Chapter Thirty-Seven
In which the best way to cure a nightmare are lots of orgasms.
Liria…
It's the moans that wake me, and then the mattress jostles as Alexsey begins to thrash around.
His forehead is wet with sweat, his eyes screwed shut.
My heart is breaking because I'm pretty sure I know what the dream is about.
His right hand reaches out, searching for his left, his fingers closing on nothing as he gives another anguished moan.
"Alexsey, sweetheart," I cup his face in my hands. "Please wake up. It's just a dream."
His eyes pop open with a sudden, terrifying intensity, abruptly sitting up in bed, scanning the room. Heaving out a deep breath, he runs his hands through his hair. "Did I wake you? I'm sorry."
"It's okay." Tentatively, I run my fingers down his back, slowly, over and over as I hear his breathing even out.
"I haven't had one of those in a while," he says, staring blankly into the dark room.
"Was it about that night at the restaurant?" I ask, that old fear searing me, terrified that he'll look at me with murderous hate again.
"No." He looks at his left arm. There's a tattooed swirl of dark forest there.
The ink flows up his skin, skulls and snakes in black trees.
"It's waking up in that hospital room. My left hand hurting like a motherfucker.
In the dream, my first thought is always, 'Well of course it was full of bullet holes, but at least it's there,' and then I look and there's nothing there. Just a stump."
"Like phantom pains?" I ask. "I've read about those."
He laughs bitterly. "They're vividly realistic, believe me. I wake up almost happy that I'm in pain, because it means that the hand is still there. And every time, it's a kick in the teeth."
"I am so sorry, sweetheart," I say, my heart burning for my husband. "I know there's nothing I can say that will help, but I'm so sorry."
"Hey," he takes my hand and kisses it. "Don't be. It was never your fault. None of it. But… I have come to a decision."
"About what?"
"The surgery," he says. "I'm going to have the new neural implant." He looks at me with a smile, gentler than I've seen before. "I want to be able to hold the babies, and get up at night when they need comforting." He makes a brief face. "Change diapers."
I burst into laughter. "You are committed! What else, sweetheart?"
"I want them to be able to hold my fingers and take their first steps," he says.
"I love you!" I wrap my arms around his neck, straddling him. "I love you so much. You're going to be an amazing dad. I know it."
"Let's not have too many expectations," he says dryly, pulling me closer. "The science may be sound, but the implant may not work for me."
"You will be an amazing dad, with or without the implant. But it will work. I'm certain of it," I say. "Besides, it will work because you know that Choi is going to be insufferable when you come out of this as his biggest success."
Alexsey groans. "It's almost worth not doing it, just so I don't have to look at his smug fucking face for the next year."
"Let him be smug," I say, kissing him, feeling the strength in his beautifully sculpted shoulders.
His Morozov wolf tattoo on his chest glares up at me with its silver eyes.
The size of this man is overwhelming and comforting at the same time.
"If he gets really annoying, you can choke him with your new hand. "
His chest rubs against me in a very distracting way as he laughs uproariously. "It's a neural implant. Not a Terminator hand. I can't rip open car doors or crush skulls with it." His expression changes, eyes turning smoky, speculative. "How are you feeling?" His big hand slides over my stomach.
I close my eyes, feeling the heat of his palm, rough and calloused, running over my skin. "I'm good."
"Oh, yeah?" Alexsey's voice is deeper now, he gets a dark sort of tone when he wants me. "Not too sore?"
"Like that ever stopped you before?" I laugh.
"Now that you're pregnant, we'll have to be careful." He flips me over onto my back and his fingers are sliding into my sleep shorts. "You're delicate."
"I'm delicate?" His fingertip is stroking over my clitoris. It's too light, too gentle to do any good but when I try to lift my hips, he pushes them down again.
"Very delicate," he assures me. Two fingers now, stroking up and down my center.
I flush, my face is hot, there's heat between my legs.
"So beautiful, this perfect body, carrying my children.
But still…" He digs his elbows into the mattress and slides down, blue eyes intent as he spreads my thighs wider. "You're my greedy slut, aren't you?"
