39. Arsen
39
ARSEN
“I can hire people to do this shit, Laila.”
My wife turns to me with paint splattered across her face and the front of her overalls hanging off her small frame. More paint snakes across her tight white tank and the tanned skin of her exposed midriff. I want to follow the trail with my tongue.
“I know,” she replies, “but this is my studio.”
“This isn’t a ‘painters, keepers’ situation. It’ll still be yours even if we get professionals in here to do the dirty work.”
She sighs. “That’s not the point.”
She’s spent every spare second for weeks inside these four walls—late nights, early mornings. I’ve had to deliver lunch more than a few times just so she won’t forget to eat.
Laila is pouring her heart and soul into this studio, and I don’t want her to be the only one.
“Okay, then.” I shrug out of my jacket and drape it over the only piece of furniture in the place: a stone table that’s been put to work propping open the back door. “I guess we’re getting our hands dirty.”
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“What does it look like? I’m going to help you get this place painted.”
She looks me over from head to toe, eyebrows raised nearly to the smudge of paint along her hairline. “You’re wearing Tom Ford.”
“Your point?”
“I won’t be responsible for ruining those shoes.”
I shrug as I roll up my sleeves. “If I ruin them, I’ll buy another pair.”
“For the price of those shoes, we could pay to get this whole place painted twice. You can’t ruin them for this .” She gestures to the wall she’s painting.
“‘This’ just so happens to be my wife’s passion project,” I say coolly. “And I want to do my part. Now, stop bickering and hand me a roller.”
She crosses her arms, smudging more paint on her elbow in the process. “Fine, but first, you have to take off your shoes. And your shirt. Also, how expensive are those pants?”
“Mrs. Adamov, I believe you’re trying to seduce me.”
She giggles as I stalk closer, already unbuttoning my shirt. “You tried to seduce me first. Who walks around looking like that for no reason?”
“Now, you’re questioning my integrity? I came here to help my wife—nothing more.”
“Oh, in that case—” She presses a hand to my bare stomach as she reaches around me for a roller. “Let’s get to work.”
I swat the roller back to the plastic-covered floor. “I can’t work now. You’ve stripped me out of my painting clothes.”
“That’s not a problem.” In a flash, she swipes her roller down my chest, leaving a streak of blue paint in its wake.
Wordlessly, I grab her by the waist and drag her against me. Paint spreads across her overalls and her arms as she screams and laughs, legs flailing. “Ah, no, no! Let me go…!”
“Not until we’re even.”
She wriggles away from me, her eyes bright. “Is that a threat or a promise?”
She’s just out of arm’s reach. When I try to venture closer, she wags a disapproving finger at me with a tut-tut. So I stand transfixed in place as she slowly pulls off the right strap of her overalls. Then the left.
The denim slips around her waist and she shimmies it over her hips until it’s puddled on the floor.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Evening the score. You took off your shirt, so…” She grabs the hem of her tank and pulls it over her head, leaving her in nothing but her bra and underwear. “Now, you can cover me in paint. Or?—”
I close the distance between us and pin her to her newly-painted wall. She gasps, clawing at my chest as she arches off the wet paint.
“I just painted this! It’s not dry yet!”
“You asked for it, baby.”
“Arsen—”
I silence her with my tongue, grinding our bodies together until her protests turn to whimpers. Gasping into my mouth, she unzips my pants and shoves them down. Then she drops to her knees.
She grips my hips, leaving painted handprints across my skin that I’m tempted to get tattooed later, and sucks me in deep. I fall against the wall, palms pressed into the still-tacky paint to keep myself upright.
“Fuck.” I grab a fistful of her hair, streaking it blue as I fuck her face.
She takes me deeper, and I draw my finger across the hollow of her cheek, painting her cheekbone and her jawline. Her eyes rise to meet mine, and I have to force myself out of her before this ends far too quickly.
Because I’m nowhere close to being finished.
I spread her down on the plastic sheeting. The wood floor creaks under our weight as I kneel between her legs. I peel her panties down, leaving trails of blue paint down her thighs and behind her knees.
Gently, I part her with my thumbs and press a kiss to her center.
She arches off the floor, but I press her back down with my mouth and my tongue. I hold her there as her hips roll against my face. As she fists my hair like I did hers, dragging me closer, telling me what she needs without resorting to words.
“Arsen!” she cries as she tenses and shatters under me. I kiss her down the other side of her orgasm and then crawl my way over her.
I slide into her so easily. One thrust and I’m buried to the hilt.
We rock together on the floor. Her leg arches over my hip, and I hold it there, taking her deeper until she’s contracting around me again. Until she’s whimpering my name with her head tossed back, and I can’t hold it back anymore.
“ Blyat’ ,” I roar as I come.
When I open my eyes, her gaze is fixed on me. She draws her fingers softly, tenderly along my face. “You’re covered in paint.”
“You should see yourself. I think we’re even.”
Smiling, her eyes shift from me to the wall she’d been painting when I showed up. The blue is smudged and swirled from our hands and our bodies. It’s a collage of our raucous lovemaking.
I wait for annoyance or frustration. I’m prepared to actually help paint so we can fix it before she loses sunlight for the day.
“Damn,” she whispers. “That actually looks… kinda beautiful.”
She’s not wrong. “It’ll be a shame to paint over it.”
She swivels around to face me. “Maybe I won’t.”
“You’re gonna leave it like that?”
“Yes,” she murmurs, her eyes brightening as she turns back to the mural we created together. “I think I am.”
“Oh my God,” Laila breathes as she steps out of the car.
I watch her eyes trace over the stone sign and the flowering vines growing along the illuminated fa?ade of my distillery. I have hope that, before long, they’ll cover the entire front.
“I know bringing you to Pobeda isn’t the most romantic date,” I admit, “but you’ve been working so hard on your studio that I wanted to show you what I’ve been working on. What Nina will inherit someday.”
Laila takes in every detail. From the cobbled stone walkway to the marble entrance, she wordlessly admires every detail I painstakingly crafted over the last few years.
She stops by the hostess stand, reaching for my hand. “I didn’t expect this.”
“What did you expect?”
“I don’t know. A factory, I guess. Something cold and lifeless. But this…” She shakes her head, taking in the glistening chandeliers and the rough-cut wooden tables flickering in candlelight. “This is like a storybook castle.”
“That’s what the original architect was going for. The owners had a royalty complex, I think, but the building was too big and impractical to maintain, so they sold it off.”
“And that’s where you came in?” she guesses.
I smile. “I hoped I could do something with it. I wasn’t sure what, but I wanted to build something of my own. Something that belonged to me and that I could pass along to my children.” I lead her around the room, pointing through plate glass windows at the magic happening in the production area. “I wanted at least one part of my life to be completely transparent. The guests can see what every step in the process looks like. There’s no curtain to pull back.”
Laila takes it all in before her eyes finally land on me. “It means a lot to me, Arsen… that you brought me here.”
I caress her hand. “I want you to know that my life—my legacy—is more than just blood and violence, roza . It involves more than decisions that hurt people. I’m employing local people here, giving back to the area so they have a way to support themselves and their families. I’m trying to make a difference that will outlive even me.”
She cups the side of my face, those deep blue eyes boring into mine. “You don’t have to convince me, Arsen Adamov. I already know you’re a good man.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
She grins and kisses my cheek. “I would.”