26. Alek
26
ALEK
I ’ve felt fear a number of times before in my life. It’s impossible to have lived the life I had, even before, and not. I’ve been on the wrong end of a gun more times than I can count, been outnumbered in fights, felt my motorcycle slip on an icy road. I know fear—and yet, nothing compares to the fear coursing through me as I look at my wife’s earnest expression, full of pleading and desire, and wonder how she can promise me that when she doesn’t know what’s underneath my clothes.
I won’t pretend I’m not a vain man—or that I wasn’t, before this. I know what I look like, the reaction women have to my face—and to my body, before. I’ve been desired often enough in my life for that.
But it’s different now. I haven’t let a woman see me naked in nearly six years, not since Elia. Not since before . And I don’t know how I’ll bear to see the disappointment, the disgust on Dahlia’s face when she sees what I am now.
If I say no, though, it’s all but telling her that I still don’t trust her. That I don’t believe her when she promises me she’ll want me all the same. And I can’t bear that, either. Not after how close I came to losing her.
“Alek.” She whispers my name, trailing her fingers through my hair, and my cock twitches, already half hard. I want her desperately. I want to fall on her and devour her, to skip past this part that feels as if it’s tearing me in two, and sink into her before she has a chance to see me.
Instead, I reach for the hem of my shirt. I half-wish I’d worn a button-down, just so I’d have more time before I’m fully revealed. But I’m wearing a long-sleeved t-shirt, and there’s nothing to do but take it off.
Swallowing hard, fear like ice in my veins, I ball my hands in the material and pull it up and over my head, throwing it to one side before I can clutch it to my chest like a shield.
“Oh, Alek.” Dahlia whispers my name again, and it’s only then that I realize I have my eyes tightly shut. There’s pity in her voice—it’s unavoidable—but I think I hear desire there, too. Need , even, despite everything—and all I can think is that I’m fooling myself. “Alek, look at me.”
It’s difficult to force myself to open my eyes. But I do, slowly, and what I see on her face takes my breath away.
Her gaze is sweeping over my chest, my arms, taking in the map of scarring that covers my body. Long, thin lines and thick twisted ridges, patches of burns where the skin is shiny and wrinkled now, stretches where they peeled the skin away and left it to scab over raw. And to my shock and disbelief—I see sorrow in her eyes, pain…but also desire, too. She’s still looking at me as if I’m something she’s dying to have.
“Can I touch you?” she whispers, and I swallow hard, nodding. She reaches out, her fingers brushing along the scars just beneath my collarbone, and a shudder runs through my entire body. When her fingers drag lower, skimming over the scars on my chest, my cock hardens instantly despite all my fears that I wouldn’t be able to get aroused with her looking at me like this.
“Dahlia—” I grind out her name between my teeth, the desire pounding through me suddenly unbearable.
“Come here.” She presses her palm to my chest, over one of the burns, and her other hand slides behind my head, pulling me down to her.
I go, willingly. I tumble onto the bed with her, my mouth pressed to hers, and the way she gasps against my lips is a sound that I think I’ll savor for the rest of my life. I reach for the silky tank top she’s wearing, yanking it up over her head as I fill my hands with her bare breasts, and Dahlia moans against my lips before she pushes at me, rolling me over onto my back.
“You’re beautiful,” she whispers, as if she’s echoing what I said to her earlier. “Scars and all. Let me—” her lips drag to my jaw as she whispers it, down my throat, her hands skimming down my sides. I groan as her mouth finds its way to my chest, as she kisses along the map of scars, all the way down my taut abdomen to the edge of my jeans. Her fingers skim along my ribs, mapping the scars there, down my sides, and she tugs the button of my jeans open, dragging them and my boxers down my hips as my cock slaps against my abdomen, springing free thick and hard.
Dahlia moans when she sees my cock, her eyes fixed on the throbbing length, and for a brief moment, I think I might come just from that sound alone. My cock pulses, pre-cum dripping down the shaft, and her hand wraps around me, guiding the swollen tip to her lips as my head falls back against the pillows.
