In which we find that Alexi is A Giver.
Lucya…
I’m running through the pine trees at home, towering over me, branches reaching up to the sky. They close in around me, making me invisible, making me feel safe. The sharp, clear scent of the trees fills my lungs…
“Kolibri. Wake up, little hummingbird.”
Groaning into my pillow I turn the other way. It can’t be morning already, I’ve barely slept.
There’s a low chuckle. “Open your eyes. I know you’re awake.” The spicy pine scent is Alexi, here to drag me out of a decent night’s sleep. Again.
“I don’t want to be awake,” I moan, “I’ve never been so comfortable. Five more minutes.”
The lamp on the bedside table clicks on and I stifle a yelp as Alexi looms over me. The little island of light surrounds us, blocking out the darkness of the room, enclosing the two of us on this wonderful bed.
“There you are.” His voice is deeper and a little raspy as he puts his hand on my forehead. “How do you feel?”
“M’okay.” His cool hand feels nice on my forehead and my eyes droop closed. “Ow!”
He pinched me! My waist, in fact, and I wiggle away from his fingers. “Now you’re awake,” he rumbles. “Tell me your name.”
“Really? Isn’t this the…” I rub my forehead, trying to remember. “Isn’t this the third time you’ve woken me up?”
He’s sitting next to me on the bed, close enough that his hip is touching mine, bracing his hand on the headboard as he leans over me, examining my bruises.
“Yes.”
“Lucya Andreevna Dubrovina,” I sigh.
“What month is it?”
“November. November 11th, I think.”
“Khoroshaya devochka, good girl,” he purrs, and I feel it down to my toes. “Drink some water and I’ll let you go back to sleep.”
I dutifully take a sip and pluck at the label on the expensive water bottle. This brand is ten dollars a bottle, which is ridiculous. Inessa always laughs at me for being such a penny-pincher, but someone has to budget for the two of us and it’s not going to be her, even if she’s two years older than me.
Alexi’s wearing a pair of thin sleep pants that are hanging low on his waist. His alarmingly sculpted abdomen and the trail of dark hair disappearing into his pants are almost pornographic. Follow us, baby. You’re going to enjoy the trip.
His chest and arms are an explosion of tattoos, beautiful, violent, disturbing imagery. A stylized Archangel Michael covers his left pectoral, his wings and sword soaring up to Alexi’s neck. He has stars on both shoulders and a series of skulls, each darker and more terrifying than the one before, and a black asp winds through their eye sockets. When he turns to put the bottle back on the table, I see a huge wolf on his back – I think it’s from the Turgenev crest – and when my gaze falls to his arm, my heart sinks.
When I’d stumbled in on him after he’d killed that man as some kind of sick entertainment at his father’s party, he had maybe twenty scars carved into his forearm. Now the little slashes marking another life he’s ended marches up his arm, his bicep, and onto his shoulder. I want to touch them, it feels like they should hurt, a cruel reminder of doing his Bratva’s dirty work. But I remember how he reacted that night when I’d seen them, and I can’t risk him getting angry at me again. Not now, when we’re together in this room. Now that he’s paying attention to me.
He arches his back and yawns, and I watch the sculpted muscles on his back flex and roll under the colorful tattoos.
“Are you finished eye-fucking me?” There’s a slight smile playing along his full lips, before he realizes what he’s said and he tries to pull away, clearly fighting with himself. I take his hand. I can sense he’s not comfortable, but he allows it.
“I wasn’t- I was not eye- that,” I say, “There’s a lot of new ink since I saw you last. The skulls, I mean. Your Archangel Michael looks like he’s flying when you move. I’ve never seen such a beautiful tattoo.”
Looking closer, I realize the ocean of brightly colored art is covering a multitude of scars. Some look like cigarette burns, a couple of puckered scars that I know are from gunshot wounds. The most heartbreaking discovery is a long thin scar that rips through his archangel tattoo. It ends just a breath away from his carotid artery.
Alexi glances down indifferently. “Getting ink is relaxing. Do you have any tattoos?”
“Oh, no.” I shake my head firmly. “I hate needles. Hate them. You would have to tie me down.”
His dark brow lifts, “Well, if you’re into that, I’m happy to accommodate you.”
“You know that’s not what I meant!” I’m a bright pink shade and rapidly heading toward beet red.
“No?” He’s looming over me again, and it’s a bit threatening, a little scary and all kinds of hot. “You don’t like being tied down, helpless?”
My mouth opens and closes again, like a goldfish. Alexi is chilly. Humorless. Who is this man? Does the ice-cold Angel of the Death turn into a fiery incubus when the sun sets?
Something flashes through his chilly blue eyes and he leans forward, just a hair’s breadth from my lips. “You don’t like giving up control, knowing your man will take care of you?” His breath is minty and washes over my skin, leaving goosebumps.
I’ve dreamt all my life of this moment, when Alexi would finally look at me and see someone sexy. Someone desirable.
And I don’t know what to do.
He makes the decision for me, leaning in just a bit more and putting his lips on mine.
