Epilogue
One Week Later
“You’re really not going to tell me where we’re going?” I ask as I put the finishing touches on my makeup. I can’t deny how excited that I am to be going out tonight. It’s a break that both of us need. It seems like the last week has been nothing but meetings and planning and we haven’t spent that much time together. Which is certainly less than ideal. It’s weird to be caught in the honeymoon phase of a new relationship all the while having to be so very busy making plans and changes to our lives.
So when a dress box arrived for me this afternoon before Alek got home I was only too excited to jump at the prospect of a night out. The gown in the box that’s currently hanging on a velvet hanger from the open closet door is in rich buttery velvet. The shade of red shimmers a stunning shade of gold depending on which direction you look at it in the light. Paired with gold and diamond earrings sitting on the vanity beside me as I pin another curl up into the hair style that I chose for the night.
Alek comes to stand in the open bathroom doorway and takes my breath away.
He’s wearing all black, the three-piece suit that he’s chosen for the evening perfectly tailored to him. I know that he has started feeling better but I didn’t expect for him to look like this. I think that my jaw might have actually dropped for a moment. When I snap my mouth shut again, my teeth actually click.
“I told you, surprises can be fun sometimes. Consider this an act of faith.”
“You know that I trust you.” I say, my mouth suddenly dry as I try and fail to tear my eyes away from him.
“You like the suit I take it?”
I nod, mutely.
“If you don’t stop looking at me like that, Anya, I don’t think that we are even going to make it out of here. Control yourself or I’m not going to be responsible for my actions.” Alek winks and slides off the doorframe. He heads back into the bedroom, but I can still hear him speaking clearly. “You know that Helena is going to throw another fit if she hears any more noise from this room today.”
I blush in spite of myself. “It’s not my fault that the builders can only move so fast on our own house.”
Today they had asked me if I wanted to have a basement put in or an underground garage before they moved forward. I told them no to both. I don’t think that Alek or I could ever set foot into another basement again. The whole theme of our new house is going to be open concept. From the mockups that I’ve seen thus far, everything is light and airy and I love it. I think that it’s going to be the first house that will feel right to me in a very long time.
Not that we didn’t also spend a fair amount of time selecting the proper sound proofing for our bedroom.
Some things are just mandatory.
“Just a tiny hint about the date?” I ask as I move to start putting on the dress that he chose for me. Feeling bold, I slip out of my underthings and leave them behind. The velvet is a whispered kiss against my bare skin. I can’t wait for him to find out that I’ve chosen to wear nothing underneath it later. I can only hope that he has wandering hands for my benefit as the night goes on.
“I told you before, I want to do this the old-fashioned way. Something about our relationship ought to be done in a traditional sense after all.”
“I don’t even want to pretend that I know what that means.” I put the earrings that he bought for me in and head into the bedroom. I do a small spin so that he can admire the dress he chose, that fits me perfectly. Now it’s his turn to gape and awe at me. I can’t seem to stop smiling. I don’t want to.
Tonight is going to be the night that I tell him the other truth that’s been keeping me so busy. The same reason that dresses like this aren’t going to look as cute on me in a few months as they do right now. But I wanted to wait for the right time to tell him. I have a feeling that this is going to be it.
Alek kisses my cheek and offers his arm like any other true gentleman would. He escorts me down to the waiting car and actually gets into the back with me instead of insisting on driving like he normally does. It takes a very concentrated effort to keep from climbing into his lap and having my way with him before we even make it to the restaurant. I don’t think that it’s ever going to get to a point where I don’t want him. Every day that passes I find myself falling more and more in love with him and his sense of humor.
We come to a stop in front of the nicest restaurant in town. A small but elegant place that has a family feel to it. The door is opened for us as we head into the Italian place, which I do find slightly amusing as I’m sure that Daniel was the one who suggested this place to Alek in the first place. The staff is polite as they show us to a table. I can’t say that I’m surprised that we’re the only ones here either.
That’s been the only pitfall. Security. Not just for Henry, but for all of us. I don’t think that the paranoia will wear off any time soon. But it’s nice to get to spend time alone just the two of us. There’s no denying that.
Course after delicious course, dinner passes uneventfully.
“Is it weird that doing something so normal feels strange?” Alek says as we finish dessert.
I blot my mouth with a napkin and grin. “I was actually just thinking the same thing! Something about moving slowly, just relaxing, it doesn’t feel natural anymore.”
Alek sighs. “But you do look beautiful. If living more slowly is a skill that has to be learned, I’m going to figure it out one way or another.”
“I know you will.”
“Being born into this, it’s just all I’ve ever known.”
