Married By Christmas

Six

Anastasia felt her heart, the whole world, grind to a halt. What Ivan had just said...

I’ve had no one since you.

The words sank in her mind, each one making no sense individually. Together they made even less sense.

She replayed them again and again, examining them for something she’d missed, or misunderstood. But there was nothing hidden or vague. He’d just said these words as clearly as could be.

He hadn’t had sex with any other woman since her.

Then everything started to spin in a vortex of questions and confusions, a dozen hows and whys flying about around an epicenter of incredulity.

She felt as if everything inside her had been scattered in disarray, her whole belief system and rationalizations in shambles.

If he’d left her, but had never sought another... If he’d kept an eye on her, but had never come back... If he’d come back only in her extreme need, remained with her, but still wouldn’t be with her fully...

What did it all mean?

She stared up at him, lost in his solemn eyes. This was too much, too unbelievable. She had to say something to do it all justice.

Then she opened her mouth and all that came out was a blurted “No way!”

His eyes widened in astonishment. Then the seriousness of his expression melted on the widest smile she’d ever seen on his face, which was exactly what her graceless exclamation deserved. To top it all off, he treated her to another first. He threw his head back and laughed.

It seemed laughing was such an alien activity to him that it brought tears to his gorgeous eyes.

As his fit of mirth eased, he brought up both hands to wipe his face. Then he looked at them, examining the wetness in amazement. That only reinforced her opinion that this had never happened to him before. Or at least he’d thought it could never happen to him again, for surely he’d laughed when he was younger. A time she knew absolutely nothing about.

Her thoughts scattered when she suddenly found him looking down at her as if he’d like to sink his teeth into her and gobble her up whole.

Then he only said, “Yes way.”

Her every inch started to burn again at the wickedly sensuous way he’d said that. And though it made her want to launch herself at him, tear at his clothes and beg him nonstop until he took her, she still had a million questions.

He continued to take her, do everything imaginable to her, with his eyes. But since she knew he wouldn’t deliver on what those eyes promised, she quelled the pounding between her legs, tilted her head up. “And are you going to explain that?”

Scooping her effortlessly by her buttocks against his great body, he nuzzled her neck. “There’s nothing to explain.”

He felt so good she had to struggle to resist wrapping herself around him and begging him to take her right there on the stairs. She barely managed to pull herself away enough so she could look up into his eyes. “Oh, yeah? You drop a bomb of this magnitude on me—something that should be totally unbelievable—and you expect me to just take it in stride?”

Another of these frowns that always made her feel the sun had died gripped his face. “You don’t believe me?”

“I said it should be unbelievable. Just the idea that a man like you would remain...celibate...” The word sounded so weird, so absurd. “For seven years! There has to be a big explanation for that. One you’re not volunteering.”

He eased her back on her feet, dropping his hands at his sides. “Again with this ‘a man like me’ thing. So let’s have it. What kind of man do you think I am?”

Her cheeks blazed under his chilly gaze. “I don’t think there are others like you for you to be a ‘kind.’ I only have theories from experience, backed up by the few facts you make available to the world. But really, when it comes to sex, any man wouldn’t go seven years without it. And a man of your wealth and power, not to mention your looks and your...appetite, it’s implausible you would.”

“So you don’t believe me.” This time it was a statement.

“Of course I do.” Her protest was vehement. It hadn’t crossed her mind to question the truth of his statement. “I just don’t understand how you didn’t...why you didn’t...”

He cut off her stammering, capturing her and raising her off the ground again and into his power, wrapping her thighs around his hips. “You didn’t.”

His surveillance of her had been that thorough?

But of course it had been. She doubted anything could be kept a secret from Ivan if he decided to uncover it. But it was still hard for her to accept that he’d found out what had gone on behind the closed doors of her life.

Suddenly, she wanted to call him out on it. At least, to challenge him. She’d made it too easy for him so far.

Arching backward, she let her long hair fall over his arms crossed over her back. “How can you be sure of that?”

The heat in his eyes rose, the hardness pressed between her legs becoming that of steel. “I’m sure. I’ve been watching you.”

Another stab of arousal pierced her core, even as a chuckle burst on her lips. “And now I’ll hear that song scoring your every move and glance.”

The hands squeezed her buttocks harder, sending delicious electricity coursing through her. “What song?”

She locked her ankles more securely around him, her eyes getting heavy under the onslaught of hunger. “Y’know, The Police? ‘Every Breath You Take’?” She sang the lyrics, somehow keeping in tune despite what he was doing to her. “Stalker much, Ivan?”

