by Lauren Dane
It had been a few days since she’d seen him last. She’d been busy with school stuff, working to get her film project finished and turned in. Trying to pretend she wasn’t obsessively checking her mail and making sure her phone was on and that she hadn’t missed the agent’s call.
Gregori hadn’t called and she wasn’t surprised. They saw each other regularly anyway. But she couldn’t deny the little bounce in her step as she approached his door and knocked.
She heard music and knocked one last time before letting herself in.
He didn’t look up as she came inside. He was working with the same giant canvas, but this time it was at least seventy percent full. Clearly he wasn’t stalled anymore, or if he was, he did a rather fine job of pretending he wasn’t.
A house, or the remains of one, sat in the lower left. Spots of yellow stood out against the bleached, weathered wood as it lay in a tumble. The bones of a front porch were dotted with life as plants had taken it back. A field lay fallow just beyond. The sky was gray/purple.
It should have seemed desolate. But it wasn’t. There was life there. A different sort of life, but the tendrils of the vines had taken hold on a porch rail. Birds would nest in the eaves that hadn’t collapsed. It wasn’t the sadness of an abandoned home that the painting made her feel, it was the rebirth that rang out so strongly.
He looked up, catching her there. Pleasure marked his features before he schooled himself. But she saw it.
“Incredible.”
He stepped back. “Tell me why.” A demand.
“Rebirth. Reclamation but not at the expense of anything else. There is life here. The slice of color keeps away the desolation. Your use of shadowing is judicious and it works against the sense of loss.”
He paused, clearly surprised. “Are you sure?”
“Nope. I read it in a book. I’m lying.”
He sighed, agitated, but then rolled his eyes. “It’s what I’m trying to say. But I don’t know if it’s clear.”
“It is to me. A few things for you to sign. Kelsey needs them today. She said she gave you the same documents two days ago.”
He’d apparently gone to Kelsey’s place to get things and told her he didn’t need a delivery. Whether he was avoiding her or just in the neighborhood or what she didn’t know. But she’d seen the look on his face when he’d finally realized she was there.
There was no denying he was happy to see her.
He frowned. “Always with the signing.”
“I need to get you a shirt with that on the front. But I can’t figure out how to get the frown and the accent into it.”
“You are mean to me.”
She laughed as things eased between them at last. “I don’t take your shit. Now sign that stuff.”
“I have cookies.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I will sign and you can get the kettle on for tea. I woke up late so the black tea would be best.” He grabbed the envelope and a pen from the table and she headed into the kitchen.
She got the water started for the tea and then measured the smoky loose leaves into his teapot.
“I do love this teapot,” she said as he entered the kitchen.
“It was one my mother brought when they came here. The papers are on the table near the door.”
He grabbed a bakery box. “Coconut, chocolate and rose tea.”
“That’s a Ladurée box.”
“Yes, they have the best macarons in the world. I ordered them for my mother, who loves them. And for this other person I know. A pest who eats all my cookies and drinks my tea.”
“Oh, my god, do you mean me?” She clutched her heart for a moment, teasing as she looked over the cookies so delicately nestled in the box. She grabbed a coconut one and reveled in how freaking delicious it was.
“If the pest fits…”
The cookie was absolutely delicious. “Magic.”
“They are worth the cost of getting them shipped, no? I love the strawberry best, but they are not on the menu right now.”
Of course he’d think that. Cookies from Paris were normal for him. Part of his allure. “I’ve never been to Paris.”
He brought two tea mugs to the table and she perched in a chair, watching him move.
“A crime. Paris is a fantastic city. One of my favorites.”
“Do you ever go to Russia?” She knew he still had family there.
“We went once a year when I was younger. I haven’t gone in years, though I should. My mother wants to go back to see her brothers. I have aunts, uncles and cousins. My agent has been urging me to do a show there.”
“I’m sure they’re proud of you.”
“My family?”
“And Russia, too. They appreciate art with a great deal of zeal.”
He lifted a shoulder. “Perhaps. My mother is getting older. I can make her comfortable here, of course, but I’ve been considering a trip for Mother’s Day. My father would most likely stay back. He has no fond memories and no wishes to return.”
“There’s a story.”
He sighed. “He’s a complicated person.”
She pointed at the chair to her left. “Sit, I’m pouring tea.”
He put out sugar cubes, the awesome natural kind she’d come to associate with him before he obeyed and sat. She dropped one in to her mug and stirred slowly.
