Felicity
As soon as we get back to the cabin, Roma goes into the shower. He doesn’t look at me. I sense he can’t look at me. Something happened in that room which wasn’t meant to happen. He felt something. I saw it in him. It almost overpowered us. Hell, it would’ve overpowered us had the music not ended. I lie on the bed, legs crossed, anticlimactic warmth roiling through me.
My hand moves down my body, almost to my pussy, but I stop it. It won’t be the same. It’s not my hand and my imagination I want. For better or worse, it’s Roma. His body. His hands. His cock. Most of all, his lips. During the dance, it was like a spell was cast on us. An atmosphere I’ve never experienced with a man enveloped us, an atmosphere I certainly never expected to experience here, of all places. I close my eyes and try to clear my mind, will the sensations from my body. But I can hear the blast of the shower in the next room, a constant tsssssssss, and with the noise comes thrusted images. Steam rising off muscles. Water trickling through hair, down his face, onto his chest. His cock, wet, hanging between his legs. Perhaps still hard . . .
Remember where you are, remember what situation you’re in.
Roma is here to rescue me, I remind myself. Falling for each other—even just giving in to animal urges—could jeopardize that. What if it distracts him from his job? What if he starts to care about me and then can’t bear to watch me play the role I have to play? What if he flies off the handle the next time Zherkov or Barinov make a crude comment? Then he’ll be thrown overboard and I’ll be stranded, alone, at the mercy of dozens of men who’ve just seen me give the lap dance of a lifetime. No, that wouldn’t be a good position to be in at all.
I promise myself that I won’t give in to these urges. I say it clearly in my mind: I will stay away from him. I will fight them. But they’re strong and I don’t know how long I can resist them. I’ve never been truly excited by a man. I’ve had boyfriends, of course, at college and high school, and one brief fling at the gym. But there’s never been that heat you sometimes read about in magazines. The chest-trembling heat which makes everything else seem unimportant, the heat that moves through you like something alive, calling out, howling. The animal heat. The heat of true lovers. I’ve never felt that. Sex with the exes was satisfying enough, but never explosive, never transformative. It always left me unsated, like a drowning woman having only half a cup of water. I always wanted more. And Roma could be that more. I can see it in him, strong, ripped . . .
“You’re doing it again,” I mutter.
He’s been in the shower now for what feels like hours. I sense he’s in there so that he can avoid me. When he looks at me, it’s like he’s fighting a war within himself. I see it in his face, one moment pained, one moment cold. Warring factions fighting for control of his heart. Ha, who am I kidding? Maybe not his heart, but something else, definitely. And the lap dance didn’t help.
I’m brought from my thoughts when the cabin door opens. I crane my neck up—I try to scream.
Barinov moves quicker than I would’ve dreamed. The fat man shoots across the room as though he is not covered in a thick layer of fat, but a quick, young man. He flies to the side of the bed and, as the noise is about to erupt from my lips, clamps his hand down on my mouth. I like to think I’m strong (and not for a woman, but just strong) but when I strain against him, he just lays his huge forearm across my chest and pins me to the bed.
I strain again, and with a grunting laugh he pushes me back down. His eyes are inches from my face, bloodshot and wide with . . . no, and it dawns on me. No, no, no. His eyes are wide with pleasure. He runs his tongue along his upper lip, grinning. I strain even harder; he pushes me down even harder.
When he brings his lips to my ear, his breath tickles along my skin. I flinch away. Try to, at least. But he wrenches my jaws with his hand and pulls me closer.
“I saw your man in there,” Barinov says, breathing so heavily I feel as though I am engulfed in the warm, reeking steam which comes from his lips. “He doesn’t look like much, no? Not much of a real man. He just sat there and he didn’t even touch you and he looked scared, poor silly little man. You see, shlyukha, I am not the man people think I am. I am not a weak and fat man. I am a strong proud Russian man and I have killed many men in my life. They call me the Bull and my father was an advisor to Stalin. Don’t make the mistake of fighting, shlyukha. Don’t even try.”
I ignore his words and thrash with my arms. I can feel what he wants to do. Feel it. It emanates from him in potent waves of testosterone and sweat.
Then his hand slides down my body. Thick sausage fingers paw at my skin and he groans as they toy with the hem of my dress.
“Such a pretty girly I have, eh?” he says, placing his hand on my leg.