After a massive good cry and a couple glasses of water, Kallie ordered her usual from a place called Oscar’s. It was the Mediterranean place in a Russian community. She knew at the time she was buying the food that she wasn’t going to eat it, so she got something that would keep until the next day. At least then she’d have something in the house to eat.

She dressed in a T-shirt of Sasha’s she found when she first moved in, and a pair of cut-offs. Her long, stick-straight, nearly-white-blonde hair was in a tangle on top of her head. She was fresh from a shower which she took after her cry, so she wore no makeup. She sat in a daze on the couch, waiting for the knock to come at her door. It finally did.

“Coming,” she called, feeling like someone forty years older as she wearily got to her feet.

Oddly enough, she wasn’t hungry, but was looking forward to the food all the same. Delivery from Oscar’s reminded her of happier times. She grabbed her wallet, thankful she’d found that emergency twenty from the secret compartment in her wallet that she’d forgotten about entirely. Hopefully there would be enough left over for bus fare without having to visit the ATM before work.

She pulled open the door, half-distracted and trying to juggle wallet and purse, so she wasn’t really paying much attention as she asked. “How much?”

“How much have you got?” asked Sasha, holding her food.

Kallie froze, bill in hand, suddenly confused.

He swept his arm around the small of her back and lifted her and the food, carrying both into the living room. “Can we talk?” he asked gently. “I tried this being mad-at-you thing, but I can’t do it.”

He looked so earnest, so real, that her heart almost burst with emotion. “I tried this not wanting to see you ever again but I can’t do it,” she confessed, tears in her eyes.

She pressed her head against his gigantic upper body, like he was the most comfortable bed in the world. She craned her face up towards his. Yes, she still wanted this, regardless of how much her mind was screaming at her to be careful. She still wanted HIM.

Only... she had absolutely no idea where things stood. And him being charming... even adorable... was not helping her to think clearly.

“I took off the other day and you made me believe that we were finished. Final. Done,” she said, taking a step back both physically and emotionally. “Now I get the distinct impression you want to fuck me.”

He was frustrated. It was clear to see, and to be honest she couldn’t blame him. But she was frustrated, too, and needed to have this conversation. She couldn’t just fall into bed with him after all they’d gone through, and think everything would be all right.

“I told you I was crazy in love with you,” he replied, his face tight, tiny lines appearing around his mouth. “That doesn’t just turn off. At least not for me it doesn’t.”

“Is that an accusation?”

“Kallie, you’re in love with me. You never said it, but you are.” It was his turn to cross his arms and look smug.

“Maybe it was a good thing I heard the ‘sweetheart’ part of that phone conversation the other day because, apparently, you have a whole social scene that I didn’t rate to be a part of,” she snapped, grabbing the takeout box from his hands and turning to take it to the kitchen.

“Like Nikolai and Katerina?” he asked, following her, every inch the predator. “The chick you thought I was banging today?”

“Don’t make this about me and my jealousy,” she snapped, slamming open the refrigerator and dropping the takeout bag inside without looking. “You keep twisting me around to where I don’t know which end is up.”

“I thought you wanted to go back to work,” he shot back at her, going to the fridge and taking out the bag she’d just put in there and taking it to the counter while he dug around in the counter for a clean fork. “So, I got you a business.”

“One that fronts for a drug operation,” she snapped, rescuing the carton before he could take a bite.

“Let’s talk about that,” he said, reaching past her and snagging a forkful all the same. “You and I do own a bakery. It’s a real bakery. It’s going to be a full-scale restaurant. It’s not a front. It’s real.”

“It might be, but as you reminded me, you own everything. I signed some papers, but you own it. You put up all the cash. So, no, you and I don’t own a bakery.”

“Technically, Ms. Margolis, we do own a bakery. But, as you know, there a lot of old people around here and some of them have aches and pains...”

Kallie dropped the takeout on the counter and put her hands over her ears, already anticipating the incredible story he was going to spin for her. “I’m not going to listen to this!” She just knew he was going to tell her he offered old people medicinal marijuana. She didn’t know how to tell the truth from a lie where he was concerned, mostly because she wanted so badly to believe him. “So just don’t.”

He took hold of her hands and lowered them. “Why are you always looking for the worst in me?” he asked, bending his head to nuzzle her neck. “What are you so afraid of?”

