17. Ofelia
Ofelia
When I wake, the master suite is empty, and brilliant sunlight creeps around the edge of the blinds.
Wake?
I stretch languorously, smiling to myself.
We barely slept.
Dawn was threading the horizon the last time we reached for each other.
That time was quiet, rocking together beneath the distant glimmer of gold on the horizon, orgasm a slow, rolling sea that took me down into a dreamless sleep.
I glance at my phone and feel a surge of guilt when I realize it’s almost midday.
From the bathroom I head straight out onto the deck. I duck under the outdoor shower and dive into the pool naked, plunging deep beneath the water, then stroke to the end, where I surface and tread water, staring out at the glittering sea.
I could just stay here.
There’s a delicious sense of freedom on the yacht, as if Alexei and I occupy a private kingdom that is ours alone. Despite there being a significant crew, their quarters are below deck, and I never heard nor saw a soul last night.
I hope they didn’t hear us. I stare along the pool to the daybed upon which Alexei so carefully took me apart last night. The daybed has been remade by some diligent crewmember, returned to its normal pristine state.
Unlike me.
A slow smile spreads across my face, my body clenching at the memory.
There’s no getting my pristine state back again.
I’ve never been so glad to be rid of something in my life.
“I like that smile.”
I tilt my head back as Alexei comes up the bow access steps.
Clad in swimming shorts, water streaming down his body, he’s clearly just been in the sea.
Bending over, he shakes his head, sending a torrent of salt water over me, and I squeal.
Tumbling into the pool, he drags me under with him, then comes up, pressing me against the wall, his hands either side of my face.
“Good morning.” He kisses me so slowly and thoroughly that by the time he pulls away, my legs are wrapped around his waist and we’re both gasping.
“No.” Giving me a mock stern look, he unlocks my legs from around him.
“First, food.” He hauls himself out of the pool, then pulls me up, his eye darkening as it runs over my naked body.
Even fresh out of the sea, his missing eye is still covered by the eye patch.
“Make that clothes first, or else there’s no chance of me eating anything but you. ”
“I don’t know.” Walking toward the sliding door, I peep at him over my shoulder. “Being eaten sounds pretty good to me.” I have the satisfaction of seeing his dick swell beneath his shorts as I close the door behind me.
I shower, remaining surprisingly unmolested throughout. My body is both sore and deliciously relaxed, like I’ve run a marathon then had the best massage of my life.
Which I guess I have, I think, giggling to myself. Inside and out.
I’m glad we’re alone here, or at least, without anyone who knows us properly. Glad there’s no Lourdes or Benny to cast knowing glances at me and ask for details. No family to . . . Well, I think dryly, toweling my hair, to shoot him, which they undoubtedly would.
I don’t bother to stop and marvel at how truly fucked-up that is. It’s just the way our world is.
And there’s no point worrying about it, I think, because it’s not a problem I have any idea how to solve.
The only thing I know is that for the first time I can ever remember, I am truly, unadulteratedly happy.
And I have no intention of giving that up—no matter how many guns get pointed at us.
“We’re getting dressed.” It’s two days later, and I’ve just emerged from the shower after Alexei derailed breakfast by deciding my body was better to lick honey from than his toast. “No.” I shake my finger and back away from his speculative glance at my towel.
“It’s been two days since I sat at a piano.
You know I love being here, but at some point I am going to have to go home and practice. ”
“What if I said you could practice here?” Alexei’s mouth curls in a smile I can’t quite read.
I grimace. “I know you’ve probably got an electronic keyboard I can use, and that will do, I guess, for a day or two. But eventually I’m going to need a proper piano.”
“Understood.” Throwing back the covers, he stands up, not even attempting to hide an impressive hard-on, which has me suddenly wetter than the pool and rethinking my resolve.
“Not a chance,” he says, giving me a knowing look as he passes on his way to the shower.
“I won’t be held responsible for you falling behind in practice. ”
I watch until the shower door closes behind him, resisting the urge to open it and see to what imaginative use he puts the soap.
After so many years of desperate longing, the compulsion to touch Alexei, to be close to him, is overwhelming. I’ve traced every scar on his body, every line of ink.
Other than what lies behind the eye patch, of course. That boundary is one I not only understand, but respect.
I don’t need to know the stories behind the many lines crisscrossing his flesh.
My own time with the Orlovs is more than enough for my imagination to fill in the blanks.
And I knew, even back then, that Alexei didn’t come by his precision with a blade by happy chance.
I know the only way he mastered those skills was from being subjected to the same punishment himself, repeatedly.
Even the ink marking his skin is familiar, the bratva star on his shoulder marking him as pakhan the same as that worn by my father and my grandfather.
There’s no mystery to me in what Alexei is.
