Chapter 33 Mila
Mila
I lie in bed staring at the concrete ceiling and replaying every conversation from the past forty-eight hours on an endless loop.
Mama’s warnings about breaking under the stress. Papa’s regrets about failing to protect her. Anna being targeted because she knows me. Alexei standing in that hallway, looking like I’d just gutted him, when I suggested I might leave.
I don’t even know if I meant it.
My hand moves to my stomach. It’s still flat, with no visible evidence of the life growing inside me, but Dr. Orlov’s warnings echo through my mind. My body is trying to tell me something, just like my mother said.
Mama left behind her daughters and her marriage because the stress was killing her. Papa stayed, but he admits now that he made the wrong choices.
What the hell am I supposed to do with that information?
I throw off the covers. Sleep isn’t happening when my brain won’t stop spinning through scenarios and outcomes and fears I can’t articulate.
The hallway is dark and empty. Alexei’s bedroom door stands open, and I see his bed hasn’t been touched. Water is running behind his bathroom door.
I should go back to my room. Give him space. But my feet carry me forward anyway, because the only thing worse than feeling overwhelmed is feeling overwhelmed and alone.
My hand hovers over the bathroom door handle. Once I cross this threshold, I’m admitting something. Admitting that I need him despite my fears and my very legitimate concerns about repeating my parents’ mistakes.
I turn the handle and step inside anyway.
Steam fills the small space, and the mirror is fogged. Alexei stands under the spray with his back to me, water streaming over his shoulders and down the muscles I’ve memorized with my fingers and tongue. The bandage on his shoulder is gone. The wound looks angry and red, but it’s healing.
He got shot rescuing my father, and I repaid him by suggesting I might leave.
“Mila?” He turns around, and water trickles down his chest and abs, making my mouth water. “What’s wrong? Is it the baby?”
“No. The baby’s fine.” I pull my T-shirt over my head and drop it on the floor. “I just couldn’t sleep knowing you’re somewhere in this bunker thinking I’m going to leave you.”
His throat moves as he swallows hard. “Are you? Going to leave?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Probably not.” I reach behind my back and unhook my bra. “But tonight, I’m here. And I need you to make me stop thinking for a little while.”
The bra joins my shirt on the floor. Alexei’s gaze travels over my body, and his pupils dilate as he takes in my breasts. His blue-grey irises go dark with want, but he doesn’t move.
I hold eye contact through the shower door as I shimmy out of my underwear and kick them aside.
He doesn’t say a word as I open it and step inside.
The hot water hits my skin, and I close my eyes for a moment to just feel it wash away the anxiety and fear and crushing weight of impossible decisions.
When I open my eyes, Alexei is watching me.
“Tell me what you need,” he prompts.
“Just you.”
He reaches for me slowly, giving me time to change my mind. When I don’t step back, his hands settle on my waist, and he tugs me against him. His cock is already hard, pressing against my stomach, and the contact sends heat pooling between my legs.
“I thought you were going to leave,” he admits against my temple. “When you walked away tonight, I thought that was it.”
I slide my hands up his chest and encircle them around his neck. “I’m just scared of what staying means.”
“I know. I’m scared, too.”
The admission surprises me. Alexei never admits fear.
I tilt my head back to look at him. He glides his hands up my sides, skimming over the wet skin. When he cups my breasts, his thumbs circle my nipples until they harden into peaks. The sensation makes me gasp and arch into his touch.
“Sometimes, I think I’m so focused on keeping you safe that I forget to listen to what you’re telling me.”
“You’re listening now,” I point out.
“Because you’re naked and wet and pressed against me,” he replies with a chuckle. “I’m highly motivated to listen.”
Despite everything, I laugh. The sound ricochets in the small bathroom, and some of the weight on my chest lifts.
“There she is,” he murmurs. “I was starting to forget what you sound like when you’re not crying or angry.”
“I’m still angry. At Novikov. At my parents. At this whole fucked-up situation.” I drop my hands back down to his chest, flattening my palms against the muscle. “But right now, I’m also so turned on I can barely think straight, so the anger can wait.”
His mouth crashes against mine in a heartbeat. There’s hunger behind it. Need that matches my own. His tongue sweeps into my mouth, tasting and exploring like it’s the first time, even though we’ve done this before.
When he backs me against the shower wall, the cool tile contrasts with the heat of the water and his body. His mouth moves to my neck, trailing kisses and gentle bites that make my knees weak.
“I’ve wanted you since you walked in here,” he admits between kisses. “Wanted to pull you under this water and fuck you until neither of us can remember why we were fighting.”
“Then do it. Stop holding back and just take what you want.”
His hand slides between my legs, and he groans when he finds me already wet. “Christ, Mila. You’re soaking.”
“It’s the shower,” I tease breathlessly.
“It’s not the shower.” His fingers circle my clit slowly, building pleasure with each pass. “This is all for me.”
“Arrogant bastard.”
He slides one finger inside me, then adds a second when I rock against his hand. “Your pussy is practically begging for my cock.”
The crude words make heat crawl up my neck, but they also make me wetter. I love it when he talks like this, dropping the controlled facade and just saying what he wants.
“Then give it to me,” I challenge. “Stop teasing and fuck me already.”
