Boston, ten years ago

 

Calvin Burns stroked the beautiful back of the woman he loved, Anya Voronova. It was snowing outside his miserable, shabby dump of a studio apartment, the white mantle covering the overfilled dumpsters, filling in the cracks in the sidewalk, softening the smell of rot and mold.

But inside his room was magic. He didn’t see the sagging bed, plyboard desk, scratched appliances. With Anya in the room, it was like being in a palace housing the rarest of treasures. Her naked body on his cheap rumpled bed glowed like the finest ivory. Her long blonde hair rippled down her back, gleaming gold.

Fuck, listen to him.

Cal was an engineer. Engineers were bound by facts and equations and hard cold math. If his profs or students in the post grad engineering classes he taught could read his mind right now, they’d freak. Cal Burns did math. Cal Burns didn’t do poetic.

But then, nobody else had Anya Voronova as a lover. She’d inspire a gorilla to poetry. She was like winning the lottery and discovering the cure for cancer and inventing computers all wrapped up in one winning package.

He tapped out We are the Champions on her satiny back, right above the dimple over her perfect ass.

“Mmm.” She made a throaty sound of pleasure.

“Like that, do you?” Cal asked. He didn’t have to ask. Anya always made her pleasure — and displeasure — known. She didn’t play games. He loved that about her.

But then, he loved everything about her.

She smiled at him over her shoulder, light blue eyes gleaming. “Do you know who used to do that?”

Cal froze. “Do what?” Was she going to talk about some lover she’d had before him who’d touched that perfect back? Jealousy shot through him in a spurt of bile.

“Tapping something rhythmic on the back of a woman. Goethe did that, tapping out the hexameters of one of his poems on his lover’s back. In his palazzo in Rome.”

Goethe. Cal had only discovered who Goethe was since he’d started dating Anya and the first time he saw the name written he would have pronounced it Go-thee. Luckily she pronounced it out loud first. Ghew-tay.

And fuck if he knew what a hexameter was.

Another thing about this beautiful woman. She was cultivated as hell, knew everything there was to know about non-scientific, non-engineering things. Cal more or less had the scientific, engineering side of things down pat, so together they were going to rule the world.

“Well.” Cal sighed, smoothing the palm of his hand over the satiny skin of Anya’s lower back. “Not a poet. Couldn’t write a poem to save my life.”

She chuckled and slowly turned over. Every time Cal met those bright summer-sky blue eyes, it was like a punch to the stomach. She was so beautiful she took his breath away.

He hadn’t moved his hand but her turning over placed his hand on her stomach. It wasn’t a hardship. That very soft skin covered sleek firm muscles all over. She smiled right into his eyes, placing her hand over his, pushing it down.

“I don’t know, darling,” she whispered. “In some things you’re an artist.”

And she moved her long slim legs apart and the hard punch of lust nearly brought him to his knees. She smiled. She knew exactly what she did to him.

One leg bent, one long leg open to the side and there she was — open to him. They’d made love not long ago and she was still pink and swollen there. Glistening from her juices. Cal remembered vividly shaking as he came and jetted what felt like half his bodily fluids into the condom and feeling how wet she was when he pulled out.

Her sex was a living embodiment of their love-making, like she’d been branded. He liked that, liked the thought of her being branded by him. Her sex, her breasts … the nipples were still hard and deep pink from his mouth. There was a little whisker burn on the ivory skin of her breasts which he’d feel sorry for if he hadn’t loved sucking on her nipples so much. She hadn’t complained.

In a deeper way, he was branded, too. Highly sexed by nature, Cal now thought of sex exclusively in terms of Anya. No one else turned him on at all. He couldn’t even consider having another woman, not when he had the most beautiful woman in the world in his bed, who was also whip smart and understood him.

And loved him.

That was the real kicker. She loved him.

“Cal,” she breathed, and all the hairs on his body stood up. He was already hard as a rock. He was always semi-aroused when around her. But when they were naked together, his dick simply wouldn’t go down.

“Honey.” There was a slight question in the word. What did she want? Whatever she wanted, he’d give to her. He’d give her the moon if he could.

Her huge, bright blue eyes locked onto his face. “Touch me.”

Cal shuddered. God, yes. He reached out and gently pushed her legs further apart. The skin of her inner thighs felt warm and incredibly soft against the skin of his palm. His hands were big and rough. He’d been into martial arts since he was a kid and had had a karate period. He had tough, calloused hands. But he knew from experience that no matter how rough his hands were, they didn’t scratch her skin. He knew exactly how to touch her, where and how hard.

