‘I know.’ She took another mouthful of scone, just so that she wouldn’t jump in and ask for more information, simply to give herself a small pause, because surely it was too personal to discuss, except Demyan had brought it up. And when her mouth was empty, the need to ask was still there.
‘How bad was she?’ she asked.
Her question wasn’t a knee-jerk reaction and Demyan was grateful for that.
Demyan lay back and closed his eyes for a moment and tried to keep it in, but being at the farm, losing Roman, that speech last night...he couldn’t.
Not today.
‘If I told anyone how bad she was I knew they would take her away,’ Demyan said. ‘So I tried to keep her world safe.’
‘How?’
‘You don’t want to know.’
‘I do.’
‘Lie with me, then,’ Demyan said, not because he wanted her beside him but because he just didn’t want to see her reaction when he spoke.
He told her, not all but enough to reveal the madness, the impossibility of his world—spitting three times, how you must not speak of a hopeful future, how he had left a school book once and returned to get it. ‘She was screaming and dragged me to the mirror. Everything was bad omens, everything was going to ensure we went to hell. The rituals for her drinking...’ He shook his head at the hopelessness of truly conveying it. ‘There was so much madness.’
‘So, how did you go—’ Alina wondered whether she should even ask ‘—raising Roman? Was it hard, given all you’d been through?’ Alina asked.
‘It was actually easy. I had a very good rule of thumb, I did the opposite to my mother. If Roman was scared of the dark, instead of joining his fear I turned on the light and read a story. If Roman cried, I cuddled him... If he walked on the cracks, I walked on them too... If he spills salt I just brush it off.’
‘Now you can just throw it over your shoulder,’ Alina said, but tears in her eyes marked the solemnity of the conversation. ‘How old were you when she died?’
‘Thirteen.’
‘Your father?’
‘I don’t know who he was.’
‘At all?’
‘He was poor,’ Demyan said. ‘Well, given how we lived, I assume that my mother didn’t charge much.’
He knew then why he was telling her this.
Be appalled, Alina, Demyan thought.
Gather your things now and we’ll head back to the car. He half hoped for it, for she was innocent and he was far from that.
Instead, Alina sat up and took another drink of water.
He watched her tongue lick over her lips and it was not a seductive move. Still, he felt it in his groin.
‘It sounds as if she was terribly ill.’
‘She was weak,’ Demyan said. ‘She chose drink...’ Then he paused and looked at Alina, who said it again.
‘She sounds as if she was ill.’ Alina thought about what he had said about his mother not charging much. ‘Is that why nothing shocks you?’ she asked, and he watched as her cheeks turned to fire.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well...everything shocks me. Maybe I was too sheltered. I mean, there was just Mum and I and then school was only girls...’
‘We’re taking about sex, yes?’ Demyan checked unnecessarily. He loved it that even her throat was red and then he thought of her breasts and whether or not it was convenient. Demyan was turned on, just at the thought of her shy, and then not.
‘Yes.’
They were talking about sex.
Alina lay back down.
‘I don’t think men...’ She faltered.
‘Go on.’
‘Fancy me.’
‘Wrong.’
‘Or if they do, then they don’t want to be seen with me.’
‘Alina, it was work.’
‘Even so, you didn’t want to...’
‘Wrong,’ Demyan said again. ‘I very much wanted to but you would have thought it...’ He circled his hand and she didn’t jump in. ‘A date.’
‘No.’
‘Yes,’ Demyan said. ‘You would have thought it a first date and then been upset when there wasn’t a second.’
‘How many second dates have you had?’
‘Survival rates are shocking,’ Demyan freely admitted. ‘If I were a hospital I’d be closed and audited.’ How could his appalling reputation make her giggle? ‘You will find that nice man one day, you just need confidence, experience...’
‘Ah, but you can’t get that without confidence and experience, it’s like trying to get a job.’
‘You’ve worked for me now,’ Demyan said, and their faces turned to one another, their eyes met and held. She felt her stomach fold over on itself as she stared into unblinking eyes. ‘You will have no problem getting any job you want now.’
‘Are we still talking about sex?’
‘Perhaps.’ Demyan thought about it for a long moment. So badly he wanted to escape his own thoughts but Alina deserved more than the rather straightforward exchange that sex usually was for him. ‘Just so long as you don’t go falling for me.’
He was so direct, which meant Alina could be as well. ‘Too late.’ It was surprisingly easy to be honest lying next to the sexiest man she had ever met and she admitted a little truth. ‘Kissing you took care of that.’
‘Don’t be so honest,’ Demyan said.
‘I never usually am,’ Alina admitted. ‘But you don’t have to worry, I’m not going to fall in love, you’re really not my type.’
‘Am I not pale and interesting enough?’
‘Too interesting,’ Alina said. ‘Though I do think I’ve got a crush on you.’
‘A crush is okay,’ Demyan said. ‘I have a crush on you.’
‘Really...’ She smiled and looked over at him.
‘Anyway, we can’t—my jacket is in the car’
‘I’m sure there are other things we can do.’ Alina smiled again. ‘Anyway—’ she repeated his word ‘—I’m on the Pill.’
