Chapter 22 #2
He removes the coat from my shoulders and draws the blanket around us both. Warmth gathers between our bodies. I put my feet under his thigh before resting my head against his chest.
For a while, neither of us speaks. Wind presses over the roof, shaking ice against the windows. Without the train ahead, the carriage has shrunk to one small heated room surrounded by white darkness, with two people inside it trying not to imagine what would have happened on a clear night.
Konstantin's hand settles over my stomach. "Still no pain, bleeding, or nausea?"
"Only when you ask the same questions every six minutes."
His thumb moves over the robe. "The doctor is a mile away behind a locked switch."
"He'd be trapped here too if you'd put him in our carriage. Then you would have a doctor to worry over as well."
"I'm already worried about both of you."
I cover his hand with mine. He includes the baby without hesitation.
The release frightened me because I want this child.
When the forward cars disappeared, I pictured the world continuing without the man holding us and hated the picture with a force that still hurts.
His fear once enclosed my life. Tonight his hand rests over a place where nothing shows yet, asking my body for news he can't obtain by force, and the tenderness of that question hurts too.
I turn in his arms and kiss him.
Konstantin responds at once, one hand rising to the side of my face. His mouth is warm after the cold vestibule, his stubble rough along my chin. I open my lips against his, tasting water and the ginger sweet he took from my palm an hour ago.
When I climb across his lap, he stops me.
"Nora."
"I'm not in pain. You caught me before I reached the wall, and I know where we are."
"We are waiting for rescue after someone tried to take this car."
His hands remain at my waist. His erection presses against me, but neither hand moves while he watches my face.
I take one of his hands and slide it inside my sleep shirt. His palm moves over my bare skin until it rests below my navel. "Touch me like I'm your wife," I say. "I don't want the person who did this inside our bed too."
His eyes hold mine.
"If anything hurts or you feel cramping, dizziness, or blood, you tell me and we stop."
"I will."
"Say you want me."
"I want you."
His hands close around my waist.
Konstantin stands with me in his arms. I wrap my legs around his waist while he carries me into the bedroom. The low lamp throws amber light over cream walls. Snow hisses against the window shades, and the floor creaks whenever wind moves the carriage.
He puts me on my feet beside the bed and undresses me without haste.
The robe slides from my shoulders. My sleep shirt rises over my head.
When he opens my bra, cooler air reaches breasts made tender over the past week.
His attention drops to them. The weight has changed slightly, more a feeling inside my own skin than anything another person should see, yet he cups one with a gentleness that makes my nipple tighten against his palm.
"Sensitive?"
"Yes."
His thumb passes once over the peak. Pleasure runs downward, soft at first, then sharper when he repeats it.
Konstantin bends his head. His tongue circles my nipple before his lips close around it.
I hold his shoulders as the pull reaches through my breast and gathers between my thighs.
He gives the other side the same attention, watching my face so closely that each change in pressure feels chosen from my reaction.
I open his shirt. His skin is hot against my hands despite the damp cloth at his shoulder. Dark hair covers his chest, soft against my palms, while muscle shifts when I push the shirt away.
After undressing, he removes my underwear before drawing back the covers.
"Lie on your side."
I settle facing the dark window. Clean linen cools my skin. Konstantin comes behind me, fitting the length of his body along my back without placing his weight over my stomach.
He bends my upper leg and rests it over his thigh. The position opens me to his hand. His fingers move between my folds, finding wetness before he touches my clit.
My breath catches.
"Too much?"
"Not close." He slides two fingers inside me, slow through the first stretch. His palm stays against my clit while his hand begins to move. The angle keeps me held along his chest, his mouth at my shoulder, and every intimate part of me open to his touch.
I reach behind us, finding his cock hard against my ass. The broad head is slick before I circle it with my fingers. Konstantin makes a rough sound near my ear.
"Leave it."
"Why?"