“Why did you take a gun to the apartments today?” she whispered, shivering at the feel of his hot breath on her neck. She turned away, not liking the way her insides warmed, the way her heart thundered in her chest when he touched her like that.

“Because it’s a bad neighborhood. I walked Katerina into the building because Nikolai was running late. We bought the building. They’re managing it. It’s iffy now, but we are going to turn it around. She had a bad situation the first time she was alone there, and I said if I was nearby to call me. I went and checked to make sure no one was where they weren’t supposed to be, then came down and got her to take her up. Do you have a problem with that?” He danced her backwards with a sly smile on his face, until she felt the counter hard against her back.

She was caving. The pressure in her chest that was an ache for him was too intense. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. Her head spun.

I want him. I want him, and I don’t know what to do about it.

But deep down she did know. She knew exactly what she wanted. She needed to possess this man, mark him for her own and no one else’s. That was the heart of why she was so upset. It wasn’t that Sasha might dabble in the illegal. Not that that was okay. But it was that he had a whole part of his life, his world, that he didn’t include her in.

But with his arms around her like this, none of that seemed to matter. For tonight at least, she was ready to cast all these arguments aside. Let them find an answer to all that tomorrow.

I want tonight.

I want him.

It was she who made the next move. She reached up, twining her arms around his massive neck, and kissed him with everything she had.

He muttered prayers against her lips. He felt it. Damn them both then, there was no way either of them could break from this storm of desire that raged when they touched.

She hitched her knee up to his hip and pressed the softness between her legs up to his groin. She pulled upwards and lifted herself on to him while he was standing. Her lips and hips ground into him.

Little moans escaped him, his voice hoarse. Incoherent with need and desire.

She might have been smaller than he was, but she was in total control. She lifted her mouth from his and buried her face in his hair, kissing the side of his neck with feather-light contact. His hands spanned her waist, lifting her onto the counter so that she could reach him better, staggering a little, not from her weight, but because his knees buckled as she bit his earlobe and then drew it into her mouth to suck away the sting.

“Careful, big guy,” she murmured around the laughter that threatened.

Laughter. When an hour ago I was crying.

There was wonder in her eyes as she drew back and looked at him, really looked at him. Only Sasha could take her through such a range of emotions in such a short time.

He playfully turned things around. “Careful like this?” he asked, and his fingers found her center. Just enough to tease, he stroked her heat through her clothing, the friction a sweet torment against her swollen clit.

She went limp in his arms, throwing her head back and staring without seeing as his fingertips discovered her all over again.

“Like that?” he asked.

“Yeah, just like that,” she replied, pressing her eyelids tightly shut, savoring the sweetness.

Takeout forgotten, they found their way to the stairs, and then having to collapse into a long embrace that left them in a rather intense discussion of what was and was not possible in a stairwell. After some experimentation that almost sent them both tumbling to the first floor, they retired to the master bedroom and collapsed onto the bed. By then he had her breasts out of her bra, and was fishing around under her shirt to cup her gently.

His fingers were rough. His hands were the hands of someone who worked hard, callused and strong. Their heat both soothing and erotic. She was so aware of how delicate her body was next to his. He pushed the shirt up till her breasts were exposed, and inhaled sharply like he’d never seen him before. Kallie’s heart stuttered, adding in an extra beat when he looked at her like that, like she was magical, something wondrous he’d never seen before.

Like he was something wondrous to her.

He touched his tongue to her nipple, soft as a butterfly lands on a flower, until it became a stone between his teeth. Taking hold of the delicate mound and lifting it with his fingers, he paused to lick the sensitive underside with the point of his tongue.

Kallie drummed her feet on the bed, wild and oversensitive from the attention, dying from how ticklish his beard felt against her skin, how delicately his tongue traced the swell of her breast.

She’d never been so wet in her life. When he stripped away her underwear, he had to see it, had to feel how much she desired him. His hand squelched between her thighs as he inserted one finger then two, and pumped as he lifted her legs up and over his shoulders. She made soft mewling sounds as he pulled away then bent his head to taste her.

She could have wept it was so beautiful. How he knew just where to touch, she had no idea. His hot tongue found her most aching places. If he’d landed on any one of them for too long, she would have come completely undone against his lips. But he drew away just when she thought she was going to slip over that precipice. Letting the cool air of the room cool the heat between her thighs before diving in again. He lifted his chin up and down, pressing as he supped. He worked her hips in counter rhythm against his mouth.