“That’s it,” Anya whispered as his hand rose along her thigh, higher and higher.

Cal sat on the side of the bed and just looked at her, stretched out before him like a feast, legs apart, eyes heavy.

There was some painter from some time in the past who’d painted this painting … he didn’t remember the name of the artist, or the style or the name of the painting. That wasn’t in his wheelhouse, though it was in hers. She was the one who’d showed him the image in a book.

All he remembered was skin that glowed like pearls on the canvas, the woman looking straight at the viewer, long blonde hair covering part of her body, one hand on her belly. It was a famous painting and if his mind hadn’t been blasted by lust maybe he’d remember what it was called, but he did remember the beauty of the model that seared the eyes.

That was what Anya looked like, only she was more slender and her hair was honey blonde not red. But other than that, she was eternal woman.

Cal shifted his eyes to her belly, where his hand lay next to hers. Just the sight of their hands together was erotic, let alone how she was posed. His hands were big and callused from years at the dojo. He could shatter four bricks with the edge of his hand but here it looked out of place against her delicate skin. Her hand was slender and pale, the hand of an artist. Male and female.

He slid his hand further down and covered her mound, like a flesh-colored bikini bottom. She had a cloud of ash-brown hair covering her sex, it was so soft to the touch it felt like a cloud too. Small dots of her juices were threaded through her pubic hair like tiny pearls.

She smiled at him, meeting his eyes, then hers travelled over his body down to his groin, where he was as hard as a club. He felt more blood rush to his dick. It was almost painful.

She smiled up into his eyes. “Just from looking at you?”

“Just you breathing does the trick, princess.”

She rolled her eyes, as she always did when he called her princess. But the fact was, she was a princess, sort of. Her asshole father, who was insanely rich, never failed to mention in interviews that he was descended from Russian royalty. His great-great- a billion times great-grandfather had been a cousin of the czar a million years ago when Russia had czars. It was in every interview with the man. Anya never mentioned it but her father did. Often.

He was a dickhead. Cal hated him and he hated Cal right back.

Not that Cal cared. Not when he had his princess looking at him with heat in her glowing blue eyes.

She lifted her leg and placed her foot right over his dick. Cal closed his eyes because it was just too much stimulation. Her foot was beautiful too, slender, pretty, with blue toenail polish. She rubbed it up and down him and his breathing went ragged.

He had to do something to even this up.

Cal turned his hand, started stroking her. He heard a sharp intake of breath and opened his eyes to see her closing hers. Fuck yeah. He wasn’t alone here. She was wet and pink and slightly swollen, from the last time they’d made love and from her body preparing for the next time.

He watched as his hand stroked her, the wet skin like satin. A finger traced her opening, around and around, lingering at the clitoris. He knew her so well. Her excitement was so fascinating he almost forgot his own.

Around and around … her thighs trembled.

Yeah, baby.

He slipped his finger inside her, relishing the small cry. She convulsed around his finger sharply and he could see her stomach muscles pull. When his princess came, she came with her whole body.

She wasn’t quite there yet, though. Close, but not there.

“Cal …” Anya whispered.

He leaned down, one hand planted on the bed right next to her pale firm breast. “Sweetheart.” He pulled his finger out, slid it back in. She convulsed again, a sharp pull of her sex. Her hands were trembling.

His were, too.

“Come to me,” she pleaded and it wasn’t in him to deny her. Of course he would come to her. He was born to come to her.

He slid a second finger into her silky warmth, holding her open, placed a knee on the bed and mounted her, sliding into her in the exact moment she started coming.

Oh my god, she was so beautiful when she came. He never got tired of it. He wanted to spend the rest of his life watching her. There was a ring in his pants pocket with a tiny diamond in it. So tiny you could hardly see it, but the promise behind the ring was big. He was hers, forever.

She was arched back, long neck exposed. He lowered his mouth to her neck and as his lips touched her skin, she came even harder, pulsing against his dick. There was an electrical connection that nearly stopped his heart.

He pressed inside her, mouth on her neck, feeling the fluttering of her heart. His own heart was thundering inside his chest, with excitement, with love.

Man, he loved her. He didn’t think it was possible to love any human being as much as he loved Anya Voronova, his princess. He felt her skin against his, but it was like her skin had been removed and he could feel her insides, too. Her heart beating, her muscles pulling, her lungs expanding. He was inside her and she was inside him.

It was exhilarating and a little scary too.

But, hell, worth it.

