53. Ofelia
Ofelia
Luca Bellini insists on hosting the reception at his family’s main residence, a sprawling, eighteenth-century palazzo perched on the cliffs above the Tyrrhenian Sea.
As the sky deepens with the coming sunset, Alexei and I sit at a long table beneath overhead festoon lights, surrounded by the clinking of cutlery and murmur of contented guests. Beyond the cliffs the sea is deep and still, the Quantum Drift glowing on the water, awaiting our arrival.
Lars and Benny left after the ceremony. Though gray-faced with exhaustion and having clearly far overdone what a frowning Dr. Moretti was happy with, Lars still managed a cheerful, “laters, motherfucker,” when Alexei embraced him again.
“Are you sure you’re okay to be here?” I ask for the tenth time since we finally sat down to eat. “If you want to be at the hospital, I completely understand.”
He raises my hand to his lips, his lone eye deep as the sea beyond and so filled with quiet joy it makes my heart twist. “Not a chance,” he says quietly. “I might never remember all of our wedding, but I plan to enjoy every second of the wedding night.”
“Dr. Moretti said they expect Lars to make a complete recovery.” I smile at him. “Except for the eye, obviously.”
Alexei laughs, a raw, carefree sound. “He always was envious of my patch. Now I guess we’ll match, at least until I get the surgery.”
“You know, you don’t have to get that surgery for me.” I touch his face, tracing the silver lines there. “Every one of these is just a reminder of how far we’ve both come.”
“I know.” He covers my hand with his own. “But the scars are who I was.” He kisses my hand again. “Not who I plan on being every day from now.”
I shiver as his lips linger on my hand. “You have always been the same man, Alexei Naryshkin. You always will be. And I have loved the man you are from the first day we met.”
He gives me the twisted smile that melts my insides. “You mean the day I shot a man at Malaga Airport in front of you, then kidnapped you and flew you back to captivity with the Orlovs?”
“Fine.” I lean on his shoulder. “Maybe not right then. But do you remember later in that trip, when we drove from the airport in Miami to the compound?”
His smile fades, and he nods slowly. “I remember.”
“I think that was when I first began to love you,” I say quietly. “You said in the car: ‘I am the only hope you have of ever seeing your family again. And you are the only chance I have of saving mine.’”
Alexei watches me, his lone eye dark. “That’s not a memory I expected to hear on our wedding day.”
“But don’t you see?” I touch his face again, tracing one of the many lines I’ve come to love so much. “You did all of that, Alexei. You brought us home. And you didn’t just save your family. You saved ours.” Leaning forward, I touch my lips gently to his.
When I might have pulled away, he captures my face, deepening the kiss until the guests around us are whooping and cheering. When we finally part, Darya is wiping her eyes, and my father is holding her close, watching us with a gentle smile I could never have imagined seeing on his face.
Despite the protestations of the Bellinis that we should stay on the island for the night, Alexei and I make a strategic exit just after midnight.
I put my wedding dress and veil on a hanger in the room and change into the dusky-rose silk slip I chose for my leaving outfit.
I pause on the terrace to throw my bouquet. To everyone’s amusement, it’s Benny who manages to catch it.
He came for the last hour of the reception, long after Lars had fallen asleep.
“He’s really going to be okay,” he says, almost as if he still needs to hear it himself.
He’s still pale, with large circles under his eyes, but the haunted terror that has dogged his every expression since the accident has finally left.
“Dr. Moretti said it’s going to be some time before he can fly, so we’re going to stay here awhile. ”
“We won’t be sailing far.” I take his hands. “Alexei wants to stay close.”
“I’m glad.” Benny smiles. “Although, just so you know, we’re doing catch-ups on land, not on a bloody yacht. It’s going to take a while before I set foot aboard any kind of vessel.”
“Absolutely fair.” I nod at the bouquet in his hand. “I hope you plan on telling Lars you caught that.”
His face splits into a wide beam. “Oh, don’t worry, princess. It’s the very first thing I’m going to tell him tomorrow morning.”
As we pass through the crowd of well-wishers, I notice Seline standing on the fringes and pause to take her hands.
“Stay in touch,” I say as she kisses my cheeks. “I’ve missed you.”
