Becoming Lost

by Ophelia Sikes

  She stepped forward and tenderly pulled me into a hug. Every tendon in my body ached, but I returned the embrace.

  Then Sasha was there, limping. I looked into those eyes I knew so well before bringing him, too, into a painful but soothing hug.

  Laryssa looked up. “Enough. We’ll have a proper round of thank-yous in a few days. But right now, this woman needs about two days straight of sleep.” She looked to me. “Unless you’ll be smart and go to a hospital first?”

  I resolutely shook my head.

  Laryssa looked to Alex.

  He came to me and gently took me up into his arms.

  He looked down into my eyes.

  “Let’s get you home.”

  Chapter 13

  I barely saw the structures and vehicles as they streamed past our car. A sunset of crimsons and tangerines eased into darker violets, and yet I curled up in the passenger seat, my hand laced into Alex’s.

  His hand was real.

  The rest of the world? I wasn’t so sure.

  It was almost too much to take in. Mikhaylo was dead. Mikhaylo was dead. He no longer existed in this world. He was gone, and the Earth was still spinning. The moon was still rising, glowing, up into the night sky. Stars were still twinkling.

  The car slowed … rumbled … stopped.

  I looked up.

  It was the house I was renting. The place which, for these two weeks, was my home.

  I no longer had to leave.

  Mikhaylo was dead.

  The thoughts were almost nonsensical. For so long my life had followed a rhythm. Now that rhythm had been disrupted and I barely knew what might happen next.

  Alex came around the car to me and opened my door. He helped me out and looped his arm around me.

  I groaned. Every single part of me ached.

  He murmured, “We’re almost there.”

  He helped me across the lawn to my front steps. I glanced around for my purse. Then I realized I didn’t have it. It had been tossed away when I’d been taken.

  Alex drew a small black pouch from his pocket. “Mind if I give it a try?”

  I nodded. My door was guarded by a solid lock, certainly, but it was hardly impervious to a talented pick.

  Alex was good, indeed – it took him barely a minute to get the lock sprung.

  I pressed my thumb against the plate, and we stepped in.

  His eyes went to the closet without the door. To the cabinets with their open faces. His breath left him.

  I looked at those open places. The dark holes. Suddenly I realized they no longer held power over me. I had come out of the box. I had left it under my own free will.

  Mikhaylo was dead.

  I looked up to Alex. “Thank you.”

  He gently swept back my hair. “No, thank you. You risked everything to take him down. Countless women owe their lives to you.”

  My legs nearly folded. I was on my last ounce of strength.

  He swept me up in his arms. He walked down the hall to the bedroom door and used a hand to turn the knob. He pressed the door open.

  His eyes took in the sparse room. The mat with its pillow and thin blanket. The duffle bags to one side holding my clothes.

  He brought me over to the mat and tenderly laid me on it. He tucked the pillow beneath my head. He drew over the blanket.

  I twined my hand into his. “Can you stay?”

  He lay down at my side, his gaze steady on mine.

  “Absolutely.”

  A sense of deep, soul-filling peace flowed into me. A sense I’d never felt before.

  I let myself fill with him.

  I closed my eyes.

  Chapter 14

  Warmth had left me.

  It was such an unusual sensation that I lay still, trying to figure out what it might mean.

  My body ached, although only at a dull throb. I stretched, filling my soul with that delicious sensation. With the ability to point each toe and splay each finger out as far as it could go.

  The spot next to me on the mat was still warm.

  Noise of running water came from the bathroom.

  My heart eased. Alex must not have wanted to disturb me. It was his absence which I had felt. Which had awoken me.

  A sense of wonder filled me. For so long, waking up alone had been my normal state. My safety. To have someone in the room would put me on high alert.

  And now, Alex was a part of my life. He had become entwined. He had slipped into me with an ease I would barely have thought possible.

  My gaze drifted to the medallion hanging behind my bedroom door. Perhaps it was fairer to say that Alex had been a part of my life since I was six years old. He had always been there, a quiet support. He had been my foundation. And now he had simply fully manifested himself. He was where he had always been.

  Deep in my heart.

  I had read his files. I had done my research before I had come out here to New Haven. I knew how he had defended his five best friends from childhood. He had put his life on the line for them, several times.

  And at work? There were countless commendations for bravery and honor. He did what it took to save the innocents. To bring an end to those who hurt others. To bring justice to those who took advantage.

  There was a motion in the bathroom door, and I turned to look at him.

  He had taken off his shirt and had put on a fresh bandage. His body was rippled muscle and toned skin. But it was his eyes which took away my breath.

  That look in his eyes. That look of respect and admiration.

  I loved him.

  I knew it with all my heart. I knew it in every recess of my soul. There was no question.

  His breath left him, and time hung … hung …

  His eyes were distracted by something. They flicked up to look at the wall behind me.

  He stilled. He stared as if his world were rearranging.

  Slowly, so slowly, he stepped across the room, moving around my mat. He walked to the corner behind the door and nudged the door shut so that he could see the wall more clearly.

  He stood in front of the medallion, hanging from its hook.

