He seemed to be going faster and higher than I would've expected.
"Didn't you say that it's safe only as long as you have the proper equipment?" I said, my voice probably too shrill. But I was freaking out on the inside. If Pierce fell and something happened to him, I wouldn’t know what to do. "Where's your equipment?"
Pierce paused to wave one hand at me, and then the other. "Here."
As he continued ascending, I said, "Very funny. But seriously. Isn’t that high enough?"
“It’s never high enough to a dedicated climber,” he answered.
I craned my neck up. The top of the cliff was high up, way too high up. Break-your-neck-if-you-fall high.
"No way," I said, "No way, are you going to the top of that."
Pierce stopped, frowned, then started to descend.
"Just because you had enough stress lately," he said as he returned to the ground.
"Thank you," I said. "The last thing I need is for you to fall and break your neck or something."
He took my chin in his hands. "Why? Would you miss me?"
I smirked. "Maybe."
His gaze returned to the rough, rocky cliffs, then to me. "Want to try?"
"Is that a joke?"
"Hey," Pierce said, pressing the back of my body to his, "I'll be right here with you the whole way."
As he moved my hand onto the first holding, then my foot, I swallowed back my refusal. After all, when was the last time I’d tried something new?
Sure, I had come to the US, but what had I been doing since, except for hiding out and feeling sorry for myself? Almost exactly what I did in Moscow.
So, I let Pierce move my foot to the second rocky indent and my other hand to the next hold. I let him instruct me step by step.
He was right. As I moved up, so did he; so that if I ever fell, he would be right there, supporting me.
Somewhere between me getting off the ground and making it a few feet up, I realized something. I wasn't afraid anymore.
As I paused to look out, and Pierce caught the awed look on my face, he said, "You see?"
"Yeah," I said. "I actually get it. I don't know if it's adrenaline or what, but-"
"It's doing something you thought you couldn't do," Pierce said easily.
And something told me that if I turned and looked him in the eye, our gazes would understand each other.
"Maybe this is what it's like with the whole Aleksi thing," I said quietly. "I've barely made it off the ground, and it still feels so hard, but somewhere, someday, I'll look out and see the sky instead, the ground and all I thought I could never do, so far away."
Pierce brushed a strand of hair behind my ear. "You're incredibly brave, you know."
I sunk back into him. "I'm not; believe me."
"You are," he argued, turning my face partway so I could see the fierce look on his. "Sasha, do you know how many women live and die inside their crappy relationships? Do you know how many women stay decades, their whole lives, gone? Do you know how many people never accomplish what they set out to do?"
"I should have done it sooner," I said, directing my glare into the impassive stone wall ahead of me. "Years. I wasted years on him."
"I wouldn't know," Pierce said. "But it sounds to me like you didn't waste them. It sounds to me that you give him chances, kept hoping he’d change back into the man he was. Anyway, if you’d left him earlier, I doubt we’d have met."
I paused.
Now that I thought about it, was Pierce right? Was the timing not as horrible as I thought?
Maybe I’d done it at the just the right time. And if that was true, was I meant to have met Pierce?
"What happened with your parents, Pierce?" I asked quietly, turning to look at him.
Confusion clouded over his face.
"We're going to have to get down if we’re going to talk about that," he said.
Back on the ground, we went back to the picnic blanket. Once there, I thought he would drop the subject, but to my surprise, he took my hand and started speaking.
"My dad was an alcoholic, a cheater. By the time my mom left him, she was a shell of herself. She died a year after from a heart attack. She was thirty-seven. I think the stress just got to be too much. My dad, well, he kept me so I guess you could give him that. But yeah, he wasn’t exactly father of the year. Seemed to have a knack for seeing the bad in things, infecting those around him with it. I left home at seventeen, and a good thing too. Otherwise, I would've ended up like him. Although sometimes I think…" he trailed off and shook his head.
I squeezed his hand, pressed it to my lips and kissed it. "Sometimes you think what?"
There was a cocktail of resentment and frustration bubbling on Pierce's face. There were freckles on the tips of his cheekbones I'd never noticed before. He ran a hand through his reddish-brown hair.
"The men in my family have a tradition, you know. Cheating. Cheating on their wives, on their taxes, cheating themselves out of their potential. My dad did it. My uncles are doing it. My granddad and his dad before him did it. That’s just what the Rowlings men do. What's to say I’ll be any different?"
The resentment on his face had been replaced by misery as he looked at me.
"Try to understand, Sasha. I only want the best for you. And I don't exactly have a great track record with relationships, okay? No, I’ve never cheated, because I never stayed long enough to. When I felt like maybe my interest was waning, I just left.”
"But that right there should tell you something. You are different from the other men in your family. You left before you did anything you’d regret," I told him.
He pondered my words for a moment. "I never really thought of it that way. Sasha when I met you, I realized how different things could feel," Pierce said. "I just didn't want to make promises that I can't keep. Promises that could tear both of us apart."
His teeth were clenched together, his eyes staring over my shoulder into the distance.
"Then don't," I said. "Just try if you want to, and don’t try if you don’t."
