“Alek,” I gasp out.
“I know. We belong together. I knew it from the first second I saw you. You are mine.” He grabs my hips and brings me down harder onto his length. I almost choke from the pleasure of it all.
“Yes!” I need this more than life itself. The urge to be a woman. To be desired. To be free of my past trauma.
I haven’t felt trapped in days. I never want to feel trapped again.
Our lips collide in a passionate kiss that makes it hard to even think. It’s a miracle – to not have to think of all the things that make me anxious. Alek has helped me achieve that.
Our bodies move frantically together. Back and forth. Up and down. I need this. I need this. I need…
I gasp as my orgasm rips right through me and I shudder and tremble in Alek’s arms. He is merciless as he thrusts up into me a few more times before his own orgasm hits him.
We tremble together as he slumps onto the bed, me on top of him. He wraps his arms around me, protecting me. I never want to leave this moment.
“You are mine,” he whispers into my air.
“I want to be.”
“You already are.”
I sit up and slip off him, feeling suddenly cold. “I really want to be.”
“But you aren’t? You’ve given yourself to me, Katya. You’ve given all of yourself to me. How are you not mine?”
“Because I need you to make peace with Dimitri. Seeing him again today brought it all back. I need him in my life. But I need you in my life too. Make peace with him.”
“You know he’ll never do that,” he says, putting his penis away, marking the end of our lovemaking. Cold reality is hitting us.
“If we went to him together – you and me – we could talk to him. Make him see how good you are for me. But you would have to make a deal with him.”
He scoffs. “Make a deal with the man who’s tried to kill me on multiple occasions? No.”
“Alek.”
He finally looks me in the eye and his own expression softens. “I want you in my life, Katya. I want it more than I’ve wanted anything in a long time. But your brother and I have something in common: we’re both stubborn. It’s not going to happen.”
“Then I’ll never be able to be truly happy here. But I’ll never be truly happy at Dimitri’s either. Is that how my life is supposed to go? Never fully happy?”
He sits up with a groan, running his hands over his face. “Katya…”
“It’s how I feel. You took me to hurt my brother but we have found something special and you know it. It’s not because I’m naïve. It’s because it’s the truth. If you want me to truly choose you,fullychoose you, then you have to make peace with my brother. I will help Dimitri see that. But you have to try as well.”
“I –,” he cuts off as a loud boom echoes through the house.
Alek and I share a look before he grabs his gun from the nightstand and hurries out of the room. More slowly, I follow.
What I find is the front door has been blown in and Dimitri is there… holding onto Nina and Susanna. He – with two other men – are dragging them from the house. They’re both screaming and begging to be let go.
“You fucking bastard,” Alek snarls, lifting his gun but I grab his arm and shove it upwards so the bullet he fires lands in the ceiling instead of my brother. “Katya.”
“I’m sorry. But I can’t let you kill my brother.”
One of Dimitri’s men aims his gun at Alek when Dimitri tells him to stop. “Don’t shoot my sister. Just grab her.”
The guard keeps his gun trained on Alek so Alek can’t react and grabs my arm, hauling me away.
“Don’t do this,” I beg but the man isn’t listening. I’m dragged outside and given to Dimitri. I can see Nina and Susanna in the backseat of his car. “Dimitri, don’t do this.”
