Our day at the beach was fun, but I could tell that Alexei had something on his mind the whole time. I wanted to ask about it, but it almost felt as though I’d spoil the moment in doing so. The last thing I wanted was for him to turn away from me.

Of course, that was exactly what I’d been trying to get him to do the night before when I’d gone home with Estevan. But in the past 24 hours, something had changed between us. It was silly to want something more with Alexei; his life was here in Barcelona and mine was nearly two thousand miles away in St. Petersburg.

It was probably just some form of Stockholm Syndrome anyway. The only reason my feelings for Alexei were renewed was because he had swooped in to save me when I’d thought that all hope was lost.

That’s not true, my inner voice reminded me snidely. It wasn’t just that he had saved me.

There was our history. There was the sex we’d had earlier that week, in his cousin’s pantry. There was the way the waves crashed over his bare chest, making his firm muscles glisten in the sun…

I couldn’t help swimming towards him, running my hands along his slippery chest. Alexei didn’t hold back either, his hands slipping along my curves, pulling me closer to him. I wrapped my legs around his waist as he looked seriously into my eyes. My whole body was crying out for him to kiss me…but eventually, Alexei slowly let me down onto the sand, backing away.

He cleared his throat. “We probably…shouldn’t,” he said quietly.

I nodded slowly, a pang in my heart.

That night, I couldn’t seem to leave, even though I knew I should head back to Father and let him see for himself that I was all right. Alexei had called him from the beach to let him know that I was all right, putting him on speaker phone so that I could hear as well.

There had been no mention of Audaz, to my surprise. Instead, Alexei told Father that I had gone home with Nikolai and some of the other Russians, and that I had passed out on one of their couches. Father had been so grateful to hear from me that he hadn’t even questioned why I hadn’t called.

“Why did you lie to him?” I asked curiously as Alexei hung up the phone.

Alexei shrugged. “He doesn’t need to hear about you trying to fuck some random Spaniard,” he muttered. “Anyway, he would just worry about you for the rest of the time you were here.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “And it has nothing to do with you being scared that he’d never let me come to Barcelona again?” I asked shrewdly.

Alexei didn’t meet my eyes for a moment. Then, he smiled wryly. “That may be part of it,” he said.

We went inside, and still I lingered, even though I knew my very presence there in his house was a promise that neither of us could handle right now. Even if I wanted to come back to Barcelona at some point, I didn’t know when I’d be able to. I had used up all of my vacation days on this trip with Father.

But I busied myself in the kitchen anyway, pleased to find that despite Alexei’s bachelorhood, he had a pretty well-stocked pantry.

“I have a cook,” he said when I asked. “She’s Russian. She stocks everything I need and comes over a couple nights a week to make sure I have a few home-cooked meals in my fridge at all times.” He shook his head and leaned towards me conspiratorially. “Her cooking has nothing on yours, honestly. But it’s the best that I can find in this god-forsaken city.”

I laughed. “The food at your weekly dinner with your cousins was good,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, Dmitry and Andrei are especially good in the kitchen. The rest of us have a couple staple recipes that we rotate through.”

“Any requests for tonight?” I asked, even though I already knew what I was planning to make.

Alexei just sat back and watched me, sipping at a dark glass of beer. “You probably wouldn’t appreciate it if I told you what I really wanted to put in my mouth right now,” he said, leering at me.

I shivered, a sharp burst of lust traveling through my body. I turned away from him so that he couldn’t see my blush. “That’s not on the menu,” I said tartly.

“That’s a shame,” Alexei sighed, his voice surprisingly wistful.

When I glanced over at him, he was looking out the window. I shook my head and went back to my cooking.

“You know, I’ve always thought it was sexy, watching you cook,” Alexei said a little while later.

I snorted, determined not to think about the things we could be doing right now. If I started thinking about his bedroom, about being there beneath him, I was going to burn the soup. Instead, I gave him a salty look. “You only think it’s sexy to watch me cook because you’re looking for that perfect Russian wife,” I said teasingly. “The one who will always listen to you, give you a lot of healthy and strong children, and take care of your home.”

Alexei gaped at me for a moment, like he thought I was serious. Then, he burst out laughing. “Yulia, if I’d wanted that from you, I would have dragged you kicking and screaming to Barcelona with me,” he said, shaking his head.

“You really think you could have done that?” I asked.

