“I’m not sleepy.” I faced Kirill.
He dragged me into his arms. “Good. I have plans for you.”
I scooted away from him.
“Baby, you know I love to chase you.”
When the devilish gleam in his eyes sent a pulsing between my legs, I debated whether I should abandon my plans.
“I have something else in mind.” Why was my voice breathless?
He raked his bottom lip with his teeth and emitted an exhale of resignation. “The jigsaw puzzle.”
“It’s almost finished! It’ll probably take us one hour tops!”
He regarded me contemplatively. As if he was assessing whether to carry me off to our bedroom or suffer through an hour of blue balls.
I stepped forward and loosened his tie. “I’ll make it worth your time.”
He quirked a brow. “Really?”
“We haven’t christened the new couch in the basement.”
He grabbed my hand. “Let’s go.”
Forty-five minutes later, we were about to complete the Van GoghStarry Nightjigsaw puzzle.
“You can do the honor of putting in the last piece,” I told Kirill with a twinkle in my eyes.
One Sunday, Kirill and I drove to the Catskills cabin to collect the jigsaw puzzle that lay in pieces in the living room. We counted the pieces. All 1,000 of them. Kirill grumbled we could have just ordered another one off the internet, but I insisted it wouldn’t have had as much meaning.
My basement office was mostly complete. I had my whiteboards and erasable markers and magnets. I had my binders and colored pens. A U-shaped desk. A couch area off to the side with a coffee table. Maksim approached me about being the investigator for Zahkarov Holdings, which still included researching leverage that he could use for business deals. Kirill continued to bring me to his poker games where I could suss out potential associates. I loved that my husband trusted my instincts.
We were a team.
Kirill rolled the piece with his fingers. “You’re right,” he breathed. “There’s something symbolic about finishing this same puzzle.”
Then, with extreme reverence, he fitted the piece into the last jagged hole. “This is us,” he said, pulling me up from where I was sitting cross-legged so I could snuggle beside him. “Back at the cabin, we were learning about each other.” He turned me to face him, his eyes deeply searching mine. “Finding out how each piece of me fits into each piece of you. We weren’t quite finished.” He frowned. “But somehow, even if we had stayed longer?—”
“That wouldn’t be the answer.” I brushed my lips against his as I rested my palm on his chest and felt it rumble. “We needed time. We needed to live as a couple, go through the trials?—”
“That was quite a fucking trial when we came back, Lusenka,” he growled.
I laughed briefly at the ferocity on his face, but tears warmed my eyes. “But we gotthroughit. We came back stronger.”
“Yes, we did,” he rasped.
We gazed at each other before our lips crashed together. He hauled me right on top of him. I guessed we were going to christen the new couch after all.
Our tongues dueled, and my fingers threaded desperately through his dark, thick hair. His hand was on the back of my head as he devoured me, and the other one kept me plastered to his chest.
I rocked on top of him. He groaned in approval.
We ignited.
He hardened beneath me, and I grew increasingly wet.
Clothes quickly discarded, I sank snugly onto his cock.
