Chapter 32
The kitchen is a hum of activity. It’s like a play where all the actors know their roles and I haven’t learned my lines. I lean in the doorway and watch the morning tableau with a sharp stab of longing.
In another life, this could have been mine.
I shake my head to knock that string of thought loose. No good can come from it.
An older woman with wide hips and bobbed gray hair pours batter into a pan on the stove, making thin golden pancakes. I recognize Nona from Moscow. She flips the blini in the pan and browns the other side before sliding it onto a tall stack and walking the plate over to a small kitchen table. She sets it down before Dex, who grins and pulls it toward him.
“Nona, will you marry me? I’d ride off into the sunset with you for your pancakes alone.” His eyes twinkle up at her.
“Stupid man. Blini.” She points down at the stack of crepes and shakes her head. “Not pancakes. Terrible American things. Don’t taste good.”
“I bet I could make you love them. With bacon and syrup.” Dex licks his lips and blows her a kiss as she laughs at him.
My daughter sits between them. “Knock it off, Dex. Nona’s not going to marry you until I’m grown up. She has to cook me all the good food until I’m big and strong.” The words turn into a mumble as she talks around a mouthful of pancake.
“Close your mouth when you eat. And elbows off the table,” Kesera says as she comes in behind me. “Sit, Vadim. You need breakfast. Is there sour cream, Nona? I’m not counting calories this morning.”
“Shouldn’t be counting calories ever.” Nona brings sour cream, honey, and jam to the table. She gestures at an empty seat and I lower myself into it, trying to wrap my head around the scene in front of me and wondering what my lines should be in this play.
The presence of my daughter has thrown me for a loop. I know nothing about girls, let alone small girls.
Andrei stands at the back door with a smirk. “I’m going for a cigarette, boss. Enjoy your breakfast.”
I’m about to flip him off when I remember my daughter is sitting opposite me. I look over at her as she watches me spear a forkful of blini and bring it to my mouth, choking it down at her next sentence.
“So, Dad, do I have any brothers and sisters?”
Dex snorts with laughter. “Way to go for the jugular, kid.”
“What’s a jugular?”
Dex grins at her and draws a line across his throat. “It’s an artery right here,” he says, pointing his fork at Nadia.
She smirks at him before turning back to me. “It would be cool if I had a sister, but I’m not sure how I feel about brothers. Boys stink.”
I smile at her and look over at her mother, who’s standing by the table and watching me warily. I keep my eyes on hers as I reply. “You’re my one and only.”
“As far as you know.” Dex chokes back another laugh, but stops when he sees my thunderous expression.
“This isn’t something I would joke about. I wouldn’t bring children into a world where I can’t keep them safe. I’m quite sure.” My gaze bounces between mother and daughter, taking in Kesera’s tense posture and my daughter’s carefree fixation on her breakfast.
“Is that why you didn’t come and find us?” Nadia asks, tilting her head to the side as she picks up a bottle of honey and pours it all over her blini.
“Something like that. I thought it would be better for all of you if I stayed away.”
Nadia raises her head and fixes me with her pale-blue eyes. It’s like looking in a mirror. She looks so much like me. I meet her stare and wait to see if she’ll look away, but I cast my gaze down first. Unlike when I’m staring down guys who work for me or men who owe me money, I’m the one who’s most nervous in this staring contest.
“I’m glad you’re here. I’d like to have a dad,” she says, and then cuts her blini in half, jamming it into her mouth so that she’s too full to say more.
Kesera scrubs at her eyes and then sits down at the table. I take a deep breath. My stomach might be in knots, but I promised I would try to be kind. There’s no point being cruel for the sake of it.
I’m not sure if my next words are true, but what the hell?
“Pleased to meet you too,” I say woodenly, not sure how to deal with a kid.
Her face lights up. “Spasiba,” she says. “Ochen’ pryatnaya.” Then in case I haven’t understood, she smiles. “That’s Russian. Nona taught me.”
Kesera looks over at Dex and then back at me. “Can you two run through the threats we’re facing and then brief me with a plan after breakfast?” She pushes the food around her plate and then rises abruptly, making the plates on the table clatter.
“You okay, Mom?”
“Didn’t sleep too well. I’ll go for a walk and clear my head,” Kesera says. “Don’t overload on screens while I’m gone. Draw a picture or pick up your guitar. The timer with your screen allowance will run out, and then you won’t be able to watch a movie tonight.”
“Mom,” Nadia groans, drawing out the vowels. Then she looks at me with a sly grin. “I bet Dad would let me have screen time. I bet he’ll let me use his phone.”
“Sorry.” I shrug. “I don’t know about these things. You have to listen to your mother.” I glance at Kesera, but she’s looking out at the trees and avoiding my eyes. “Anyway, I don’t think you’ll like this phone.”
