Chapter 26 Kalina
KALINA
Please stay?
Stay?
Staying put was something I’d wanted to avoid. During my conditioning and brainwashing, I dreamed of nothing but escaping. Of being able to decide where I wanted to go. To have the freedom to move and do what I wanted.
Yet, here was Alexsei, asking me to do the opposite. To stay. To allow myself to be trapped in place again.
That’s not fair.
This wasn’t fair to him.
He’s not Erik. He’s not Yusef. I had to force my thoughts to shift.
None of the Dubinin men and no one in this family were acting with the controlling nature that my brother and his friend had. It was taking me a long time to believe it, but I had. It wasn’t fair of me to assume that Alexsei could be the same.
I had been staying here already.
I had stayed with him in the cabin.
Because I extended that much trust in him and his family, I had stayed.
It was time for me to extend that trust again.
“Please stay and listen to me. Can you hear me out?”
He wasn’t telling me to listen. He was asking me. He wasn’t grabbing me to hold me. He was merely touching my hand. Gently.
That stood out the clearest among the fog of fear and confusion with the news of my pregnancy. He was doing the courtesy of asking me instead of ordering me. It was on me to compromise with him, to give him a chance to explain.
I had come here to his room not to be talked out of leaving, but to simply tell him that he would be a father. To inform him. To basically explain that we had created a new life.
Since the second I took the test this evening and saw the positive lines, I warred with the instinct to assume he’d done this on purpose. Deep down in my heart, I knew he hadn’t bred me like I was taught to expect. At that cabin, he didn’t control me. He only helped me grow and heal.
With a leap of faith, with the kernel of love that still simmered in my heart for him, I wanted to believe he wouldn’t control this situation either.
I gave him a nod, jerkily and slightly, but he saw it.
“I couldn’t be happier with this news, Kalina. I truly couldn’t.”
Oh, Alexsei.
I heard every note of pure joy in his words. He was happy. I already knew how much he loved Misha.
“And I vow, with all that I am, to protect you and this child. In whatever shape and form you want your future to look like, I will never stop keeping you safe.”
His promise was a loaded one, and a touchy subject at the moment after what happened at the cabin. But I would listen to him. I would give this a chance.
“I am okay with the fact that you might never forgive me for failing you before. When—”
“Stop.” I shook my head, refusing to go down this path of ignorance and misplaced blame. I had to look forward, not backward. “You didn’t fail me. I’m alive. Misha is alive.”
“But I almost failed you, and I will never forgive myself for that.”
In the starkest punch of the truth, it all made sense. What Luka told me. What Gabriella, Raisa, and Sadie tried to explain.
Those Rivera men had only come to that cabin because of what others had done. Not because of Alexsei’s decision to bring me and Misha there.
Softening toward him, I sighed and took another step. Then another. Slowly, as if every second that passed was a heavy mark of surrender, I leaned against him.
His arms lifted around me in a tender, cautious hug, and that was all I needed in this moment to keep taking the risk on him. On us.
“Can you take another chance to believe me? To believe in how much I care?” he whispered.
The warmth of his breath on my temple teased me. All this body heat wafting from him soothed me. But it was the strength in his arms locked around me that gave me that soulful sense of security I’d been missing.
“I want to.”
He nodded and sighed against me.
“But I want to do this right. I don’t know how to do any of this. How to even begin to care for this baby and do it right.” I glanced up at him, furrowing my brow. “I just know that I need to figure it out. It needs to be how I want to manage it. How I want to learn it all.”
He was already a parent and wouldn’t be as na?ve. But with my past, I had to have control.
“Let me help you.”
I winced. “I don’t want to be told—”
“No. I won’t. Please, Kalina. Give me one example of when I’d forced expectations on you.
When I haven’t given you full authority over what you prefer.
No training. No obligations. This baby”—he lowered his hand to rest it on my flat stomach—“isn’t the result of my breeding you.
It’s the result of our daring to find love. To make love.”
I sniffled, so overcome with all these right words he gave me.
But still, I feared if that was all they were. Words. False vows. Illusions.
Yet, as I thought back, I knew I’d be a liar to accuse him of controlling me even once.
“I can help you provide for this baby, Kalina. Not dominate how it will go. Whatever you want, we will make it happen.”
I huffed a weak laugh. “I don’t even have anything to provide. I have no home—”
“What if you make a home here? With us? With Misha? With me.”
I sighed.
“I have no money—”
“Would it be so wrong if I gave you all of mine?”
Oh, my God.
I clung to the fear. “I don’t have a job. I don’t even have an education.”
“We can find answers to all of it. I’ve heard Gabriella and Raisa talking about having you work with them on their women’s foundation.”
I nodded, excited at how they’d mentioned the charity that would mean a lot to me.
“And Sadie has already offered to help you start going back to school to earn a diploma or degree.” He smiled, tucking my hair behind my ear.
“I will do all I can to make all your dreams come true. You can start looking for a doctor. Or choose where to deliver. All the nursery things. You can have it all, Kalina. Whatever choice you want to be in charge of, I welcome you to it. I won’t decide your life for you or that of our baby’s. ”
I stared up at his handsome face, feeling the rightness of believing him. He wasn’t trying to manipulate me. He was only speaking the truth.
“I want you to have it all, Kalina. Anything you want. Everything you wish for.”
He leaned down, hugging me closer as he kissed my brow gently. Closing my eyes at the touch of his lips on me, I sighed and relished the magic of forgiveness.
