Chapter 20 Daria
Daria
The pelmeni turned out better than I expected.
Kira declared them “almost as good as Babushka’s,” which is the highest compliment she knows how to give.
She ate seven, showed Pyotr how to dip them in sour cream “the right way,” and then passed out on the couch before we could get her into pajamas.
Pyotr carried her to bed while I started the dishes. Now, I’m elbow-deep in soapy water, scrubbing flour paste off the counter, and he’s drying the plates. We move around each other in the small kitchen like we’ve been doing this for years instead of weeks.
It should feel strange. It doesn’t.
“She’s out cold,” he reports as he sets a plate in the cabinet. “Didn’t even stir when I pulled up the covers.”
“Dumpling-making is exhausting work. She takes quality control very seriously.”
“I noticed. She rejected three of mine for being ‘too lumpy.’”
“She rejected four of mine. You got off easy.”
He lets out a low, rumbling laugh that I feel in my chest. It’s becoming my favorite sound. This man who kills people for a living is laughing in my kitchen over dumplings.
I reach up to put a serving bowl on the top shelf, and my shirt rides up. The cool air hits the small of my back, and I don’t think anything of it until I hear Pyotr suck in a breath behind me.
Not in a way that means he likes what he sees, but rather that he’s just seen something he wasn’t supposed to.
I yank down my shirt and turn around, but it’s too late. He’s standing by the dish rack with a towel hanging over his shoulder, and his face has gone blank in a way I’ve learned to recognize. It’s the face he wears when he’s trying very hard not to feel something.
“Pyotr—”
“How many times?”
I don’t pretend to misunderstand. “Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
I wrap my arms around myself, a reflex I can’t seem to break. “I don’t know. I stopped counting after the first year.”
He sets the towel on the counter and crosses the kitchen toward me. I take a step back, but the counter blocks my retreat.
“I’ve seen some of them,” he concedes. “In the dark. In pieces. But you always kept your back covered. I didn’t realize you were hiding this.”
He’s right. Every time we’ve been together, I’ve been strategic about it without realizing it. Facing him during sex. Keeping my shirt on until the last second. Making sure the lights were too dim to see the full picture.
It’s become so automatic that I forgot I was doing it.
“Can I look?” he asks.
I nod once. “Yes.”
No one has ever asked. Bogdan certainly never asked permission for anything. In the years since I left him, I’ve made sure no one got close enough to see the whole of what he did to me.
“They’re ugly,” I whisper.
“I don’t care.”
“I care.”
“I know.” He lifts his hand and hovers it near my waist, waiting. “Let me see, golubka. Please.”
Something about the way he asks breaks through my defenses. Pyotr doesn’t beg. Pyotr demands. Pyotr commands. But right now, he’s asking, and the gentleness in his voice makes me blink back the wetness gathering in my eyes.
I turn around, and his fingers find the hem of my shirt. He lifts it slowly, giving me time to stop him. I don’t. The fabric slides up my back, exposing skin I’ve kept hidden for years.
For a long moment, he doesn’t move or speak. I feel him looking, and I want to crawl out of my skin.
Then, his fingertips brush the first scar.
I flinch, but he doesn’t pull away. He traces the raised line of tissue from my hip to my spine, featherlight before he moves to the next one. And the next. Mapping the damage Bogdan left behind.
“Belt,” he surmises.
“Sometimes. Sometimes other things.”
His touch moves higher, finding the cluster of small circular scars between my shoulder blades.
“Cigarettes.”
I nod, not trusting my voice.
He presses his lips to one of them, just a brush of warmth against ruined skin. Then another. Another. Kissing each mark like he can erase what made them.
“I’m going to kill him,” he declares. “Slowly. I want you to know that.” He turns me to face him, and his eyes are blazing with anger. “No one touches you again. No one hurts you again. Not while I’m breathing.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“I just did.”
His hand is still on my hip where my shirt rode up, and his thumb is moving against my bare skin. I don't think he realizes he's doing it.
His eyes drop to my mouth. His fingers dig into my hip, then ease off like he's catching himself.
Then, he takes my hand and leads me out of the kitchen, down the short hallway, and past Kira’s closed door to my bedroom. He shuts the door behind us and turns the lock.
“Stop means stop,” he reminds me. “Say it back.”
“Stop means stop.”
He reaches for the bottom of my shirt again. This time, he pulls it over my head and drops it on the floor. I resist the urge to cover myself and hide the scars that litter my stomach and ribs.
His eyes move over me, taking note of every mark. Then he reaches behind me and unclasps my bra. It falls away, and I stand in front of him bare from the waist up.
“Beautiful,” he murmurs.
“I’m not—”
“Don’t.” He cups my face in his hands. “Don’t tell me what you’re not. I can see what you are. You’re a survivor. You’re a fighter. And you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever touched.”
I blink hard, fighting back the tears that want to fall. He catches my chin and tilts my face up.
“Lie down on the bed. On your stomach.”
The request surprises me, but I obey and take my place on the mattress with my cheek pressed against the pillow. I hear the rustle of fabric as he strips off his shirt, and then the bed dips as he kneels beside me.
His hands start at my shoulders, kneading the muscles there. I groan into the pillow as he works out knots I didn’t even know I had.