Cal held himself still while she worked her way through her orgasm, hyperaware of everything going on with her. Her sex clenching around his, her arms and legs holding him tightly, the way she arched her back and stopped breathing for a long moment, as she went inside herself, completely in the moment.

Then she crested, a sharp moan coming from her, her hips rotating, almost dancing around his dick while coming. He let her because it was a way for her body to be prepared.

Cal could be rough. He didn’t want to be, particularly not with his princess, but it was the way he was wired. The only way it could work was if she came and came hard and was soft and wet afterward. So he gritted his teeth as she climaxed, then came down gently, her entire body lax and mellow. Arms and legs falling back onto the mattress, wet and soft inside.

Now he could let loose.

Cal lowered his entire body onto her and buried his face in the pillow next to hers. In his excitement he didn’t want to mark her, even – God forbid! – bite her. In the early days he’d been so worked up he marked that perfect ivory skin a couple of times and it had appalled him.

He slid his hands up her slim legs and lifted them and opened them a little, so that — ah — he reached deep inside her. If he could, he’d have touched her heart with his dick. As it was, he did his best.

And then all thoughts fled his head as he became a male animal with his mate.

He retained just enough control not to pound her, but it was hard. Every single cell in his body registered acute mind-numbing pleasure as he moved in and out of her, fast then faster. She was soft and warm and all his. Skin to skin, heart to heart, on her and in her, he moved, heart pounding, barely registering pleasure when she convulsed and came again. Her arms held him so tightly, but not as tightly as he held her. He wanted to stay inside her forever but when her hands moved to his butt and her fingers curled in and she nipped his earlobe — he lost it.

Cal moved as fast and as hard as he could, feeling her pleasure, feeling that he wasn’t hurting her but pleasing her, but it was way too much. Too much stimulation — that soft, creamy skin, that luscious mouth kissing his ear, her soft, wet sex like a glove around him …

He erupted with a great groan, lungs bellowing because there wasn’t enough air in the world to contrast the enormous heat inside him, like a volcano exploding, hips making short fast jabs inside her until it was over and he collapsed on top of her, completely spent.

His breathing gradually slowed down and he gained the use of his body back. Every time it was as if he entered some secret kingdom where he gave her so much power over him he had to work his way back into himself.

He did it this time, too. But this time, there was a reason for him to get back in control of himself. He had big news. Big big news. The biggest.

His face was still buried in the pillow next to hers and a huge grin broke out, one he couldn’t control. He let it bloom because … hot damn. His life — their lives — were about to change.

It was supposed to be a surprise because it was so big he’d been afraid to blow the possibility of it out of proportion with her. They’d barely talked about it because he didn’t want to jinx it and he didn’t want to see disappointment in her eyes if he didn’t get it.

Already the difference in status between them was huge, an almost unbridgeable gap. But he was an engineer and his love for her had built the bridge between them, which existed only when they were in their little world of two. And here, in his slum of a flat. He’d been to her palatial mansion only once and the memory was so painful he winced every time he thought of it.

She was the daughter of an immensely rich aristocrat and he was the son of a runaway mom and a drunk truck driver of a father, who’d cut off relations when Cal wanted to go to college instead of driving a truck like his dad.

But all of that was going to change. Something big was coming up and he had a ring with a microscopic diamond in his pocket for when he’d given his news and he could officially ask her to marry him. He’d have asked the day after meeting her but he’d had nothing to offer.

He did now.

Like in a fairy tale, he and his princess would move and begin their lives together in a beautiful sunny kingdom far far away.

California.

She was working on a double major — Chinese studies and International Relations. She could do that just as well at Berkley as here. Better.

She’d come with him.

But first — he had to tell her his news.

Cal lifted his head then his torso up on his forearms. He kissed her forehead, pulled gently out of her. His dick complained, just like it always did because inside Anya was the best place to be. His dick hated pulling out.

But his dick could take a hike because there was serious stuff to talk about now.

“I have some news,” he said softly, trying to keep the excitement out of his voice. Time for excitement later.

Anya pushed gently at his chest, their sign for him to get off her. When they were having sex, she said his weight on her was exciting. But he weighed almost double what she did and she always said that breathing was overrated when they were having sex, but became once again a priority post-sex.

Obediently, Cal rolled off her and she scooted up to sit against the plywood headboard, bunching pillows around her.

Oh man. She was just so beautiful sitting there, a naked princess with flat cheap pillows around her for a throne.

“So.” She smiled at him. “What’s the news? Is Kreizler going to let your name be on the paper?”

