Whiskey Sharp_Unraveled

by Lauren Dane

  Alexsei picked the bags up and carried them, with Maybe leading the way, first to Rachel’s room and then the one they’d share.

  “I should have warned you about the dogs.” Maybe bent to pick the dachshund up. He licked her face a few times and curled his lip in Alexsei’s direction. “This is Fred. He’s super grumpy but mainly all snarl and no bite. The fastest way to his heart is to feed him table scraps. Which is why he’s sort of portly.” She kissed the top of the dog’s head. “Don’t let Robbie see you though. She got yelled at by the vet because Fred was, at one time, way too fat and it scarred her.”

  He doubted much had the ability to scar someone like Robbie, but he resolved not to find out.

  They wandered back out to the main room where Rachel had finished putting out all the presents they’d brought along.

  “Dinner will be ready in a few hours,” Robbie said, “but there’s plenty of snacks out in the kitchen.” She brought out a tray with mugs of the mulled cider she’d talked about when they arrived.

  Snacks appeared to mean the same to Maybe’s aunt as his. Enough food for ten people lined the counter so he made himself a plate and pretended it was more about making sure Maybe’s aunt liked him and not the fact that it all smelled really good and he was hungry.

  “Maybe tells us you own the barbershop where she works,” Robbie said as they settled in the living room with plates of food and warm drinks.

  Alexsei liked the lived-in comfort of the place. Not formal in any way, but a place that was clearly the heart of their home.

  “Yes. That’s how we originally met. Two years ago now.”

  “That’s a good living then? I understand there’s a bar too. Does it get wild? Do you have good insurance? And if you break up with Maybe will she have to find a new job?”

  * * *

  MAYBE GROANED, PUTTING her face in her hands. Alexsei simply patted her thigh. This was what parents were supposed to do. He’d have been offended if they didn’t care at all.

  “It was hard the first few years we were open. By the time Maybe came on we’d dug ourselves a nice niche. We aren’t so much a club or a bar as an extension of the barbershop space. We’re closed by ten so we’re fortunate not to have to deal with really drunk clientele. And no, if things don’t work out between me and Maybe, she won’t have to worry about her job. She’s really excellent at what she does. Her clients love her and I’m not a jerk.”

  Robbie nodded smartly. “How old are you?”

  “I’m thirty.”

  “Were you born here or in Russia?” Teddy asked this time.

  “Born in Russia. Just outside Moscow. I came to the United States when I was fourteen years old, along with my younger brother, Cristian. He and I both became US citizens in our early twenties.”

  Robbie nodded as she filed all that information away, readying for her next volley of questions, no doubt. While he waited, he ate and appreciated Maybe’s warm weight at his side.

  “Why aren’t you already married?” Robbie asked.

  Maybe held a hand up. “Stop. Oh my God, please stop. I brought him all the way over here so don’t reward that with interrogation,” she told her aunt. “He’s been answering all your questions but now you’re being insulting. I like him. That should be enough.”

  “I could have run a background check, Maybe.” Robbie gave her niece a raised brow. “But I didn’t. I’m asking him to his face. It’s not insulting to want to know who he is. He’s in my house. Hell, I’m sure he’s in your house too. So let me do what I need to do to feel better. Because you like him. Otherwise I wouldn’t care.”

  “I’m not insulted at all,” he assured Maybe, touched by the ferocity of her defense. “My aunt has asked you all that and worse.”

  Maybe laughed, which lessened the tension considerably. “She has.”

  Alexsei ate some cheese and garlicky hunks of salami before continuing. “I had been engaged to the woman I’d been dating for two years. We broke up nine months ago. There was no dramatic reason for the split. Neither of us was angry. We just didn’t love one another. She wants to be with someone who adores her and I want to be with someone I adore. My ex is still looking, but I’ve found what I wanted.”

  Maybe blushed and gulped down some cider.

  “This ex of yours, you have contact with her? You’re friends?” Robbie asked.

