Chapter 28 Alexei
Alexei
Dr. Orlov ties off the last stitch in my shoulder and steps back to examine his work.
“You were lucky,” he comments while reaching for gauze and medical tape. “Another inch to the right, and it would have hit a major artery. You’d have bled out before we got you here.”
“Luck had nothing to do with it. I saw the shooter and moved.”
I’m sitting shirtless on a kitchen chair in the safehouse while Mila watches from the doorway. She hasn’t said a word since we arrived twenty minutes ago. She’s just standing there with her arms crossed, staring at the blood-soaked gauze Orlov discarded on the table.
Her father is in one of the bedrooms upstairs, sedated and being monitored by one of Orlov’s assistants. Alive, but barely. The beating he took would have killed a weaker man.
“Keep it dry for forty-eight hours,” Orlov instructs as he tapes down the bandage. “Change the dressing twice daily. Watch for signs of infection—redness, swelling, fever. Call me immediately if you notice anything unusual.”
“Got it.”
He packs up his medical bag and glances at Mila. “How are you feeling? Any cramping? Spotting?”
“I’m fine,” she says quietly.
“Your blood pressure was elevated when I checked you at the warehouse. Understandable given the circumstances, but we need to monitor it closely over the next few days.”
“I said I’m fine.”
Orlov looks like he wants to argue, but something in her tone stops him. He just nods and packs his stethoscope. “I’ll be back in the morning to check on you and your father.”
He gives Mila one more cursory check before heading out the door. “Your pulse and pressure are stable again,” he says, softer this time. “No signs of distress. Rest and hydration tonight, and you’ll be fine.”
Then he glances at me. “Keep her calm, Alexei.”
After he leaves, Mila and I are alone in the suffocating quiet.
She finally moves from the doorway, crossing to where I sit. Her hands come up to frame my face, and she pulls me up until our foreheads touch.
“I need to feel something other than this,” she whispers. “Something other than guilt and fear and the weight of knowing people died because of us.”
“Mila—”
“You heard what Dr. Orlov said. I need rest and relaxation.” She gives me the most seductive smirk I’ve ever seen as she adds, “This will relax me.”
I suppress a groan and retort, “That’s not what he meant.”
“Are you going to argue with doctor’s orders? Please. I need you to make me forget. Just for a little while.”
The desperation in her voice breaks something loose inside me. I cup the back of her neck and crush my mouth to hers. She responds immediately, opening for me and meeting my tongue with hers.
This isn’t gentle or tender. This is two people who watched death up close and need to remember what it feels like to be alive.
I stand from the chair, and my shoulder screams in protest with the movement. I ignore it. Pain means I’m still here, still breathing, and still capable of giving her what she needs.
I back her toward the wall as my good hand goes to the hem of her sweater. She helps me pull it over her head before reaching for my bloodstained pants. Her fingers work at the button with shaking hands.
“Wait,” I tell her, stepping back slightly.
“No waiting. I need this. I need you.”
“You’re sure? After everything you saw today—”
“I don’t want to think about what I saw.” She grabs my belt and yanks me closer. “I want to feel something real right now.”
The honesty in those words destroys any remaining restraint. I reach behind her and unhook her bra, tossing it aside. When I see her breasts, fuller now from the pregnancy, hunger roars through me.
“Turn around,” I tell her.
She does without question. My hand goes to the waistband of her leggings, and I drag them down along with her underwear. I press her palms flat against the wall and nudge her feet apart with mine
“What are you doing?” she asks, though I hear the breathlessness in her voice.
“Tasting you.”
I drop to my knees behind her and spread her open with my thumbs before dragging my tongue through her folds. She gasps and pushes back toward my face instinctively.
“Oh, God,” she breathes.
I circle her clit with my tongue before moving lower to push my tongue inside her. She’s already wet and ready for me despite everything we just witnessed.
Or maybe because of it.
Sometimes, the body’s response to trauma is to seek pleasure and connection.
I alternate between fucking her with my tongue and sucking on her clit. Her legs shake, and she braces herself harder against the wall to stay upright.
“Don’t stop,” she begs. “Please, don’t stop.”
I have no plans to stop when she tastes this good. Not when every sound she makes goes straight to my cock and reminds me that we’re both still here. We’re still alive and capable of feeling something other than grief.
I slide two fingers inside her while my mouth focuses on her clit. The angle lets me hit the spot that makes her cry out, and I feel her inner walls flutter around my fingers.
“I’m going to come,” she warns.
“Then come for me, Zaika.”
Her whole body goes rigid as the orgasm crashes through her. I feel every pulse around my fingers, and taste how much wetter she gets on my tongue. When the aftershocks finally fade, I stand and jerk her around to face me.