I’ve been kissed before, a few awkward fumbles after a date in the back of the car, once in a closet when I was playing Spin the Bottle at a party.
This, though.
This is something else. Something elevated and gorgeous and when he slides his tongue along the seam of my lips, I open my mouth to let his tongue play with mine. My hands fly up, grabbing the headboard, trying to ground myself, to prove this moment is real and not one of the never-ending fantasies I’ve had about Alexi.
Something like a sigh or a moan passes between us and his arms wrap around me, pulling me to straddle his lap. Every angle and plane of his body is hard, pressing into me and each movement feels sharper or brighter or…
“Chert, kakaya krasota, Kolibri. Fuck, so beautiful hummingbird,” he growls in my ear. His cool hands cup my face, and he pulls back to examine me, tipping my head up. His eyes aren’t icy anymore, they’re blazing and a surge of heat goes through me when I realize it’s because of me.
His hand slides down to my throat, his long fingers brushing whisper-soft over the bruises he made there. “Do these hurt?”
“Not so much,” I lie.
“How many men have you been with, Kolibri?”
There’s no way I’m telling him that the number is zero. I know it’s pathetic, but when would I have had time to date? So, I shrug. “Why does it matter?”
Sharp blue eyes examine mine. “Because I will have to kill every one of them.”
His kiss is harder this time, pushing my lips against my teeth. I taste a bite of copper and moan, it galvanizes him to pull me against his chest.
Bozhe moy. That’s all him? Thick and hard, and his shaft is hot, unlike the rest of him. Hot, and pushing against my clitoris. It’s only moments before I’m completely, embarrassingly wet. His low chuckle rumbles against my chest.
“I can smell you, hummingbird. Do you taste as good as this sweet scent?” His hands move to my ass, gripping and squeezing me, then one hand ventures under my borrowed sweats, and I gasp against his mouth. Two thick fingers slide into my undies, stroking along my center.
“Wet. So hot.” He kisses my jaw. The tip of one finger slides just inside me and he groans loudly. “And tight. I suspect, sweet Kolibri, that no man’s been inside you. Am I right?”
Burying my head in the spot between his neck and his shoulder, I refuse to answer. If I tell him the truth he might stop and I will go up in flames and die a virgin.
“Eyes on mine.”
My eyes dart back to his instantly. He’s circling my opening with the calloused tip of his finger, scraping just perfectly against my desperately sensitive flesh. Pulling his hand out of my underwear, he shows me his fingers, slick and glistening before he sucks them into his mouth.
“So goddamned sweet,” he groans, pushing me back on the bed and yanking my borrowed sweats and undies down. My knees try to slam together but his broad shoulders are blocking me. I’m torn between covering my face or covering my pussy. This is too much, too overwhelming. I’ve wanted this and dreamt of Alexi seeing me as someone who’s sexy, but going down on me? That’s so personal. Why would he want to do that? Inessa told me men hate giving oral sex.
I hear the sound of a slap just as a sting spreads between my legs. “You slapped my- me! Why did you do that?”
“You do not hide from me. I’m going to take care of you, and there’s nothing to hide in my bed.” Alexi slides down, his chest hair tickling my breasts and he pushes up my borrowed t-shirt to kiss each one. His tongue circles my belly button and then his thumbs spread my wet lips and-
“Oh, my god…” I moan, my hands sink into his thick blonde hair, trying to hold on as he licks me, long, greedy stripes like a jungle cat. His eyes are still intent on mine and I try to ignore the proper young lady inside my head who’s screaming in outrage right now.
This is Alexi. He’s everything I’ve ever wanted, right here.
The stubble of his beard lightly scratches the thin skin of my inner thighs and the sting with the soft flicks of his tongue is overwhelming. His right eye drops in the slightest of winks and his lips fasten around my clitoris and he sucks. I shriek and my core clenches so hard that I nearly sit up before his hand between my breasts pushes me back down.
“Relax, hummingbird. You’re not going anywhere until I’m finished with you.”
That sounds threatening. I should be alarmed. I’m not.
“This is a- oh, bozhe moy! This is a lot,” I wheeze. His lips are back on my clitoris and his tongue is toying with it, sending electric jolts of pleasure up my spine. Very carefully, he slides one finger inside me and growls. Like an animal. Like a bear who’s been locked up and he’s ready to devour everything in his path.
The harder he licks, the wetter I get and that thick, intrusive finger inside me is stroking and pressing and exploring. And when the tip of his fingernail lightly scratches a spot inside me, I detonate, pieces of me flying everywhere and my hips moving furiously. I’m clinging to his hair because I’m weightless, disconnected from everything but this fiery pleasure and the beautiful man who gave it to me.
Alexi licks me through my orgasm with a messy, gluttonous approval. It’s clear from his grunts and growls that this was for his pleasure, his hips thrusting against the mattress as he gives me one last kiss on my wildly sensitive clitoris.
“Takaya ochen’ khoroshaya devochka. Such a very good girl.”
