Chapter Twenty-Six - Aleksandr
The security issue happens on a Thursday.
A credible threat against the Moscow estate—nothing immediate, but enough that Viktor insists on relocating until the situation is neutralized. I have a secondary property outside the city, smaller but equally secure.
Elena accepts the news with her usual composure. Packs a bag without complaint. Sits quietly in the car while Viktor drives us through Moscow traffic.
The car is too small. Too enclosed. The space between us feels suffocating despite us not touching.
She stares out the window, hand resting on the barely visible swell of her belly. Six weeks pregnant now. Not showing yet except to someone who knows where to look.
I know where to look.
I watch her profile, the set of her jaw, the tension in her shoulders, the careful blankness of her expression. Watch her trace absent patterns on her stomach, soothing a child she hasn’t fully acknowledged yet.
The need to touch her claws through my chest. To close the distance. To make her look at me instead of through me.
“Elena,” I say quietly.
“Yes?” Polite. Distant.
“Are you comfortable? Do you need anything?”
“I’m fine. Thank you.”
The formality of it makes something twist in my gut. We’re back to this. To careful politeness and strategic distance. To her treating me like a captor instead of—
Instead of what? Her husband? The father of her child? The man who admitted he can’t let her go even knowing everything he did wrong?
“Talk to me,” I say.
“We are talking.”
“You know what I mean.”
She finally looks at me. Her expression is carefully neutral. “What would you like to discuss?”
Everything. Nothing. The fact that this distance is destroying me. That watching her withdraw into polite composure is worse than her anger ever was.
“How are you feeling?” I ask instead. “With the pregnancy. Any symptoms I should know about?”
“The nausea is better. I’m tired but managing.” She returns her gaze to the window. “Dr. Kuzmin said everything is progressing normally.”
“Good. That’s good.”
Silence falls again. Heavy and suffocating.
I can’t do this anymore. “I can’t handle this,” I say abruptly.
She looks at me again, something flickering in her eyes. “Can’t handle what?”
“This. The distance. The silence.” I force myself to meet her gaze. “You’re polite, you’re present, you do everything that’s asked of you. You’re not here. Not really. I don’t know how to exist in this space between wanting you and being shut out.”
“I’m giving you what you asked for. Compliance. Cooperation.”
“I don’t want compliance.” The words come out rougher than intended. “I want—”
“What? What do you want from me, Aleksandr?”
“I want you to stop treating me like I’m dangerous,” I say instead.
“You are dangerous.”
“Not to you. Not anymore.” I lean forward slightly. “I know I’ve given you every reason to be guarded. I know trust has to be earned and I haven’t earned it yet. But this—” I gesture between us. “—this careful distance feels like punishment.”
“It’s not punishment. It’s protection.”
“From what?”
“From getting confused. From mistaking possession for care. From forgetting that this started with lies and force and manipulation.” Her hands clench in her lap.
“You admitted you kept the truth about my family from me. That you chose possession over honesty. How am I supposed to…?” Her voice cracks.
“How am I supposed to trust that anything between us is real when the foundation was built on lies?”
The rawness in her voice makes my chest ache.
“I know,” I say quietly. “I know I fucked up. I know the foundation is broken. But we’re here regardless.
You’re carrying my child. We’re bound together whether the beginning was right or wrong.
So what do we do? Keep existing in this limbo?
Or try to build something real on top of the broken foundation? ”
“I don’t know how to do that.”
“Neither do I.” I reach out slowly, giving her time to pull away. Take her hand in mine. “I can’t keep pretending distance is sustainable. I need…” I struggle for words. “I need you. Not as an obligation. Not as a wife fulfilling duties. As the only thing that steadies me.”
Her breath catches. “That’s not fair.”
“I know.”
“You can’t ask that of me.” She shakes her head. “I don’t know if I have that to give.”
“Then give me what you can, but stop shutting me out completely.”