The flare of voracity in his eyes made her think that he would give in to desire this time, lower her right there and mount her. And oh, how she wanted him to. But then he let out a ragged breath and started walking up the stairs with her still in his arms.

“It would have been stalking only if I made you realize I was watching you.” He paused a beat. “And I was watching Alex, too.”

“Neither of us had a clue.” Unable to let Alex’s memory derail her current concern, she forced a smile. “But you’ve been watching me since you came back and no longer try to hide it.”

“That’s different.” He grimaced as he shouldered open her bedroom door. “Or maybe it isn’t that different.” At the foot of her king-size bed, he bent and laid her with extreme gentleness on the turquoise satin quilt, what he’d said he’d picked to reflect her eyes, hovering over her with arms planted on both sides of her head. “If it bothers you, I’ll stop.”

She had two options. Surge up, clamp him with her arms and legs, bring him on top of her and risk a repeat of most nights since they’d come here, ending with her sated yet more frustrated than ever, and with this conversation aborted. Or resist the compulsion of his lure and her lust, and insist on getting answers. Once and for all.

She rose to her elbows, making him unfold to his full height. She almost swooned back again at the sight of him looming over her, oh so visibly aroused and crackling with hunger.

It was experience saying it would go nowhere that made her sit up. He kneeled in front of her, opening her legs and pressing between them. She knew that position by heart by now. According to him he’d become addicted to her taste. And at the first sign of weakening, he’d have her naked and in the throes of one orgasm after another. Like most nights he’d tire her out with too much pleasure. And then she’d wake up to find herself alone.

Not tonight. She pushed back against him when he tried to prostrate her in front of him. “Can you? Stop? I was just thinking that it has developed into some sort of obsession.”

“No, it hasn’t.” He leaned back, so tall that even on his knees his eyes were level with hers, combed the luxurious ebony silk that had fallen over his forehead back in a self-deprecating move. “Developed, I mean. It has always been one.”

“Why? Why did you do it? Why did you watch us all these years?”

Solemnity came into his eyes again, making them even more compelling. “Because I needed to make sure you were okay.”

“And when you realized I wasn’t, as evidenced by the fact that I couldn’t move on, why didn’t you do something about it? Wasn’t that the whole point of watching me?”

His lips twisted on what looked like self-contempt. “I should have done something about it.”

She fought the urge to catch those lips that had owned her every inch and pleasured her beyond coherence. “But you didn’t. Want to tell me what stopped you?”

He lowered his eyes, escaping her beseeching ones. “Whatever it was, I should have found another way to be with you. It’s yet another thing I will never forgive myself for.”

Knowing she’d get no answer from him on this point, she tried another tack. “You only came back when our lives were at stake, so it’s clear you wouldn’t have come for anything less. So why didn’t you move on?”

With each question he looked as if he would have preferred if she tore off his nails instead. But there was something else with this one. It was as if he’d never actually put the reason into words, even to himself.

Then he finally raised his eyes, and what she saw there almost knocked her flat on her back. “Because as long as you didn’t find someone else, I considered that you were still with me.”

A tremor started in her deepest recesses, one of searing, incredulous hope. “So if I’d moved on, you would have, too?”

“I very much doubt I would have. I had no way of finding out before I was with you, but I’ve since discovered that I’m monogamous.”

He was monogamous. There’d be only one woman for him. Her.

This was too huge. Too...everything.

Unable to hold back anymore, she surged forward, hugged all she could of him in trembling arms. “You must be part wolf as I always suspected.”

He kissed the top of her head, then dragged his lips against her hair, down her forehead, her cheeks. “It’s very likely.” He pulled back just enough to look into her eyes, and she saw the feral danger simmering in them. “But if you had moved on, I would have come back just to take that other man apart.”

Delight swirled inside her at his possessiveness. “Now that’s not wolf-like. That’s pure dog-in-the-manger.”

“I know. That sounds really messed up.” His eyes sobered, making her almost cry out in dismay. She’d meant it teasingly. But it was clear he was ready with self-recriminations. Taking her arms off him in utmost care, he stood up. “It is messed up. I am.”

Every nerve firing in alarm at the turn this conversation had suddenly taken, she scrambled up. “Is this what you really believe?”

He squeezed his nape in a punishing grip. “It’s a fact.”

