I say. “That’s so inappropriate and disrespectful.”
“I don’t think Dmitri cares.” He rubs his eyes and I tighten my hug around his narrow waist, kissing his firm pectoral over his heart.
“What do you need from me, moy lyubimyy, my beloved?” I ask, wishing I could wipe that blank expression from his face.
Alexi’s massive chest heaves and he cups my face in his hands.
“Kiss me.”
His lips slam down on mine and it’s an angry kiss, desperate. I hang on as he carries me into the bedroom, and I land on the mattress hard enough to bounce twice. He’s over me in a second, ravenous and greedy and I can tell what he needs from me is to just hang on.
So, when he rips my shirt in half, I kiss him harder. He bites the thin skin of my neck, he bites my shoulder and I wrap my legs around his hips and squeeze. My jeans are next, his big hands ruthlessly tugging them down and I slide my hands into his hair, scratching his scalp the way I know he likes.
He’s cursing, low in his throat and I don’t know if it’s because he’s struggling with my jeans, stubbornly tangled around my ankles, or that his other hand can’t rip his pants open fast enough but in seconds, he sinks into me, a low, long groan of relief passing from his lips to mine.
Usually, reunion sex with Alexi is a mix of greedy and playful, overlaid with happiness about being back together.
This is hard, and rough, not as careful as he usually is. He knows his size could hurt me but tonight everything is hot and messy, my pussy is clinging to his cock every time he pulls out, and I moan, welcoming him when he slams back in, his piercing rubbing right where I need it. He sucks my nipples raw, his hand squeezing one breast while he licks the other one.
I don’t know who’s in the driver’s seat. I know it’s not me. I’m not sure it’s him, either. Our bodies fit into each other, pushing, slick with sweat, and working to achieve the pleasure that only the two of us together can find.
I’m going to be so sore tomorrow… That’s my last coherent thought.
“Did I hurt you?”
I’m sprawled gracelessly over the broad plains of Alexi’s chest and his fingers are stroking up and down my spine.
“You might have to carry me around for a while,” I mumble, the words sounding mushy because I don’t have the energy to lift my face off his chest. “But that’s because you fucked all the feeling out of my legs.” I yelp when he slaps my ass.
Alexi’s cock stayed hard inside me after our first frenzied coupling, and when his hips started moving again, it turned into something slower, more languid. He gently cleaned me up and ordered food and we had a bed picnic, neither one of us wanting to leave our oasis. The sun was sending its first tentative fingers of light over the horizon when I woke up to his head between my legs.
He made me come twice, sucking on my clitoris before sliding into me slowly, tauntingly until I dug my heels into his ass and my fingernails into his back and demanded more. We came together, and when he pulled his cock out of me, his come filling me after so many times began to drip out, and he used his thick fingers to push it all back inside me. The sight was so shockingly erotic that I came again, just from the pressure of his fingers.
“Has this um… cleared your mind?” I ask, resting my chin on his chest. It moves up and down in a silent chuckle.
“Yes. Thank you for your excellent soothing skills,” he says, playing with a lock of my hair.
“Am I being horrible in assuming that the loss of your father isn’t hitting you as hard as your concern about the shift in management?”
“You would be correct,” he agrees. “I’m sure I loved my father. At some point.” He doesn’t sound entirely certain.
“That horrible night at your family’s hunting lodge…” I know I’m playing with fire. “When he made you kill your cousin, was that the moment you stopped loving him?” His muscle turns to stone under my cheek.
“I didn’t know if Lev was guilty or innocent,” he finally says. “I obeyed my Pakhan’s order. You’re right. That was the moment I became something less than human.”
My finger traces down his scarred left arm. “You made a mark for Lev that night.”
“I was so fucking angry at you,” he says, his voice still oddly calm. “I never wanted you to see me as a monster. You witnessed me kill my cousin, then you caught me doing penance. You didn’t look horrified, or frightened, but-”
“I was heartbroken,” I say sadly. “I hated your father for using you for such a terrible thing. For entertainment. And then to see you punish yourself for it.”
“Every time I take a life, no matter how worthless,” he says, “I still make another mark. I remember every face, even if the names are sometimes hard to recall.”
“Is that how you keep your humanity?”
He chuckles mirthlessly. “My sweet hummingbird. I am not a good man. There’s no celestial afterlife for me.”
I kiss each mark on his arm, taking my time. I kiss the furrow between his brows, I kiss his lips. “Now, tell me what you think is going on with your father’s death and Dmitri.”
“My greatest concern is for the hundreds of men and women in the Turgenev Bratva,” he says, putting his arm behind his head, “their families depend on us.”
“That must feel like a huge burden of responsibility,” I venture.
“It’s too much for someone like Dmitri,” he says. “My father might have been a heartless piece of shit, but he took his role as Pakhan seriously. Dmitri’s bragged for years about how he would run our Bratva. He’ll ruin us.”
Groaning silently as I force my painfully sore lower half to sit up, I lean against the pillows. “If you truly believe that Dmitri killed your father, you have to challenge him. Your brothers and sister – Nikolai, Irina and Damien – they’d support you, right?”
Alexi sits up too, lifting me easily onto his lap, helping me balance on my left hip. “It’s not enough that my siblings support it. The Six Families must see proof before they will accept my challenge. Until I can show unequivocally that Dmitri killed my father, they’ll back his claim to Pakhan.”
“Okay, then. We’ll just have to find the evidence,” I say firmly, though by ‘we’ I mean him, since I have absolutely no skills in espionage.
Glancing up, I see him suppress a smile. “Then we will.”