“And I you.” She squeezes my hands. “But I’ll be going back to the States for a while. My mother doesn’t have long, and I need to be with her.”
“And after that?”
A shadow passes over her face. “I don’t know. I can’t imagine going back to France. It’s hard to forgive my family for all the damage they’ve done. I think I need to discover who I am now. Not Seline Duval, daughter of fortune-telling gypsies, or Seline Novikov, sister to a murderer.”
“I know how that feels.” Suddenly aware we’re being watched, I realize Mickey is standing close by.
Speaking of murderers, I think dryly. Mickey, by all accounts, has already made something of a deadly name for himself in Miami.
Right now he’s staring coldly at Seline, like she might be next on the list.
Following my eyes, she turns to look at my brother.
Mickey’s eyes narrow.
Tense, I watch them, unsure what either might do.
Then Seline takes a step toward him and holds out her hand.
Mickey stares at it for a moment, then finally takes it.
“Thank you,” she says quietly. She walks away before he has a chance to respond.
“Well,” Alexei says, raising his eyebrows at Mickey. “I guess that went as well as could be expected.”
“Interesting,” Mickey says, his eyes following Seline’s upright figure. “And not at all what I expected.”
Alexei grins. “Get used to that, brother.” He gives Mickey a brief embrace. “You know where I am. But for fuck’s sake, don’t bloody find me for at least a week.”
That at least gets the ghost of a smile from Mickey.
He turns to me as Alexei moves on down the line. “I’m happy for you, ’Felia,” he says quietly. “I’m happy for you both.”
“Thanks, little brother.” I hug his tense, grim figure. “It’ll get better,” I whisper in his ear. “I promise.”
His arms tighten around me, and for a moment we are terrified children again, clinging to each other because there’s nobody else to hold us.
“Perdon.”
We pull apart to find Masha staring solemnly at us both. Without speaking, we draw her into our embrace, and for a long time, there’s just the three of us again.
“I love you, ’Felia,” Masha whispers inside our closed circle. “If anyone had to marry Lexi, I’m glad it was you.”
“Thank you, myshka.” I kiss the tumbled curls beginning to escape her dancer’s bun. “But I promise you, part of his heart will always belong to you.”
Masha lifts an insouciant shoulder, her eyes dancing. “I know,” she says with customary hauteur. She kisses me coolly, then runs to Alexei, who lifts her from the ground, turning her around and around until she laughs aloud.
“We’ll see you soon?” Darya smiles at me through the tears that have flowed through every speech, particularly Papa’s.
“Of course you will.” I hug her hard. “And I’ll call every day, I promise.”
“I highly doubt that.” Zinaida laughs, kissing my cheek. “Congratulations, Ofelia,” she murmurs. “I’m so glad this is how it worked out.”
Papa envelops me in a bear hug. “Be safe,” he says, shaking Alexei’s hand behind my back. I smile at the thinly veiled warning in his voice.
I make my way slowly through the crowd, accepting kisses and congratulations from everyone.
By the time Alexei finally closes the door behind us, the Quantum Drift has never looked more appealing.
I stand by the railing of the yacht, looking back at the party lights on the cliff. Alexei’s arms slide around my waist, and I cover his hands with my own. “I think I like our party better from here.”
“Me, too.” His lips on my neck make me shiver.
“You know we don’t have to sail anywhere. We could stay at anchor so you can be close to Lars—”
“No.”
His voice is low against my ear, his lips continuing their languorous trail along my skin.
“There are phones. Computers. Boats. Helicopters.” He begins to bunch my dress in his hand, and I melt against him.
“But for at least one week, unless the entire world is going to hell, I don’t want to be interrupted by a single one of them. ”
“Only a week?” I turn in his arms, and he captures my mouth, kissing me long and slow, like there’s no hurry in the world.
Which there isn’t.
“Oh, we’re sailing for more than a week.” He starts to pull the pins out of my hair, one by one. “In fact, I plan to keep you on this yacht and to myself for as long as humanly possible.”
I link my hands behind his neck and close my eyes, savoring the relief as he slowly dismantles my elaborate hairdo. “And then?”
Not that I care.
“And then whatever you want, angel. Wherever you want.” His lips curve against mine. “So long as it has a comfortable bed, a piano for you to practice on, and high-speed internet.”