  “I’ve known her since we were young. She was one of the first people I got to know when I moved to this country. I still care about her because she’s part of my extended family.”

  “Enough.” Maybe sat straighter. “Look, we’re jumping about forty-five thousand steps here. He’s here at Christmas to meet the parents essentially. That’s a big step for us all. Brad doesn’t count because he was a turd and good riddance.”

  “Brad is my ex-fiancé. I have one too,” Rachel explained. “He doesn’t come to dinner and talk in another language my new boyfriend can’t understand though.”

  He winced.

  Rachel went on. “But to your credit, he was a cheating, thieving asshole and you’re not. Or, you’d better not be, because I’d have to maim you.” Her serene smile scared him just a little.

  “Do you want me to die alone? Why are you all acting like this? Jeez,” Maybe barked.

  Laughing, Alexsei pulled her to his side and kissed the top of her head. “It’s a big step, but it’s simply one of many more to come. It’s good they want to know, zajka, they love you and want you cared for and happy.”

  Robbie wore a smirk very similar to the one Maybe used and it warmed Alexsei’s heart. He’d worried over her, over this rift with her parents, and while that was still an issue, these people loved her fiercely. The way she deserved.

  * * *

  WHEN SHE GOT UP to her old bedroom, Alexsei had already changed from his jeans and sweater into flannel pajama bottoms and a T-shirt.

  “Are you warm enough?” she asked him, closing the door at her back. “It gets cold back here in the winter.” It was the room farthest from the furnace that kept the rest of the house toasty during the winter.

  “I wish I could take you to Russia to show you what being cold really is,” he said to her. “Growing up in Moscow means I’m well versed with very cold weather.”

  Maybe changed too as he watched her with idle sensuality. Like he was just toying around with the idea of debauching her he might try out later. He was like a sex Boy Scout.

  She climbed into bed next to him and winced as the frame squeaked just a little. Robust fucking might be off the menu for this visit unless they wanted the whole house to hear. And she most assuredly did not.

  Then again, there was the floor and the wall and other places that would be less noisy but still perfect for such things.

  “Do you go back? To visit?” As long as she’d known him he hadn’t and she’d wondered about that.

  “My father...he was political. Connected to a regime that then had him arrested and we never saw him again. My mother was protected, to some extent, by her own family. And then she hooked up with her current husband, who, as I told you, has connections of his own with organized crime so she’s fine and my sisters are all right. But Cris and I? We left to come here, which they see as political too.”

  “So, you’d be what? Arrested if you went back?”

  “I don’t know. I just know it’s not a good idea and we don’t go back because why tempt fate when we’re here safely?”

  Maybe frowned. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. Does it make you sad?”

  “Don’t be sorry. Sad in the sense that I’m prevented from free travel to the place I was born, but honestly, I haven’t really had any desire to go back. I’ve got family here. My life is here and has been now for longer than it was in Russia. I would like to show you Moscow. It’s a beautiful city. The house my mother lives in now is quite the palace, but my grandpa
rents’ old place is still inhabited by family. I’d take you there.”

  “I wish I could see it with you.” And she did.

  “We’ll travel in the future. Maybe not to Russia, but there are so many places in the world I’d love to enjoy with you.”

  “Like where?” She snuggled into his side, pulling the blankets up around them.

  “Paris.” He thought some more. “Prague. Old Europe. Italy. I’m partial to Venice.”

  “Oooh I’d like that. I’ve never been out of North America. It’s on my bucket list though.”

  “Another sign that we should go.”

  Traveling with him would be fun, she bet. Despite his bossy, control freak ways, he was pretty laid-back about things he couldn’t change. He didn’t get road ragey at all. She bet he got all the snacks on planes, looking the way he did.

  “This bed makes noise,” she whispered as he crept a hand up to her breast to cup it.

  “Get out of it then. I will have you.”

  Oh. Damn. A wave of heat hit her, flowing outward from her belly.

  “I already changed into bed clothes,” she teased.

