Chapter 19 - Maksim
The moment Alyssa asks me to touch her, every other thought in my head evaporates like smoke.
Her green eyes burn with a need that matches my own, and the way she breathes my name makes something primal wake up inside me. The shooting range disappears around us, leaving nothing but her flushed face and the sound of our breathing.
“Are you absolutely certain?” I ask with my hands still framing her face as I search for any hint of doubt.
“Stop asking me that,” she whispers as she rises on her toes to close the distance between us. “I want this. I want you.”
My mouth crashes down on hers with all the hunger I’ve been suppressing for weeks. She tastes like mint and desire and something uniquely hers that drives me completely insane. When her tongue slides against mine, I groan and press her back against the nearest wall.
“Fuck, Alyssa,” I breathe against her lips. “You have no idea what you do to me.”
“Show me,” she challenges, and her fingers are already working at the buttons of my shirt.
I capture her hands in mine to stop their movement. “Not here. Not in a basement that smells like gunpowder and oil.”
“Then where?”
“My room—where I can take my time with you properly.”
She nods eagerly, and I lead her upstairs, feeling like a giddy teenager. The walk to my bedroom feels like the longest journey of my life, and every step stretches into eternity while need burns through my veins.
The moment we’re inside with the door locked behind us, she’s in my arms again. This time, I don’t hold back. I lift her against me as I carry her to the bed, and she wraps her legs around my waist. The heat from her core pressed against me, nearly undoing my resolve to go slow.
My hands find the hem of her shirt, and she helps me pull it over her head. The sight of her in nothing but a lace bra makes my mouth go dry with want.
“You’re perfect,” I tell her, tracing the curve of her collarbone with my fingertips.
“I’m not perfect. I’m just desperate for you to stop talking and start touching.”
Her bluntness makes me laugh despite the desire coursing through me. “Demanding little thing, aren’t you?”
“You have no idea.”
I lean down to press kisses along her throat, tasting the salt of her skin and breathing in her pheromones. When I reach the hollow at the base of her neck, she arches toward me with a soft gasp.
“More,” she whispers.
“Patience, kitten. We have all night.”
My mouth continues its exploration while my hands map every inch of exposed skin. When I reach behind her to unhook her bra, she lifts herself to make it easier, and the trust in that simple gesture makes my heart beat even faster.
The lace falls away, revealing breasts that are even more beautiful than I remembered. I take one peaked nipple into my mouth, and she cries out as her back bows off the bed and her fingers tangle in my hair.
“God, yes,” she breathes. “Just like that.”
I lavish attention on one breast and then the other, using my tongue and teeth until she’s writhing beneath me. Her responses are so honest, so unguarded, that I want to memorize every sound she makes.
“Maksim, please,” she begs as she tugs at my shirt. “I need to feel you.”
I sit back long enough to pull my shirt over my head, and her eyes go dark as she takes in my bare chest. Her hands immediately reach for me, trace the tattoos that cover my shoulders and arms.
“I remember these,” she murmurs, following a particularly intricate design with her fingertip. “I wanted to explore them more the last night we were together.”
“You can explore all you want now. We’re not going anywhere.”
She takes me at my word, and her touch grows bolder as she glides her palms over the planes of my chest and the ridges of my abdomen. When her fingers brush against the waistband of my pants, I catch her wrist.
“Not yet,” I warn. “If you touch me now, this will be over before it starts.”
“Then what do you suggest?”
Instead of answering with words, I hook i my fingers in the waistband of her yoga pants and panties and draw them down her legs in one smooth motion. She’s completely bare under me now, and the sight steals what’s left of my breath.
“Beautiful,” I whisper before settling between her thighs. “So fucking beautiful.”
The first touch of my tongue against her center makes her cry out, and her hips jerk involuntarily. I hold her steady with my hands on her thighs as I explore every inch of her with my mouth.
“Oh God,” she gasps as her fingers fist in the sheets. “Maksim, that feels…”
“Tell me,” I command against her heated flesh. “Tell me how it feels.”