Cal frowned. Fuck, he’d forgotten about that. He’d done most of the work on a big paper on the elastic properties of graphene, staying up nights at the lab, laboriously recording tension and yield test results. Kreizler had made a half-assed promise that Cal’s name would go on the paper but Cal had just seen the program for the World Conference of Materials Science to be held next March in Dublin and, nope. His name wasn’t on the paper.

But that didn’t make any difference now. He was going to leave Kreizler in the fucking dust. Leapfrog right over the bastard who treated him like hired help.

“Nah. He’s not sharing. Didn’t even have the nerve to tell me himself, I found out by checking the paper online. But, who the fuck cares?” He picked up her hand, soft and slender, and brought it to his mouth. “Because something better is on the horizon.” He tried to control his breathing. “I got it. Anya, I got it.”

He was trying to keep the excitement down but his voice turned hoarse. He cleared his throat.

She took her other hand and smoothed away a lock of his too long hair. Damn, his hair grew out so fast and he didn’t have the money to keep going to the barber. She smoothed the lock of hair behind his ear, still smiling gently at him. “Got what, darling?”

He was looking deep into her eyes but he closed his. He didn’t want to watch her face when he told her the news because then … well if she teared up then so would he and if he started crying the Man Police would rip his Y chromosome right out of him.

He swallowed heavily, held her hand tightly. “I got that post-doc fellowship at Stanford. Working with a top-tier research team headed by Habericht, who has a Nobel, and by Loren, who won a McArthur Genius Award three years ago. And that’s not all. I got an offer from Benson Labs for a part time job that will become a full-time job after the fellowship. And the salary from Benson Labs will pay off my student loans in the first year.”

He gave a sigh that came from deep in his chest. He was drowning in student debt.

This was like a dream come true. Cal smiled, opened his eyes — and froze.

Anya’s lovely face was utterly blank. Not warm and welcoming, not happy for him, not anything. Just blank and … cold?

What the fuck?

“Anya, honey, I —” But he didn’t know what to say. Because all of a sudden, he wasn’t touching her anymore and he hadn’t moved. She had. She’d moved … away from him.

And, oh fuck, she was out of bed, bending to pick up her clothes on the floor.

What had he said? Had he thought he’d told her about Stanford but instead something else had come out of his mouth? Had he had a stroke or been struck by one of those weird syndromes where only profanities came out of his mouth?

Fuck, no.

He remembered precisely what he’d said. I got it. Which was supposed to be her cue to cry out with joy and hug him and maybe he’d get another round of sex before asking her to marry him.

That was the way it was supposed to go. So what was happening right now? Something bad was happening, that was what. And he was powerless to stop it.

His muscles were paralyzed as he watched her pick up her dainty, lacy underwear from the floor. She always dressed simply. Bra, underpants, sweater, yoga pants, socks, boots and finally parka.

Cal was too dumbfounded to stop her, ask what she was doing. That was pointless anyway because it wasn’t hard to figure out what she was doing. She was leaving. Instead of spending the night the way he’d hoped, she was going home.

He had just enough money left on his card to order pizzas in and the plan was to snuggle up with her and watch some pirated movie on his ancient laptop. It hadn’t even occurred to him that that was not the way he was going to be spending his evening, the way he’d spent so many evenings. With her.

But she wasn’t staying.

As she laced her boots he shook off the frozen spell he was under.

“What are you doing?” His voice croaked, cracked.

“Seems clear what I’m doing.” Her own voice was cool, controlled.

“You’re leaving?” The idea was still so strange he had to hear it from her mouth.

“That’s right, ace. I’m leaving.” She zipped up her parka, flipped up the hood and turned to face him. She was like ice. It was warm in his room but a chill emanated from her.

It was so unfair that she was still so beautiful, even somehow angry at him. The hood of the parka was lined with dark fake fur that looked like the real thing. It framed her face like that of a princess in a fairy tale, the kind where the princess wandered into the dark forest and made the big bad wolf fall in love with her.

Her beautiful face was closed to him, eyes like shards of ice.

What the fuck? What was happening?

He was getting screwed, is what was happening to him. And not in a good way. A spurt of anger flashed and he repressed it immediately. He’d never gotten angry at Anya, ever. And he wasn’t going to start now. He didn’t want to start now.

But … what the fuck?

After staring at him coldly for a long moment, Anya turned on her heel and walked to the door. Opened it. Walked out.

Hell.

Cal stared at the door stupidly. His muscles felt slow, his brain felt mired in mud. He couldn’t react. He could barely breathe.