My hair tumbles free, and he gathers it in his hands as he takes my mouth again, thoroughly, until I’m breathless and squirming against him, then he steps back, leaving me hot and wanting.
Barefoot in suit pants, his tux open at the neck to reveal scars and ink, he looks as hard and dangerous as he ever has—and I’ve never wanted him more.
“Do you remember the first night we were up here together?”
Lust, pure and hot, bolts through me. “I remember.”
“You didn’t want to wait.” His lone eye glitters in the distant light. “And you didn’t want to go slow.”
Oh.
“But you know what we’ve both learned, angel?
” He slowly rakes my body, lingering on my breasts thrusting beneath the silk.
He slides one of the thin straps from my shoulder, smiling darkly when I gasp.
“That going slow just means more time to savor the journey.” He slides off the other strap, and the slip falls to the deck, leaving me standing in nothing but crimson lace half-cut knickers.
He steps back, regarding me with such lazy lust that my insides curl, my breath coming short.
“And,” he continues calmly, only the gravelly edge to his voice and hard thrust beneath his suit pants betraying him, “that it doesn’t matter how long that journey takes when you know exactly how it’s going to end.”
He drops his eye to my knickers. “Take them off.”
Turning my back to him, I slide them off, relishing his sharp intake of breath as I bend at the waist.
When I turn back, I have the satisfaction of seeing his smile has disappeared, replaced by the hard, glittering intent that sends fierce heat racing through my every cell.
Covering the distance between us in one sure stride, he picks me up and carries me to the daybed.
The night breeze billows the hangings above and scatters the flowers strewn atop it.
Standing at the edge of the bed, Alexei stares down at me, deliberately allowing his eye to linger on every peak and crevice until I’m helpless beneath his eyes.
“Long before the first night I saw you lying here,” he says roughly, “I knew it was forever. I just didn’t know how to make forever possible.
” He begins to unbutton his shirt, his eye never leaving my body.
I allow my own eyes to roam the achingly familiar landscape of ink, scars, and muscle that has become my territory.
“But after that night,” he says, dropping his shirt to the floor and opening the buckle of his belt, then pulling the leather smoothly through the straps, “I knew one thing with absolute certainty.” Holding the leather in one hand, he pops the catch on his suit pants, his mouth curving as my eyes lock on the hard length straining behind them.
“Do you want to know what that was, angel?”
“Huh?” I drag my eyes back to his face, struggling to focus.
The slightly cruel twist to his mouth betrays how hard he’s working to maintain control and melts whatever was left of my own restraint. “Tell me,” I whisper.
The belt drops open from his hand, and he raises the leather strap, trailing its cool smoothness up the inside of my leg.
“I knew you were a lethal obsession. One I’d never be able to walk away from, no matter how much I knew I should.”
Leather flutters over my swollen flesh with aching precision, so light it’s barely there, and my eyes close as I arch off the bed.
The belt slowly lowers onto my body, its length laid flat over my pulsing sex, just enough weight to drive me insane but not enough to drive me where I desperately want to go. I strain against it helplessly.
“Open your eyes, Ofelia.”
Helpless to disobey, I do as he says. He’s looming over me, holding the silk cord the priest used to bind us in marriage, turning it slowly in his hands.
“Put your hands over your head.” All trace of volatility is gone, his voice low and controlled.
Yes. Oh, God, yes.
As he slips the cord over my wrists, tying them to one of the wooden posts, something dark and dangerous begins to unfurl inside me.
Alexei slowly turns the leather belt on its side so the fine edge rests at the very juncture of my thigh, directly atop the scars made long ago by his knife.
His hand slides higher up my thigh, so close to the most intimate part of me that I can barely breathe, then halts.
I feel the chill touch of the buckle and gasp, my eyes fluttering closed.
“Look at me.”
Still wearing his suit pants, he lowers himself to the bed, his eye blazing with an intensity that matches my own.
“Do you trust me?”
“Always.” My voice is barely there.
The flat of the buckle presses against my outer folds, a strange, cold pressure that makes me suck in my breath. His eye holds my own, and I bite my lip as the point of the buckle pricks my skin with delicate precision.
“Good.” Alexei puts his mouth directly to my ear. “Now scream, Ofelia.”