“Oh god , Dahlia—” Her mouth is warm and wet, sucking tightly around my sensitive length, sliding all the way down to the base and back up again. Her other hand slides under my balls, cupping me, fingers stroking the taut flesh as she licks and sucks my cock until I feel like I’m going to explode at any moment, my muscles wound tight with pleasure. It feels so fucking good, and I want to come down her throat—but I want something else, too.
“Come here.” I reach for her, my fingers tugging her silky shorts down her thighs. She’s bare underneath, and I groan when I slip my fingers between her folds, finding her wet and hot and dripping for me. More pre-cum spills onto her tongue as I throb in her mouth, and I gasp, struggling for control. “Come sit on my face while I fill up your mouth, zhena .”
Dahlia moans, letting go of my cock for only a moment as she slides up my body. She settles over my face, her thighs on either side as the wet folds of her pussy brush against my lips, and I waste no time sliding my tongue over her swollen clit as she slips my cock back into her mouth.
I’m not going to last long like this. Her hips roll against my mouth, riding my tongue, and the taste of her combined with the feeling of her lips wrapped around my cock again drive me to the edge in seconds. I lap desperately at her clit, wanting her orgasm, wanting to feel her come on my face as I fill up her mouth with my cum, and I can tell that she’s close, too. She moans desperately around me, grinding against my tongue, and I want to tell her that I’m about to come, but I can’t stop long enough to say anything at all.
I grab her hips instead, pulling her roughly down harder onto my mouth, sucking at her clit the way she’s sucking my cock. I hear her cry out the instant before I feel her buck against my face, her rhythm breaking as she moans and shudders, her grip on my cock tightening even as her sucking becomes erratic.
I don’t care. Nothing could stop the orgasm coiling at the base of my spine, the white-hot pleasure that courses through me as I feel her arousal spill over my tongue, soaking my face an instant before the first hot spurt of my cum erupts and hits the back of her throat. I thrust my hips upwards, fucking her mouth as she grinds against mine, both of us clinging to each other as I flutter my tongue against her clit, wanting to prolong her orgasm as long as possible.
The instant I feel her relax against me, I grab her, rolling her onto her back as I lean over her, my knee spreading her thighs. Dahlia’s eyes go wide as she feels my cock brush against her thigh.
“You’re still hard. You’re?—”
“Oh, I am,” I assure her. “And I’m going to fuck you until you come on my cock the way you just came on my face.”
I thrust into her, hard, my cock sliding into her with ease from how wet she is. She clasps tightly around me, drawing me into her wet, hot depths, and I cover her mouth with mine, devouring her in a deep kiss. When she slides her tongue over my bottom lip, licking away her own arousal, I feel my cock throb painfully inside of her. I already, desperately, need to come again.
“Alek.” She whispers my name against my mouth, her legs wrapping around my hips. Her fingers slide down my back, over more of the scarring, and I hold myself still inside of her for a moment, looking down at her. “I want you,” she whispers. “I want you just as much as I did before. More, even, now that you’ve told me the truth. I want this . I want the man I met tonight.”
“You have him.” The promise comes from me effortlessly, and I want— God, I want to be able to keep it. I draw my hips back, sliding out of her slowly, inch by inch until I’m fully out of her, the tip wedged against her dripping entrance, and then I push back in with excruciating slowness, savoring the feeling of her wrapping around every inch of my length. “I’ll never lie to you again, Dahlia. I’ll never hide anything from you. I?—”
I love you. The words nearly slip from my lips, but I bite them back. We’re not there yet, not so soon, not with the wounds between us still raw. We both need to heal, to trust each other, and then , then I’ll tell her. Then I’ll say to her what I’ve only ever said to one woman before, and thought I’d never say again. What I will never say again to any other woman but her.
She wraps herself around me, moving with every thrust, her perfect body arching against mine. I forget to worry about the scars, forget about everything except how good she feels wrapped around me, how nothing and everything has changed all at once, and how the thing I feared most hasn’t happened.
