Epilogue #2
We have not agreed yet, which I have stopped being anxious about and started finding entertaining, because the disagreement is good-natured and has taught me a great deal about what Pavel considers a worthy name, which is apparently classical, strong, with historical precedent, and not anything that can be made into a diminutive he considers undignified.
He likes Eleanor and Elizabeth. I vetoed them.
I like Clover and Marigold. He vetoed them.
It’s been a long summer, and thus, we avoid the topic tonight.
The dancing is in the hotel across the street, which hosts a small orchestra and a dance floor that gradually fills with couples who have decided that the ordinary evening is worth transforming into something slightly more. Pavel dances the way he does everything—well, and with complete attention.
A slow piece plays, so we slow down. It gives me the first chance in a very long time to feel my husband close to me without two babies between us. I have missed this man.
He smells so good.
With his arms around me, I close my eyes and sway to the music. “This is nice.”
His throat works. “Is it strange to say I have forgotten how this feels?”
“I know what you mean.”
“I believe I’ve fallen into a trap.”
I stiffen and glance over his shoulder. “Who is it? Are you armed?”
“Not that kind of trap, wife.” He turns me in his arms, then presses against my back, his arm around my waist as we continue to sway. “Parenthood is its own kind of trap, I think. It made me forget something fundamental.”
“What’s that?”
He growls in my ear, “That I was a man before I was a father, and that man has needs.” He spins me to face him, and there’s hunger in those icy blue eyes. “Thank you for reminding me who I am.”
“I’m glad I could remind you. But now, I want you to show me.”
“With pleasure.” He takes my hand and leads me to the elevators.
When the doors close, he’s on me in a flash, his mouth on mine, a meaty hand hooking my leg around his as he presses me into the corner.
He’s hard already—I feel it beneath our clothes.
A yearning whimper comes out of me, ugly and raw, and that only spurs him on.
When the doors open, it’s not our floor. It’s an elderly couple.
Pavel smirks as he sets my leg down, then politely says, “How about that weather?”
The old woman snorts, and the old man mutters, “Get a room.”
“That’s where we’re heading right now,” I say with a shit-eating grin.
When the doors open again, it’s our floor, thankfully.
Pavel takes me down the hall to our room, and he’s on me again the moment the door is shut.
He practically tears the dress from me, while I work on the buttons of his shirt.
As he kisses down my neck, I point out, “We’ll never make it to the bed like this. ”
“Since when do you care about being in a bed?”
“I don’t. Just pointing it out.”
His chuckle falls on my collarbone as he shimmies my dress from my body, having gotten the zipper down. It hits the floor with a thud, and he steps back slowly, staring at me as he finishes undressing.
“What are you doing?”
“It has been a long time since I saw my wife like this. I want to savor it.”
I roll my eyes. “You see me naked all the time.”
“Yes. Going in and out of the shower. Not like this. Not in lingerie and heels, looking especially…” He sighs, long and low. “You have not been my pet in a very long time, wife.”
The words shake something loose inside me. “And you have not been Sir in a very long time, husband.”
He steps forward, hooking his hand around my neck. Not choking. Claiming. Heat flashes through me all at once, and I remember everything. The ropes around my ankles and wrists. The blindfold. The gags. A spanking that made it so I couldn’t sit right for two days. I have missed not only my husband.
I have missed this too.
“Then tonight, we play. If you wish.”
I reach up for his handsome face, cupping the side of it. “I want you. In every way I can have you.”
The hand on my throat trails over me. My bra, my stomach, my underwear, my thighs, and all the while, he stares into my eyes. Until he can’t take it anymore. Then, his mouth is on me again, as he leads me to the oversized bed.
He lies on top of me—me, still in my pretty black lingerie—and grinds against me with the full force of his powerful body.
I lift my hips upward to meet his movements, and the underwear is the only reason he’s not inside of me right now.
The delicious pressure of his hard cock rubbing me there could be enough to make me come.
I’m so fucking lit right now that I might explode before we begin.
“Are you sure about this, wife? It has been a long time—”
“Call me wife, call me pet, I don’t care what you call me as long as you’re inside of me.”
He rips that strip of cloth from between us, and the head of his cock notches there. Still, he holds back.
“What’s wrong?”
“I—it has been a long time. I don’t want to hurt you. We go slow—”
“Don’t you fucking dare!”
A husky laugh tumbles out of him. “Patience, wife.” He moves a fraction of an inch, and there’s no pain. Only him. “Anything?”