“Amazing. Perfect. Don’t stop, please don’t stop.”
I have no intention of stopping. She tastes like honey and sin, and every breathy moan that escapes her lips drives me closer to the edge of my control. When I slide two fingers inside her while my tongue continues to flick over her clit, she comes apart.
“Yes, yes, oh fuck yes,” she chants while her body tenses as the orgasm crashes over her.
I work her through it, gentling my touch as she comes down from the high. When she finally goes limp against the mattress, I kiss my way back up her body until I can take her mouth with mine.
“That was…” she starts, then seems to lose the ability to form complete sentences.
“That was just the beginning,” I promise.
She watches with hooded eyes as I strip off the rest of my clothes. When I settle between her thighs again, she wraps her legs around my waist and pulls me closer.
“I need you inside me,” she whispers. “Now.”
I enter her slowly, giving her time to adjust to my size. She feels like heaven around me, hot and tight and perfect. When I’m fully seated, I pause to let us both catch our breath.
And then I start with slow, deep strokes that have her gasping my name. Her nails dig into my shoulders as I establish a rhythm that pushes us both toward the edge. This isn’t the desperate coupling from the hotel—this is something deeper, more connected, more real.
“Look at me,” I command as her eyes start to drift closed. “I want to see you when you come.”
Those green eyes lock onto mine, and suddenly, I can see straight into her soul. The vulnerability there, the trust, the growing affection that mirrors my own—it’s almost too much to bear.
“Maksim,” she breathes, and I can hear everything she’s not saying in the way she speaks my name.
My pace increases, driven by a need that goes beyond physical desire. When she starts to tighten around me, I know she’s close again.
“Come for me, kitten,” I growl against her ear. “Let me feel you.”
Her second orgasm triggers my own, and I bury my face in her neck as I spill myself inside her. For several long moments, we stay locked together, breathing hard and trembling from the aftermath.
When I finally pull away, she curls against my side like she belongs there. The thought sends a bolt of panic through me—not because I don’t want her there, but because I want it too much.
This woman has become essential to me in ways I never expected. The realization should terrify me. It should trigger every instinct I have to run before things get too involved. But lying here with her warm body against mine, all I feel is contentment.
“What are you thinking about?” she asks, breaking the quiet.
“You. Us. How right this feels.”
She tilts her head to look at me with surprise. “Does it scare you? How right it feels?”
“It should,” I admit. “But it doesn’t. That probably scares me more than anything else.”
She laughs softly, and the sound vibrates against my chest. “I know what you mean. I keep waiting for the panic to set in, for all my survival instincts to kick in and tell me to run. But they’re not.”
“Good. Because I’m not letting you run this time.”
We fall asleep tangled together, and for the first time in my adult life, I don’t feel the urge to slip away before morning. When I wake with her still in my arms, it feels like the most natural thing in the world.
***
Three days later, I bring her to another family gathering at Aleksei’s estate. This one is smaller—just the brothers and their children—but I want to see how she fits into this part of my life, too.
“Uncle Maksim!” Three small voices shriek in unison as we walk through the front door, and suddenly, I’m surrounded by tiny, nearly identical bodies demanding attention.
“There are my favorite troublemakers,” I say as I crouch down to gather all three kids into a group hug. “Have you been behaving for your parents?”
“We’re always good,” six-year-old Sofia declares, batting her eyelashes.
“That’s not what I heard from your father,” I tease, earning giggles from all three.
The third child, Anya, named after my late sister, tugs on my sleeve with serious eyes. “Uncle Maksim, who’s the pretty lady?”
I glance up to find Alyssa watching us with an adoring smile. “That’s Alyssa. She’s very special to me.”
“Is she your girlfriend?” Lina, the youngest triplet by a minute, asks with the blunt curiosity of a six-year-old.
“Something like that,” I answer diplomatically.
“Can she play with us?” little Anya asks hopefully.
“Why don’t you ask her yourself?”
The three kids immediately swarm Alyssa, chattering questions and demands faster than she can possibly respond. But instead of looking overwhelmed, she laughs and kneels down to their level.