“I told you we came here when I was eleven. He was a doctor in Russia. He drove a cab here because the medical licensing is not the same. But he never complained. He says it was worth it to be done. To be away. He came up in a different Russia than the one he left and he says he didn’t like either. They had to leave most everything behind, only bringing ten boxes with them. This teapot.” He smiled. “I’ve had tea from it nearly every day of my life.” His expression darkened a moment. “She tried to break it once during an argument.”
“Prentiss.” What a bitch. No matter how angry you are, you don’t break a guy’s special link with his family history that way.
He sighed. “She was jealous.”
“Of your connection to your mother.”
“You understand things.” He didn’t appear to know whether he was upset or appreciative of that.
It wasn’t like Prentiss was mysterious. “She’s an archetype. I’m sure there’s more to her that I can’t see and don’t know. But she’s the type of person who needs to be the center of everything.”
“Exhausting.”
She countered. “Exciting at first.”
He snorted. “Everything is exciting when you’re twenty-four and have more money than you know what to do with.”
“I’ll have to take your word for that. As for the teapot and Prentiss? She didn’t break it and you’re free of her.”
“My father, I think, is bitter that he had to lose everything to start over. He feels robbed. His workplace, the hospital there, was political to the extreme. It was a constant battle for him to keep his position. In the end, I don’t think being a doctor meant more to him than being in a place where he didn’t have that sort of constant pressure. He likes it here. Lots of pretty women to flirt with.”
“Ah, that’s where you get it.”
He laughed. “He’s a master. My mother is exceptionally tolerant. But she has her limits and, while he may edge up to them, he doesn’t cross them. Anyway, she’s got a bigger heart. A greater capacity for love and forgiveness. She likes to go back to see her family. To eat the things she loved in her youth. But she wants to come home after those weeks. It’s a place she goes to visit, but she doesn’t live there.”
That was the most he’d shared with her about his family in a long time.
“Have you heard back from the agent yet?” He sipped his tea.
“Not yet. I’ve been told it can take a few weeks, even with requested material. I’m trying to be patient. It’s not my strong point.”
He smirked. “I’m shocked.”
“You’re one to talk.”
He shrugged. “I
don’t have to be patient. I’ve done my time, kotyonok.”
Oooh, the kitten thing. Only in Russian it was way better.
She gave him a long look as she finished her tea. He looked right back.
“You have something there.” She leaned over and brushed a bit of cookie from his beard. He was warm. So full of mystery and sexuality and all the stuff she wanted to gorge herself on.
He swallowed, but those eyes stayed on hers. “About my gratification problem…”
She smiled and scooted her chair so they were thigh to thigh. “Yeah? You wanna tell me about it? Or, say, gratify us both?”
Oh, that smile he gave her. Enough to send a wildfire of heat up from her toes. Not a blush, no, they were past that. Yearning, yes. But more. She knew he wanted her. There was no need to yearn. Only to anticipate.
He leaned in and kissed her. Softly at first and then he pulled her into his lap and she opened, his tongue sweeping into her mouth.
Her taste ignited that slow burn he’d had for her since she’d left his loft five days earlier. Not that he’d been counting.
He groaned as she sucked his tongue, holding her tighter. He’d counted. Though he’d lost himself in his work much of each day and into the night. It was like fucking her had chased away that block. The image of her, on her hands and knees in his bed, her fingers tangled in his comforter as he’d thrust into her body over and over had been burned into his brain.
Like a fever.
She kissed her way over his cheek to his ear, where she grazed the lobe with her teeth before kissing the spot just behind. A full-body shiver took over as she licked there.
He pulled her shirt up and over her head and she laughed. Delight. Yes, that’s the sound that rang through his kitchen. This wasn’t…it wasn’t what he usually had with women.
Which should have made his blood run cold, but it only made him hotter for her. For what she brought to him.
He took the sweet weight of her breasts, squeezing lightly until she made a surprised sound of desire. He swallowed it, moving to allow her to pull his shirt off. He hissed, arching into her as she scored her nails against his skin.
More. He needed more of her right then. Need beat at him, nearly bringing him to his knees as he worked one-handed to get her cargo pants unbuttoned and unzipped.
She got to her knees on the chair, how he wasn’t sure, but he didn’t care about the mechanics.
“Condom,” she nearly begged as she got his jeans open and pulled his cock out.
He groaned at how good that felt. “Bathroom. Medicine cabinet.”
She was up and dashing from the room before he’d finished speaking and back before he could change his mind. Like he could. He wanted her so much his blood seemed to beat with it.
She rolled the condom on.