His thumb finds the bundle of nerves that makes stars burst behind my eyelids while his fingers work inside me. The dual sensation has me clutching at his shoulders, nails digging into his skin hard enough to leave marks.
“I want to feel you come on my fingers first. I want to watch your face when you fall apart.”
“Alexei—”
“That’s it. Say my name. Let me hear how good I’m making you feel.”
He curls his fingers to hit that spot again, and my vision goes hazy. My hips move on their own, grinding against his hand while he works me higher and higher.
“Please,” I beg. “I’m so close.”
“Then come for me, Zaika. Let go.”
His thumb presses harder against my clit, and that’s all it takes. The orgasm crashes through me in waves that seem endless. I bite down on his good shoulder to muffle the sounds trying to escape, but he pulls back.
“No. I want to hear you. I want the guards outside to know exactly what we’re doing in here.”
The thought of being overheard should embarrass me. Instead, it makes me come harder. My inner walls clench around his fingers while I cry out his name, and he watches my face with reverence.
When the aftershocks fade, he withdraws his hand and brings his fingers to his mouth, sucking them clean while maintaining eye contact.
“You taste incredible. Like you were made for me to devour.”
“I need you inside me,” I pant. “Right now.”
He lifts me easily, wrapping my legs around his waist. The head of his cock presses against my entrance, and we freeze for a moment.
“Ready?” he asks.
“Yes. Please, Alexei. I need to feel you.”
He pushes inside in one smooth thrust that makes us both groan. The stretch burns in the best way, and when he’s fully seated, I feel full. Owned.
“Fuck, you’re tight. So perfect around my cock.”
He starts moving with slow, deep strokes that make me feel every inch of him. The angle hits something inside me that makes pleasure build with each thrust. I wrap my arms around his neck and bury my face against his good shoulder.
“Look at me,” he orders.
I lift my head and meet those all-seeing eyes that strip away every defense I try to maintain.
“Don’t hide from me. Not now. Not when I’m buried inside you and we’re as close as two people can be.”
He increases his pace, and each thrust drives me higher. The water beats down on us, creating a cocoon where nothing exists except our bodies moving together and the sounds of skin slapping against skin and our harsh breathing.
“Touch yourself,” he prompts. “I want to feel you come around my cock.”
I snake my hand between our bodies and find where we’re joined. My fingers circle my clit, and the combination of him pounding into me and my touch sends me spiraling.
“That’s it. Take what you need. Use me however you want.”
The permission breaks something loose inside. I move faster, chasing the orgasm that’s building at the base of my spine. He matches my rhythm, giving me what I need without me having to ask.
When I shatter, the pleasure is even more overwhelming than the first time. I cry out his name while my pussy clenches around him, and he groans like it’s the best thing he’s felt.
“Fuck, Mila. I feel you squeezing my cock. So goddamn perfect.”
His rhythm becomes erratic as he chases his release. A few more hard thrusts, and he’s burying himself as deeply as possible, filling me with his release while groaning my name.
We stay connected for several heartbeats, gasping for breath. When he finally withdraws, he lowers me carefully to my feet and keeps one arm around my waist to steady me.
We dry off and move to his bedroom. Once we’re under the covers, he pulls me against his chest.
“I need to tell you,” he declares, “about why I’ve been so guarded.”
I run my nails along his chest and wait for him to continue.
“Five years ago, I thought I was in love. Her name was Natalia. Beautiful, intelligent, seemed to understand this world. I was careful with her. Took two years to really let her in. To trust her with information about family operations.”
I tamp down the jealousy that pops up at the idea of Alexei being so intimate with another woman and ask, “What happened?”
“She was working for our competitors the entire time. Gathering intelligence, documenting our operations, and building a case that could have destroyed everything Dmitri and I spent years building. What my father created. We only survived because Dmitri caught her before she could deliver the final information.”
“Oh, Alexei.”
“After Natalia, I swore I’d never let anyone close enough to hurt me again.”
I prop my elbow on my pillow and rest my chin in my palm. “But you’re letting me in.”
“I’ve tried not to. God knows I’ve tried to keep you at a distance. But you got under my skin anyway.”
“And now you’re terrified that I’m going to do the same thing she did.”
“That fear lives in the back of my mind. Whispers that trusting you is stupid.”
I slip my index finger under his chin and kiss his forehead. “I’m not her. I’m not gathering intelligence or building cases. I’m just trying to survive in a world I never wanted to be part of.”
“I know that,” I assure her, “but the heart doesn’t always listen to logic. It just remembers being shredded and tries to protect itself.”
“Is that why you push for marriage so hard? Because legal ties feel safer than emotional ones?”
He considers the question. “Probably. But it’s also real, Mila. What I feel for you is real, even if I’m too scared to say the words out loud.”
Understanding Natalia’s betrayal explains so much about the control issues, and the need to always know where I am.
“Thank you for telling me. For trusting me enough to share something that painful.”
“You deserved to know why I’m so fucked up about this.”
“I’m fucked up, too,” I concede. “Between my mother’s abandonment and my father’s regrets and this baby growing inside me, I’m a disaster.”
He kisses the tip of my nose. “Then we’re disasters together.”
I smile despite everything. “Yeah. We are.”