“Don’t stop, dammit!”
He half smiles, then gives me more. “Still—”
I take his face in both hands. “Husband, I have been using a toy on myself, thinking about this exact moment. You’re not going to break me.”
Something shifts beneath his surface. “You have been playing with yourself?”
“Yes.”
“Thinking of me?”
“Yes.”
“Fuck.” I feel him swell, just before he hooks his hands around my shoulders and thrusts as deep as he can. It’s almost too much. “Like this?”
“Yes,” I squeak.
With that, he takes me for a ride, working himself back and forth until wet, hungry sounds fill the air. He growls, “I want to see it.”
“What?”
“The toy. You. Fucking yourself.” He slams deeper, and I’m on the brink. “I want to watch you make yourself come, thinking of me.”
“I’m close now—”
He leans back, still inside of me, but now opening the space between us as he kneels. If he kneels too far back, he’ll pop out of me. “Do it. Touch yourself while I’m in you, pet.”
Without another thought, I reach for my clit. “Can I—”
“Come for me. On me.”
It feels wrong in some way, doing it like this. Silly, I know. But touching myself has always been private. Until now.
As I work my clit, Pavel slowly moves back and forth, like he can’t just sit back and watch the show. He has to be a part of it. His cock rubs that good spot inside, and I’m right on the edge. “That’s it, pet. Look down here. See that? See how good you take it? I’m proud of you.”
Fuck, this is—
“Now come for me.”
It tears through my core, bliss like a sword as I scream his name.
He takes over from there, pinning my hands as he fucks me into the mattress, making me come again and again until there’s nothing left.
Only then does he wrap his arms around me, only then does he kiss me while he pumps into me. I taste his primal sounds as he comes.
I lie in the dark afterward and listen to him breathe, the man who agreed to split the flourless chocolate torte at the restaurant tonight.
Maybe it makes me a bad wife, I don’t know.
But as I lie there next to the man who ate my brownies for months without complaint because he didn’t tell me he hates chocolate, I think about how far I will take this particular game.
How many times will I make him split a chocolate dessert just to see how long it takes him to crack? How many trays of brownies does it take to break the mighty pakhan?
I’ll never tell him that I overheard him talking to Igor about it once, months ago.
That would let him off the hook too easily.
I warned him to never keep secrets related to me, and with every brownie I serve to him, sweetly smiling and feigning excitement about his enjoyment of them, I know what it means.
There are secrets about me that he still keeps. The brownies are a little thing. If he can’t tell me the truth about that, what else is he hiding?
I will navigate it eventually. Possibly by making something else chocolate and watching him eat it with the same dedicated expression. His next birthday cake? The thought makes me smile in the dark.
“You’re thinking loudly,” Pavel says.
“I’m thinking quietly. You just have very good hearing.”
“What are you thinking about?”
“Brownies.”
A pause. “My favorite.”
My handsome liar. But also, my favorite liar. “I love you.”
“I love you too. Come here.” He opens his arm for me to snuggle his shoulder, and I do.
I smile and get comfortable, thinking about the next round of this strange game we play. “I saw on the room service breakfast menu that they have chocolate waffles.”
“How lucky for you.”
“I was thinking about you, silly. I know how much you love chocolate.”
“That is considerate. But I was thinking of going low-carb. My suits are becoming snug.”
It’s all I can do not to laugh. “I can make that work. There are all kinds of low-carb baking recipes for brownies.”
He swallows, and I wonder how I missed the signs of him hating chocolate before now. I’ve been baking brownies for the office for years, and he has always taken one. There must have been other clues I overlooked, because he’s not good at hiding it.
He clears his throat. “I look forward to trying each and every one, wife.”
Maybe I shouldn’t see this as him hiding things from me. Maybe he’s just a considerate husband who doesn’t want to hurt my feelings. Not everything is nefarious.
“Hmm.”
His voice is thick with sleepiness. “Yes?”
“Well, I was just thinking… chocolate and artificial sweetener, I’m not sure they’ll complement each other. Maybe I should try baking something else for you.”
He takes a beat. “I’m open to whatever you have in mind. As long as sleep is one of the options.”
I curl into him a little more and find the comfortable position of little spoon. “Goodnight, husband.”
He kisses my shoulder. “Goodnight, wife. Thank you for reminding me I am a man.”
“Thank you for making me glad to be a woman.”
He softly chuckles, and that sound turns into a snore that seduces me to sleep.
The End.