“The way you let me all the way in makes me want to fuck you like this all night long,” he told her, before leaning down to take one of her hardened peaks into his mouth. He laved it at the same slow pace they were moving together on the bed. They both seemed to understand there was something different about tonight. Neither of them would rush, and they would take the time to feel and appreciate the sensations they were giving each other.
“The way you suck on my breasts makes me want to let you,” she told him.
He switched breasts and did the same to the other, before saying, “You like the way I handle you. I am glad.”
“Mmm, so good,” she said, like sex with him was a hedonistic form of the dessert they had just skipped.
He took a moment to admire her, feasting on her pretty face, on how sexy her dark body looked moving against his, before coming down to his elbows, which sent him into her even deeper.
She sucked in her breath and then moaned it out. “Oh, baby.”
He laid his forehead against hers, going even slower than before, just trying to make it last as long as possible. Forever if he could. “I’m not trying to take you over like a business,” he whispered against her ear, “I do not just want you. I need you in my life.”
“Alexei…” he heard her say, a sharp warning in her voice.
“You were young when you left, but what you said before is right. You have changed. I can see that now, and I love the person you have become.”
Now she began pushing at him, her hands shoving against his chest, “Alexei, no, don’t got there—“
“I am not giving you Drummond Oil because I want to own you but because I am in love with you. I love you, kotenok. I love you.”
“Drummond!” she said, gasping out the word. “Alexei, get off me. Drummond!”
It took a moment to realize she had just said the safe word he’d given her at the beginning of their two weeks. He immediately stopped moving above her, but she continued to shove at him.
“No, stop. Get all the way out. Let me go!”
She was almost hysterical now, yelling the words at him. And she continued to shove at him even as he pulled out and gave her enough room to sit up in bed.
He reached out, the need to comfort her greater than his confusion, but she slapped his hands away and screamed, “Don’t touch me!” Then she just sat there trembling while she clutched at her heart.
It looked like she was on verge of a heart attack, which made Alexei desperate to ease her pain.
“What did I do?” he asked. “Whatever is, I am sorry and I will fix it. Just let me help you.”
This time when he reached for her, she let him enfold her rigid body in his arms, and eventually she stopped trembling and her breathing gentled.
“I am sorry I upset you,” he said when her body relaxed from what he could only assume had been some kind of panic attack.
“No, I’m sorry,” she said, her voice hoarse. “It’s just I don’t know what to do and it’s tearing me apart.”
He nodded. “I understand.”
“You don’t. You really don’t.”
“Yes, I do. I am not the beast you think I am. I understand it is hard for you, that all of this is hard for you. Protecting your town and trying not to feel guilty about Aaron. It is hard for you to accept my love.”
She pulled away from him, “I hate this version of you. You’re not like the Alexei I used to know. I could somewhat trust him. But you’ll do anything to win. Say anything to win. And I hate it.”
That hit a little too close to home, and Alexei felt a frission of remorse for having ordered Emilio to look into Aaron. “I assure you, I do love you. This is not about winning. This is about me wanting to be with you again.”
But she shook her head at him. “You say you love me now, but what happens if I do something that upsets you, or if heaven forbid, it doesn’t work out? You were ready to destroy my entire hometown because I dumped you eight years ago.”
“Love is like business, there is always a certain amount of risk involved.” He reached for her hand and threaded his fingers into hers. “But I can promise you this, if you are honest with me from now on and if you promise never to walk out on me the way you did before, I will never intentionally hurt you again.”
She was quiet for a long time after he said that, then she asked, “What about children?”
He froze. “Is that why you will not leave him? Because he can give you children?”
“You didn’t answer the question,” she said. “If children were in the equation, would you still be so in love with me? I mean, you got a vasectomy for a reason, right?”
This gave him a moment of pause. In his mind, the vasectomy had been the end of the story, serving the purpose of not having to worry about accidentally impregnating the women he shared a bed with. The truth was that the break-up with Eva had turned him off the idea of marriage all together, and he’d thought he’d turn out like his uncle—a lifelong bachelor who could always be found with a new woman on his arm from year to year. Getting the vasectomy had also quelled the argument once and for all with his uncle who kept on insisting he should get married to a nice Russian girl and have a son to take over the family business. The thought of putting a son in the same position he’d be in had been enough to convince him to go through with the minor surgery.
But if this was all that stood between Eva and him, and if this was the one bargaining chip the other man had that he did not, then he was willing to bring it into the negotiations. “I will try to get it reversed, but there are no guarantees. We might have to look into other ways of starting a family.”
“So you would be okay with kids?” she asked with obvious suspicion in her voice.
“If it is the only way to keep you by my side, yes,” he answered.
And once again she started shaking her head. “I’ve seen what happens when guys who don’t want kids have to deal with them. It’s one of those things, you either want them are you don’t.”
“And Aaron wants them?”
“What Aaron wants shouldn’t matter. Children aren’t bargaining chips in negotiations. If you’re only agreeing to the possibility of having a family with me, so you can win me, I can’t accept that.”
It worried him that she sorted out his business tactic so easily, and even went so far as to say the words he had thought to himself, like “bargaining chip” and “negotiation.” Once again, he consulted his mental book of business tactics. Usually, when he found himself at this point in a business discussion, where the person on the other side of the table was bringing up legitimate reservations to something he was proposing, he’d simply bide his time, reset with a better argument, and come back to the table with it.