I nudged her leg with the back of my hand, and she paused. I pulled her down towards me and rolled us over, so that I was on top of her, supporting myself on my elbows. We moved together, flawlessly in sync. It was something else, more than I had gotten from any other woman. Ana was mine, and she was perfect. She wrapped her legs around my waist and tucked me in close to her. I smothered her mouth with kisses, my tongue brushing hers as her mouth opened for me.
Resting on one forearm, I used my free hand to play with her nipples, while I fucked her, my thrusts getting harder and faster. She moaned into my mouth and I had to restrain myself from exploding inside her right there and then.
I kissed and nipped a line down her jaw to her neck burying my face in the scent of her. She moaned again, and I knew we were both close. As I moved, one of her hands fisted in the bedsheets. She was going to make me climax, and I was so ready for it. Ana cupped her hand around the back of my neck and brought my face to hers.
“Look at me.” Her big blue eyes were half-closed but she was still looking right at me.
I watched her face in the darkness, wishing that I’d turned the light on so that I could see her in all of her beauty. See her face flushed with passion.
“Ana…” I whispered, my voice hoarse.
“I want you to,” she said, another moan of pleasure escaping her throat. Of course she knew what I was going to say, she knew the place that we had gotten to.
She cried out in passion as she climaxed and for a few moments, I kept going, holding on until the last possible second so that she got as much out of this as possible. I stilled as I released my load inside of her, one last thrust rocking our hips together.
I kissed her again, slower almost lazily. “I love you,” I murmured as I moved from on top of her. She curled into me as our breathing slowed.
“I love you too, Nikolai.”
I put my arms around her and held her to me as my heart swelled.
“How did I ever get so lucky?” Anastasia muttered sleepily. Still wrapped in my arms, she was already starting to drift off to sleep again. I didn’t know if she was fully conscious or not if she’d even realised she’d said it aloud. But nevertheless, I’d heard it.
My mind couldn’t grasp how she felt ‘lucky’. After all, she’d been through… I couldn’t agree with her that luck was on her side. But maybe, just maybe, things were turning around for her.
“Will you tell me about this?” Nikolai whispered as his fingertips traced the scar that ran down my stomach. I considered it for a minute. I hadn’t realised that I’d never told him the full story. I supposed there was still a lot we had to learn about each other and I looked forward to it.
“Only if you tell me what went down with Finch…” I smiled coyly as I replied.
“You know what happened, I found him spying on you. We went back to my hotel, and he told me about our father.”
“Not that. Before… the night before I left? We’d been arguing and you came in and took him outside. What happened? You were angry when you came to find me later on.”
“You don’t have to protect him. You weren’t arguing, I saw him hit you.”
Ahh. That explained just about everything.
“I was furious. I told him not to come back around here again.” The way his eyes wouldn’t meet mine told me that those weren’t the exact words he had used that night.
“Anton owed money to the wrong people. I was only a kid and on the way home from school one day those wrong people picked me up. They held me for two days while Anton came up with the money.”
And there. That was it. It had been one of the worst times of my life and I hated thinking about it, every single time my mind took me back to that dark place. I felt the same things I did back then, scared and completely helpless. Nikolai’s arm tightened around my waist, pulling me into him. The touch pulled me from my memories and reaffirmed that here in the now, I wasn’t alone.
“I’d felt so alone. I was helpless, dependent on Anton coming up with the money. When he finally called them, we met him at the racetrack, they were suspicious of him from the moment he walked in. Turned out they were right to worry, Anton pulled a gun, men flooded the stands all with guns.”
“Who did this?” His fingers lightly brushed my stomach again.
“One of the guys that had taken me. Everyone was shooting but instead, he grabbed me and used me as a shield. He had a knife pressed to my stomach. I got shot, we fell… I woke up in the hospital a day later.”
“You’ve been through so much, Ana.”
“I don’t really like talking about it, it was a horrible time.” After that incident, life seemed so dark. I refused to go to school for weeks, I withdrew from what little social life I’d had, I wouldn’t even speak to Anton.
I didn’t go into any more detail with Nikolai. I’d always felt so ashamed that back then, as a child, I was so heavily depressed that I didn’t want to live. Nikolai didn’t need to know that. Not right now.
“Nikolai, where is Finch now?”
He sighed, his warm breath tickling my neck. “We’re not sure.”
I didn’t press any further than that.
Nikolai’s breathing evened out soon after. I wasn’t a religious person but still, I prayed for Finch and his safe return. No matter how much we didn’t get along if anything happened to him… Nikolai would