We sit like that, hands clasped, while Viktor drives us farther from the city. The silence is different now. Still heavy, but less suffocating.
“I’m scared,” she admits finally. “Of this. Of us. Of not knowing if I’m choosing you or just surviving you.”
“I’m scared too.”
She looks at me sharply. “You don’t look scared.”
“I’ve told you before. I’m very good at hiding it[14].” I squeeze her hand. “I’m terrified. That I’ve broken something I can’t fix. That you’ll never trust me. That our child will grow up in a house where their mother is just going through the motions.”
“Then why did you—” She stops, swallows. “Why keep me if you knew it might end like this?”
“Letting you go was impossible.” [15]I bring her hand to my lips, press a kiss to her knuckles. “I’m selfish. Obsessed. Probably incapable of healthy love. But you’re mine. And I’m yours, whether you want me or not.”
***
The house outside the city is smaller than the Moscow estate. Isolated. Surrounded by forest on three sides, the only access a private road with security checkpoints.
Safe. Secure, and far too intimate for the tension between us.
Elena explores the space with her usual careful attention. Cataloging exits, windows, patterns. Even now, even pregnant and exhausted, she’s looking for vulnerabilities.
I watch her from the doorway, trying to decide if that survival instinct is admirable or heartbreaking. Probably both.
“There’s only one bedroom,” she says, turning to face me.
“Yes.”
“You planned this.”
“No, but I’m not complaining about the circumstances either.” I move into the room slowly. “We can make it work. I’ll take the couch if you prefer.”
“Don’t.” She shakes her head. “Don’t offer me distance you don’t want to give. I’m tired of the pretense.”
“Then what do you want?”
“I want—” She breathes out shakily. “I want honesty. Even if it’s ugly. Even if it’s possessive and unhealthy and everything I should run from. Just honesty.”
I close the distance between us. Stop when I’m close enough to touch but don’t yet.
“Honest? I’m obsessed with you. I think about you constantly.
Where you are, what you’re doing, if you’re safe.
I can’t sleep properly when you’re curled away from me on the opposite side of the bed.
I watch you unconsciously touch your stomach and want to touch it too, want to feel proof that our child is real and growing.
The distance of the past three weeks has been torture.
I’m not patient enough to keep giving you space I don’t want to give. ”
Her breathing has gone shallow.
“That’s honest,” I continue. “That’s what I want. You. Not compliance. Not polite distance. Just you, choosing me or fighting me or anything that’s real instead of this careful nothing.”
“What if I don’t know how to choose you?”
“Then choose this moment. Just this one. We’ll figure out the rest as it comes.”
I back her gently against the wall, hands coming up to brace on either side of her shoulders. Not trapping. Just surrounding. My forehead rests against hers, breathing her in.
“You say you want control,” she whispers. “This feels like begging.”
“It is begging.” I don’t deny it. “If it were just control, I’d take. I wouldn’t be standing here asking. Hoping. Needing you to choose this.”
Her hands come up to rest on my chest, feeling my heartbeat. “I hate how much I want to choose it.”
“Then choose it anyway.”
My hands slide down from the wall to her waist, pulling her closer. She comes willingly, hands moving to my shoulders, then my hair.
I touch her like I’m memorizing her all over again. Slower than before, more reverent, like this moment is binding in ways all the others weren’t.
This is the moment she stops choosing distance. The moment I stop pretending this is strategy or possession or anything other than what it actually is.
I pull back just enough to look at her. “Are you choosing this? Me? Right now, in this moment?”
“Yes,” she breathes. “I’m choosing this. You. Right now.”
“Just right now?”
“I can’t promise more than this moment. This moment, yes. I choose it.”
It’s not enough. Should never be enough. Somehow it is.
I kiss her again, deeper this time. My hands map her body with careful reverence—the swell of her belly barely visible under her clothes, the curve of her waist, the softness of her skin.