She still wants me. All of this is real; none of it is faked. I can feel her tightening around me, feel her arching and shuddering, hear her moaning gasps as I thrust into her again and again. She’s as bare to me as I am to her right now, and I fuck her as slowly as I can in the tangled blankets in the middle of the bed, until I can’t go slowly any longer and I need to come again.
“Come for me, zhena ,” I murmur, thrusting harder, the ache in my cock unbearably pleasurable and painful all at once. “Wife. Come for me, Dahlia?—”
She throws her head back, a keening wail of pleasure spilling from her lips as her nails dig into my back, furrowing in my skin, and I fucking hope those scar, too. I hope I have the marks of her pleasure on me for the rest of my life—and that thought sends me over the edge as she flutters and clenches around me, hips arching into mine as she rides my cock through her orgasm, and I spill into her for the second time tonight.
I shudder, hips rocking into hers with every spurt, the feeling of being inside of her bare as blissfully exquisite as the first time, and I never want it to stop. I’m almost disappointed to feel myself start to soften as my orgasm fades—although staying hard for three rounds would be a shock—and I pull her into me as I roll to my side, unwilling to let her go.
“I never thought I’d have this again,” I murmur into her hair, as she curls close to me. “I won’t let anything happen to you, Dahlia. I promise you that.”
—
In the morning, I go to Dimitri’s office on the lower level of the mansion, intending to make good on that promise. Both Dahlia and I had breakfast in her room, before I had her for breakfast again, and the feeling of waking up with her, of having her so close to me and the feeling of everything being right between us, was so good that I didn’t want to leave.
For the first time in so fucking long, I didn’t feel like a ghost. I felt like a man again, in my own skin, whole and desired. I don’t want to give that up. I don’t want to give her up.
Which means I have to keep her safe. I can’t let what happened a week ago happen again.
I rap sharply on the door, and hear Dimitri call out “come in,” from inside. I step into the cool office, and Dimitri looks up, concern instantly wrinkling his forehead.
“Is Dahlia alright?”
I nod. “She woke up last night. She’s going to go find Evelyn and talk to her. But I need your help.”
Dimitri looks at me, his lips pressed together. He lets out a slow breath. “Alek, I would have helped you from the start. As soon as you showed back up. You didn’t have to wait for everything to go to hell. And what you went through?—”
“I don’t want to talk about that right now.” I really don’t. After last night, I feel raw. I don’t have it in me to go through it all again yet.
Dimitri sighs. “Alek, we need to talk about why?—”
“Not right now,” I insist. “We’ll talk about it later. Right now, I need to make sure Dahlia is safe.”
Dimitri nods. “We agree on that. I’ll have security on her. She should have had a bodyguard from the start, but I didn’t want to impose on her. God knows Evelyn nearly bit my head off over it at first. I left it to you to ask—and clearly?—”
“---you should have anyway. I know I fucked up.” My jaw tightens. “That’s why I’m here now. I want to take her to one of the safe houses.”
Dimitri’s eyebrows go up. “That seems extreme.”
“You don’t know Gregoriy Volnov. You didn’t meet with him when he was here, either. He won’t stop until he gets her now, as well as me. He’ll be angry. He’ll want to punish me, and he’ll do that by taking her, and then coming for me. I need to take him out, but I can’t do that if I’m worried about her.”
“She’ll be safe here?—”
“She’d be safer hidden away, with dedicated security, somewhere he won’t look.”
“Alek.” Dimitri blows out a sharp breath. “She’ll be safe here. But I’ll help you find this man. I can put Vik on it today. He’ll see what he can trace from the warehouse. We’ll find this Gregoriy, and we’ll take him out.”
“Dimitri—”
“I’ll talk to Vik now. I’ll let you know what he says.” Dimitri taps his fingers against the desk, looking at me for a long moment. “We need to talk about the rest of it, Alek. And soon.”
“We will,” I promise him. “I need to deal with this, first. I need to know she’s safe.”
“She will be.” Dimitri looks at me. “I’ll make sure she’s safe. But it’s better she stays here.”