She looks wrecked. Flushed cheeks. Swollen lips. Eyes dark with satisfaction and renewed hunger.
“More,” she demands.
“Mila, we should be careful. The baby—”
“I said more.” She reaches for my belt and works it the rest of the way open. “I want you inside me. Now.”
I should probably protest, or remind her about Dr. Orlov’s warnings and the stress on her body. But when she gets my pants open and wraps her hand around my cock, all thoughts evaporate.
“Couch,” I manage.
We stumble toward it together, shedding the rest of our clothes along the way. When we reach it, I bend her over the arm, so her ass is in the air and her face is pressed into the cushions.
I line myself up and push inside slowly. Even after everything we’ve done, she’s still so tight that I force myself to go slow and let her body adjust to the invasion.
“More,” she demands again. “All of it.”
I sink to the hilt and pause there, giving her a moment, but she doesn’t want time. She pushes back against me, taking me even deeper.
“Fuck me, Alexei. Hard. Make me forget everything except how good you feel.”
At her command, I pull almost all the way out and slam back in. She screams, but the sound is pleasure, not pain. I can tell by the way she arches her back and spreads her legs wider.
I set a punishing pace, with each thrust driving her forward into the couch.
Her sounds get louder and more desperate.
I reach around with my good arm and find her clit, circling it in time with my movements.
My injured shoulder stings with each thrust, but I push through it.
Pain is just another reminder that I’m alive.
“Yes,” she gasps. “Just like that.”
“You feel so fucking perfect.”
“Harder.”
I increase the force of my thrusts, and my shoulder protests the movement. I wince but don’t slow down. The pain centers me somehow, keeping me grounded in this moment instead of spiraling back to the warehouse and the men who didn’t make it out.
The couch scrapes against the floor as I grip her hip hard enough to leave bruises, but she doesn’t complain. She pushes back to meet me stroke for stroke.
Her body was made for this. For me. Every curve fits perfectly against me. Every sound she makes drives me closer to the edge.
“I’m close again,” she pants. “So close.”
“Wait for me.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.” I slow my pace, denying her the friction she needs to go over the edge. “Wait for me, Mila.”
She makes a sound of frustration, but she holds on. I can feel how close she is. Her body trembles with the effort of not coming, and her inner walls clench around me with increasing frequency.
“Please,” she begs. “I need it.”
I pick up the pace again, chasing my release. The pressure builds at the base of my spine. My balls draw up tight. Every muscle in my body coils in anticipation.
“Now,” I growl. “Come now.”
She falls apart with a cry that’s half sob, half scream. Tears stream down her face as her body convulses around me. The sight of her undone pushes me over the edge.
I bury myself as deeply as possible and empty myself inside her with a groan that tears from my chest. Waves of pleasure crash through me until I’m spent and shaking.
We collapse onto the couch, me on top of her back until I roll over and pull her against my chest. Her heart is pounding so hard that I can feel it against my ribs. She’s still crying, but I know it’s not from pain. It’s an emotional release. Everything she’s been holding back since the warehouse.
She draws in a shuddering breath as I stroke her hair and buries her face in my neck, wrapping her arms around me carefully to avoid my injured shoulder. We lie there in the quiet, processing what happened in our own ways.
I think about the men who didn’t make it out. About their families who will never see them again. About whether I made the right call, risking so much for one rescue.
But then I look at Mila in my arms, and I know I’d make the same choice again. Every time. Without question.
That realization should terrify me. It should make me question whether I’m fit to lead when personal feelings override strategic thinking.
Instead, it just feels like the truth.
I lie there, listening to her breathe and thinking about everything that’s changed since I walked into that restaurant six months ago. About how one woman has reordered my priorities and made me question every assumption I’ve held about what matters.
A knock on the door interrupts my thoughts, and I curse under my breath.
“Alexei?” Dr. Orlov’s voice comes through the wood. “I know I said I wouldn’t be back until morning, but I need to speak with you. It’s urgent.”
A few hours ago, he’d said her vitals were steady. Now, the urgency in his voice makes my stomach twist.
Mila stirs against me. I glance down at her tear-streaked face, then at the door, then back at her.
“The man has the worst timing in history,” I mutter.
“We could pretend we’re not here,” Mila half-jokes.
“He knows we’re here. He probably heard everything we just did.”
Her face flushes pink. “Oh, God. That’s mortifying.”
Another knock. “Please open the door.”
We look at each other and start laughing. After everything that’s happened today—the violence, the death, the emotional turmoil—somehow, this moment of awkwardness breaks through the darkness.
“Give us five minutes,” I call out to Orlov while pulling Mila closer and kissing her forehead.
She snuggles deeper into my arms, and we lie there grinning like idiots while a doctor waits impatiently on the other side of the door.