"Because you asked me to touch you." He curls his fingers inside me, and I moan against the pillow.
"So possessive."
"You knew that before you married me."
His thumb tightens its circles over my clit. Pleasure builds without the force of our wedding night or the sharp heat of his office. It spreads through me under the warmth of his body, rising each time his fingers press the place that makes my hips follow.
Konstantin keeps his other hand over my stomach.
I cover it with mine as I come.
The orgasm moves through me in deep pulses. My thighs tighten around his hand. I feel each contraction around his fingers and then the small shivers that follow while his mouth stays at my nape.
He doesn't withdraw until my breathing begins to settle.
The head of his cock presses at my entrance.
"Still yes?" he asks.
"Yes."
He enters me from behind.
The first slow push opens my body around his thickness. I grip the sheet while he stops halfway, giving me time to adjust. His hand returns between my thighs, two fingers resting over my swollen clit.
"More."
He pushes deeper.
His pelvis meets my ass when he reaches the end of me. The position holds him close, every inch buried while his chest surrounds my back. He stays there until I move against him.
Then Konstantin begins to fuck me.
The strokes remain slow, but there is nothing uncertain in them.
He withdraws until the thick head catches near my entrance, then fills me again with one firm motion.
His forearm supports my raised leg. His other hand cups my breast, avoiding the sorest peak while his fingers spread over the weight.
The bed gives a soft complaint. Ice strikes the roof, and the carriage holds its strange small peace beyond the closed bedroom door.
Here, his mouth moves along my shoulder while his cock slides through the wet heat inside me.
"Tell me what you feel," he says.
"You."
"Pain?"
"No pain."
After I deny feeling pain, he thrusts deeper while watching my reaction. Pleasure pulls tight in my stomach.
"Again."
"I feel you."
His hand leaves my breast and slides along my jaw, holding my face turned toward him. I find his mouth over my shoulder. The kiss becomes messy as his pace strengthens.
Each thrust rubs his fingers against my clit. My body begins to climb again, faster now that his cock fills me. I arch into him. He uses the movement to reach deeper, keeping the angle steady while my breath breaks against his lips.
"Come with me," I whisper.
"First you."
His fingers move harder.
The second orgasm catches me around him. My pussy closes over his cock, pulsing so strongly that his next thrust stops halfway. He holds me through it, his breath rough beside my ear while pleasure shakes through my legs.
When the tightness begins to release, he moves again.
His pace changes. The last strokes drive deeper, still held away from my stomach but carrying the strength he kept from me at first. I reach back, catching the side of his neck.
"Inside me."
Konstantin groans my name.
He buries himself and comes. Heat spills deep with the first hard pulse. His cock jerks inside me while his arm closes around my ribs, holding my body against his through each release.
For several breaths, we stay joined under the blanket.
His hand returns to my stomach. The gesture has become instinctive since I told him.
"Anything wrong?"
"Nothing."
"You're certain?"
"I'm certain."
He withdraws slowly. Warmth slips between my thighs as I turn toward him. Konstantin checks my face before letting me pull him down beside me.
We clean ourselves with warm cloths from the bathroom before returning to bed with water and the last packet of crackers. He makes me eat three. I make him eat the fourth.
The coyote remains curled in the vestibule when we check through the glass. We leave it alone.
Near morning, the storm begins to weaken. Individual gusts emerge from the roar, with brief silences between them. The emergency beacon still shows power. Konstantin sits beside me against the headboard, one hand holding mine under the blanket.
"Who knew which car was ours?" I ask.
"The internal route group. The terminal team knew we occupied the rear sleeper, but they never received the stronghold arrival plan."
"The false alarm used one of your credentials, and whoever released us knew exactly where this road met the track."
Konstantin looks toward the covered window. "They knew the carriage, route, and arrival plan before we departed."
Six people held all three.
The storm protected us from whoever came to use that knowledge.
Someone inside the protected circle put us on this siding.