I pull an old Nokia handset from my pocket and hand it to my daughter as I watch Kesera open the back door and step into the morning sunshine.
The kitchen is bigger than in our old place—and full of women and children—but it triggers old memories. My mind drifts back to a morning in the snow with Kesera on my lap in an empty house, lost to everything but the taste of her mouth and the roll of her hips.
This house is a mindfuck. What is she playing at, bringing me here?
“I’ll check on your mother.” I look at Nadia, who’s now trying to get Dex to lend her his phone. She’s nothing if not persistent, but she’s not my problem. Right now, her mother is. I’m going to get answers.
Nodding at everyone, I step toward the back door and follow the path I saw her take into the trees.
Rows of spring plants poke through the dirt in a vegetable garden situated near the side of the house. I can see where the grass has been trodden black, so I follow the trail of footsteps into the trees, past a wooden shack that looks like the banya we had out in Moscow.
My lover has rebuilt my past with a Hollywood gloss, and it’s making me feel dizzy. A daughter. A cottage in the woods. An angry Italian gangster who’s probably got a bullet with my name on it, and a vengeful Night Governor.
It all whirls around my head as I crash down the woodland path winding through the trees. No answers immediately spring into my mind as the path opens into a sunny glade, where I find her sitting on a tree trunk and spinning a branch in her hand. I lean against the scraggy bark of a tree and watch her, my nostrils flaring as I struggle to keep my breathing even. I’m angry, but I don’t know about what. Too many feelings and thoughts jostle for space, and I can’t make sense of them.
When she spots me, she doesn’t say anything, just regards me steadily.
“Is this some kind of joke?” I swing my arm around, pointing back at the house.
“Is what a joke?”
“You’ve rebuilt my life like some sort of Disney fantasy in the woods. And then you bring me out here? Are you trying to fuck with me?” I stalk toward her, my hands in fists at my sides as I glare down at her mess of bronze-and-gold curls. I want to thrust my hands into all that hair and use it to move her body.
Kesera’s green eyes flash at me, and she springs from her seat, jabbing her finger into my chest. “My god, you’re an arrogant asshole. I didn’t bring you here. This is my life you’ve walked into. Our life. My family’s life.”
She’s so tiny that her head barely reaches mid chest. I have a flashback of tangling in the sheets with her, her sucking and biting at my nipples. I can feel myself getting hard, even as I get angry.
“Then what the fuck am I doing here?” I ask.
She throws her arms up. “Why don’t you tell me that? You’re the one with the burner phones and the death threats and the demands to disappear.” Her fingers thrust into her curls, pulling at them the way I’ve fantasized about doing myself. “Do you think I’m some sort of idiot? I’ve run a business and raised a child without any help from you for a decade. Now you’re here with demands that we upend our lives.” She bites down on her lip as if swallowing a rush of emotion.
Turning her back on me, she stalks to the edge of the trees, but I’m one step behind her, pushing her up against a birch trunk. Even this reminds me of Russia, though the leaves are green and I can hear birdsong. Last time I was in the woods with her, everything was silent and covered in snow.
“Tell me why the fuck you rebuilt this house in America.” I push closer to her body, winding my fingers into her hair and using it to tilt back her head.
Her eyes burn with green fire, and unlike most of the men I’ve had in this position, she doesn’t look scared of me. In fact, she looks furious. I step toward her, aligning my pelvis with the small of her back and caging her in with my arms.
“Why the hell should I tell you anything?” she says. “You said you don’t want a relationship with either of us, so what does it matter to you?”
“A bit late for that now. Now that our daughter knows who I am.”
“I didn’t do it for you.”
I step between her legs, circling her waist with one arm and pulling her body against me as I grasp her wrists with the other arm and pull them over her head. Sinking my nose into her hair, I inhale the scent of summer flowers. She smells just the same. Like every wet dream I’ve ever had.
“Are you sure about that, zolotaya?” I whisper against her neck.
“Don’t.” Her head leans forward, resting against the white trunk of the birch tree. “Don’t do this.”
“Don’t do what?” I whisper, loosening my grip on her wrists so that she can wrench herself free. “Don’t touch you the way I’ve dreamed about for years? Don’t kiss you?”
She stays in the circle of my arms, her body trembling with fury, fear, or something else. I kiss the spot beneath her ear, and she shivers. She gasps as I keep kissing her neck, her collarbone, her earlobes. I revel in the way her breathing speeds up, and she arches against me.
“You can’t tell me you didn’t think about me the way I thought about you. Not now that I’ve seen this place.” I let go of her wrist and reach down to cup her face, turning it toward me. My mouth ghosts across her lips and I whisper against them. “Please, baby. Kiss me back.”
