27. Let your husband take care of breakfast. （Aleksander） #2
“Oh, fuck,” she groans as I start sampling her again and again. The first taste nearly ends whatever discipline I thought I still had. Her fingers find my hair, gripping and pulling me in.
For once, strategy fails me completely. Everything else disappears, leaving nothing behind but the desire to fuck.
She moans as I lavish her clit in circles and sink two fingers into her wet heat, pumping in and out.
Her slick walls quiver around me, her hands tightening their grip on my hair.
I can feel her orgasm starting to build, her whole body shaking with the need to come.
“Sasha!”
Her shout echoes in the kitchen as her muscles contract with a powerful climax. I don’t just feel her release; I taste it, sweet and musky and addictive. My cock twitches painfully in my jeans, precum welling up. It takes every ounce of my self-control not to bury myself inside of her right here.
“Okay. That was—” Tamara pants, “nice.”
“Nice?” I nip at her inner thigh, then soothe the spot with my tongue.
“You should take care of breakfast from now on.” She grabs my face with both hands and pulls me up to stand.
“Bedroom,” I announce, and pluck her off the counter, wrapping her legs around my waist.
But before I can take a single step, the intercom cuts through the kitchen like a blade.
Tamara stiffens.
So do I.
“Mr. Sokolov,” the doorman says through the speaker. “Rosen & Vale Conservation is here.”
The Kandinsky.
We both look toward the intercom with identical resentment.
“Send them up,” I say and gently release her. Tamara’s hand falls from my chest, and the heat between us shifts.
I step back because someone has to. She grabs her discarded panties and smooths my ruined shirt over her thighs.
When the elevator doors open, there is batter on her cheek, flour on her forearm, and her taste on my tongue.
Two conservators step into the apartment with rolling cases and a reinforced transport crate, both careful, both professionally blank in the way people become around objects valuable enough to make silence feel expensive.
A woman in her forties leads them, dark hair twisted neatly at the nape of her neck.
“Mr. Sokolov.” She extends a hand. “Marina Vale.”
“Ms. Vale,” I say, shaking her hand.
Her gaze moves briefly to Tamara, then to the wrapped Kandinsky near the fireplace. “We’ll take it to the studio for stabilization first. You’ll receive the formal condition report by tomorrow afternoon. After that, we can confirm the restoration schedule.”
Tamara steps forward, and Ms. Vale turns to her with immediate recognition. They must have spoken more than once.
“Mrs. Sokolov, nice to meet you in person.”
The woman continues, professional and calm. “The canvas tension will need careful correction. Based on the images you sent, the tear was minimal. This is very repairable. We’ll know more tomorrow.”
Repairable.
Not untouched.
Tamara absorbs the distinction.
So do I.
The other conservator kneels near the painting and begins checking the temporary wrapping. His movements are precise and impersonal. Professional hands touching something I have avoided touching since the tear happened.
I watch because looking away would feel worse. Tamara stands beside me, silent. I think of Elena in the gallery chair, blanket over her knees, smiling like she had forced beauty into my life against my will and expected me to be grateful eventually.
She was right. She usually was.
The conservators settle the painting into the transport crate. Foam supports. Straps. Climate protection.
Layer by layer, the visible piece of Elena disappears into procedure. Tamara’s hand finds mine, and I close my fingers around hers.
“This was my fault,” she says quietly.
“Yes.”
Her breath catches. I look at her then. “But it is not only yours to carry.”
She nods. The crate closes with a low, final sound.
Ms. Vale straightens. “We’ll be in touch tomorrow.”
“Thank you,” Tamara says before I can answer.
Her voice is steady, responsible, with nothing in it I need to manage.
The conservators roll the crate toward the elevator.
For a moment, I have the absurd instinct to stop them.
To say never mind. To put it back on the wall damaged and crooked and present, because damaged and present is still easier than gone.
Then Tamara’s fingers move once against mine.
The living room feels larger without the painting.
Without the Kandinsky, the symmetry Elena loved loosens.
The marble looks colder. The furniture more exposed.
Tamara’s half-finished sketches sit on the side table near the windows, warm neutrals and lighting notes and pencil marks across tracing paper.
The old room and the new one facing each other across an absence.
Tamara releases my hand slowly. “I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
“I’m not going to keep saying it.”
“Good.”
Her mouth curves faintly, but her eyes are still too bright.
“I mean, I will probably keep thinking it.”
“Don’t keep punishing yourself.” I want to say more, but my phone pings from the kitchen, the sound pulling us both back.
Tamara follows me.
The message is short.
Yuri:
I have all the information we need.
Tamara reads it across my shoulder. The kitchen is silent around us. Burned butter. Cold coffee. Uneven crêpes cooling on the plate.
Then she says, “I want to know everything.”
She holds my gaze defiantly, daring me. A slow smile moves through me before it reaches my mouth.
“There she is.”
Her brow lifts. “Who?”
“My wife.”
She looks down at the ruined crêpes, the cold coffee, the flour on her bare feet. Then back at me.
“We’re going to need better breakfast before we destroy my father.”
I pick up the least terrible crêpe and take a bite. Tamara watches, suspicious as I swallow.
“I guess I’ll take care of breakfast from now on.”
The smile she gives me is small.
But it stays.