  “You did. And I enjoyed, as I always do, the sight. Get naked and after I’ve made you come, you can change back into them once more. And I’ll watch then as well.”

  She rolled from bed and he hit the light, leaving them in the dark but for the moonlight shining off the snow. Shadows, but enough to see what was important, like the fact he’d also gotten naked.

  He sat in the chair at her old desk. Bounced a little and once he was satisfied it didn’t make noise, he motioned her his way with a soft call of her name.

  “Fuck me here in the darkness. Me and you and the silence that only comes with snow.”

  Damn he was so good with that talk. She had no idea how he did it so regularly, but he was a walking talking hot Russian poetry machine.

  She got on his lap and he pulled her close to kiss her slowly. He sipped at her mouth, took his time to let her know he appreciated her taste and the way she felt on him.

  No one saw her the way he did. Powerful stuff.

  “We’ll have to be very quiet, zajka,” he murmured as he skimmed his lips over her collarbone. “Can you do that? I know how much noise you like to make when you’re being pleasured.”

  Even when she was so turned on her head spun, he could make her laugh.

  “I’ll do my best,” she assured him.

  “Your best is all I ask,” he said before pinching her nipple hard enough she had to muffle her surprised squeak with her face in the crook of his neck.

  Dastardly. He was such a test. Good thing she liked that sort of testing.

  She grabbed his cock, stroking it against herself, rocking slightly, delighting in the feel of him against her clit. Definitely enjoying his gasp of pleasure and the momentary tightening of his fingers on her hip.

  “Do you think it’s weird that we rarely have sex in the missionary position in the dark in a bed?” she asked.

  “No.”

  That being handled apparently, she tried to shift back to get a condom on him but he stopped her. “Wait, you’re making me skip the foreplay. I have much better manners and I like to make you come.”

  “Look, it’s not like I don’t want you to make me come. I like that too. But I like it when you’re in me. It’s good. I’m not just saying that to make you feel better. I love the way it feels when your cock is deep in me and I’m all around it. Plus, you do make me come when you’re fucking me.”

  “Of course I do! Remember my discussion about standards?”

  While he was worked up about that, she took the opportunity to get a condom on him.

  “If you’re done huffing and puffing and lecturing me, fuck me already.”

  He grabbed her, reaching down to hold his cock steady while using the other hand at her hip to pull her down onto him in one sharp movement so good she saw ribbons of silver light at the corners of her vision for a moment.

  She pulled up her knees, tucking her feet up under his thigh so she could rock, back and forth, grinding herself against him, keeping him deep.

  Not that he appeared to have any complaints. Thank the lord and David Bowie.

  She loved the way he held her. With care, but not like she would break. He touched her like he couldn’t get enough. Not frenzied or hurried, but as if he relished, savored her.

  Something deep within her stirred at that. With the way he made her feel. Powerful and beautiful and magic.

  “You make me feel like a goddess,” she whispered.

  It hit him. The emotion in her tone, the realization that he showed her what he felt about her, the raw openness she presented him left him weak in the knees.

  “You are a goddess,” he told her very seriously. “Chaos.” He rolled his hips up to thrust deep. “Fire.” Again, loving the way her breasts bounced. “Courage.”

  On he went. Thrusting with each word. “Beauty. Music. War. And most of all, love.” He took her mouth as he continued to fuck her. “Not just any goddess. All mine.”

  He watched her features change in the moonlight. They faded from that drunken sort of pleasure, into surprised delight. And a renewed challenge as she squeezed herself tight around his cock.

  She dug her nails into the muscles of his shoulders and back as she held on, continued to rock against him. He’d adjusted, angled so she ground her clit against him just right, her rhythm now slightly off as they both hurtled toward climax.

  “Don’t let anyone hear you,” he taunted softly against her neck, his breath coming a little short.

  Her groan and the heat of her all around him let him know she liked his teasing words.

  All this fevered, whispered conversation and near-silent sex had him worked up. The dark wrapped around them. The cold in the room held back by the heat of their skin. Surprisingly intimate.

