Tamsin
I wake up with a crick in my neck. It’s morning, and I don’t immediately recognize where I am.
At some point in the evening, I fell asleep. Now I’m curled up against Demyan’s side, wrapped in a blanket.
He sites.
“Good morning,” he says.
“Morning. I can’t believe we slept right through the night,” I say.
“I’ve not slept properly for days. I feel like a whole new human.”
I pull away from where I seem to have perfectly slotted under his arm and look at him. His hair is mussed, his stubble is darker, but his eyes are sharp and focused.
“How do you do that? Wake up and become instantly alert?” I grab the bottle of water that he gave me last night and down what’s left of it.
“Nature of my job, I suppose,” he says. “Have to be ready to go at a moment's notice.”
I nod, pulling my clothes straight and adjusting the underwire in my bra.
“I can’t believe I ended up staying over. That wasn’t my intention.”
He just lifts a brow at that. “Does it matter?”
I think about it. Does it matter? Probably not in the grand scheme of things but I feel like I should be mad at myself about it. When the annoyance, or anger, doesn’t arrive, I shrug. “I suppose not.”
“I’ll order us some breakfast,” he says. “What do you like?”
“I normally just have fruit and yogurt for breakfast. Can I use your bathroom please?”
He nods towards the hallway “Second door on the left.”
The bathroom is like a hotel bathroom. Clean tiles and nothing out of place. It’s weird, especially when I compare it to the tiny bathroom I shared on the boat with Kelly. We had make-up and toiletries everywhere.
I wash my face with cold water and search for a tube of toothpaste, finding it in a drawer I found by accident. I rub a small amount over my teeth and then swill some water around my mouth. It’s the best I can do. My hair is easy enough to handle with the hair tie from around my wrist.
“Breakfast foods are on their way,” Demyan says when I make my way back through to the living room.
“Thank you,” I say. Embarrassment creeps over me for some reason.
He just nods and disappears down the hall.
Less than fifteen minutes later there’s a knock at the door and I answer it to a delivery guy holding up a bag of groceries. Demyan appears as I carry it through to the kitchen.
“Can I ask you something?” I say while emptying the contents over the island counter.
Demyan is measuring coffee into a small machine. He has changed his clothes and somehow the more casual jeans and T-shirt make him look hotter. “Yeah.”
“Sammie said you asked Eduard to move you somewhere else. Why?”
He looks at me briefly before returning his attention to the coffee pot. “You told me to leave.”
“I meant my house, Demyan, not the city.”
He finishes pouring water into the machine and then flicks the switch before turning to me.
“You know how people behave according to two main feelings?” he asks.
“No,” I admit. I don’t know what you mean.”
“Well, humans are emotional creatures. WE all have feelings that then influence everything else we do. The two main feelings that everything else comes from are love and fear.”
I frown, not following.
“That evening, when we were having dinner with your mom. You went from resignation at taking the opportunity to get to know me, to anger. Both of these are rooted in fear.”
I’m following what he is saying, but it still doesn’t quite make sense why he is saying it.
He strokes his fingers down my sleeve, hooking them into my hand.
“I don’t want you to ever feel afraid of me. I don’t want to make you respond to what’s happening around you from a place of fear. I’m sorry I did. And that’s why I thought getting away for a while would be the best thing for both of us.”
“Sammie and Delilah are both so insanely in love,” I murmur.
“So are Eduard and Jasper, and the others for that matter.” His mouth curves. “Madly.”
“Is that what you want?” I ask, lifting my chin a little.
He nods. “Mostly, I just want to feel the way you make me feel when I look at you. I want to be able to look at you every day and know that every bit of you is mine and every bit of me is yours. I want the world to know you chose me when you could choose anyone on the planet. I want to lay the world at your feet and give you everything you could ever dream of…but I know that’s a lot, and I know you probably had other ideas. ”
“I’ve never had a serious relationship.” The words tumble from me before I can claw them back. “I was so busy with competitions and auditions that I never bothered.”