She pulls back slightly. “Aleksandr—”
“I’m in love with you,” I say before I can stop myself. “I don’t know when it happened. Maybe the auction. Maybe when you broke into my facility. Maybe when you ran and I nearly lost my mind, but it happened. I can’t pretend otherwise anymore.”
She stares at me, eyes wide. “Oh. You can’t mean that.”
“I can. I am.” I cup her face. “I’m in love with you. Obsessively. Unhealthily. In ways that probably aren’t sustainable or fair. But it’s real, and you deserve to know.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything. Just don’t shut me out. That’s all I’m asking.”
She’s trembling. I can feel it under my hands. “I’m still angry,” she whispers.
“I know.”
“I still don’t trust you completely.”
“That’s pretty obvious.”
“I—” She swallows hard. “I don’t want the distance either. I don’t want to keep pretending I don’t feel this. Whatever this is.”
“Then don’t pretend.”
We stand like that, foreheads touching, breathing each other’s air. The world outside this moment doesn’t matter. Just us. Just this.
Finally, she pulls back. “Take me to bed.”
“Elena.”
“I need to feel this. Feel you. Feel real instead of just surviving.”
I search her face for doubt, for hesitation. Find none.
“Are you sure? The pregnancy—”
“Is fine. Dr. Kuzmin said normal activity is safe.” Her hands slide up my chest. “Please. I need this.”
I lead her to the bedroom. Strip her slowly, reverently, cataloging every change in her body. The slight swell of her belly. The way her breasts are fuller, more sensitive. The flush spreading across her skin.
When she’s bare before me, I pause. Just look at her.
“You’re beautiful,” I murmur. “Carrying my child. Mine in every way that matters.”
“Show me.” Her voice is breathless. “Show me I’m yours.”
I strip quickly and guide her onto the bed. Settle between her thighs, careful of her belly, my weight braced on my forearms.
“Tell me if anything hurts,” I say. “If you need me to stop, I will.”
“I won’t need you to.”
I push inside slowly, watching her face, feeling her body stretch and adjust around me. She’s so wet, so ready, her cunt gripping me like it doesn’t want to let go.
When I’m fully seated, I pause. Press my forehead to hers.
“I love you,” I say again. “Every stubborn, infuriating, perfect part of you.”
Her breath hitches. “Aleksandr—”
I start moving. All I feel is her body beneath mine, surrounding mine, choosing mine.
“Feel that?” I murmur against her mouth. “Feel how perfectly we fit?”
“Yes!” Her nails dig into my shoulders. “God, yes.”
I angle my hips, finding that spot inside her that makes her gasp. Maintain the rhythm, steady and relentless, while my hand slides between us to circle her clit.
“You’re so beautiful like this,” I tell her. “Taking me. Choosing me. Falling apart for me.”
“Don’t stop—” Her voice breaks. “Faster, please.”
I drive deeper, feel her walls flutter around me. “I’m never stopping. Never letting you go.”
She comes with a broken cry, her cunt pulsing around my cock so hard I nearly lose control. I hold still, buried deep, letting her ride it out.
When she finally stills, trembling and gasping, I start moving again. Slower now, drawing it out, making her feel every thrust while she’s still sensitive.
“My God.” She tries to push at my chest.
I capture her hands, pin them gently above her head. “You chose this. Chose me. Now take everything I have to give.”
I set a rhythm that’s deep and possessive, watching her face as sensation builds again despite her protests. Her eyes go wide, mouth falling open, body arching beneath me.
“That’s it,” I growl. “Let me see you fall apart again. Let me feel it.”
She shatters a second time with my name on her lips. The pulsing of her cunt drags me over with her. I bury myself as deep as I can go and come hard, filling her, marking her.
We collapse together, breathing hard. I roll carefully so she’s draped across my chest, my hand settling protectively over her belly.
“I love you,” I whisper into her hair.
She doesn’t say it back, but her hand covers mine on her stomach, fingers interlacing.