Chapter 15
Hearing my birth name on his lips, seeing that recognition in his eyes, caused any last fears to tumble away. There was no longer any doubt.
He was my Alex.
I nodded my head, reaching a hand out for him. “Alex.”
Then he was tumbling, coming to me, kneeling at my side and drawing me hard into his arms. I bit down on the groan and answered his embrace, forcing any pain into a distant corner of my mind. Nothing else mattered. Nothing but his arms around me, his lips at my neck, and the knowledge that my Alex, my Alex, my Alex was here with me.
We were one.
At long, long last he eased back, looking at me with shining eyes. “I’ve always wondered. I’d always had dreams. I figured you’d married some businessman in Kiev and had three beautiful children. And when I had my daydreams of my own life, it always involved a blonde woman with braids. With your luminous eyes and compassion.”
He tenderly ran a hand down my cheek. “I never thought I’d meet you again. Not in New Haven, certainly. And not working –”
His hand stilled.
He stared at me, growing horror filling his gaze. His throat twisted tight, and a staggering groan coursed out of him.
His hand shook against my face, and his words barely came out.
“He was selling you? That man – that uncle - was selling you to the sex trade?”
He drew me in harder this time, as if to shield me from the world, and his entire body shook. Tears streamed down my face, and I burrowed in against him.
He had been there. He had been there at the very beginning, and he knew how I had started. He was one of the only people in the entire world who knew me as I had once been. Before Dmytro. Before Boris. Before Mikhaylo. Before everything else which had come after.
His breaths were near howls, and my tears cleansed me. They rinsed away the last vestiges of my past. I would never forget. Absolutely, I would never forget. But from this day forward, I would focus on my future. On our future. On what we could do to impact our world. To help the countless innocents who were still trapped in horrific hells.
Who needed our help.
At last, at long, long last, he sat back against the side wall. I drew back to look into those eyes. Into those blue eyes I knew so well. Eyes which were raw and hollow.
His voice was a rasp. “I should have stolen you away. I should have taken you with me. If I had known, if I had even the tiniest sense of what they were going to do to you …”
His voice failed him.
I tenderly stroked his face. “Dmytro paid good money for me. If you had taken me? They would have found us both. My fate would have been the same and you would have been broken. Maybe killed. No, this was the only path. The one where we ended up side by side. Able to dismantle their empire. Able to bring light to a world of corruption and pain.”
His gaze shone on me. His voice was soft and hauntingly tender. “I love you.”
I shone. I shone with the brilliance of a thousand sunbeams.
“I love you, too, Alex. I have since I was six years old. Since you saved my life without even knowing it.”
I laced my hand behind his neck and drew him down.
He resisted, his voice tight. “You should rest. God, Nadiya, you should rest for a month, with what they did to you. With what you endured.”
My gaze was on him, him, nothing else but him. “And you should rest for a week; you’ve just been shot in the shoulder.”
I nudged my head to the mat. “And I’ve never had any man with me in my own room. In my place of refuge. But today is a new day. The past no longer matters. Because I have you by my side, and you are my Alex, my Alex, and I want –”
I gently, tenderly, achingly pulled him to me.
He groaned, the last of his resistance shimmering away, and then his lips were on mine, like rose petals in a soft summer’s morn.
The ache filled my entire body, new, reborn, and it was like nothing I’d ever felt before. When we’d been together on the boat it had been wild and passionate, full of drive and lava. The time I had realized who he was, in his house, it had been my celebration of the connection. Of my long-sought-for quest finally reaching its goal.
But now?
Now we were soulmates. We were lovers who had been destined through time. Who had suffered every travail life could throw at us, and we had endured. We had been polished. Burnished. And at last, at long last, we had found each other again.
We were whole.
He lowered himself over me, supporting himself so that his body barely brushed mine. I was still fully clothed in the crimson silk dress, and his skin sliding against mine through that fabric was sheer ecstasy. I laughed as our lips slid, as our tongues danced, and as those eyes, those brilliant, beautiful, cornflower-blue eyes held mine with shimmering emotion.
There was no question.
He was mine.
I rolled onto my side, and his hand went to the zipper at my back, slowly easing it down to my waist. I shrugged my shoulders and slid it down, down, until my breasts were revealed to him.
His breath left him, and then his mouth was lowering to suckle at one, as if he were honoring a goddess. As if he were worshipping at her altar with utter reverence.
Holy fire grew within me, tended by his love, filling me with an energy I’d never known possible.
His mouth moved to the other side, and his hand tenderly stroked my breast, sending the peak even higher, even more taut. I had both hands in his hair now, holding his head in place, wanting this, this, just this, for as long as the world spun.
His hands moved to my waist, sliding the dress down to puddle by my ankles. A moment later and my underwear followed. I now lay wholly naked before him.
He paused for a long moment, just staring at me in awe.
Then he stood.
He stripped off his pants and briefs with an easy motion. He was now naked except for the bandage at his shoulder.
He went to the wall and stood before the medallion for a long, long moment.
He lifted it off the hook. He stared at the circle where it lay in his palm.
He closed his fingers over it, bowing his head.
Then he came back over to me, kneeling at my side.
He undid the clasp and hooked it around the back of my neck.
He arranged the medallion so it lay between my breasts.
He slowly shook his head, as if unable to take it all in. His eyes returned to mine.
His voice was hoarse. “I love you, Leisha. I love you Nadiya. I love all of you. Everything you are. Everything you have been and will be.”
I put a hand up to his face. He was everything. He was all.
I whispered, “I am yours, Alex. I have always been, and I always shall be.”
He groaned, and then he was over me again. The tip of his cock, hard, throbbing, was barely at the entrance to my pussy.
I was soaked. I knew I was. And I needed him. I craved him. I wanted him more than I had ever wanted anything in my entire life.
He was supporting himself so he did not put any pressure on my aching body. But I no longer cared about pain or joints or anything else. Only one thing mattered. Only him and me. Me and him.
I put my hands around his back and felt the strength of those rippling muscles. I slid my fingers down, down, to that powerful lower back.
I slid my legs apart.
I lifted my hips. Just so the tip of his cock slid into my tight wetness.
He groaned, his body shuddering. “Oh, God, Nadiya, what you do to me.”
“It is because we were meant for each other. You and me, Alex. Me and you.”
His gaze held mine, and the rest of the world didn’t exist. It was gone. Ephemeral.
He slid … slid … slid … and I could feel every inch. Every motion. Every sensation until he seated, fully, deeply, perfectly into me.
I groaned.
He eased out, and now he was coming back in again, the speed just slightly more, the anticipation of his motion bringing my breath into sharp draws.
I needed him … I needed him … I needed, needed, needed –
Faster now. My hands slid to that fantastic, firm ass, and I pulled, but he resisted, controlling the rise, drawing it out, tantalizing me, teasing me, and I groaned with the need. With the craving. With the desire, desire, for the man I loved, the man I honored, the man I treasured, the man who was mine, mine, mine –
Faster, faster, and we were in perfect sync in our motions. In our ache and need and craving for each other. For our love, our love, our soul-filling, universe-reaching, glorious, staggering –
He was flying now, filling me, pressing out every inch of me, every aspect, every cell, and I arched back, giving myself fully to him. Nothing was held back. I was his, his, his, and I was lifted –
He cried out, shuddering.
We were particles in space, glowing, shining, beyond all thought or reason. We simply were. We were the cosmos and stardust and wholly intermingled. We were one. We were one, and nothing could ever separate us again. We could never be un-mixed.
We congealed into a whole.
Time fell away.