Pierce looked at me as if I'd said something he'd never heard before. "That's what I've been thinking too," he said quietly. "That the only way I will know, is if we try."
He looked away and then looked back at me. “I’m afraid,” he said simply.
I nodded. “Me too.”
Understanding dawned in Pierce’s eyes as his fingers began tracing the lines of my hand.
Our eyes met, and he kissed me.
As our lips entwined, I steadied myself against his chest, peeling back to look into his face.
"What is it?" he asked.
"This feels too good to be true. Like I'm waiting for the fall."
“I’ll catch you,” he said, before lowering his lips to mine again.
Suddenly, his phone rang, interrupting the perfect moment. To his credit, Pierce ignored it for as long as he could. The incessant ringing soon became too much to bear, and he ripped the device out of his pocket with a frustrated growl.
Looking down at the receiver, his whole face changed.
“Pierce?” I asked.
He shook his head and stood. “You’ve got to be shitting me.”
43
Pierce
"You didn't," were the first words my dad chose to say to me in a year.
"What exactly didn’t I do?" I replied.
"I heard about your wedding," my dad said. My heart dropped.
"To Adrian Ivanov's sister?" he continued in that same scathing tone. "You can't be serious."
"Not that it’s your business," I said, "But yes."
My dad broke into hysterical laughter. "What’s the matter? You couldn’t find a good old-fashioned American gold digger?"
"You don't know what you're talking about," I snapped. "And I don't have to justify myself to you."
"No," my dad sneered. "You've done a great job at ruining your own life without my input."
"If you consider running a successful business
and earning about five times what you ever earned in one year, ruining my life, then sure. Anyway, I’ve got to go."
"You don't even want my advice? To hear what I have to say?" my dad demanded.
"Have I ever given a shit what you had to say?” I asked.
"She’ll screw you over," he said in a wheedling voice that suggested he was drunk. "Trust me, I should know."
"Meaning?" I demanded. "You were the one who drove Mom to leave, and into an early death, in case you forgot."
"Oh yes," he continued, "That was the story she spun. And a good story it was."
"Too bad for you it was also true." I snapped. "I was there."
"As for Sasha," I continued, "You don't know the first thing about her. She's more brave, loyal, and selfless than you or I will ever be."
He started to say something else, but I cut him off. "Goodbye, Dad. Don’t bother calling again."
Back at the picnic blanket, Sasha looked nervous. "Everything okay?"
"Great," I said shortly as I plopped myself beside her.
Her eyes were burning a hole into my back.
"Speaking of the fucking devil, that was my dad," I said. "Haven't talked to him in a long time, just how I like it. Anyway, somehow he found out about our marriage and had a whole lot to say about it."
"What," Sasha said, her face funny, "That I'm an evil, little Russian gold-digger?"
I looked at her giggling face in surprise. "How’d you know?"
"You just told your dad was an asshole, so it wasn’t hard to guess."
"He's an idiot," I said fiercely. "He alienated the only woman who ever cared a damn about him. Now he's determined to ruin everyone else's lives too because he’s so fucking miserable."
Sasha took one of my hands, then the other, and squeezed. "Well, he's not going to succeed. Is he?"
I threw my arms around her. Into the soft sheath of her sandy blonde hair, I said, "No, he's not. I really want to try to see if we can work.”
We stayed there, arms enlaced, silent.
"Sasha?" I said.
When I peeked out of her hair, I saw her eyes shining with tears.
"I don't know if we can make this work either," she repeated quietly. "But I want to try too."
Her face was radiant in a way I'd never seen it before. And her scent, that sugary scent, I could've drunk it in for days.
"That decides it then," I said reasonably. "Come here."
Our lips crashed together, our tongues dancing along one another. My hands got to work on separating the layers between us. Only when we were finally naked, our bodies together, hers covered by mine, did I allow myself to look at her and drink her in. Every curve, every inch of delicious flesh. She had a mole on her right thigh I’d never noticed before. I dove down and kissed it. She exploded into giggles.
Then she pushed me away a bit. "We’re going to get caught.”
"Only by the black bears," I said nonchalantly. She reached out her hand to give me a playful whack, but I caught it in midair.
"Don't worry," I growled into her neck as I kissed it. "I'll protect you."
Her lips went to my ear and, as she nibbled and lapped at it, she whispered, "Who's going to protect you?"
I rose up as I pinned her to the ground and enjoyed the feeling of my erection pressed against her as my body shifted. "Didn't you know? I don’t need protecting."
Her gaze wasn't on my face anymore; it was entranced by my cock.
"We'll see about that," she said quietly.
44
Sasha
That first slip of his dick inside me felt like heaven every time.
I slumped back onto the picnic blanket, barely noticing its scratchy fabric. The way he was powerfully thrusting into me had my nerves humming. But he was going too slow for the fire burning inside me.
As he repeated the motion, I gasped up at him, and he only chuckled. "Something wrong?"
"Please," I said. "More."
When he slammed into me, it felt so good I thought I could die right there.
His hands clamped down on my tits as he plunged in and out of me, over and over again. Sensation seared up my thighs and down from my breasts, coating my body in pleasure.
I was so wet. "Yeah, that's it," I heaved and gasped as I neared the edge.