I’ve known my brother long enough to know when he’s putting his foot down. Arguing with him further won’t change anything, but I’m not convinced that leaving Dahlia here is the safest option. She’s my wife , I want to say. I’ll decide where she’s safest. But I can see from the expression on my brother’s face that he’s acting as pakhan at the moment, and not as my brother.
“Tell me when you have security arranged for her,” I say, standing up abruptly. “I’m going to go check on her.”
Dimitri gives me a wary look. “Let me help you with this, Alek,” he says, letting out a sharp breath. “Don’t go off on your own.”
I nod, but I don’t say anything. I don’t want to lie to him, and I’m more than willing to accept his help in tracking Gregoriy down. More than that, I need his help with it. But when it comes to protecting Dahlia, I intend to have the final say. And when it comes to taking out Gregoriy, I refuse to put my brother in danger.
I’ve handled gangs of men on my own before. With enough weapons and enough stealth, I can take out Gregoriy without having to put Dimitri or anyone else in danger. Besides, that old, small voice in my head whispers. He didn’t come for you all those years ago. He didn’t put himself in danger then. No need to start now.
I know he wants me to lean on him for help. To trust him fully again, just like Dahlia wants me to trust her completely. But it’s not something that changes overnight. And I want to finish this. I want to take care of it, and be done, so I can put it in the past.
When I go up to Dahlia’s room, Evelyn is sitting in there with her. Dahlia is dressed, the bed made, and the bruises on her face look fainter than they did last night. It’s a relief to see that she’s healing, and the smile she gives me softens something in my chest. For once, I don’t fight it.
“I’ll see you later,” Evelyn says, getting up and giving Dahlia’s hand a squeeze before leaving us both alone. Dahlia looks at me, tucking her legs under her as I sit down on the bed.
“Are you okay?” she asks softly, and the question feels as if it hits me right in the chest. How long has it been since someone has really asked me that?
“I will be once I know you’re somewhere safe. I asked Dimitri to let me take you to one of the safe houses while I deal with Gregoriy. But he thought it’s better for you to stay here.”
Dahlia frowns. “Well, if Dimitri thinks it’s safe, I’m sure it’s fine. And I’d rather stay here with you, anyway. And Evelyn. I don’t want to go somewhere else, alone.” She presses her lips together. “I didn’t even know you were considering that.”yo
“I’d rather have you somewhere that Gregoriy doesn’t know about. I don’t agree with Dimitri that it’s safer here.” I hesitate, unsure if I should mention the man who attacked me in the barn.
“There’s already been some attempts to breach Dimitri’s security,” I say finally, and Dahlia’s eyes widen. “It might be harder to get onto the grounds now, but if you leave the house at all—” I see her instantly tense, and I nod. “See? You don’t like the idea of not being able to leave the house. At least at a safe house, you’d have a little more freedom?—”
“Out in the middle of nowhere? That’s where a place like that is, right?” That stubborn look that I know so well is already on her face. “I don’t see how that’s better?—”
“It would be safer for everyone. You, and Evelyn, too. Then she won’t be in harm’s way if anyone comes for you. By the time he has a chance to figure out where you are, I’ll have killed him.” I reach for Dahlia’s hands. “Trust me? It’s safer if you’re moved. You’ll have plenty of security, and he’ll be scrambling right now, trying to figure out what happened to his men and what to do next. This is the right move, I’m sure of it.”
Dahlia bites her lip. “You want to go behind Dimitri’s back?”
“I want to keep my wife safe.”
That softens her—I can see it. She chews at her lower lip, clearly uncertain. “What would you tell him and Evelyn?”
“I’ll tell them I made a decision for my family. I’m the other Yashkov son, I have access to the safe houses and security as much as Dimitri does. He wouldn’t want me making a decision for Evelyn?—”
“So you’ll make a decision for me?” She raises an eyebrow, but there’s no bite in her voice. “You feel like this is the best choice?”
I nod. “It’s not a guarantee. But I think you’ll be safer there. I’ll feel better if you’re there, while I deal with this.”
She hesitates for a second longer, and then she nods.
“Okay. We’ll do it your way, then.”