Alexei stared at me for a moment, not answering. Finally, he shrugged. “Do you remember that winter in Petersburg when you were obsessed with making pelmeni?” he asked suddenly. “I swear, some afternoons I’d come, and every available surface in our apartment was covered in flour—at least, the surfaces that weren’t covered with pelmeni themselves, sitting out waiting for you to finish pinching the edges closed or else waiting to be put into the freezer…”

“I thought you liked pelmeni!” I said. “And I was experimenting with different flavors, remember. My mother only ever made meat dumplings—I guess because that’s what my father liked.”

“I thought we were never going to be rid of them all,” Alexei said dramatically, putting a hand over his heart.

I laughed and threw a handful of flour at him. “You ate them like there was no tomorrow,” I reminded him.

“And I gained twenty pounds that winter,” Alexei lamented. “I’ve never been as skinny again.”

“Good!” I said, still giggling. “You were scrawny when we first moved in together. You’re a lot sexier now.”

The words slipped out before I could stop them, and when I looked over at Alexei, one hand clapped over my mouth, I saw he was looking at me with surprise in his expression. That quickly melted into slyness. “Oh I am?” he asked teasingly. His eyes licked over my body, and I could feel my panties dampen even at something as tame as that. “You’re pretty sexy now, yourself.”

I looked down at myself. I had pulled on one of his sweaters over my dress after we’d come in from the beach, complaining that I was chilly in my sheer dress from the night before. I knew my hair was probably a mess, and last night’s makeup was probably smeared all over the place.

I raised an eyebrow at Alexei, and he growled. “Get over here,” he said, moving like lightning to catch me and drag me away from the stove, over onto his lap.

I felt all the air rush out of me as he pulled me against his warm body.

Alexei stared at me consideringly, and it was like he hadn’t thought this far ahead, like he didn’t know what he planned to do now that he had me on his lap. But he recovered quickly enough, reaching over to grab a fork and feed me a bite of pirozhki.

I smiled as I chewed, reaching over with my fingers to grab one of the smoked salmon appetizers and holding it up to his mouth. He took a bite, lightly sucking on my fingers as he did so, and I shifted on his lap, suddenly more turned on than I could remember ever being.

Alexei’s eyes darkened, but all he did was feed me another bite of food. I could barely taste it.

“Alexei,” I said, my voice sounding fragile to my own ears. In fact, I could barely hear myself above the rushing of my pulse, the thumping beat of my heart.

Alexei stood suddenly, pulling me up with him. I wrapped my legs around his waist as he easily carried me towards the counter, setting me down for just a second while he turned off all the stove burners in a very deliberate manner. I could tell he was giving me time to stop him, to tell him that I needed to get back to cooking or that I wasn’t interested in this.

But we had both reached the breaking point by now. We had been dancing around this all day, both trying to hold back, reminding ourselves that I would be leaving the following morning. Now, our passion had reached a crescendo, a fever-pitch that neither of us could ignore any longer.

So I didn’t say anything, and Alexei grinned as he picked me up again, carrying me out of the kitchen and up the stairs as though I weighed nothing. He brought me into a bedroom and set me down on the bed, already starting to undress me, peeling the clothing from my body. My fingers clumsily fumbled with his belt, knocking into his hands as they worked at the front clasp on my bra.

We were both laughing by the time we tumbled together, naked into bed—and it was one of the things that I had always liked about going to bed with Alexei. It was always…fun. We were infinitely comfortable with one another, and there was no second-guessing, no feeling self-conscious, nothing serious about it.

Alexei skimmed his fingers down my sides and I giggled, pulling away. “That tickles!” I told him.

Alexei pressed a kiss to my collarbone. “Sorry,” he said, looking unrepentant as he did the same thing again.

I wrapped my legs around him and used the bed as leverage to roll him over onto his back, the element of surprise on my favor even though he was much stronger than me. He raised an eyebrow at me. “Where’d you learn that one?” he asked.

I shrugged, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear and rocking my pelvis against his. I could feel the slow drag of his penis between my folds—not inside of me yet but still so close. I repeated the motion, gasping when he rocked up against me, giving me much-needed pressure against my clit.

Alexei grinned at me and brought his fingers in between my legs to play with my needy nub. I moaned and fell forwards, throwing out my arms on either side of his head to support myself as I continued to rock down against him.

Slowly, I dragged my nails down his chest, delighting in the way Alexei shuddered beneath me. There was something animalistic about marking him like that. The red lines stood out against his skin for a moment before fading to white. I dipped my hand lower, grasping his member, feeling him hot and heavy in my palm. I closed my fingers around him, tugging at the fleshy skin.

The thing was, I could still remember what he liked, after all these years. The way his mouth fell open with a ragged breath when I pressed my thumb against the underside of his tip. The way his eyes slid shut as I thumbed at a bead of precum gathering at his slit. I smeared the slippery fluid around, giving a few firm tugs of his full length, drawing a groan out of him.

