Chapter 20 Taking a Moment
Chapter twenty
Taking a Moment
Sunday felt like it had taken three years off her life, but it was finally fucking over. Technically, and hopefully in every meaningful way. She still needed to wind down enough to actually sleep.
Evelina tipped her head back and closed her eyes, trying to let the spray from the practically antique showerhead soothe her. Even figuring out a single night’s sleeping arrangements had been too much of a headache. She didn’t want to think about any of it.
She didn’t know how to make her brain shut off.
Her throat swelled with another rush of emotion—sadness, guilt, oppressively familiar grief, rage, helplessness, all of it bundled into one—as the acrid stench of the freshly extinguished fire burned through her memory.
What the fire hadn’t directly destroyed had been mostly lost to the relief efforts.
Between the flame, smoke, water, and apparently necessary structure destruction that came with fighting fire, the Nikolaev house was unlivable.
In a grand, ironic twist, only the basement had sustained sparse enough damage that it could continue to function.
Evelina pushed out a hard breath. Was this really the same day she’d woken up in that hotel room in Fort Wayne feeling light, optimistic, and something akin to happy?
There is good news.
She repeated the reminder to herself as she leaned forward, fingers digging into the old tile on the wall. There is good news. It was true.
She’d set her pride and her genetic stubbornness aside long enough to listen to Pavel’s advice and managed a rushed evacuation.
Some people tripped, some people were bruised, possessions were left behind that live-in staff would have preferred to keep, but the people made it out.
There was even still hope that some of the smaller things would prove salvageable in the light of day.
And, well, if maybe not all the people had made it out and maybe that was on purpose, Evelina didn’t count that as a loss, either.
If Viktor ended up being the only death that resulted from Pyotr’s latest temper-tantrum, it served both of them right.
She only wished they’d caught the actual arsonists.
Her fingers dug into the worn grout lines of the tile.
Still, it was good they had heavy influence in the responding fire crew.
It was good that nearly all the people on-site, if only for their own reasons and even if temporarily, had played along and supported her blended truths. But it was all bullshit.
All of it. Because none of it should have happened.
“Easy, now,” Otto murmured in her ear, suddenly curling a hand around one of her extended arms as his other arm looped around her waist. He pulled her away from the wall, into his naked and already wet body, and bent his head lower to press a kiss to her neck. “Prosto dyshi.”
Her lungs expanded as if she’d been struggling to draw breath before and she sank into his hold. Maybe she had. Her head was too full.
Otto released her wrist in favor of trailing his fingers up her abdomen, over her chest, and pressing his palm between her breasts. “Slower, baby. Deeper breaths.”
Evelina let her eyes close and allowed herself merely to follow along, to focus on the moment and the sensations and the weight of his palm moving with the rise-and-fall of her lungs.
He pressed a kiss to her hair. “That’s better. Good girl.”
She found a smile. “This is way nicer than when you just abruptly haul me out of my freak-out showers while you’re fully dressed.”
He snorted and the hand over her hip gripped her tighter. “Yeah.” His breath practically disappeared into the tiny streams from the shower that continued to rain down on them. “But it’s more dangerous.”
Brief, soft laughter trickled past her lips and Evelina deliberately rocked her ass backward, grinding it against his arousal. “Some danger is fun.”
“Lina,” Otto said, a warning laced with the groan in his voice.
She did understand. She just didn’t want to.
She traced her fingers over his muscular forearms, allowing herself another moment to relish the strength and warmth of his grip, before dredging up the words she didn’t want to say.
“It’s okay,” she whispered. “I’m not going to drown in here or anything.
” She gave his arms a squeeze. “Thank you.” It wasn’t fair of her to ask him to stay with her like this, or at all. Not that night.
Otto sighed, removed one arm from her, and twisted the shower handle into the off position. “Apparently I haven’t made myself clear yet.”
Evelina tilted her head to blink up at him, thoroughly confused.
He swept her up, used his elbow to push open the shower stall door, and carried her toward the vanity.
Without a word, he set her down and snatched up the towel she’d set out, then proceeded to scrub at her hair and around her body.
