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AS SOON AS I STEPPED through his door, it was as though a weight had lifted from my shoulders.
The relief was palpable. Immediate. I knew that this was what I had been waiting for, the peace that came with knowing my father was in the best hands he could be, and that he was going to be all right.
Even if the nagging fear at the back of my mind told me that I should be a little more worried than I was right now.
“You okay?” Andreas asked me, and I nodded quickly, plastering a smile on my face and hoping that he couldn’t see the doubts swimming around my head in that moment.
“I’m fine,” I promised him. “Just... tired, that’s all.”
And that part was true, at least. I was wiped after everything that had happened. It had all been such a rush I’d hardly had time to wrap my head around it, and now, it was over – or out of my hands, at least, with no way for me to get it back under control. I was sure that there was so much that I had to do, so much that I had to consider, but I had no clue where to start, or what my father would have wanted me to do if he had been cognizant enough to have a say in this.
The way he had just collapsed when we had been back at the store had been enough to scare the living shit out of me. He had seemed so frail recently, especially since we had been in Miami, and his second heart attack in basically as many weeks couldn’t be a good sign. At least he was with the best doctors he could be – I’d hardly had time to think about whether I wanted him to be taken out of the city, before one of Andreas’ men had barged in and carried him out, promising me I could come with him if I wanted and that they would do everything they could to take care of him.
I hated being so far from him, but I didn’t have much of a choice at this point. Didn’t want to stay in that estate, so far from the city, didn’t want to spend my nights pacing back and forth and waiting for him to wake up so that I could talk to him, tell him how sorry I was. Sorry for putting him through everything that I had, sorry for how hard it had been for him to pull himself out of the nosedive he seemed to be in right now. Sorry he was struggling, sorry he was sick, sorry he wasn’t at home with me, right now, the way we had been before everything had happened.
I knew he was receiving the best care, better than I would ever have been able to afford, but it didn’t mean that it was any easier being away from him. I wished I could stay by his bedside until he woke up and felt better again, enough to talk to me, but I was sure that he wouldn’t want to see me right now. Especially not knowing that I had basically handed him over to the Italians to take care of him.
The last thing he had said to me before he collapsed was going around and around in my head, so much so it felt like it might get lodged there for good. He had told me that Nikita was the only one looking out for us, that the Italians were using me to get closer to their enemies. What if he was right? I didn’t even want to consider it, but with everything that had happened, I didn’t have a clue who I was supposed to trust any longer.
My whole system was burning out, and I knew I needed to sleep it off – that was the only way I was going to be well enough to deal with anything my father came home with. But my body was thrumming with adrenaline, the shock of everything just too fresh for me to brush off as though it had been nothing, and the best that I could do was hope that Andreas understood why I doubted I could sleep next to him that evening.
“Do you need me to send for anything for you?” Andreas asked, looping an arm around my shoulder, a concerned look on his face. I knew that he had good reason to be worried about me, and I was glad that he was here, but I didn’t know how to come close to putting it into words, the truth of my feelings. I wanted to talk to him about all of it, but how the hell was I meant to broach the subject of my father not trusting him or his family? It was hardly the kind of thing that you could just drop on someone out of nowhere and hope that they’d be able to forgive you for it.
“No, I’m okay,” I replied. “Can I take a bath? I feel like that would help...”
“Of course you can,” he replied, dropping a kiss on my cheek as he headed through to the bathroom to get one running for me. I turned to glance out of the enormous window next to the living room, down over the city below – there was so much happening down there, people living their lives, getting on with it. I wished that I could go back in time and be a part of them again, make it so that I didn’t have to carry the enormous weight of what had happened to my father right now. I had thought I’d had a hard time working the clubs, but that had been easy compared to what had happened since then. I wished I could go back in time, before this, before all of it...
But not before Andreas. Because, despite everything, I was still so glad that he was here with me, wouldn’t have trusted anyone else to help me at a time like this. Even though he might have liked to put up this front of being a cocky asshole, he was far sweeter than he would ever have given himself credit for.
I didn’t want to be without him, and I knew that was the problem at the heart of everything that was happening now. If we had just been able to go without each other, then we could finally have gotten out of this mess that we were both in together. Hell, I knew it was never going to happen, that I was never going to be able to break it off with him – if it hadn’t been for him, I didn’t know if I would have been able to get my father to a hospital in time to give him the treatment that he needed, and the thought of that was enough to make me feel ill.