“Me too, even if I was a lot less involved than you were, being a girl and all. My father tried his very best to keep me spoiled and out of trouble. But when you live like this, there’s no hiding it from your kids. Not really.” I hedge. “Do you want children?”
Alek rubs at the shorter hairs on the back of his head, thinking that my question is nothing more than hypothetical. He rolls a shoulder. “I don’t know. Honestly, I never gave it much thought, at least not before Lilian. I knew that Henry wasn’t mine from the beginning but I never wanted him any less because of it. Even before I knew that he was going to grow up to be Henry, I was willing to do that for her. I loved her enough that I was willing to do whatever I had to, to make sure that she and her child had the best possible life that they could. But, growing up, I honestly thought that as an assassin I wouldn’t be guaranteed to live long enough to think about stuff like that.”
It’s an honest answer. That’s all that I can hope for.
“You never thought about having children after that?”
Alek shrugs again. “I got caught up hunting down Nikolai. He was my whole focus for years. I lived to hurt him and nothing else. Every job that I took, everything that I did was to cause him strife and pain and now that it’s over, I suppose that I’m going to have to think about a lot of other things in the future as well. I’m not opposed to it. I like children. I don’t think I’m particularly good with them…,” Alek laughs nervously.
“I think Henry would disagree with you.”
“That’s because Henry is the kindest soul that I’ve ever met in my life. How he came from Nikolai’s loins, I’ll never know.” Alek laughs.
I wring my napkin between my hands under the table. I don’t like the direction that this conversation is going. I have to tell him. I have to tell him now, before I lose my nerve and wait too long.
“I’m pregnant.”
Alek’s face pales as he studies mine, making sure I’m not fucking with him.
“It’s…” My hands drop to my stomach. “It’s Nikolai’s… I…”
Alek’s swallow is so loud it’s the only thing that I can hear over the pounding of my own heart in my ears. The silence that fills the space between us is going to make me cry. Or kill me. Or both. Some combination of both as the seconds stretch into what feels like hours.
“Are you… sure?” Alek asks finally.
I nod. “I am. Helena took me with her to see her doctors. It’s confirmed but it’s too early to really see much of anything on the sonogram but–”
“We’re having a baby?” Alek asks, silver lines his eyes.
We?
“Anya?” Alek asks again.
Relief is a living thing in my chest. “You’re not, you’re not mad?”
“Mad?!” Alek pushes out of his chair and comes to kneel in front of me. “Why the hell would I be mad?”
“Because… because it’s…”
“I couldn’t care less whose baby that is biologically. I would take the family that we’ve made and found for ourselves over anything biological any day.” He answers.
“I’ll be sure to tell your sister that.”
“Please do.” Alek grins and places a hand over my belly as if he could magically feel our child growing in there. I had hoped that he wanted to be involved, but to instantly accept the child as his own? I don’t know how much more of that my heart can take. “This will be our child, no matter what.”
The house is quiet when we arrive.
Alek carries me up the stairs to our room as silently as he can. He clicks the door shut and locks it, hoping that some of the new sound proofing materials are actually going to do their job this evening.
“You have to be quiet tonight, princess, everybody is asleep. Can you do that?”
I grin wickedly. “Absolutely not.”
“Shameful.” Alek says with a sinful grin of his own as he sets me down on my feet and backs me into the wall right beside our bedroom door. “Perhaps I’ll just have to gag you then, princess. Would you like that?”
Before I can answer, he kisses me. A deep, claiming kiss that leaves me breathless and has my toes curling in my heels. I can’t stop myself from arching up into him. Everything about him sets my skin on fire. Desire courses through my body as he pushes open our bedroom door and breaks the kiss long enough to push me into the room.
The firm smack on my ass helps.
I haven’t stopped smiling since dinner. I walk backward, away from Alek, pulling down the straps of my dress as I head toward our bed. Ours. A future unfolding in front of us that belongs to us and only us. I’ve never felt more secure to be someone’s partner as I do with the man talking toward me. That controlled look on his face sends a particular sort of thrill straight between my legs, pulsating with need.
I slide one arm free, and then the other. Slowly, I tug the soft, stretchy velvet over my breasts and free them to the warm air in the bedroom. My confidence spikes as I see the raw hunger on his face as he looms closer, but I keep backing away until the backs of my thighs hit the mattress. Only then do I finish sliding my dress down and over my hips, then to my sex, baring it to him and then sliding the dress down over my thighs.
Alek’s breath catches in his chest. “Naughty girl,” he clicks his tongue at me and shakes his head. “If I had known that, dinner would have been a hell of a lot more interesting.”
