“I’ve seen you cry before, sweetheart,” he murmurs.
She feels more tears still, as he kisses her face, but him, she wants him: simple and foundational—through each kiss, and every breath, and into another day, after this, again, and again.
Lili reaches for his belt. “Can we—”
Before she can finish speaking, Aleksandr has shifted onto his knees, undoing his belt.
Please, let this be a beginning,she thinks, as he discards his trousers, as the warmth of his body comes back to her. The press of skin makes her already wet eyes well again. She feels loose with pleasure and sadness—memories of her mistakes—under this smooth of hands, warm mouths, running her palms across the shift of his shoulders—
“—a condom?”
“What?” Lili asks: a blur, confused, kissing his jaw.
“—do we—fuck—do we need to use a condom?”
“No, no—I didn’t... that time there was protection.”
“Yes, but I—” A sigh, heavy against her collarbone.
Lili stills, realizing. “Oh.” Heat stings at her eyes. “Oh, okay—right. You’ve—you haven’t—”
“No, I’ve been using protection—I usually always use protection; with you, I was just...”
Lili swallows, throat tight. “Whatever you want,” she whispers. “I understand if you don’t want to—”
He brushes her hair back from her face. “I’m asking what you’re comfortable with,” he says, quiet.
And she—she laughs, unexpected.
It’s a light sound, and it startles her: something like surprise, real humor, in the softness of this clear light, coming through the window. The awkwardness of two bodies that want each other again.
Aleksandr tilts his head, confused but smiling. “We got this all backwards,” she breathes. “We’re always getting things backwards. Now you ask me about my sexual health preferences, after how many months?”
“Hey, I asked about your birth control,” Aleksandr replies, raising an eyebrow.
Lili shakes her head, laughing again. His hand is warm and gentle against her cheek. “After we’d been sleeping together for weeks,” she says. “For all you knew, I could have been pregnant already.”
“But you weren’t.”
“That’s your defense? People—countries—trust you with billions, and that’s your response?”
“Is it untrue?” he says, a smirk.
“Lucky for you,” she teases, letting her fingers brush over his beard. “You, who apparently hates children—”
“I could want children.”
Lili stills.
There isn’t a laugh, then.
“What?” she whispers.
“I just mean, if you wanted children,” Aleksandr says, and his smile—faint—has sadness, too. Like a thing almost lost, something not yet fully within reach again. “I’d want them, too. With you. Eventually.”
She breathes, and does not respond.
He watches her, through the moments of her breath. Calm, but watchful. “Going to run away now?”
