Epilogue
Liv
The dress hangs in the spare room, sealed in its garment bag, and I haven't looked at it once since the final fitting because some superstitious, hopeful part of me wants tomorrow to be the first time I see myself in it properly.
Volody isn't supposed to see it either, technically, though I'm not sure how much that tradition applies to two people who've shared a toothbrush holder for the better part of three months.
"You're doing the staring thing," he says, coming up behind me in the doorway, arms sliding around my waist, chin settling on top of my head. "At a garment bag. That's new, even for you."
"I'm just thinking about how strange it is. Tomorrow I become Alivia Mostovoia, and a year ago I was pretending I had a plan for my own life that didn't revolve entirely around keeping Cole standing upright."
"Any regrets about the new plan?"
"Zero." I turn in his arms, looking up at him, this enormous, loud, endlessly patient man who rearranged his entire life around making space for mine instead of swallowing it whole. "Cole sent a card, by the way. For tomorrow."
"What did it say?"
"Not much. Congratulations. That he's working on himself.
That he understands if I'd rather he didn't come, but he's hoping someday I might let him try to be the kind of brother he should have been from the start.
" I trace a fingertip along his collarbone, still surprised, months later, by how easily I can touch him now without bracing for some cost attached to it.
"It's not everything. It's not even close to fixed.
But it's a start, and I think I'm finally able to let it just be that, instead of needing it to be more than it is. "
"That's growth," Volody says, pressing a kiss to my forehead. "Considerable growth, actually, for a woman who used to apologize for needing anything at all."
"I learned from somewhere. Some incredibly patient, occasionally ridiculous man who kept handing me space instead of taking it."
"Occasionally ridiculous. I'll allow it." His hands settle at my hips, thumbs tracing slow circles through the thin fabric of my robe. "What time is it?"
"Late enough that we should probably sleep. We have a wedding in the morning."
"We do." He doesn't move to let me go. If anything, his hold tightens slightly. "Last night as just Liv and Volody. Tomorrow you become someone new, technically, even though I happen to think you've been exactly who you're supposed to be since the night I brought you home."
Something in me goes warm and a little reckless at the look on his face, and for the first time in longer than I can remember, I decide I'm not interested in following his lead tonight.
"Sit," I tell him, nodding toward the edge of the bed once we've made it to the bedroom, my voice steadier and more certain than I expect it to be.
He raises an eyebrow, clearly delighted and very intrigued. "Bossy. I like it."
"You're going to like it considerably more in a minute." I push his chest firmly. Even though I know I couldn’t move him if my life depended on it, he acts as though the motion is enough to make him fold.
He sits, hands braced loosely on his knees, watching me with the same attention he's given me since the very first night, like I'm the only interesting thing in any room he's ever stood in.
I take my time with the belt of my robe, watching his jaw tighten with the effort of staying still, of letting me set the pace instead of reaching for me the way every instinct in his body clearly wants to.
"You've spent months unwrapping me like I might disappear if you rush it," I say, letting the robe slip from my shoulders, watching his eyes darken as it falls. "Tonight I'd like to return the favor."
"By all means." His voice comes out rougher than usual, all the easy charm narrowed down into something focused entirely on me. "I'm yours to unwrap, Alivia. Take your time."
I do. I push his shirt off his shoulders feeling the warm, solid weight of him with my palms, learning the geography of scars I've traced a hundred times now and somehow still find new things to notice. I drop to my knees in front of him, the position itself a kind of statement. A deliberate choice that’s entirely mine to make.
His breath catches when I work his belt loose, his hands fisting briefly in the sheets like he's reminding himself to let me lead.
"Liv." His voice is strained, raw. "You don't have to—"
"I know I don't have to." I look up at him, holding his gaze the entire time I take him in my mouth, savoring the way his whole big body goes rigid, the broken sound that tears out of him when I find a rhythm that has him gripping the sheets like he might come apart from restraint alone.
I release him from my mouth with a pop. "I want to.
There's a difference, and I'd like you to actually feel it tonight. "
He lasts longer than I expect, hands shaking slightly where they're fisted in the sheets, my name breaking apart in his mouth more than once, and when I finally pull back, his eyes are blown wide and dark, chest heaving, every ounce of his usual composure stripped away.
"Get up here," he growls, but I shake my head, climbing into his lap instead, and settling myself exactly where I want to be I take him into me on my own terms, watching his head fall back as the cords of his neck go tight with the effort of letting me set this pace too.
"I love watching you lose control," I tell him, rolling my hips slowly, savoring every helpless sound I pull out of him. "After months of you taking such careful, patient care of me, I'd like a turn making sure you remember exactly what that feels like."
"Liv." His hands find my hips, gripping but not guiding, letting me move however I want, his restraint visibly costing him everything he has left. "I am never going to survive being married to you."
"You'll survive." I lean down, catching his mouth in a kiss that swallows whatever else he was going to say, moving faster now, chasing my own pleasure as much as his.
His hands finally slide up to cup my breasts, thumbs finding my nipples with a precision that has me gasping against his mouth.
"You'll survive, and you'll love every single second of filing my tight cunt. "
He comes apart beneath me, my name a ruined, reverent thing in his mouth, and the sight and sound of him finally losing the last of his careful restraint tips me over right alongside him.
Both of us are shaking, both of us are laughing breathlessly into the small space between our mouths once the waves of it finally ease.
"Alivia Mostovoia," I say afterward, testing the syllables against his neck, tracing slow patterns over his heartbeat with my fingertip. "I genuinely cannot wait to be her tomorrow."
"Say it again," he murmurs, voice still rough, fingers tangling slow and possessive through my hair. "I want to hear it as many times as possible before it's actually true."
"Alivia Mostovoia." I lift my head, meeting his eyes, certain in a way I don't think I've ever been certain about anything before in my entire life. "It sounds like someone who fought for her own life and won. I like her. I think I'm going to like being her."
"I already love her," he says, simple and unguarded, pulling me back down against him. "Have for a while now, in case that wasn't already painfully obvious to literally everyone who's ever watched us in the same room."
He rolls us slowly, settling over me, his earlier restraint already giving way to something hungrier, something that tells me the night isn't quite finished proving its point yet. "I believe it's my turn to take something back tonight. You've had your fun."
"I'm not done having fun."
"Neither am I." His mouth finds my throat, and I feel him hardening again against my thigh, feel my own want curling tight and immediate in response.
Three months hasn't dulled a single bit of the hunger that started the night he wrote a number on a card and changed the entire trajectory of my life.
"Last night as just us, Alivia. I intend to make full use of it. "
"Then stop talking," I tell him, pulling him down by the back of his neck, "and make full use of it."
He laughs against my skin and gives me exactly what I asked for.