“What about your dance partners?” he asks.
“They were already hooked up with other people or not interested, which is fine with me because dancing was my job.”
I close my hand around his fingers.
“I’m worried that I’ll lose myself in you,” I finally confess. “What if being with you means I’m okay with what you do?”
“What if we just see where it goes, and keep open lines of communication?”
I nod and he steps into my space. “I’m going to kiss you now.”
I lift my face, and his comes down, our lips touching lightly at first. Then his tongue swipes over the seam where our lips are touching and every nerve ending comes alive. My free hand weaves into his hair and pulls him closer, and his winds around to the small of my back to do the same.
We’re still kissing when the coffee machine beeps.
“We should eat,” he says.
Only I’m not hungry. At least not for food.
He must realise because his eyes darken when they meet mine, and he immediately pushes the groceries aside and lifts me onto the island. He continues to kiss me, more eager this time, his lips dragging over mine as his tongue presses into my mouth.
Heat blooms inside me, making my muscles go loose with want. When he trails his lips over my jaw and down my neck, my head tips back without my permission, giving him access to my throat.
“Lift,” he says. He has managed to open the fly of my jeans without me noticing, and when I comply with his demand, he pulls my jeans and panties down over my hips in one smooth motion.
“Fuck,” he breathes, pressing my panties against his face with one hand and pressing the heel of his other against the bulge in his jeans. “You’re going to taste so good.”
His pupils have completely blown, making his eyes look black as he pushes my legs apart.
“Let me see everything,” he says.
I tuck my hands into the hem of my sweater and lift it off, dragging my tank top after it. Then it’s just my bra, which I shrug off while his fingers slide over the inside of my thighs.
My nipples are already pebbled, eagerly awaiting some attention. Demyan leans forward and sweeps his tongue over the underside of one breast, then the other, the sensation causing me to shiver and moan.
“I want to make you scream, in the best way,” he says against my skin, then sucks one peaked nipple onto his hot mouth and flickers his tongue over it.
I gasp in surprise. Then he takes his mouth to my other nipple and lavishes it with the same attention. His fingers are gently parting my folds, pressing lightly to my soft skin. Then he catches my clit with the rough pad of one of his fingers and my entire body jerks.
He lets my nipple free from his mouth with a popping sound, and says, “be as loud as you need to be.”
His words enter my ears, but don’t entirely register while my brain is clouded with the sensations he is making me feel.
“I’m going to make you feel so good.” With those words, he drags my hips forward until I’m on the edge of the counter, takes each of my ankles in his hands and lifts my legs in a wide ‘V’.
I hear him mutter one more ‘fuck,’ then his mouth is on me.
The first time my body shivers is in surprise that he is doing this.
It’s not something I’ve experienced before and I don’t know what to expect.
Then the pleasure begins to build and the next shiver is in response to the way he presses his tongue against my entrance.
I lean back on my elbows, keeping my eyes on him as he sucks and licks at my pussy like a starving man. He has a hand on each of my legs, stroking up and down while his tongue does sinful things.
The first moan is a breath, barely a sound. The next is louder as he sucks in one of my sensitive lips into his mouth. He works me slow. Building me up with each press of his mouth against my wet center.
When my moans turn into desperate, begging gasps, he slows down even more until I’m pleading with him to let me come.
He waits, working his tongue in a smooth rhythm over my pussy until my pelvis is twitching, trying to encourage him to go where I need him most. He finally gives me what I need, his mouth coming over my clit and his tongue pressing in a fast, up and down motion.
The first wave hits me harder than I’ve ever experienced, I cry out and my body arches but he doesn’t let go.
He continues over my clit until I come apart right there under his mouth.
Then just when I think he can’t pull anything else from me, he thrusts two thick fingers into my quivering channel and hooks them.
I scream as pleasure bolts through me at the speed of light. I’m vaguely aware that I’ve collapsed back on the kitchen island, and my entire body is trembling.