He had been there for me. From the start, he had been there for me, willing to do anything it took to make sure I stayed safe. Even when I had been in Miami, so far from him, running off to another part of the country because I was so scared, he had sent people after me to make sure that nothing happened to me. That was the kind of man he was when it came to the people he cared about – it was clear I wasn’t going to be able to shake him, even if I wanted to. He had decided that he wanted me in his life, and that was the end of it.
He ran me a bath, and I slipped beneath the water, the warmth lapping up to my neck; he was about to turn about walk out of the bathroom, when I called after him to stay.
“Are you sure?” he asked, sounding surprised. He probably thought that I’d need some time to myself right now, but I needed to speak to him, needed to get some stuff out in the open once and for all.
“Yeah, I want you to,” I replied, a little timidly. It was the strangest thing; even though we knew each other so well now, even though I had been able to rely on him when everything else was going wrong, I wasn’t sure how to put this into words. It felt too cruel, too harsh, even amongst everything else.
“We need to talk?” he asked, sensing that there was something on my mind. I sighed, nodded, wished I could just put all this to the back of my mind, but I knew that I couldn’t. I wanted to speak about it, so that I didn’t have to carry the weight of it alone and inside my head any longer. Needed to clear out the doubt and fear that had been in my mind since my father had collapsed, since I’d heard what he’d had to say about the Serbians and the Italians and just what Andreas might be looking for from me.
“What about?” he pressed lightly. He could tell it wasn’t going to be easy, getting the truth out of me, but I needed him to try to find it. I wasn’t sure I could just come out with it all, everything that I had been holding back, but I had no clue where to start. Once I began, I was sure that I would be able to keep going, but getting those first few words out, that was taking it out of me.
“About... Nikita,” I replied, and he winced.
“Kozlov?” he demanded, his voice taking on a hard, cold edge. Whatever relationship he had with that man, it was clear that it was an antagonistic one. I nodded.
“Yes, him,” I replied. “He came to our house, he spoke to my father – that’s when everything changed.”
“Changed how?”
“Changed, like, my father suddenly didn’t want me to have anything to do with you,” I confessed. He sighed. He must have known it was coming. After all, whether we liked it or not, we were from warring factions – I might not have chosen to have much to do with everything that went on, but it didn’t mean that it was just written out of existence. He was the de-facto leader of the other side, and it meant that every moment we spent together was fraught with a heavy, suffocating weight, the reminder of how many people would have been furious to so much as see us in a room together.
“I thought he might,” Andreas admitted, quietly.
“He said that Nikita was the only one who was looking out for us,” I continued. I could have been more subtle in the way that I went about this, but honestly, my brain was too tired to do anything other than just come out with the straight-up truth.
Andreas shook his head.
“He’s not,” he replied bluntly. “He never has been. That man, he’s only out for himself, it’s how he’s always been – if you think that he’s going to start caring about you just because you happen to call the same country home, you’re wrong. He just knows he can use that against you. Both of you. And your father’s going to do anything he can to make sure that he protects you.”
I nodded, swimming my hands back and forth beneath the water to distract myself. He was right – this was exactly how it had gone down so far, and I was worried it had already hooked into my father’s head that he couldn’t trust Andreas. I knew I could trust him, but it wasn’t going to be that easy to get my father to see him the same way.
“But he’s just using you,” Andreas continued. “Both of you. He’s going to keep doing that until he runs out of use for you, and then...”
He trailed off, paused, and shook his head. I didn’t even want to think how he intended to end that sentence. My stomach flipped, and I did my very best to ignore it. I knew there was no point in giving in to the panic right now. I was doing everything I could to hold myself together, no matter how tough it seemed, and my mind was begging me to just hold out a little longer.
“Nadia, I’m going to be there to look out for you,” he told me firmly. I could hear the sincerity in his voice, and I believed him. I wanted to believe him, more than anything – wanted to believe that he really cared for me, for my father, that he was willing to do whatever it took to help us climb out of the mess that we were both stuck in right now.
I wanted to believe him, I really did. I wanted to believe him more than anything, but I had no idea if I actually could – no idea if I could give myself over to this sureness that he was asking of me, no idea if I could actually trust him the way that he needed me too. I wished I could just pull him into the bath with me, forget about everything else, but there was so much outside of this, so much remaining.