“You wouldn’t have been able to keep your hands off of me, would you?” I ask.
He shakes his head no. “Of course not.”
“Then I guess you had better start to make up for lost time, don’t you?” My voice is almost raspy but I need to feel his hands on me. I want him to touch me with a desperate ache. Automatically, I cross my hands behind my back as I sink onto the mattress and push myself back up onto it with my feet. I keep my legs parted, just so that he can see just how ready I am, how ready I’ve been for him for hours.
As much as I enjoyed spending a lovely dinner with him, our first real official date, this is where I wanted to be. Just he and I in our room without any clothes on or plans to be anywhere else.
Alek pulls his suit jacket off and drops it to the ground. He undoes his vest quickly and lets it drop somewhere else. Only moments later, he’s undoing the buttons on his black shirt and inch by inch, revealing his marvelous chest to me. Bare skin, tattoos, muscles and scars, and most of all, mine. All mine.
His knee indents the bed between my legs as he moves closer, hovering over me.
My brow furrows for a moment. “No ropes tonight?”
He considers for a moment. “I trust you.”
My heart flutters in my chest. “You do?”
He nods and dips his head to kiss the column of my throat. I sink further back into the bed, exposing my throat for him to kiss. Teeth follow, nipping and biting and sucking a trail down my neck to my breasts. He lavishes both with attention, worshiping at the skin and pulling on my nipples with his teeth before heading lower.
Normally I would let him. I would be only too happy to let him feast again until he’s had his fill, but I need to feel him. I need to be closer. I want to feel him inside of me. I want his skin on mine, keeping me warm until he fills me over and over again. I need more of him.
I twist my arms out from behind my back and bring them up over my head. “I want to touch you so bad.” I breathe. I only mean it as an off handed comment, rather than an actual request. But he pauses anyway. His bright eyes flick up to mine in question.
I can almost see the wheels in his brilliant mind turning over and over as he moves up to me, the bulge of his erection pressing against my thigh where he’s still confined within his pants.
“Go slow.” He grits out, his eyes closed for a moment as he rises up on his knees in front of me.
He’s giving me a gift and for a long moment I’m not sure what to do. There are so many options laid out in front of me that my hands don’t know where to start. I’ve wanted nothing more than to be allowed to touch him freely since we met and now that it’s happening, I know that I have to choose carefully.
I push myself upward, his eyes open and lock onto my hands as they hover over his bare chest. Slowly, tentatively, I let myself trace the hard lines of muscle of his abdomen. Alek is deathly still as I trace the lines of dark ink covering the larger scars there and then trail back down slowly. My fingers toy with the waistband of his pants before I glance up at him, silently asking for permission to go ahead, which is granted. I kiss the skin above his waistband softly and his breath hitches.
This isn’t easy for him, I know that. I can’t put into words how grateful I am that he’s even willing to try. I can hardly breathe as I start to undo his pants, kissing the exposed skin as Alek struggles to maintain his breathing steady, even. I can see his hands balled into tight fists at his sides, but he doesn’t move to stop me as I open his pants and free him.
I wrap my hand around the base of him, stroking softly then tightening my grip.
“Anya…” he groans. It’s both pained and pleasured as I’m sure his self-restraint has got to be nearing its limit. I can’t blame him as he places a hand on my shoulder and pushes me back on the bed, laying me flat and exposed to him as he finds his way between my thighs.
“More, please.” I sigh as I feel him hovering so close to where I want him so desperately.
“Such a needy princess.” He teases. Always making jokes.
I reach up, hesitantly cupping his face slowly before bringing him forward to kiss me. A soft, sweet connection that makes my heart break for how tender it feels - and then it’s the exact opposite as he slides into me. Claiming me in a solid stroke that fills me, stretches me with the sweetest ache as my eyes roll back into my head.
I can’t take it.
“More,” I beg, my lips brushing against his even as I speak the word.
He doesn’t need to be told twice as he thrusts into me. Harder and harder, like he’s trying to imprint himself on my insides and I love it. I love each and every moment with which he claims me as I kiss him again, lips parting for him to take what he needs. I’m happy to give him all, surrender absolutely everything to him and then some. Our joining is fast, brutal and all-consuming. Just like every time with him is.
“I love you, princess.” Alek breathes into me.
“I know,” I tease, getting the last word for once.
He dips a hand between our bodies, finding my clit and rubs in circles that match the pace that he’s set. Serves me right for being snarky I guess. My orgasm finds me fast and hard, hard enough that I’m left wholly and utterly breathless as I squeeze around him, tightening and milking him for everything that he’s worth as he finishes inside of me.
Just the first of many, many more to come.