“What should we play?” she asks, and their faces light up like Christmas morning.
What follows is two hours of chaos as Alyssa gets completely absorbed in their games.
She builds block towers with Marco, has tea parties with Sofia, and reads storybooks to Anya with different voices for all the characters.
The kids adore her instantly, and watching her with them only makes me want her more.
“She’s good with them,” Aleksei observes as he joins me where I’m standing in the doorway watching the scene unfold.
“She’s good with everyone.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
I know what he meant. Alyssa looks like she belongs here, surrounded by family and laughter and the kind of domestic joy that most people in our world never get to experience. She looks like she could be the mother of my children someday, and the thought doesn’t bother me the way it should.
“Don’t,” I warn, recognizing the matchmaking gleam in my brother’s eyes.
“Don’t what?”
“Whatever you’re thinking. Don’t.”
“I’m not thinking about anything. Just observing that she fits in remarkably well for someone who supposedly isn’t family.”
Dmitri appears beside us with a smirk. “Are we discussing Maksim’s denial about his feelings for the woman currently being used as a human jungle gym?”
“I don’t have feelings,” I lie automatically.
“Right,” Grigor responds, materializing on my other side like brothers have a supernatural ability to do. “That’s why you’ve been watching her like she might disappear if you look away.”
“And why you get that dopey smile every time she laughs,” Akim adds, because apparently this is now a group intervention.
“I don’t get dopey,” I protest.
“You absolutely get dopey,” Nikolai confirms as he rounds out the circle of meddling siblings. “It’s actually kind of endearing.”
“You’re all imagining things.”
“I don’t know,” Aleksei challenges. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you’re in love with her.”
The word is like a bucket of cold water, even though I’ve been dancing around it in my mind for days. Love. Is that what this is? This overwhelming need to protect her, to make her happy, to ensure she never wants for anything again?
“Even if I were,” I carefully reply, “it doesn’t matter. She’s been through enough trauma with controlling men. The last thing she needs is me pushing her into something she’s not ready for.”
“Who says you’d be pushing?” Dmitri asks. “Maybe she’s ready for exactly what you want to give her.”
“Look at her, Maksim,” Aleksei prompts. “Really look at her. Does that look like a woman who’s here out of obligation?”
I follow his line of sight to where Alyssa is now lying on the floor, letting all three kids climb over her like she’s playground equipment. She’s laughing at something Sofia whispered in her ear, her face bright with genuine joy.
“She looks like she’s home,” Grigor observes.
He’s right. She does look at home. In fact, she looks more comfortable and relaxed than I’ve ever seen her. The guarded woman who used to flinch at unexpected sounds has been replaced by someone who glows with contentment.
“What if she decides she wants to leave after this situation with Troy is resolved?” I ask, voicing the fear that keeps me awake at night. “What if she realizes she doesn’t actually want this life?”
“Then you let her go,” Aleksei states simply. “But you don’t make that decision for her. You give her the choice.”
“And if she chooses to stay?”
“Then you thank whatever gods you believe in and spend the rest of your life making sure she never regrets it.”
The conversation is interrupted by Anya tugging on my pant leg. “Uncle Maksim, Alyssa says she knows how to climb really high things. Can she climb the big tree in the garden?”
“Can she?” I ask, grinning down at my niece.
“Oh yes,” Alyssa calls from her position on the floor. “I’m an excellent climber.”
“Show us!” all three kids demand in unison.
As we move toward the garden, my brothers’ words echo in my head. Maybe they’re right. Maybe I’ve been so focused on protecting Alyssa from another controlling relationship that I’ve failed to see what she actually wants.
Maybe what she wants is exactly what I’m too afraid to offer.
Watching her boost little Anya up to the first branch of the oak tree while the other kids cheer her on, I realize that the thought of her leaving doesn’t just fill me with misery—it fills me with determination to ensure she never wants to.
Because somewhere along the way, this stopped being about keeping her safe and started being about keeping her forever.