She swept a hand across his chest, almost afraid he’d push it away. He didn’t. Instead, he leaned into her touch as if he couldn’t help himself, letting out a tortured groan.

Breath hitching with emotion, she unlocked his viselike hold on his neck and caressed it. “And does this fact have something to do with why you left, why you stayed away?”

“It does.” An expression she’d never seen before, a tortured, defeated one, came into his eyes. “I thought you were better off not being anywhere near me.”

She reached up and pressed a kiss on his stiffened lips, needing to absorb his distress. “And it didn’t occur to you to let me have a say in what I thought was better for me?”

He growled in self-disgust and stepped away from her. “Just look what you did after I left you. You should have hated me, should have gotten over me. You didn’t. We both know if I’d given you a choice, you would have wanted to be with me even if it destroyed you.”

“You almost did anyway when you not only left me, but left me so suddenly and without an explanation.”

His teeth made a grinding sound that made her wince, his eyes blazing like a cornered wolf’s. “I wanted it to hurt, so you’d forget me. When I realized I hurt you too much for you to ever venture into another relationship, I took solace in the fact that you were at least safe and successful. And I told myself that you might still find someone.”

Taking the opportunity to infuse a measure of lightness into the mood, she teased, “The someone you would have come back to take apart.”

His eyes squeezed shut. “I already admitted I’m messed up.”

She reached up to cup his face. “Well, I’m messed up, too, now, in case this is what’s still stopping you.”

“You’re nothing like me, moya dusha.” His hands covered hers over his face, his eyes full of so much emotions, it was dizzying. “You have no idea what I am.”

“I got a pretty good idea since you came back.” The shake of his head told her what she’d always suspected, that whatever she’d extrapolated, no matter how extravagant, wasn’t even close. She caught his face again, pleading with everything inside her. “Then don’t keep me in the dark any longer, Ivan. Don’t push me away anymore. Tell me.”

His eyes flared with such fierceness it made her gasp. Then he shook his head again, turned on his heel and headed for the balcony. And though it was already freezing out there, he threw the shutters open, as if he was escaping a fire.

Grabbing a thermal shawl off the back of the brocade couch by the balcony, Anastasia wrapped it around her shoulders and stepped out after him.

It was a crisp, clear night, the moon a waxing gibbous. The air was still, making the cold bearable. She watched him as he fisted his hands on the marble balustrade and tipped his head back as if he was gasping for breath.

He looked like a knight of old, silvered by the moon, carved from the night, invincible, incomparable, yet weary from battle. As if to accentuate his reaction to her approach, the wind gusted suddenly. His body stiffened more as she neared him, as if it was cast in bronze, the only animate things about him his satin mane rioting around his leonine head and his clothes rustling around his imposing frame.

“Ivan, please.”

He turned as the wind died down and the moonlight deposited glimmers in the emerald of his eyes. Stepping closer, mesmerized by his magnificence, she reached for one of the hands that had saved her, took it to her lips.

His growled protest and attempt to withdraw his hand made her cling to it, cover it in kisses. “Besides everything you’ve done for me, letting me in, letting me understand, would be the best gift I could ever be given. Give it to me, please.”

Without warning, she tugged his hand. She hadn’t even intended to do that. Surprise made him jerk forward the step that separated them, ending up pressed against her from breast to calf. Her hand released his, went to his head, sifting through the silky locks, bringing it down to hers, pressing her longing against his forehead with lips that shook on a litany of pleas.

His groan sounded as if it tore through all his vitals to rasp on his lips. “I can’t, Anastasia. I can’t.”

Holding back tears, she let him go gradually, only so she wouldn’t sag to the ground. “As you wish, Ivan. Like you said I have a right not to tell you anything I didn’t want to, it goes the same way for you.”

Turning on her heel, she walked back into the warm room, felt him following her, closing the balcony door behind him. She heard his breathing leveling out and she knew what would come next. He’d take her back in his arms, start to arouse her, worship her, give her everything he thought she needed, but the one thing she truly did. Himself.

And she couldn’t take it anymore.

She was healed, was her old self again. Or maybe even a new self. One that couldn’t drift in this realm of coddling and contradictory behavior and withheld explanations anymore. One that needed answers. Direction. Solid ground, whatever it was, to stand on.

The moment his hands landed on her shoulders, she whirled away. “I’m sorry I pushed, Ivan. But I don’t need you to put me to bed. I can handle that on my own. I can handle giving myself pleasure, too. I’ve been doing it for years without you, after all. You also seem fine being without me, in the past and now.”