He gave her hair an extra squeeze, surely aware of how it tended to hold moisture, then flipped the same towel around himself in a half-assed wipe-down. All without breaking eye-contact.
Her heart picked up speed. Why was he behaving like this? She didn’t think she’d said anything strange. Hadn’t he been trying to pull her out of her negative headspace?
The towel hit the floor and Otto took her by the hand, tugging her along with him from the bathroom.
Naked.
Her eyes blew wide and she attempted to pull him—them—backward. “Otto!” She barely kept her voice at a hiss. “Your dad—”
“Is upstairs, mindin’ his own business,” Otto replied, his voice calm and at a frustratingly conversational level. He tightened his grip remorselessly.
Heat rushed through her and Evelina hurried closer, all but pressing herself against his back as they walked the short distance from the detached bathroom to the guest room Iouri Voronin had graciously bequeathed to her.
She called it a guest room, anyway. Once upon a time, it had been Otto’s room.
Apparently, he’d moved to the downstairs bedroom in his teens in some rebellious attempt to put distance between himself and his parents.
When she’d been clearer-headed, Evelina had thought that was hilarious.
Otto twisted them around enough to kick the door properly shut, threw the lock with his free hand, and in a move any professional dancer would be envious of, Evelina was once more completely off her feet. Her fingers dug into his shoulders on reflex even as her mind scrambled to keep up.
He sat down on the edge of the bed and moved a hand to the nape of her neck. “Straddle me.”
“What?” She was amazed with herself for not screeching the word. Did he not realize his father was nearby? Did he not realize how much thinner the walls in his childhood home were? She licked her lips and hurried to whisper, “Otto, we can’t. Not here! It’s— It’s indecent!”
His lips kicked up in a smirk and he gave her a meaningful squeeze. “We can, and we’re going to, but first we’ve got some things to talk about. And it’s a conversation we need to have properly. Now straddle me so you can slide that sweet cunt over my dick.”
Her body throbbed and she swallowed a stupid whimper at his words. “Wh-why can’t we talk like this?”
Otto leaned closer, his lips teasing hers with each powerful word. “Because you’ll remember it better with your pussy stretched to capacity around my cock while I hold your heart up against mine.”
What am I even supposed to say against that? It was a losing battle. Her own body wanted her to give in. So, she let out a slow breath, and when she moved to shift over him, he eased his grip.
It was no effort to adjust herself on his lap.
The dim lighting in the room made his tattoos look somehow darker against his skin, giving him a strangely heightened impression of power and danger that sent a ridiculous thrill through her.
She couldn’t stop the smile that curved her lips, belying her earlier argument, as his hands stroked up her thighs to anchor over her hips.
There just was nothing like the way Otto touched her.
Otto squeezed her hips and lifted her up. “Take me in, baby. Deep as you can.”
The breath caught in her throat even as she felt him push at her entrance.
“O-Otto!” What did it say about her that they hadn’t even kissed and she was so wet for him?
Just from a few touches and even fewer dirty words…
. She ceased to care as she sank further onto him, rocking her hips a bit until her pelvis was flush against his.
The stretch burned a little, but in the best damn way.
Her hands immediately returned to his shoulders as a long, low moan escaped her.
Otto adjusted his grip, taking both of her ass cheeks in his big hands and locking her tight against him. A groan rumbled up his chest, vibrating through and into hers.
Evelina dipped her head and pressed a kiss to his neck, then another. “I don’t know how you expect to have any kind of coherent conversation while we’re fucking,” she mumbled between kisses.
He made a sound like a laugh, dragged one hand up her spine until he had tangled it in her hair, and pulled.
When he’d created only enough distance between them that they could meet each other’s eyes again, he said, “No fucking. Not yet. Not until after the talking.” His other hand moved to the small of her back, keeping his arm curved around her and holding her firmly in place.
“We’ll talk exactly like this, as long as we need. ”
Bozhe moy. He wanted to have his apparently serious conversation … while he was hard and throbbing inside her. She’d never heard a better idea in her life.