Oh, I love his dirty talk…
"Do you know how I can tell, Krasotka, my gorgeous one?" Three fingers now, swirling around my opening and if he'd just let me lift my hips, I could push them into me… His forearm slams me back on the mattress.
"Um… how?"
"How slick you get for me," he rumbles appreciatively, his tongue running along the crease between my thigh and my pussy. "Your lips swell, and I know if I slide a finger inside you…"
Liar. He pushes two fingers inside me and I groan in relief, needing the stretch, how full he makes me feel.
"I know you'll just ask for more, won't you?
" His diabolical gaze is watching my expressions, and his tongue traces a long, silky lick up and down my center, before sliding up to circle my clitoris.
"The taste of you…" His mouth closes over me in a greedy, full kiss, sucking and licking me and when his lips fasten around my clit, he pulls and my back snaps into an arch. "Do you need another finger?"
"I need your cock!"
Oh, god I just said that out loud.
Alexsey looks up from between my legs. "That's the hottest fucking thing you've ever said to me. But not yet."
"What?" My whine is deeply unattractive but I can't seem to help it.
"You're coming on my fingers first." He pushes in a third finger and I grab a fistful of his hair.
I can feel his shoulders shaking in a silent chuckle and I don't care.
"And my tongue." I'm pulling on his hair.
I'm pulling on mine. His mouth is ferocious, licking and biting, his fingers shoving greedily inside me and I'm being dragged toward an orgasm that I know is going to swamp me, make me mindless and desperate.
When his fingers thrust and his lips pull, it's too much and I arch into it, pushing against his mouth and begging for more.
It's like electricity, crackling through me. A tidal wave dragging me under and spinning through the water. It comes in pulses, all heat and wet and his lips and fingers don't stop until I'm weakly pushing against his shoulders.
"There it is," he purrs, his lips wet against my stomach. "So pretty when you come for me. You did so well. I'll take care of you now."
Alexsey pulls back, his lips and chin glistening from me and he draws the back of his hand against his mouth, grinning in the filthiest, most knowing way.
The look of a man who knows he's just taken me apart.
Going back on his knees, ass resting on his heels, he pulls me up with him.
His cock is hard against his sculpted abdomen, the tip thick and leaking.
"Climb on Krasotka, I'm taking you for a ride."
Hauling me up with a grip on my ass, he pulls me close, my breasts slamming against his chest and thighs bracketing his, split wide and straining.
His fingers tighten and he lifts me a bit more, his cock pressed between us, the broad, slick head pushing against my throbbing clitoris and he rasps, "Put me in. "
I'm mindless, fingers wrapping around him, squeezing, nothing more than a desperation to have him in me.
Angling my hips, I put him at my entrance and he pulls me down as his hips thrust up and I scream.
At the top of my lungs I scream because he rips through me so deep I feel like I'm choking.
There's nothing but the weight and heat of him tearing through me and his mouth hissing filthy things to me and sweat and slick making us slippery, rubbing against each other, his hard body bouncing me up and down as if I'm weightless.
"Do you know…" Alexsey's not as cool now, his teeth are gritted with the need to come.
"When I arch you back like this…" He bands his left arm around my waist and his hand cups my breast, pushing me back, my clit rubbing hard against him and then his hand slides down, over where he's buried and throbbing inside me.
"I can feel myself deep in your cunt from here.
" His hand presses down hard and I suck in a shocked breath of air.
I can feel it, too. The heel of his hand pushing hard, his cock inside me feeling thicker and the shock of it makes me come again.
There's nothing else but my husband buried inside me, swelling and spurting as I shake and scream. Wet and warmth. Need and want. The sheer relief of coming with him after he's pushed us this far.
His arms wrap around me, mine around him and we sit, fused together, hearts beating in the same rhythm and breaths drawn into the other through slow, languid kisses.
"How did I ever live without you?" Alexsey groans, his voice hoarse.
"You'll never have to again," I kiss his lovely broad shoulder, his neck, his lips.
"Four of us," he chuckles disbelievingly, looking down between us. "A family."
"I wish we could stay like this forever," I sigh.
"Not forever," he says, kissing me with lips that taste like me. "But for now, at least."