She was blissfully helpless. She felt her climax just hovering there, not quite beyond reach. She strained against it, holding it off desperately, wanting to prolong the sweetness for an even greater intensity.

Her chest grew tight as she fought the pleasure coming to her, moving so Sasha was slightly off his mark. But then he landed it again, and everything realigned for the ultimate rapture. Kallie could no longer deny herself or him. She let go, allowing the sweet spasms to roll through her body, building from little tiny ripples to a full-blown tumbling that tore through her with the intensity of an earthquake.

She again was consumed. She felt it from head to toe, muscles clutching and releasing from the deepest places within her in a powerful, pleasurable rhythm.

Sasha rose from her.

She watched him through lowered lids.

He looked very pleased with himself as he reared back. Her eyes opened wide as she realized how rock-hard his cock was—gasping at his utter perfection.

He slipped into her, gliding against her electrified flesh, setting off sweet new pleasures, taking her orgasm-riddled body to new heights. Her cries filled the room as Sasha pounded into her.

A new climax began to build.

With a somewhat detached awe, she beheld her magnificent man as he made love to her. She studied his expressions, the joy that filled his face. How could there be thoughts of drama and doubt in such a moment as this? Their world consisted of only the two of them, rising and falling together in an age-old rhythm that left her body singing and sore.

For such an enormous man, Sasha had a great deal of grace. He swung his body with barely- restrained power and easily drove into her. Kallie lifted her feet straight up into the air and let them fall apart with legs extended and flexed, giving him all of her, without holding back. Enjoying the way his gaze fell upon her, loving the lascivious way he took her with only his eyes.

Callused fingers traced the tender inside of her thigh, making her shiver all the way down into her core. She drew up tighter around him, sending pulses of pleasure through them both. He was tortured in the best possible way; she knew the signs. Still, he reached between them and pressed on her climax-sensitized flesh, and with that touch brought her orgasm fully back to life.

Not that she needed it. She was already there. Kallie convulsed helplessly around Sasha, more powerfully than before, as he drove into her again and again. He was a beast of a lover, giant and almost inhuman in his intensity. But he had amazing willpower, and just as she thought he would drive them both over the edge again he held back, slowing his pace to prolong their sweet agony.

She watched as his eyelids fluttered. He drew air in through his nostrils and bit his lip, trying to withstand the pleasure that their union brought to them both. Kallie had already achieved climax once, but was frantic with the need for the next. She knew the torment he was enduring because she felt it, too. He pulled out and flipped her over until she was on all fours, then slammed into her again until she just about came undone. She arched her back, jutting her ass out, wriggling a little against him to drive him crazy.

Sasha responded with grunts of delight. He gripped her hips and slammed into her, slapping her against his massive thighs so her flesh shook. Their bodies colliding made a smacking noise as he stroked her. He was in a zone.

Kallie touched herself. She drew herself up tight around his steely hardness to rekindle the sweet orgasm that had electrified her so. It was so easy to do in this position. So tantalizing to feed into the already-building orgasm until she knew she could hold back no longer.

She slid on the bed, trying to stay upright against such urgent pounding. “I’m going to come again...” she gasped, letting him know she was there.

He was, too. She felt him tensing against her. He muttered a sound that was a mixture of a curse and praise before he roared his delight. He glided into her with a seamless rhythm, holding onto her until he could move no more, until he canted over her, shaking and spasming, crying out as she, too, convulsed on him.

It was the sweetest, loveliest moment that she’d ever known. She couldn’t be more content. When they were together like this, everything was perfect. They were perfect. There was no weird history or questions. Right here, in this moment, she felt sure of them as a couple. Thinking that together they could work through everything.

They collapsed onto the bed, staring upward at the ceiling, sweetly dazed, like they were gazing at the stars. Their feet and hands gently touched one another so they never lost connection as their moment washed through them both.

Here, in his arms, she could believe that they’d never been at odds with each other at all. The smile that pulled at her face should have lasted forever.

But eventually the desolation and sadness found her again, as the magic wore off, as their bodies became cold. He moved, and she shifted until they were each lying there in the dark... alone.

It would take more than smoking-hot sex to fix what had derailed them.