She sighs and opens her mouth, letting me sip at her lips, deepening the kiss until I’m drunk on the taste of her. She pushes back against me as I slide my hand down her body and undo the button on her jeans, toying with it and letting my finger stroke the lace against her skin but not moving closer. She sighs and bucks against me, and I sink into the kiss, my mouth burning against hers as she moans.
I pull back to look at her. Her pupils are blown wide within a ring of jade, and she gazes at me as if she can’t believe I’m here. I slide my hand inside her jeans, touching the silk and lace resting against her heat, but I wait for her. We look at each other, and she starts to buck against my fingertips until her desire soaks through to my skin.
“You want this, don’t you? Tell me.” I grind out the words as I dive beneath the lace and circle her clit. She’s so ready, but she holds still.
Her breathing speeds up as I slide a finger inside her, rubbing her G-spot and leaning down to press a kiss under her ear.
“I’m going out of my head, and I know you feel it too.” I slide a second finger into her tight, wet heat.
“Vadim, please.”
“Please what, my golden girl? Please make you come all over my fingers? Do you need to come, baby?”
Her breath saws in and out of her, but she’s trying hard not to react. “Don’t toy with me. I want you. I want you so much.”
The words shred the last of my restraint. I don’t have a condom, and the last time we did this, we made a child, but I can’t seem to stop. I pull my buttons open and push her jeans and panties lower until my cock slides against her hot, wet folds, bathing me in the evidence of how much she wants me.
She pushes back against me finally, bending at the waist so that I can move deeper between her legs. I grasp her hip, lean down to take her chin in my hand, and turn her lips to my mouth, kissing her deeply. With one last kiss, I move so that I can meet her eyes.
“Tell me you don’t want this. I won’t force you. Tell me you don’t remember how it felt.”
Her eyes glisten with emotion. “Vadim. You know how I feel.” She closes her eyes and leans in to kiss me, as if looking at me is too much.
I won’t pull more emotions from her, but I need to know I’m not stealing something that isn’t mine. I’m not a good man, but I don’t fuck women who don’t want it.
“Tell me. Tell me no and I’ll stop,” I say softly against her pouting lips.
“Yes,” she whispers. “Yes.”
“Say it again. Tell me.”
“You. God, yes. I want you to fuck me.”
“Fuck, zolotaya. My girl. My girl.”
I slide home and it’s unreal. My bare cock against all that fiery heat. Nothing in the world has ever felt this good. I should have waited or shown more finesse, but I can’t stop.
“Hold the tree and push back against me,” I say as I bend her body and give her another inch. I want to slam into her, but she’s such a tiny little thing and she’s so tight. I don’t want to hurt her. “Baby, I’ll go slow until you can take all of my cock. Look at you being such a good girl for me.”
I circle her clit again, and she moans softly.
“Show me, baby. Give me your hand and show me how you need it.” I reach for her fingers and bring them between her legs to help me learn her rhythm. I want to make this everything for her. I want her to feel all the things I’m feeling. The way it was when we were together.
“Oh, Vadim. It hurts, but I don’t want you to stop.”
I edge in another inch. “Push back. Please take me. Take all of me.”
I’m not sure what I’m asking for anymore, but she widens her legs and starts working my cock deeper inside her.
“Fuck,” I moan as she slides back against me. I inch all the way home until my balls are snug against the warm skin of her body. “God, you’re so beautiful. Nothing in the world makes me feel like I do when I’m inside you.”
I move slowly, fucking her gently to allow her body time to adjust to my size. Moving in and out and remembering the feel of her makes me lose myself in time. I could be here in the woods on a spring morning or back in Moscow in the snow.
“Oh, god,” she moans.
“You okay, baby? Are you with me?” My voice comes out sounding strangled with the effort of holding myself back.
“God, Vadim. Harder. I need you.”
I can’t form words, so I lean down and take her hand from between her legs and bring it to rest on the birch tree, twining our fingers together. Holding her hip with my other hand to anchor myself, I slam into her. Her body rocks beneath me, and I lose it. Rutting into her like an animal. Making her moan and cry out with every thrust.
Then I’m pouring my body, heart, and soul into her as the light behind my eyes flashes silver like the birch bark around us. With the walls of her pussy clenching down around me, I come.
She stills and tries to move away from me, but I bend over her back and turn her face toward me.
“Don’t pull away from me now.” I wrap her in my arms as we stand upright. Keeping my arm around her, I turn her to face me.
A tear slips over her crimson cheek. I lean in to kiss her, swallowing the trickle of salt water.
“Please don’t cry, zolotaya,” I whisper against her lips. I know I don’t have the right to ask when I can’t stay in her life, but it tears me up to see her so upset.