‘First,’ Demyan said, ‘you never give that answer if there are no condoms to hand. Second...’ He hesitated, he didn’t really do other things, well, certainly not the ones she was alluding to. ‘You want a man who makes love, a man who...’ He just stared at her trusting eyes. ‘All we are talking about is sex.’
‘I get it,’ Alina said. ‘PA with benefits.’
This time he didn’t smile because despite her brave words Alina didn’t understand that he didn’t do tenderness and he certainly didn’t do intimacy, which was what Alina’s eyes craved.
‘A sex lesson,’ Alina offered. She was unbelievably turned on, she could feel the moisture in her panties and could barely drag in the sultry air because it was so thick with arousal.
‘No sex,’ Demyan said, safe because his jacket was in the car. But he could show her a thing or three, he thought as his mouth moved in to kiss her. ‘Just a lovely come.’
His tongue tasted of cherries, or was that hers? Alina thought, then she stopped thinking and just focused on the lovely feeling of his hand playing with her nipples.
Demyan had seen a lot of breasts but had never felt nipples as large as Alina’s and his eyes were hungry as he removed her top.
‘What have you done?’ Demyan asked. ‘How far have you gone before?’
‘This far,’ she said as his hand crept up her skirt. ‘But not that far,’ she admitted as his fingers prised their way into her panties.
‘You’re serious?’ He smiled on her mouth.
She couldn’t answer. Alina had never felt anything more wonderful in her life, the press and the slide of his fingers over and over as his mouth worked hers. She should feel awkward perhaps, except there was no space in her mind for that. Surely it shou
ld take longer, surely she wasn’t about to come.
‘Demyan...’
His fingers didn’t relent, but his palm was on her clitoris as his fingers slipped into her tight space and stretched.
It hurt and it was delicious and if she’d been a man it would all have been over, because she was twitching to his palm, clamping her thighs to his hand, and Demyan felt a small surge of triumph as so readily she came.
‘Lick them clean...’ he said, as he slowly removed his fingers and offered them to her mouth, and their tongues met as he did the same. One taste and for Demyan there was the rare need for his head to lower, for he wanted to taste her, but Alina was first in with requests.
‘I want to see you too...’ She could hardly breathe and Demyan felt the brush of a clumsy hand to his groin. He’d never done the fumbles and things. Demyan’s first sexual experience had been with an older woman who’d shown him exactly what to do.
What was he doing in a field? Demyan thought as, instead of going straight to his zipper, she undid his shirt.
He just liked being here, hearing the birds and the sounds of nature as something terribly natural occurred; she could never have guessed that playing like this wasn’t natural for him.
Demyan, Alina decided, had the most beautiful skin she had ever seen. Her fingers traced his chest and then down to his stomach as she tried to gauge the oils she’d use if ever she painted him. Linen White, perhaps, she briefly thought, but then her mind moved to other things as he lifted his hips. She slid his belted pants down, and saw the small wet patch spreading on his black hipsters, which she was going to pull down but he halted her.
‘Take it out.’ He liked her nervous eagerness, liked the soft fingers that traced his length and the hand that freed his balls as tentatively as if she were lifting eggs out of a nest, and then he pushed his hipsters down.
Alina had never felt or seen anything quite so lovely. Warm, straining and strong, he rose to her touch and her fingers trailed along the thick vein and then closed loosely around him.
Virgin hands too, Demyan thought as she stroked him so lightly. He took his hand and closed it around hers till she caught his rhythm then he released it so she held him solo but she kept losing her stroke. She saw him grit his teeth and she bit down on her lip and concentrated some more.
‘Like that?’ Alina checked as a low sound came from Demyan that was somewhere between a cuss and a moan. He swelled further to her palm and dripped to her fingers.
‘Oh.’ Alina had no need to ask if that was better, and he watched as greed lit her eyes and he almost came as she licked her lips.
‘Can I taste?’
‘Later,’ Demyan said. Right now he wouldn’t even make it to her lips let alone her throat, which was how Demyan usually preferred it.
He took her hand and halted it. ‘I’ll show you how to have a good orgasm if the loser isn’t carrying condoms.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘The loser being me.’
He pulled her hips so she was over him.
Demyan loathed a woman on top. Control was the name of the game but he was still in charge here, which made it doable.
‘Oh...’ Alina said, as she felt him hard yet soft against her thighs, then she felt Demyan sliding the head of his cock against her panties over and over and even ‘Oh’ was too hard a word to find. Her hips were starting to move on their own, pressing down on the warm head as it butted at her soaked panties. ‘Demyan...’ She choked out his name.
‘It’s okay.’ He wanted to press pause, to leave her right where she was, dash to the car, grab his jacket, put on a condom and part her panties.
‘Demyan...’ She kept saying his name. If he stopped she would die, if he carried on Alina didn’t know what would happen. Her face felt hot but nowhere near as hot as it felt down below. She put her hand down, felt the wetness of his length and the cold wet silk of her panties. ‘Is that me...?’
‘Both...’ He was as breathless as she.