The mystery lies in what we’re destined to be together.
And the thought of going back to Granada without him is terrifying. I feel like the moment I leave, he’ll disappear, along with the part of myself that now belongs to him, a part I know can’t ever be truly reclaimed.
But thankfully, before I can dwell too long on that dark prospect, the shower shuts off.
Smiling to myself, I dress hastily, before my own seemingly incessant desire for Alexei derails me for another day.
Having entirely avoided both the crew and the dragons for the past two days, I’m rather self-conscious when I pass Teresa on my way through the salons. To her credit, she merely nods politely at me, although I don’t miss the withering glare she offers Alexei when she thinks I don’t notice.
Not that it affects him in the slightest, going by the shit-eating grin he gives her in response.
“Be nice,” I hiss as we move out of hearing range. “She’s keeping our secrets.”
“Not if you count her daily reports to Mak,” Alexei says dryly. “Although I didn’t see anything in them about those little noises you make when you’re about to come, so at least she’s keeping the reports strictly professional.”
“I do not make little noises.”
“You do.” Stopping at a locked door, he turns and kisses me, hard enough to take my breath away and turn my insides to molten heat.
“See?” His low voice curls in my ear. “You’re making them right now.
And if I just slide my fingers up here .
. .” His hand inches up my thigh beneath the thin cotton sundress until I gasp. “You’ll start making even better ones.”
This time when he kisses me it’s slower, more deliberate, and hot enough that I’m about to consign all thoughts of practice to the sea, when he abruptly breaks off.
“Ofelia.”
Oh, the way he says my name.
“Uh-huh,” I moan, no longer caring what Teresa, or anyone else, writes in their report.
But he’s stepped out of reach, though not without considerable effort, going by the dark look in his eye and the savage thrust beneath his shorts.
“Practice,” he says sternly, wagging a finger at me.
I give a gurgle of laughter that elicits one of the rare, open smiles that touch me somewhere deep inside every time I see them. “Fine, then.” I nod at the electric keypad on the door. “What is this, your private kink room?”
“Private kink room?” He shakes his head, casting his eye skyward. “You have a one-track mind, Borovsky. Now. Stand aside.”
Still laughing, I do as he says.
The door clicks open, and just like that, the laughter dies in my throat.
In the middle of a vast salon, beneath a vaulted ceiling, stands a Steinway grand piano.
I take a tentative step toward it, then halt, a thousand questions stuck in my throat.
“I commissioned an acoustic engineer to design this salon.” Alexei’s voice, coming from behind me, is low and quiet.
“The floors are engineered wood, which apparently combines with the vaulted ceiling to provide optimum sound. You can open the sliding doors, if you want,” he says, “or keep them closed. It’s up to you. ”
Unable to find my voice, I cross the floor to the piano and press one of the keys, almost sighing with pleasure at the mellow tone.
“It was tuned yesterday,” Alexei says. “By the same guy who set up your piano in Granada. Don’t worry,” he adds. “Andrew told him the piano was for a corporate client, so nobody knows it’s for you.”
I stroke the sleek surface, my heart too full to easily speak.
“I hope I got it right.” For the first time, I hear a trace of uncertainty in his voice. “Nobody else has used it, if that’s a concern. The room has been . . . closed since the yacht launched.”
I turn to find him watching me, his lone eye shadowed and watchful.
“You’re worried I don’t like it?”
He clears his throat, tilting his head in an ameliorating gesture, and I almost laugh.
Almost.
I cross the floor, wrap my arms around his neck, and kiss him, long and sweet, on and on. I try to put into the kiss all the things I know I don’t have words for.
The beautiful piano.
The incredible space.
And most of all, the fact that he did all of this months ago. Not recently. Not even since Paris.
Before.
Before he ever knew we were going to be together. He had this room specially designed for me, without ever knowing if I’d even see it.
And somehow, that knowledge is a greater gift than even the piano itself.
“You thought of me,” I whisper against his mouth. “Even before Paris, you were thinking of me.”
He pulls back, looking down at me. “You’re all I’ve thought of. For years now.” His eye narrows. “You know that, Ofelia,” he says slowly, “don’t you?”
“I . . .” My voice trails off.
How do I explain the years of loneliness and doubt? The ever-present fear, lurking even now just beneath the surface of sunshine and laughter, that this can’t last? That one day soon he’ll sail away, leaving me alone once again?
“Ofelia?” He tilts my face up towards his own. “What is it?”
But I can’t say those words. I don’t want to bring them into this room. Into this perfect time we have together.
Instead, I turn toward the one thing that says more than I ever can: the piano. “I want to play you something.” I nod to the sofa near the windows, avoiding his eyes as I pull the score up on my phone.
Seating myself at the piano, I begin to play.