His huffed laugh was vicious, bitter, as if he’d never heard anything so ironic.

But it no longer mattered what he felt, that he’d never wanted anyone but her. Not if he didn’t act on it. And it was time to make him choose a path.

“I can accept that you can’t trust me with your secrets—”

“It has nothing to do with trust, Anastasia.” His objection was vehement. “I would trust you with my life and far more.”

“Whatever your reasons, I can live with knowing only what you choose to reveal to me. You were right, about what I would have done had you given me a choice in the past. I would have wanted to be with you, no matter the price. Even now, without knowing what is so unspeakable about you or about the reasons you left me that you can’t divulge, I still want you, Ivan. I crave you.”

At his urgent step, she raised a hand to stop him from coming closer, afraid she’d settle for whatever he gave her if he touched her again. “But I can no longer accept this status quo you’ve imposed on us. I can no longer exist in this limbo.” She paused, to brace herself for what she was about to say, to surmount the fear that when she did, it might end everything. Then she said it. “So it’s up to you, like everything has ever been. But this time I get to give you a choice, Ivan. Either take me, or let me go.”

* * *

Ivan’s heart felt it might race itself to a standstill.

Anastasia wanted him. She’d been craving him from that first night. But tonight, with everything coming to a head, they’d come to an impasse. And her hunger was killing him.

All he wanted anymore was to snatch her up into his arms and plunder her like she’d been begging him to for the past ten weeks of torture.

But he hadn’t taken her because he’d brought her here for her, not for him. Because he didn’t want to make it any harder for her to walk away once she was fully healed, if that was what she felt was better for her. He knew he’d only drown her with him, like he had in the past. He’d been assuring that she had a way back, a way out.

Now she was giving him a choice.

Either take me or let me go.

He should let her go. She was healed. As much as she could be without the passage of time. There would always be echoes, throughout her life, moments when she choked up, when she was thrown back in time and into the middle of the ordeal. But her PTSD had been controlled, and she was as stable and strong as he’d hoped to get her. He should let her go so she could continue the part of getting better that only returning to her normal life, away from him and the rarefied environment he’d created for her, could achieve.

He must let her go. Even if her eyes pleaded with him not to. He had to draw on his reserves of strength, what he’d expended to keep away from her all these years, what had miraculously kept him from plundering her every time she breathed near him in the past weeks.

But he had no more strength. It had been long depleted. He’d been running on fumes, on prayers, on the sheer tendrils of sanity he had left. That was all he had to prevent him from dragging her deeper in with him, into his fathomless abyss of a soul, into the inescapable grasp of his passion.

But she wanted him to.

She had no idea what she was inviting.

But she didn’t seem to care.

If he took her now, and then she changed her mind, could he let her go? Could he walk away again?

Did he even know how anymore?

As the debate raged in his tortured mind, her eyes squeezed tight, her whole face crumpling on despondence as she turned away, heading to the en suite bathroom.

He watched her walking away, one slow step after the other, as if she feared she’d shatter if she moved too fast.

He, too, was afraid to move, lest he let out the maelstrom raging inside him. Then he heard the shower running.

The images bombarded him. Of her stepping under the pummeling water, eyes closed and lips open, her silky, golden hair streaming down her back to her perfect buttocks, her healed, lush body gleaming, the water kissing it everywhere...

He wanted to stampede in there, feast on her, wrench pleasure from her depths, make her weep with satisfaction again.

But he knew she’d never succumb to his pleasuring again. She’d let the hunger gnaw her hollow before she did. For she didn’t need release, she needed his possession, his dominance. She needed to lose herself in his passion, and sate herself with his invasion.

He felt the last tethers of his control snapping. They lashed about inside him, catapulting him after her.

She wanted him. She got him.

God help them both.

Seven

Ivan walked into the bathroom and his heart almost burst.

Anastasia was in the large shower stall, her back to him, leaning her forehead on the marble wall, as if the steaming jet beating down on her was almost too much for her to withstand. Without seeing her face, he knew she was weeping.

She hadn’t wept in weeks now. She’d even started to talk about Alex without her eyes filling, without choking on the misery and finality of his loss. And he’d managed to take her back to that terrible place of vulnerability, where she felt so anguished and helpless. But he hadn’t been able to tell her what he felt would only burden her more. Knowing his past would have been just one more scar for her to sustain.

But that wasn’t the only reason. He had to be honest with himself. He feared she’d be horrified, repulsed, if she found out the truth about him.