What just happened? Was there a pod in the lavish wine cellars of her father’s mansion, eating the real Anya after extruding a fake alien? No, that had been the real Anya he’d made love to. Her skin, the sounds she made, the way she clutched at him … those were all real.

Loving Anya was the best thing that ever happened to him. She loved him right back, he was sure of it. They were young but neither of them were dummies. They’d lucked into true love at a young age but they both realized what they had. It was rare and precious and needed protecting.

He loved her and she loved him. Or, up until five minutes ago, she’d loved him. Then something … changed.

Misery was setting in, a dark cloud of it rising like some dank fog from the nether regions of the earth. From caves and crevices where dark creatures dwelled. His head ached. His bones ached.

Too late, he realized he should be chasing her. Cal moved forward, but slowly and painfully, like he’d just taken a bad beating at the dojo. He was good in the dojo, it had been years since anyone had been able to hurt him. But this felt like he’d been beaten to within an inch of his life.

He’d opened his door and was walking out before he realized that he was buck naked. Much as he wanted to, he couldn’t chase her like this. They’d arrest him. So he went back in, pulled up his jeans over his hips, jerked on his shirt without buttoning it and jammed his sockless feet into his ancient running shoes.

He limped down the stairs as if both legs had been broken. Something in him was broken. He threw open the front door of his apartment building and stared out in dismay. As usual, the light over the door and every other street light was out. He never let Anya walk alone after dark in his area. The fact that she had … he couldn’t go there. The idea that she’d rather court danger than stay with him was so painful he batted the thought away instantly.

It was snowing hard. Not pretty snowflakes gently settling on the cracked ground, but frozen rain flooding from the sky. He could see her boot prints but they disappeared two feet from the door. Right was a long slog to the subway, left was a bus stop. But she’d have to change three buses to get home. She usually took the subway. But never alone after dark, ever.

Her boot prints went to the right. She’d opted for the subway, which — damn it! — was not safe. Neither the streets to get there nor the station itself.

He took off running. He was a martial artist, not a track star. Cal was powerful, but not a runner. Still, he made good time, following her footsteps until he couldn’t any more, the thick falling snow smudging them out.

But he knew the way to the subway and he ran as fast as he could.

She wasn’t there. Cal frantically searched the filthy, graffiti-painted station. There were a couple of drug addicts, an ancient alcoholic preaching the end of the world and some tired workers.

Cal stared at the dirty station through eyes that stung, one hand braced against the wall as if he would fall down any second as he anxiously screened every passenger. Even when the train clanked in and came to a screeching stop, he studied everyone who boarded and stalked up and down the platform, peering into every car. On the crazy chance that she’d … what? Run two miles to the previous station and gotten on there?

Well clearly she hadn’t headed for the subway. Maybe she’d doubled back. Probably she’d called a cab. He hadn’t even thought of that, because cabs never entered into his calculations. He could probably build a rocket to fly him to the moon before he could cab it everywhere.

Finally, he trudged up the stairs and out into the freezing cold. Fishing his cell out of his jeans, he thumbed her number. It was the first on his contacts list. The call went to voice mail.

The call went to voice mail all night. He must have called a hundred times but he never left a message, not trusting his voice.

The next day he called, then went to her apartment. Her father had bought her a pretty little studio apartment in a nice part of town. He stood at the front door ringing her bell for an hour until the super came out and chased him away.

The super’s name was Mac, or that was what Cal called him. He was Polish and his name had enough consonants to sound like a sneeze. Cal and Mac were friends. Cal had helped him with building repairs a lot of times. But Mac wouldn’t look him in the eye and pretended that his English had deserted him.

Cal called the mansion, though the idea of accidentally catching Mr. Voronov scared him. No danger of that, though. The housekeeper always answered, assuring him in icy tones that Miss Anya was not there, no she didn’t know where Miss Anya was or when Miss Anya was coming back and by the way don’t bother calling again.

He sent emails, pouring out his heart. She couldn’t hear the tears in his voice in an email. But the emails remained unopened and never answered. Three days later, when he called her cell he got an announcement that the number was no longer in use.

He lost ten pounds that first week and missed all his classes. When he almost missed the deadline for accepting the job with Benson Labs, Cal knew that his future was on the line.

He could obsess over Anya and mourn her or he could get his act together and move forward.

He faxed his acceptance and bought the ticket to San Francisco with the last of the money in his bank account

Ten days after Anya walked out on him, on a bitterly cold, sleety day, Cal packed his few belongings and flew out West, toward his future.

Without Anya.