“Relax,” he orders. “I’ve got you.”
His hands travel down my spine, pausing at each scar to touch the damaged skin before he kisses every single one.
“These don’t make you broken,” he states against my skin. “They make you brave. Every mark is proof that you survived. That you fought. That you got out.”
I bury my face in the pillow as a sob wracks through me. He keeps kissing, touching, and worshipping the parts of me I’ve hated for years.
His hands find the waistband of my leggings. “Lift up.”
I raise my hips, and he drags the fabric down my legs along with my underwear. The cool air hits my bare skin, and I shiver.
“Turn over.”
I roll onto my back and watch him strip off his jeans. His body is a roadmap of violence, just like mine. Scars crisscross his chest and stomach. A puckered bullet wound marks his shoulder. Burn tissue wraps around his forearm.
We match, I realize. We both carry maps of survival on our skin.
He settles over me, bracing his weight on his forearms. His skin is scorching hot against mine, and I arch into him instinctively.
“Not yet.” He dips his head and presses his mouth to the scar on my collarbone. “I’m not done.”
He works his way down my body with agonizing slowness. Kissing, licking, and nipping at every inch of skin he encounters. My breasts. My ribs. The soft curve of my stomach. The jut of my hipbone.
When he reaches the apex of my thighs, he looks up at me. “Open for me.”
I spread my legs, and he lowers between them. His breath ghosts over my center, and I feel myself clench in anticipation.
“So wet already,” he muses. “All this is for me?”
“Yes.”
He rewards me with a long, slow lick from my entrance to my clit. I grab fistfuls of the sheets and force myself to stay still.
He takes his time. Exploring me with his tongue like he’s memorizing every fold, every ridge, every sensitive spot that makes me gasp. He circles my clit but never touches it, building the pressure until I’m writhing beneath him.
“Pyotr, please—”
“Please, what?” He blows a stream of cool air across my heated flesh, and I whimper.
“I need more.”
“Tell me what you need.”
“Your mouth. On my clit. Please.”
He seals his lips over the bundle of nerves and sucks hard. I cry out and arch off the bed as pleasure shoots through me like lightning.
He slides two fingers inside me while his tongue works my clit in tight circles. I feel myself climbing, the pressure building low in my belly.
“Not yet,” he commands against my flesh. “You don’t come until I say.”
I whine in protest, but I force myself to hold back. He pumps his fingers in and out, curling them to hit that spot deep inside me that makes stars burst behind my eyes.
“Every time he hurt you,” Pyotr says between strokes, “he signed his death warrant. Do you understand?”
“Yes—”
“Every scar on your body is a reason I will destroy him. Do you understand?”
“Yes, yes—”
“And every time I touch you from now on, I want you to remember that you’re mine. Not his. Mine to protect. Mine to pleasure. Mine to worship.” He adds a third finger and increases the pace. “Do you understand?”
“I understand, please, Pyotr, please let me—”
“Come for me. Now.”
The orgasm crashes through me, and I scream his name as my body convulses. He doesn’t stop working me through wave after wave until I’m sobbing and gasping for air.
Only then does he crawl up my body and position himself at my entrance. “Eyes on me.”
I meet his eyes, still trembling from the aftershocks.
“You’re going to feel how much I want you, Daria. How much I need you. How much I—” He stops himself.
“How much you what?”
He doesn’t answer with words. He just pushes inside me, slowly and deeply, until he’s buried to the hilt.
We both groan as he fills me, stretching me in a way that borders on too much but never crosses the line.
And then, he starts to move in long, slow strokes that pull almost all the way out before sliding back in. This is different from the last time we were together. This is reverent. Every thrust is a promise. Every roll of his hips is a vow.
I wrap my legs around his waist and pull him deeper. He groans and drops his forehead to mine.
“You feel incredible,” he breathes. “So tight. So perfect.”
I rake my nails down his back, and he hisses in response. The pace increases, but it’s still controlled. Still worshipful. He’s not taking; he’s giving.
“Pyotr—” I gasp as he hits a spot that makes my vision blur. “I’m close—”
“I know. I can feel you squeezing me. Let go, golubka. I want to feel you shatter around me.”
The second orgasm builds faster than the first. It starts in my toes and races up my spine, gathering force until it explodes through every nerve ending in my body.
I come with his name on my lips, and I feel him follow a moment later. He buries himself deep and groans against my neck as he pulses inside me.
We lay there tangled together, breathing hard, hearts pounding against each other.
Eventually, he rolls onto his side and pulls me against his chest. His hand slides up and down my back, over the scars. They’re no longer something to hide or be ashamed of.
“Stay,” I whisper. “Tonight. Stay with me.”
“I wasn’t planning on going anywhere.”
I press my face into the hollow of his neck and breathe him in. He smells like flour and dish soap and something underneath that’s just him.
For the first time in years, I feel cherished instead of broken.
I know it won’t last. The danger hasn’t passed. Bogdan is still out there, Alexei is still coming, and the evidence we need is still locked in a dacha hours away.
But right now, in this bed, in this man’s arms, I let myself believe that maybe I deserve to be happy.
It’s a dangerous thought.