Her eyes fluttered open, absolute welcome and joy filling them at once. He forced himself to breathe, struggling to banish the brutal images that assailed him regularly back into the deepest dungeon of his memory.
Stretching and yawning delightedly, she sat up, looking like a goddess of voluptuousness, her breasts full and firm, her waist nipped, her thighs long and sleek, her hair gleaming gold around her strong shoulders. His body roared all over again. He tamped it down as viciously. It was enough he’d been all over her the moment he’d found her awake, not even giving her a chance to freshen up or eat. He really had to do something about his perpetual arousal, the need to possess her as many times as she could withstand every single day. He shouldn’t unleash seven years’ worth of deprivation on her. Even if she was breathlessly willing.
But she was now getting on her hands and knees, slinking toward him like a mischievous cat, rubbing against him very much like one, before turning all human female, pressing her softness into his hardness, turning his arousal to distress.
Pushing him on his back, she lay on top of him, pressing her every hot inch to his. “It’s you I want to feast on.”
He gazed up at her, needing to tell her so much, yet still unable to, the unuttered confessions a constant burning coal in his throat. “I’ll be right here after you eat. I’ll always be there for you to take your fill of me.”
Next moment, her response made him like everything had come crashing down.
Wrapping one lock of the hair he’d grown longer as per her request, her smile inexorable seduction, she asked, “Always? Even when I go back home?”
Anastasia could no longer keep the knowledge from herself.
Not that she’d really kept it hidden. It was just she hadn’t given her all-encompassing, overwhelming emotions for Ivan a name, not since he’d come back. But it had been a constant in her life, even when she’d thought he’d left her forever.
She loved him. Had always and would always love him.
But though he behaved as if he loved her as passionately, as absolutely, and was profuse with extravagant actions and endearments, he never put his emotions into those words. So neither had she. And in spite of everything he’d done, everything they’d shared, she dreaded that he’d one day suddenly end it again.
And that wasn’t another attack of anxiety or paranoia. She had reason to think what she did. It had started that morning two weeks ago, when she’d introduced the subject of going home.
He hadn’t answered her, had done it smoothly, heaving up to engulf her in kisses and coddling, feeding her breakfast before making love to her again.
He’d expertly avoided the subject since, diverting the conversation each time she tried to take it there.
By now she knew if she left it up to him, she’d never go home.
Though he’d been struggling not to show it, he’d been on edge, anticipating that his evasive tactics would soon run out, and they’d have a confrontation. She feared that when that happened, this rarefied state they’d been living in would come to an end. And this time, he would let her go.
Just minutes ago, she’d reached critical mass. She couldn’t go one more hour without finally having this out.
Her footsteps faltered outside his office before she came into his view. He always left the door open, as if perpetually afraid she’d need him and he wouldn’t be aware of it at once.
She inhaled one last bolstering breath and walked in.
His eyes flashed that all-out welcome at her sight. He rose at once from his massive mahogany desk with the multiple computer screens at his back. But his eager steps slowed down when he saw her face clearly. She was sure she looked as tense as she felt.
The momentary slowing turned into urgent strides that had him catching her by her shoulders in an anxious grip in seconds. “What is it, moya dorogoya? You’re not feeling okay?”
Gripping his hands she tried to stem his anxiety, what could soar at the slightest provocation. “I’m fine, really. Don’t start worrying. I just...wanted to talk to you.”
His face emptied. But in the blankness she could see one important fact. He knew what she was going to talk about. And if he could have done anything to stop her, he would have. But she’d cornered him this time, and he could do nothing to escape the subject. And he hated it.
It made her almost back down. How she hated to force this confrontation, too. But it had to come, sooner or later. And now she knew it would, she could no longer postpone it and live in this progressively debilitating suspense.
Gathering all her strength of will, trembling inside in apprehension at the possible outcome, she said, “I’ve tried to bring it up before, but you clearly weren’t ready to discuss it. I let it go as long as I could, Ivan, I really did. But I can’t do it anymore. Even after what happened, the condition I was in when I first came with you, being with you here has been the most magical time of my life. But...”
His hands caught her arms again. “There shouldn’t be any buts. It is magic, being together. And I never want anything to break the spell.”
“I’ve thought about it long and hard from every angle, and now that I’m healed, inside and out as much as I ever will be, I’ve changed my mind. I won’t sit back and let you pull strings to honor Alex’s memory. I will do that. I owe it to him, to our parents and to Cathy and the kids. I owe it to myself. Only then can I get closure and change my path.”
His jaw muscles bunched, but he finally nodded. “Very well. If you will let me orchestrate this to the best outcome, you can be the one to make the final steps and announcements.”
Grabbing his hand, she planted a fervent kiss in his palm. “Thank you...” He started to protest and a finger on his lips silenced him. “Just let me thank you, Ivan, please. I need to give you my thanks far more than you hate receiving it.”
He gave another reluctant nod, before his eyes lightened, as if with relief. “If this is why you want to go back...”
She had to stop him. “No, it isn’t. I do have a life back in the States, Ivan, a life I want to go back to. But I need you to tell me what going back would mean for us. I know you thrive on solitude, but I don’t. I needed it for a while, to regain myself and my stability. But I can’t continue being with you in such isolation from the rest of the world.”
“Why not? It has been perfect that way.”
“It has been more than perfect, but it has also been like a pocket universe, an alternate reality. We can’t exist in this bubble forever. You have friends who’re as close as family to you, and I do have a family. Two families.”
At her last words, something dark and terrible filled his gaze. Something elemental. Bleakness? Revulsion? Even despair?
When families had been mentioned at the beginning of their relationship in the past, he’d only said he was orphan, adopted and abandoned again at an early age. It had been her cue never to mention family to him again, avoiding mention of her own in deference to his sensitivities.
But did it go beyond sensitivity? Did the scars of his childhood go way deeper than what she’d ever estimated? Did he abhor the idea of family, especially one that would invade his life, as hers would, through her?
If