  He took in the words above it. Words written in Ukrainian.

  That which does not kill us makes us stronger.

  His finger went out to the medallion, To touch it, as if he did not quite believe it was real. To turn it, to look at its back side.

  Saint Christopher. Patron saint of travelers.

  His gaze went down to the parchment hanging below it. Marked as page four. Holding the name of each city I’d visited in recent months. Each location had the city name, and then in lines below the name were drawn three sets of marks. Four vertical lines crossed by one horizontal. Another four vertical lines crossed by one horizontal. Then four sole lines, uncrossed.

  Fourteen days. Two weeks. I spent two weeks in each location, researching the man who lived there. And when he had come up wanting, I had moved on.

  But I had found my Alex.

  He slowly turned, staring at me with eyes which could barely take me in. Which seemed to see a long-lost ghost.

  “Leisha?”

  Chapter 15

  Hearing my birth name on his lips, seeing that recognition in his eyes, caused any last fears to tumble away. There was no longer any doubt.

  He was my Alex.

  I nodded my head, reaching a hand out for him. “Alex.”

  Then he was tumbling, coming to me, kneeling at my side and drawing me hard into his arms. I bit down on the groan and answered his embrace, forcing any pain into a distant corner of my mind. Nothing else mattered. Nothing but his arms around me, his lips at my neck, and the knowledge that my Alex, my Alex, my Alex was here with me.

  We were one.

  At long, long last he eased back, looking at me with shining eyes. “I’ve always wondered. I’d always had dreams. I figured you’d married some businessman in Kiev and had three beautiful children. And when I had my daydreams of my own life, it always involved a bl
onde woman with braids. With your luminous eyes and compassion.”

  He tenderly ran a hand down my cheek. “I never thought I’d meet you again. Not in New Haven, certainly. And not working –”

  His hand stilled.

  He stared at me, growing horror filling his gaze. His throat twisted tight, and a staggering groan coursed out of him.

  His hand shook against my face, and his words barely came out.

  “He was selling you? That man – that uncle - was selling you to the sex trade?”

  He drew me in harder this time, as if to shield me from the world, and his entire body shook. Tears streamed down my face, and I burrowed in against him.

  He had been there. He had been there at the very beginning, and he knew how I had started. He was one of the only people in the entire world who knew me as I had once been. Before Dmytro. Before Boris. Before Mikhaylo. Before everything else which had come after.

  His breaths were near howls, and my tears cleansed me. They rinsed away the last vestiges of my past. I would never forget. Absolutely, I would never forget. But from this day forward, I would focus on my future. On our future. On what we could do to impact our world. To help the countless innocents who were still trapped in horrific hells.

  Who needed our help.

  At last, at long, long last, he sat back against the side wall. I drew back to look into those eyes. Into those blue eyes I knew so well. Eyes which were raw and hollow.

  His voice was a rasp. “I should have stolen you away. I should have taken you with me. If I had known, if I had even the tiniest sense of what they were going to do to you …”

  His voice failed him.

  I tenderly stroked his face. “Dmytro paid good money for me. If you had taken me? They would have found us both. My fate would have been the same and you would have been broken. Maybe killed. No, this was the only path. The one where we ended up side by side. Able to dismantle their empire. Able to bring light to a world of corruption and pain.”

  His gaze shone on me. His voice was soft and hauntingly tender. “I love you.”

  I shone. I shone with the brilliance of a thousand sunbeams.

  “I love you, too, Alex. I have since I was six years old. Since you saved my life without even knowing it.”

  I laced my hand behind his neck and drew him down.

  He resisted, his voice tight. “You should rest. God, Nadiya, you should rest for a month, with what they did to you. With what you endured.”

  My gaze was on him, him, nothing else but him. “And you should rest for a week; you’ve just been shot in the shoulder.”

  I nudged my head to the mat. “And I’ve never had any man with me in my own room. In my place of refuge. But today is a new day. The past no longer matters. Because I have you by my side, and you are my Alex, my Alex, and I want –”

  I gently, tenderly, achingly pulled him to me.

  He groaned, the last of his resistance shimmering away, and then his lips were on mine, like rose petals in a soft summer’s morn.

  The ache filled my entire body, new, reborn, and it was like nothing I’d ever felt before. When we’d been together on the boat it had been wild and passionate, full of drive and lava. The time I had realized who he was, in his house, it had been my celebration of the connection. Of my long-sought-for quest finally reaching its goal.

  But now?

  Now we were soulmates. We were lovers who had been destined through time. Who had suffered every travail life could throw at us, and we had endured. We had been polished. Burnished. And at last, at long last, we had found each other again.

  We were whole.

  He lowered himself over me, supporting himself so that his body barely brushed mine. I was still fully clothed in the crimson silk dress, and his skin sliding against mine through that fabric was sheer ecstasy. I laughed as our lips slid, as our tongues danced, and as those eyes, those brilliant, beautiful, cornflower-blue eyes held mine with shimmering emotion.

  There was no question.

  He was mine.

  I rolled onto my side, and his hand went to the zipper at my back, slowly easing it down to my waist. I shrugged my shoulders and slid it down, down, until my breasts were revealed to him.