I wanted to forget about it, just for a while. Just for as long as it took for me to kiss him. I moved to the edge of the bath, and he shifted a little closer, dropping to his knees in front of me like he was in some form of worship. He knew what I wanted from him, and he was more than willing to give it to me. The two of us, we were back together again, back in this place that we needed to be. And we could lose each other, if just for now, in the way we felt together. Even if there was still so much that we needed to handle outside of this, for now, at least, we could be honest, and that was all that mattered.
He pulled me in close and planted his lips against mine, soft, tender, and I moved a little closer to him so I could touch his chest – he was still wearing a shirt, but I could feel the thump of his heart beneath the fabric. I felt like I couldn’t get close enough to him, not even if I tried, couldn’t close the distance between us. I wanted to, more than anything, wanted to show him that I loved him and that I needed him here with me, but we had been through so much... I just didn’t know if there was any space for us to work through the mess of what we had left.
But for now, anyway, as he kissed me slowly, I promised myself that I wouldn’t let that get to me. I refused. I loved him, loved being with him, and I was willing to put everything else aside to focus on that, even just for the next hour or so.
He drew me out of the bath and into his arms, not seeming to care that my sopping-wet body was soaking his clothes, and carried me through to the bedroom. When he had me like this, I knew I was safe – I knew that nothing could happen to me. I wanted to hang on to that feeling for dear life, make sure that I never let go of it. I gazed up at him, trying to burn the memory of his face into my mind. I never wanted to lose it.
He laid me down on the bed, and I pulled him down on top of me, kissing him hard, losing myself in the intensity of our embrace. I could already feel the hard stirring of his cock against my hip, and I reached down to rub it through the fabric of his pants. Damn, he felt good – I loved the way he responded to me, like he couldn’t think of anything that he wanted more than to feel my touch on his body.
I stripped him down, pulling off his damp clothes so that I could feel his bare body against mine. I loved the way his skin felt, the heat of it – but more than that, the way we fit together, as though this was what we had been created for. The sheer need of it, the want and desire that coursed through me when I was close to him, I had never felt it before in my life, and I knew I never would again. I loved him, felt him deep in my bones, and that resonance seemed to spin out to take control of everything in my life. Nothing else could matter, nothing could come close. This was just us, together, completely, connected in a way that I had never connected with anyone before in my life.
His tongue moved in my mouth as he shifted on top of me, our legs tangling as we pulled closer and closer together. I wanted him inside of me, needed to feel the pressure of his cock filling me – that release, that need that boiled up from somewhere deep inside of me. I had never felt want like it before in my life, and, as I lifted my hips from the bed, grinding against him, telling him in no uncertain terms that I wanted him inside of me, he finally gave me what I needed.
Thrusting into me, he filled me deep and hard, and watched as my entire body clenched with need – the way he gazed down at me, it was obvious that he was trying to commit this to memory, the sight of me so sheerly and utterly lost to my desire of him. Nothing would come close to this, nothing at all. When he gazed into my eyes, his arms wrapped around me, his cock pushed deep into me, I could feel it, that connection between us. Nothing came close to this feeling. I didn’t know how I had managed to go so long without it when I had been in Miami, but I promised myself that I would always have this to hang on to – the way he looked at me, the way he held me, the way he fucked me, as though I was the most precious thing in the world.
He drove himself deep inside of me and I lay back on the bed, wrapping my legs around him, squeezing my thighs against his so that I could increase the pressure building between the two of us. I pressed my lips together, tipped my head back, allowing the flood of pleasure to start to take control of me. I wanted to think of nothing but this, but him, but us together, even if I knew it couldn’t last forever – even if I knew we would need to break apart, one way or another.
I could feel the pleasure stirring inside of me, growing and growing until I couldn’t hold it back anymore. His breath was coming faster than before as he moved deep into me, and I knew that both of us were getting close to the edge – both of us craving that release, that shock of pleasure we needed to let this happen. I tipped my head back, squeezed my eyes shut, felt his mouth on my neck, his tongue gliding over my skin, and then, all at once, the release of my orgasm as it coursed through me.
I cried out, the words escaping me as the pleasure took control. It was only a few seconds later that I felt him reach his own release inside of me, filling me from the inside out, and I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him in close. I didn’t want an inch of space between us – we were together, the two of us, and that was how it was going to stay.
“Fuck,” he groaned as he held himself inside me, letting the rush of this pleasure bind us together, once and for all.
And I knew, as I held him there, that nothing would pull us apart. I would always carry some part of him inside of me. And I would always, always be able to find him, in this moment, inside my mind.