  He grabbed the back of her neck, cupped it in his palm as he pulled her mouth to his.

  Reaching between them, he found her clit with his fingertips and squeezed. Her inner muscles rippled around his cock and she came in a hot rush as she sank her teeth into his biceps to hold back any noise.

  It was too much and there was no holding back anymore. Orgasm wrenched from him in a seemingly endless spiral of jagged-edged pleasure.

  Still panting, muscles jumping from exertion, he stood carefully and put her down before ducking into the bathroom and quickly returning.

  She lay in the bed and wound herself around him once he joined her. Loose-limbed and warm, she snuggled in with an easy sigh.

  “It’s after midnight,” she told him. “Best Christmas present ever.”

  Laughing, he hugged her a little tighter. Agreeing.

  * * *

  ON THE LAST morning there, Maybe left Alexsei to a shower while she headed to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee and wake up a bit.

  “Walk with me,” Robbie said quietly, jerking her chin toward the back door. “You can wear your old coat. It’s still hanging in the mudroom.”

  “Let me leave Alexsei a note so he doesn’t worry,” Maybe told her, doing just that and then leaving the brightly colored paper tucked under the edge of the coffee maker.

  A walk in the snow with her aunt before she left sounded like the perfect way to cap off a really nice trip.

  Robbie clapped a goofy hat on Maybe’s head as she struggled into her coat. It was nice that her things remained there. Not in a creepy way like her aunt and uncle hadn’t moved on. More like they kept a place for her for whenever she’d like to fill it. A room in their house, her coat hanging on a peg near the back door. A pair of mittens tucked into the pocket. A metaphorical light left on for her.

  Outside it was the sharp kind of cold that was simultaneously refreshing and yet slightly painful at the same time. She hadn’t really missed t
hat part, though after growing up for so long in Los Angeles, snow had been a beautiful miracle she’d never lost her love of.

  “I’m so glad you came over. You look good. You’re relaxed,” Robbie said as the snow crunched beneath their feet.

  “I’m glad I did too. Thanks for all the presents. I can’t believe you made all that yourself.”

  There’d been hand-knit sweaters and hats, scarves, felted wrist warmers, and a new quilt for her bed. Some new mugs for tea her aunt had made, along with a set for Alexsei.

  They believed in that sort of thing. That making things, using time and effort on those you loved, was important.

  She’d given her uncle a haircut and had done Robbie’s color the night before in that same spirit. She wasn’t very good at sewing or knitting, but she liked to help them both out in every way she could.

  “I’m glad you met Alexsei.” Maybe figured the walk in the snow was about him anyway.

  Her aunt grinned at the mention of his name. “I’m glad we met him too. He’s stalwart. Protective too. You don’t chafe at that. When he gets in your space to help you or keep you safe in some way, you’re more affectionately annoyed than anything else. If I hadn’t seen that myself, I wouldn’t have pegged you for a guy like him.”

  Maybe laughed. “How so? The Russian thing? Or the very dapper way he dresses while I’m a box of crayons melting in the sun?”

  Robbie slung an arm around Maybe’s shoulder, squeezing her close a moment. “You’re a dragonfly, silly. Colorful and magic, always on the move. Anyway, none of those things. He’s very, um, in charge.”

  Maybe snorted. “He’s a pain in my ass. Bossy. So totally nosy. Like he’s up in my business all the time. He’s always got advice. Lord.” She rolled her eyes.

  “Your father can be in charge, that’s why I was surprised. But it’s not the same.”

  “It isn’t.” Maybe breathed out long and slow. “It’s one hundred percent different. He doesn’t want to box me up so I can be what he wants me to be. Oh listen, he’s got an opinion on what he wants me to be, but he doesn’t box me in. He doesn’t use my affection or our relationship to manipulate me into acquiescing to his every demand. In fact, despite his grumpy attitude at times, he doesn’t demand or manipulate at all.” Unless it came to sex, then he demanded a lot.