“Because you are what I want. You represent everything I’ve been too scared to wish for.”
“Alexsei…” I rested my hand on his face, feeling the familiar friction of the slight stubble of his beard he never wanted to finish growing.
“Love. I’ve been convinced I couldn’t ever deserve love like this again. But I’ve found it with you. I love you, Kalina. And I want to help make that happily-ever-after be within your reach.”
Overcome by all the emotions that surged through me, I gave up the last thread of my resistance. I wanted to be free, at last. To open up to him and let him have my heart.
“I love you too.” I wasn’t sure how to love like this, but following him and embracing this warmth that filled my heart, I pulled his head down to me. Closing my eyes, I stopped fighting it all. I brought my lips to his and treated myself to the bliss of kissing him.
My hero.
The one who saved me from the darkness.
This man who would always be patient and generous to help me heal and feel so alive.
He tightened his arms around me and kissed me back with a brutal hunger. Like he’d been waiting forever for me. For this moment.
I would never let it go. I’d never let him go again.
Kissing him after my stubborn fear that kept me trapped in wanting to avoid him felt like perfection. It felt like freedom.
With him, I would always be untethered, encouraged to be the strongest woman I could ever dare to be.
Trusting and ready to love.
Good enough.
Worthy of all the happiness we could dare to find together.
Even with the nervousness of becoming a parent for the first time, with all the unknowns about motherhood, I would be forever happy after this moment of accepting and welcoming his love.
“I will never stop loving you,” he promised raggedly once he ripped his mouth from mine. Our breath mingled between us, a rush of hot air as we both dove back in for another kiss.
Holding me close, he gave me no wish to retreat. I didn’t want to ever run or avoid him again.
“I love you, Kalina. So fucking much.”
Hugging him tighter, I tried to jump into his arms, clinging to him. Desperate for him.
Every brush of his mouth over mine furthered my lust.
Each squeeze of his hands on my flesh pushed me to more desire.
He picked me up without letting go of our kisses. Eagerly, I reached up and wrapped my arms around his waist as he carried me further back into his room.
Lost under the magic of his love and delirious with need for his greedy kisses, I was on a fast track to arousal. I was feral and impatient to make love with him again.
Under the same impression of urgency to reconnect in the most intimate way two could ever be joined, he brought me toward his bed.
Next to it, I stood shakily. He let me down as I lowered my feet, but only long enough to paw at his clothes while he worked on mine.
In a flurry of clumsy movements, we raced to strip.
All the while kissing like there was no tomorrow.
Making out like oxygen was no longer a requirement to live.
Only this obedience to the desire for each other mattered.
I leaned back, shivering at the coolness of the air on my naked body. As he paused to lose the last of his clothing, he raked his ravenous gaze over me.
My breasts felt heavy, my nipples hard peaks of need.
My pussy throbbed with his possessive touch as he caressed and rubbed me,
As he crawled over me, urging me to go down with him while he kissed me, I tried to reach out and grip his big, hard dick pointing at my stomach.
I’d missed this. I’d missed him. I’d missed us, this soulful connection and feeling of him so deep inside me so I’d be safe and complete.
So wanted and trusted.
Cherished.
Kissing me with a hungry impatient, he urged me to lie back for him. This wasn’t about him controlling me. It was a matter of him understanding how badly we needed each other. How much I wanted his guidance.
“I love you,” he whispered against my ear as he lined up to enter me.
“I need you,” I reply in a sob, overwhelmed with the delicious stretch of him fitting into where I wanted him most. “I need you to love me like this.”
He shushed me as I whined, arching my back and trying to thrust my hips up so he’d get in me faster. So I could feel complete again.
“I will always love you with all that I am. However you’ll have me,” he promised in a husky growl as he drove all the way into me, to the hilt.
I cried out at the shock of him so thick inside me. Filling me. Stretching me.
Owning me in the only way I wanted to be owned.
He pulled back out slowly, and the juicy and smooth friction of him with my arousal coating him taunted me. As he continued to thrust into me and make love with me, the slapping sound of our flesh meeting together was the soundtrack of music I would never tire of.
The beauty of making love, of forgiveness, of accepting that we were better together, forced me to accept that love ruled us, not control.
We’d already achieved the miracle of starting a new life out of our love.
His baby grew in my womb. And I couldn’t want to bring him or her into the world with this wonderful man.
Under the pressure to come, I wished that I could’ve waited. It was over too quickly. We’d only just begun. We’d only just made up. Yet with the distance we’d suffered through for the last two months, I couldn’t hold out any longer. The tension was too much.
It snapped. Shattering under the powerful orgasm that felt like a second chance of love, I came for him. Shivering and trembling as he whispered praise and compliments into my ear.
Pounding into me, as he sought his own release, he whispered again and again that I would always be his good girl, the woman he’d love.
And when he finally came over me, I held him close.
I gathered him in my arms as my pleasure continued.
With his dick so deep inside me, flooding me with his cum, the muscles in his back bunched under my hands.
His neck strained as he rode through his climax.
“I love you,” I reminded him as he collapsed over me.
Rolling until I was draped over him in a lax, limp mess, he stroked his hand up and down my back and kept me close. Catching our breath, we lay like that and came down from the high we’d denied for too long.
“I love you too, Kalina,” he said softly. “I always will.”
I closed my eyes, content that the reunion I had been fantasizing about was coming true. This dream of caving to the drowsiness as I was tucked against him, in his arms, with his affection blanketing me as I drifted into sleep.