But Pierce wasn't ready to deliver me just yet. He slowed his pace again, smirking at my frustration.
"Pierce," I whined.
He tapped my nose. "Don’t worry; I’ll get you there."
I couldn't take it anymore though. I lifted my hips, forcing him deeper and locking my legs around his waist to keep him there.
Finally, he gave it back to me. Thrust after animalistic thrust built the tension in my body until I couldn’t hold back anymore. My orgasm throttled through me, and I screamed out his name, my voice echoing in the emptiness around us. Then I collapsed back, gasping, heaving. My limbs twitched with the aftershock.
At some point, I realized he was kissing me again and turning me around, putting me on my hands and knees.
"I'm not finished with you yet."
I was half-woozy with pleasure as he began stroking me from the top of my clit all the way down to my pussy, lingering there, teasing me.
He stroked me, and as I sighed and thought I couldn't take anymore, he slipped a finger in. And then another. Sensation shook me.
"God I love how wet you get for me, Sasha."
I could only reach back uselessly for his erection, which was out of reach.
"Not yet," he said. "Soon."
But soon it wasn't soon enough for me. I could feel my control giving way as he flickered his fingers inside me, hitting G spot, as another wave of orgasm crashed through me.
"Oh, yes, more, yes," I moaned as words turned into syllables and shaking overtook me.
I thought I'd reached the peak of peaks when he mercifully entered me.
A shriek burst from me, but Pierce was only beginning. He thrust into me again and again, building on yet another climax. As my pleasure arced higher and higher, I squeezed my eyes shut, until colors burst behind my lids as Pierce growled low in his chest and emptied himself inside of me.
Finally, I was sated.
--
I awoke under the stars with Pierce stroking my hair.
"How long was I asleep?" I asked.
"A little while," he said.
We had a blanket wrapped over both of us, and I was warm in Pierce’s arms.
I could feel the heat emanating off him, the press of his hard muscles against my back.
"Don't make me move," I said, nuzzling my head into his chest.
He kissed my cheek. "Wouldn’t dream of it."
My gaze returned to the stars. "God, in the city, you don't realize there's so-"
"Many," Pierce finished.
He pointed up to a series of stars, and said, "That’s Aquarius. In Greek myth, Aquarius was Ganymede; the young boy kidnapped by Zeus to be cupbearer for the Olympian gods." His point went further on. "And that longer one is Orion, the hunter. He appears in the winter sky, with his bow and his hunting dogs, Canis Major and Canis Minor, trailing behind him."
"How do you know all of that?” I asked.
"I took an astronomy class in college as an elective."
“That must’ve been nice to have that option,” I said somewhat sadly.
“I just figured you didn’t go to college because you had your business,” Pierce said behind me.
"That's not why I didn't go," I said quietly.
Pierce was silent, and I continued, "If you were going to guess it was because of Aleksi, then you would be right. At first, he was all for it. But then, after a year or so when I actually went to apply, he insisted that it was stupid. That I'd never had enough time, that I didn't need it."
Pierce was on his phone, which was a bit annoying. Had he even been listening?
When he showed me his screen, I realized just how much he had been.
On it, was a list of nea
rby universities. "You should check them out," he said. "You might even be able to get some special grants since you have your own business. You don't have to take a whole degree either. You could just take a class or two. See if you like it."
With the starlight shining down on his face, the carved planes cast into shadow, his kind grey eyes luminous, there was no way Pierce could have any idea just how beautiful he was in that moment. He was as different from Aleksi as water was to fire.
Yet, they did have one important thing in common. I'd loved Aleksi. And now, looking at Pierce, I knew I could love him, too.
That night, I fell asleep in his arms. No bad dreams, no fears. Nothing. I was safe in his arms.
The next morning, I awoke to a whiff of strawberry.
"Hungry?" Pierce said, a chocolate-covered strawberry clasped in his fingers.
We lazed around another hour or so, feeding each other, neither mentioning the impending decision we had to make. Was I going to go back to Claircreek? I had everything with me in my duffel bag, but that didn't mean that it was a good idea to stay in New York City.
There was still the whole Aleksi issue. And the Adrian issue. And the what-exactly-were-Pierce-and-I-doing issue.
Last night we had said we wanted to give it a go, but what exactly did that mean?
Pierce's phone pinged, effectively ending my train of thought.
"Shit," he said in a voice laced with fear.
“What?” I asked, my own heart kicking up a notch.
“We have to go. Now.”
45
Pierce
"What is it?" Sasha asked.
"It's Adrian," I said. "He's been beaten up, and he’s in the hospital. Tatiana said it was Aleksi."
I started pacing. "Shit.” I stopped, clenched my phone tight. "If we go back there, they could be waiting. This could all be to lure us back to the city to get to you."
"It doesn't matter," Sasha said. "Pierce, we have to go."
I nodded dully. "I know. I'm just trying to figure out if there is a way to do it safely."
"There might be," Sasha admitted. "It won't work long. It probably won't work at all, but it’s worth a shot."
--
Half an hour later, on our way to the hospital, a black-haired Sasha joined me in the car. "What do you think?"
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