Alessia
I have a million worries in my mind, but it’s like my body didn’t get the message. It’s celebrating the whole trip to Volgograd. I just feel light. Happy. Fluttery.
Mika gave me the address and told me exactly what to say to the cab driver to get there. He also sent it in Russian text, and I printed it out to show the guy in case my accent sucked.
I get there in the afternoon. There are fewer guards than he had when I was there-I guess they were to keep me prisoner. I just see one guy outside when I pull up and he nods, like he recognizes me.
Mika comes running out, then stops and shoves his hands in his pockets, awkward-like.
“Come here and give me a hug,” I demand, and he shoots forward. “You grew.” I laugh, ruffling his hair.
It feels so good to be back. Everything about the estate feels good to me. Truthfully, I never felt like a prisoner here. Just a restricted guest. It’s even good to see Zoya’s dour face.
“Where’s Vlad?” I ask. Oh God, is he completely laid up in bed? How long has he been this way?
“He’s at the lake. You should go to him. Help him,” Mika says, taking my purse from me. Yegor has already taken my suitcase.
Grazie a Madonna. At least he’s not bed-ridden. I head off down the path I took with him so many times. My favorite part of every day I was there. The park bench is still there at the halfway mark. I stop and rest. I may be back to exercising, but I’m still weak. Does Vlad have to use it now?
I hurry forward, excitement and nervousness warring. When I get to the lake, I’m stunned to see Vlad’s muscled body cutting through the water.
He’s swimming. In the cold lake.
He’s beautiful. And perfectly healthy.
He climbs out and picks up a towel from the grass, drying his face. His body is muscled and fit. When he lowers the towel from his face, he sees me.
“Alessia!” His deep voice comes out as a shout.
My heart jumps up into my throat.
But then a leggy blonde stands up from the swing, and my stomach drops to my feet.
No. No fucking way. I did not come all this way to be humiliated by Vlad’s new lover.
I stumble back.
“No.” Vlad starts running toward me.
My brain has already shut off. I’m in flight or fight mode, I guess, because like a hunted prey animal, I turn and run.
“Alessia! Stop. Wait!”
If I had any doubt at all about his recovery from surgery, it disappears when he overtakes me in about five seconds flat.
He catches me around my waist and lifts my feet from the ground. “Wait. Alessia. She’s the nanny. For Lara-the baby. She’s the nanny. Don’t run.”
The fight goes out of me and I go limp in his arms. He lowers my feet to the ground and turns me to face him, still holding me up with an arm banded around my waist. “There’s no other woman, zaika.” He brushes my hair back, then cradles my face with both hands. “There will never be anyone but you.” He’s kissing me before I can answer. Like he can’t wait to taste me. Like we’re long lost lovers, dying to be in each other’s arms.
Which I guess we are.
My knees go weak as he tastes me, slanting his mouth over mine with more tenderness than he ever showed me before. He takes his time, too. Exploring my lips thoroughly before licking into them, his tongue stroking, probing.
It’s the kiss of the century.
“You came,” he says with wonder, stroking my cheek with his thumb.
“Yeah, well-” I’m breathless. Still upset over the nanny, even though it’s been explained. “Mika said you hadn’t healed. But clearly he lied.”
Vlad touches the scar on his abdomen, his face growing sober. “I haven’t healed,” he says.
I get dizzy, realizing he’s not talking about the surgery.
“Have you?”
I shake my head.
He kisses me again, like a question. Then he picks me up to straddle his waist and walks toward the house. Behind him, I see the nanny hurrying after us, carrying his baby.
He has a baby.
And he took responsibility for her.
My chest fills with warmth. I wrap my arms around his neck.
After a few moments, I realize he’s going to carry me the whole way back. “You can put me down.” I laugh. “I’m still recovering, but I don’t get so out of breath now. Thanks to you-thanks to your kidney.”
“I’m not putting you down.” There’s a stubborn edge to his voice.
I smile.
“I’m sorry for how I treated you. At Victor’s.” He looks around me to see where he’s going.
I weave my fingers into his hair. “I know. I got your letter. Thank you.”
Vlad
I’ve never been a religious man. I’ve never put much stock in words like holy or sacred. But as I lay my beautiful bride out on our bed, it’s with a reverence beyond any spiritual realm.
And she lets me.
I undress her slowly, piece by piece, and she watches, lashes down, belly fluttering, lips parted.
She came here of her own free will.
That, to me, is a miracle worthy of bent knees.
She’s not submitting to my will this time, she’s offering herself up. It’s different. And special and a moment I will never, ever forget.
“What is this?” She’s wearing some kind of medical device that made her cringe and blush when I uncovered it.