Alexei’s eyes opened again, and he placed his hand over mine, guiding his member until it was pressed up against my entrance. I lowered myself down onto his length, trembling with the need to move faster even as I fought to slow my movements, wanting to tease him further.

All thoughts of teasing him went out of my mind, though, when I shifted, lifting myself up on my knees and dropping back down. I could feel him all the way through me, spearing deep into my core, and I knew I wasn’t going to last long. “Please,” I whimpered, shakily repeating the movement and then falling back forwards, already so close to cumming that I could barely find any sort of rhythm.

Alexei growled and took over, his hands grasping my ass as he thrust up into me with short, sharp movements that hit that spot inside of me over and over again. I cried out his name, helpless with pleasure, and Alexei smiled smugly.

Suddenly, he was the one shifting us, flipping me around so that I was on my back. He pushed into me again and again—before suddenly slowing, his movements becoming tender and gentle. He stroked my cheek and I realized that there were tears slipping down them.

“Is this okay?” Alexei asked, slowing even more.

I nodded, unable to speak for a moment. “It’s just…I need this, Alyosha. So badly. Please. Please, please-“ I broke off with a gasp as he thrust hard into me.

Alexei’s eyes darkened, and he repeated the motion: one quick snap of his hips. He filled me, completed me, hit places deep inside of me that no one else had ever managed to touch. My fingers clenched around his biceps as I moved into his next thrust, crying out with pleasure at the force of it.

My hands fell back to either side, fingers twisting in the expensive silk sheets. I moaned on each thrust, my pleasure spiking higher and higher until I was sure that I would be consumed by it. I could barely breathe with how badly I needed this.

Despite the force behind his thrusts, Alexei continued to be gentle with me, his tender touches a surprising counterpoint to each movement of his hips. He touched my breasts, his fingers swirling around my nipples and then cupping the fullness of each one, squeezing gently. Then, he slid his hands lower along my sides. There was no tickling now; now, each gentle touch sent shivers of fire through me.

The heat coalesced suddenly in my core, the walls of my pussy clenching tightly around him as I cried out one last time, practically screaming out his name as I climaxed. I shuddered against the sheets as he continued to work my body, pumping into me again and again--until he came as well, with a muted groan.

He collapsed down on me, and I wrapped my arms around him, still feeling strangely fragile, as though there were something between us that would break if I even so much as breathed.

Eventually, Alexei pulled out of me and rolled to the side, staring up at the ceiling. Once, he would have reached for me. Once, I would have reached for him. But this time, it seemed we were all too aware of what had come before this, and what was to happen next.

I slipped out of bed and grabbed my dress, bra, and panties, tugging them on haphazardly. My fingers lingered against his warm sweater, and I wanted nothing more than to pull it on, to breathe in his scent and to imagine that he was holding me against him, his body warm against mine.

But I wasn’t allowed to have that. I would leave Barcelona the following morning, and we would return to never talking, never seeing one another.

I swallowed hard, hating that that was how things had to be between us. Who ever would have thought we would end up here?, I thought bitterly.

I folded the sweater and laid it at the foot of the bed, carefully avoiding eye contact with Alexei. At the doorway, though, I paused, looking back at him. Alexei was watching me from the bed, and I could tell he was trying to catalog every movement that I made, every inch of my body. I turned away, feeling something ache inside of me.

I’d never thought that he left because he wanted to. I knew this hurt as much for him as it did for me.

But I just didn’t know how to fix it.

“Yulia,” Alexei said, and for a moment, it seemed as though my name hung in the air between us, an almost tangible thing. A prayer or a curse, I wasn’t sure which.

I rested my hand against the doorframe, using the smooth wood to anchor me to the present. “I have to get back to the hotel. To pack,” I told him. “We leave early in the morning.”

“I know,” Alexei said.

I waited for him to say something else, but he didn’t. Maybe he didn’t have the words either.

Or rather, maybe he didn’t dare say the words either. Because I knew exactly what I wanted to say: I love you. Take care of yourself. Come home with me.

I couldn’t say any of those things, though. It wouldn’t be fair to him. I couldn’t ask him to leave his family and his life here in Spain, any more than he could ask me to leave my home or my career in Russia.

“Goodbye, Alexei,” I finally said.

“Goodbye, Yulia,” Alexei said, his voice painfully gentle.

I could feel tears welling up in my eyes, and I hurried out of the room, out of the house, so that he wouldn’t see them fall. This was nothing new, losing Alexei. I’d already lost him for good, years ago.