  His breath left him, and then his mouth was lowering to suckle at one, as if he were honoring a goddess. As if he were worshipping at her altar with utter reverence.

  Holy fire grew within me, tended by his love, filling me with an energy I’d never known possible.

  His mouth moved to the other side, and his hand tenderly stroked my breast, sending the peak even higher, even more taut. I had both hands in his hair now, holding his head in place, wanting this, this, just this, for as long as the world spun.

  His hands moved to my waist, sliding the dress down to puddle by my ankles. A moment later and my underwear followed. I now lay wholly naked before him.

  He paused for a long moment, just staring at me in awe.

  Then he stood.

  He stripped off his pants and briefs with an easy motion. He was now naked except for the bandage at his shoulder.

  He went to the wall and stood before the medallion for a long, long moment.

  He lifted it off the hook. He stared at the circle where it lay in his palm.

  He closed his fingers over it, bowing his head.

  Then he came back over to me, kneeling at my side.

  He undid the clasp and hooked it around the back of my neck.

  He arranged the medallion so it lay between my breasts.

  He slowly shook his head, as if unable to take it all in. His eyes returned to mine.

  His voice was hoarse. “I love you, Leisha. I love you Nadiya. I love all of you. Everything you are. Everything you have been and will be.”

  I put a hand up to his face. He was everything. He was all.

  I whispered, “I am yours, Alex. I have always been, and I always shall be.”

  He groaned, and then he was over me again. The tip of his cock, hard, throbbing, was barely at the entrance to my pussy.

  I was soaked. I knew I was. And I needed him. I craved him. I wanted him more than I had ever wanted anything in my entire life.

  He was supporting himself so he did not put any pressure on my aching body. But I no longer cared about pain or joints or anything else. Only one thing mattered. Only him and me. Me and him.

  I put my hands around his back and felt the strength of those rippling muscles. I slid my fingers down, down, to that powerful lower back.

  I slid my legs apart.

  I lifted my hips. Just so the tip of his cock slid into my tight wetness.

  He groaned, his body shuddering. “Oh, God, Nadiya, what you do to me.”

  “It is because we were meant for each other. You and me, Alex. Me and you.”

  His gaze held mine, and the rest of the world didn’t exist. It was gone. Ephemeral.

  He slid … slid … slid … and I could feel every inch. Every motion. Every sensation until he seated, fully, deeply, perfectly into me.

  I groaned.

  He eased out, and now he was coming back in again, the speed just slightly more, the anticipation of his motion bringing my breath into sharp draws.

  I needed him … I needed him … I needed, needed, needed –

  Faster now. My hands slid to that fantastic, firm ass, and I pulled, but he resisted, controlling the rise, drawing it out, tantalizing me, teasing me, and I groaned with the need. With the craving. With the desire, desire, for the man I loved, the man I honored, the man I treasured, the man who was mine, mine, mine –

  Faster, faster, and we were in perfect sync in our motions. In our ache and need and craving for each other. For our love, our love, our soul-filling, universe-reaching, glorious, staggering –

  He was flying now, filling me, pressing out every inch of me, every aspect, every cell, and I arched back, giving myself fully to him. Nothing was held back. I was his, his, his, and I was lifted –

  He cried out, shudde
ring.

  We were particles in space, glowing, shining, beyond all thought or reason. We simply were. We were the cosmos and stardust and wholly intermingled. We were one. We were one, and nothing could ever separate us again. We could never be un-mixed.

  We congealed into a whole.

  Time fell away.

  Chapter 16

  The morning golden sunshine was easing around the corner of my shades.

  My stomach rumbled. Loudly.

  I was starving. Absolutely starving to death.

  Alex chuckled, pressing a tender kiss to my lips. He grabbed at his pants and pulled out his phone. “Well, it is eleven a.m. Wednesday. What’s the last thing you ate? Was it a half a bottle of vodka at the club, Monday night?”

  I blinked in surprise. He was probably right. That seemed a lifetime ago.

  He pushed some buttons. “How’s pizza sound?”

  My stomach rumbled again, like a freight train, and he laughed. “Pizza it is. And there’s really only one question to ask here in New Haven. Pepe’s or Sally’s.”

  I knew better than to answer him. If there’s one thing I’d learned about New Haven since arriving here, it’s that the locals took their pizza war seriously. To end up on the wrong side of that divide could mean shattered friendships.

  It was a religion.

  His phone blinged. He looked down.

  He nodded. “All right. We’ll have some food here in a half hour.”

  My gaze rose to him, a smile on my lips. “A half hour. That might be just enough time.”

  His eyebrows rose in mock disbelief. “Again?”

  My smile widened. “Again. And again, and again, and –”

  His lips were on mine, muffling my words, and we were lost.

  * * *

  We were just easing into normal breath again when his phone blinged. He glanced down and then rolled out of bed, pulling on his pants. “You stay here. Laryssa’s at the front door with supplies.”

  I reached up and took his hand. “Tell her. Tell her you’re Alex. The Alex.”