“Insulin pump. I’ll take it off. I hate it.”
I tip my head, watching how she takes it off, noting everything so I can help her with it next time. “Seems like a good idea.”
She shrugs. “I’d rather have you monitoring me.”
And that’s when I do drop to my knees. Only on the bed, but still. The words inspire nothing short of a spiritual awakening.
I kiss up her inner thighs, flick my tongue across the flat plane of her belly. I take one pebbled nipple into my mouth. She arches up, moaning softly.
She’s a goddess.
The divine feminine.
She is woman the way I never saw females before. Pure and potent and life-giving.
“You came,” I murmur in awe again. I still can’t believe this miracle.
“I’m here,” she affirms.
I cup her mons as I move to the other nipple. She’s wet and slick and ready for me.
“Beautiful, beautiful woman,” I chant. It’s a holy rite. Me, worshipping her body.
I scoot back down and push her knees open, feast between her legs. Her juices dribble onto my tongue as I trace her inner lips, suck her swollen clit.
“Tell me something, zaika,” I murmur, cupping her ass with both hands to hold her in place as I lick more aggressively.
She cries out, pumps her hips. “What is it, Vlad?”
“Are you here to stay? Or is this just a visit?” I don’t know why I ask now. Why I would ruin such a beautiful moment.
But I have to know. Will this be my last time with her? Or is this our new beginning?
“Not to stay,” she pants and my heart sinks, even though I suspected that would be her answer.
“I don’t want to be away from my family, Vlad. Two of my brothers are expecting babies this fall.”
“I see.” My voice is strangled, but I’m not going to stop. Not going to give her any less than God and Mother Earth.
“Come back to the States with me, Vlad,” she urges, using my hair to tug my face away from her beautiful pussy.
I rise up over her and unzip my jeans, find a condom and roll it on. “I have Mika now,” I warn. “And Lara, the baby.” I rub the head of my cock over her entrance.
She takes my cock and guides me in, moaning softly.
I fill her, rocking slowly until I’m seated, then easing back.
“I love Mika. And you know I love babies.”
I brace my hands beside her head and pump slowly in and out. It’s still a religious experience for me, every sensation feeding the sense of oneness. My belief that all is right in the world.
“Vlad?”
I lean my forehead against hers, thrusting a little harder now. “Alessia.”
“You haven’t answered me.”
“The answer is yes. Always. To anything you ask of me, zaika. I want to be yours. Any way you’ll have me.”
Her head drops back, eyes close as the sweetest moans comes from her lips. Like she, too, is in ecstatic revelation.
And seeing her like that pushes me over the edge. I shift to white-knuckle the headboard and pump in hard, each thrust a punctuation mark on my promise to her.
I am yours.
Anything you ask of me.
The answer is yes.
She opens her mouth, thrusts her breasts toward the ceiling.
My balls draw up tight, thighs shake. She braces her hands against the headboard, crying out with each thrust.
“I’m not going to last,” I grit.
“What are you waiting for?”
I reach nirvana the split second before I come. Alessia follows, hooking her legs around my back and pulling me in deeper, the tight muscles of her pussy pulsing through our release.
“Vlad?” she asks, breathless, arms twining around my neck.
“What is it, printsessa?”
“Are we still married?”
I lean on my forearms and nip at her lips. “Yes.” I couldn’t bring myself to dissolve the marriage, even though I knew it was the right thing to do.
“What happens when you grow tired of me?”
My heart squeezes. Did it bother her when I said that? “That’s an impossibility,” I tell her. “A lie I told to convince myself I could let you go.”
She squirms under me, encouraging me to keep up the slow post-orgasm fucking. “I want a second wedding. An American wedding, with my family.”
I go still and she shifts to take me deeper. I have to swallow back the lump in my throat. “You want to marry me?”
“Again. Yes.”
I cover her face with kisses, humbled by how easily she surrenders her heart. Her life.
To me.
“Whatever you want, zaika. It’s yours. Believe it.”
“Mmm,” she hums softly, pulling me into her so I have to roll us both to the side to keep from crushing her. “I want to hold your baby.”
I lean up on an elbow and smile. “Our baby… if you want. Will you adopt her?”
She blinks back tears. “I’d like that. Will you adopt Mika?”
“Yes. I already had papers drawn up for it, but I was waiting for the right moment to talk to him.”
“Let’s go tell him now.” She pushes up to sit and scrambles off the bed. “He’s the one who tricked me into coming here.”
I didn’t want to leave the sanctity of our bed, but seeing her enthusiasm is enough to motivate me.
It won’t just be about the two of us. We’ll be a family, and there’s a sanctity to that, too.
Something Alessia’s experienced but I never have. Something I want to give my children.