She loved the sight of him concentrating, and, as she leant forward, she loved the sight of her own breasts near his face. His open mouth could not catch the fruit of her nipple and she deprived him of a taste as she moved to her own pleasure.
He felt her twitch and Alina felt her throat tighten at the urge to press down, to be filled. Demyan was pulling her hard onto him, digging his hands into her bottom and grinding her on him till Alina tipped fully forward and felt her hot sweaty face in his neck. She let out a low scream and Demyan held on for one reason and one reason only as she pulsed around his length.
He had to have her.
Demyan rolled them so she was on her back and took her tongue and suckled, then kissed her hot, tense face till she was calming, and then he told her how it would be.
‘I’m going to be your first.’
Weakly she nodded. Demyan knelt beside her, and reached for a bottle and fed her a drink of water, as if she were some marathon runner grabbing sustenance while still running the race, which she was, because he was already pulling her panties down her thighs.
‘As nature intended,’ Demyan said.
‘Maybe I should shave?’
‘I shave you tonight, if you like,’ Demyan said, except he rapidly reminded himself there wasn’t going to be a tonight, it was just this afternoon.
‘I’m working.’
She gave him an out but Demyan didn’t like that answer. ‘We’ll see.’
What was he saying?
He didn’t know and he didn’t care and Alina wasn’t exactly focusing on words. The lovely weight of Demyan was over her, his thigh nudging her legs apart.
‘How much will it hurt?’
‘How the hell would I know?’
She didn’t have time to ponder his words. Alina assumed it was a facetious quip.
It wasn’t.
Demyan had never bedded a less than knowing woman and had never made love unsheathed.
Sex, Demyan amended.
Make love, her heart decided as softly he kissed her mouth.
She felt his fingers again, heard them because she was soaked, and then she felt the soft batter of his rigid cock as Demyan knocked three delicious times, stretching her a little further with each one, before letting himself in.
It was the most delicious pain and Alina’s hips rose as he seared inside. It was a pain that hurt less than the knowledge this could be both their first and last time. She moaned into his mouth as the pain did not abate, and he moved deeper. Demyan could only admire her stoicism because he felt the tear and the brief jolt of shock run through her body at his invasion, then he did what he’d fought not to, he lost himself to the sensations as he inched further in.
‘You’ll get used to it soon.’
‘I don’t want to get used to it,’ Alina whimpered, for could the feel of Demyan inside ever lose its wonder? How could the rhythm she was trying to match ever become a familiar race?
‘You will,’ Demyan said, moving in but not fully, telling himself this was no different, that he was taking his time not so he could relish the warm vice that gripped him, or the soft, yielding body beneath him—he was just trying to ensure her pleasure.
Except her pleasure was already here.
Alina first thought she had a cramp at the very tops of her thighs. As they tightened, she attempted to move, to escape, to relax, to stretch...she did not know. She felt her ankles crossing behind his, felt her hips stretch to the sky and then the ache of deep orgasm but with Demyan’s mouth at her throat.
Then, as her body should be sated, as her pulse should steady from its peak, it shot up again as she heard a sound as if from behind her, yet her back was pressed to the ground. It was Demyan’s passion that chased her as she felt him unleash above her, the rapid thrusts that pelted her virgin flesh were deliciously overwhelming. The mouth by her ear
was delivering encumbered, illegible words that swirled her into his vortex and then released her to free-fall as his hot release procured in Alina a dense, almost reluctant orgasm. Or perhaps it was just a forbidden one, because it ended with his name, yet somehow she held onto three words that were clearly best left unsaid.
Three words that didn’t make sense, Alina thought as she folded up the blanket and did her best not to meet his eyes.
How could you love someone who this time last week you didn’t even know?
How could you love someone who was so clearly bad?
Demyan too was just a touch awkward driving home, he was used to a rather more seamless post-coital experience.
Namely a shower and occasionally a morning coffee.
Not picking up picnic baskets and shaking blankets and pulling grass out of hair.
Or attempting conversation on the way home afterwards.
He knew they had gone too far, or rather that he had and somehow he now had to pull back. Just as he had shrugged his aunt’s arm from his shoulders on the day of his mother’s burial, he tried to shrug Alina off now. As much as he might want to give in, Demyan would not.
As a familiar skyline came into sight Demyan scanned it, as he always did, for his home.
‘Won’t you miss this view?’ Alina asked.
‘No.’ Demyan shook his head. ‘A view is a view.’
‘Will you come back at all? I mean...’ Alina wasn’t asking about them, she simply couldn’t imagine just walking away. She still drove past what had once been her mother’s farm at times; she still missed it every day. ‘Won’t you miss it?’
‘I have never been back to Russia,’ Demyan said, ‘and I do not miss it at all.’
They pulled up at her apartment and he deliberately ignored the slight sag to her shoulders when he didn’t try to kiss her.
‘Demyan...’ She turned to him instead of getting out of the car.
‘No,’ Demyan interrupted, and reminded her it had been but a sex lesson and he continued it, even the difficult part afterwards. ‘You just ignore that he’s barely talking and you get out of the car with a wave...’
The Only Woman to Defy Him Page 9