“Wait, are you ready?” He managed to speak though his tongue felt as if it weighed a thousand pounds.
Her answer was to slide herself down his cock, surrounding him with snug heat. The breath punched from his diaphragm as he dug his fingers into her hips.
“Christ.”
Her answering smile made him give her one back.
Then she moved and he nearly lost his mind at how good it was. The lights were on and there she was, bold and bright, full of life in his arms. She rocked her hips, sliding herself back and forth on him. He wanted to close his eyes to revel in it, but he couldn’t take his gaze from her.
He let go of her hips to slide his palms over all that pretty skin. Her head tipped back, her hands braced on the back of his chair when he flicked his thumbs over her nipples.
She poured everything into what they shared right then. She didn’t think beyond that moment. Didn’t question what was next. Just felt. Because it didn’t matter what tomorrow would bring. This is what she wanted. This is what he gave her and she wouldn’t regret it.
It wasn’t like she was a virgin. She liked sex. Had it when she was with someone she liked. But this was…more. Sure he was really good at it, but that wasn’t entirely it.
He knew her. She knew him.
He touched her with hands that were nearly reverent. Work-roughened fingers tugged and rolled her nipples. His beard brushed over her skin as he kissed her chest. She hummed her delight as one of his hands moved from her breast to slide down her belly, finding her center, dancing a fingertip over her clit until she saw lights against her eyelids.
It was so good she had to sit forward, resting her forehead against his shoulder.
He drove her up fast. Relentless and when she came it was hard, rushing up from her toes to the top of her head as she clamped down around him. She heard the growl, a snarl of a sound as he followed, the hand at her hip tightening just shy of pain.
And then he kissed her. Sweetly. Which was probably the precise moment she fell really hard for Gregori Ivanov.
He picked her up carefully when he stood, then set her down, his hand at her waist to steady her.
“I’ll be back in a moment.”
She pulled her clothes back on while he got rid of the condom and by the time he returned she’d managed to get herself back into some semblance of order.
On the outside anyway.
“We didn’t break anything.”
He grinned. “I’m surprised.” He snuck a look in the other room where his canvas was. She knew his mind was on work again. She wanted him to realize he could be with her and do his job. She had her own work to do anyway.
“I can see that with one appetite sated you’re already back to that painting.”
He turned again, defensive, but he saw the smile on her face and relaxed. “Am I so obvious?”
“Maybe not to anyone who doesn’t think in strikingly similar ways. I should go, as well. I have stuff to finish.” She paused. “Would you like to come over for dinner? My term ends at the end of the week. Zoe is going to visit her parents in Chicago for a few days so I’ll have the place all to myself.”
He licked his lips nervously and she wanted to heave a sigh. It wasn’t as if she asked him to father a child.
She sent him a slow eyebrow raise.
He finally settled on, “We are friends.”
She couldn’t help it—she laughed. “Yes. But I don’t have sex in the kitchen with Zoe.”
“Well, if you did, I’d be happy to watch. You know, to be sure nothing gets broken.”
“Charming. I’ll keep that in mind.”
“I can’t have dinner with you any time soon. I need to finish this piece.”
She’d known him for over a year. Knew him well enough to see the lines around his eyes and the panic flashing in his eyes, even for just a moment. What they’d done was hot sex, yes. But it was more and he knew it. She knew it.
But whatever. She could bide her time. She wanted Gregori. Had for some time. Given the way he touched her, the way he reacted when they were together, she was convinced it was mutual.
But she had work to do and he had work to do and there was no need to rush. She’d get what she wanted in the end and he really needed to get used to that.
“Your smile makes me nervous.”
She grabbed her things, popping one last macaron into her mouth. “Damn those are good. And you should be. Nervous, I mean.” When she reached his door she turned. “I’ll see you later, Gregori.”
Chapter Eight
He’d seen her three more times since that night she’d asked him to dinner a month before. They’d had sex every single time. And each time it had been even hotter. But more than that, it had been strikingly intimate.
Two nights before she’d been there. Shown up at his door with packages and a few bags of takeout.
She’d smiled up at him. “I could make up something about how I just happened to have some extra takeout from Mae Phim and did you want to share it. But I think we’re past that. So, I stopped by Mae Phim and picked up some takeout. Interested in some dinner with me?”
There was nothing he wanted more than that.
> “Come in. I was about to take a break and you’re a better reason than most I could come up with.”
She’d moved around his kitchen with ease, setting out plates and silverware. He’d opened up some champagne and they’d eaten green curry so hot his nose ran and his eyes burned.
But it wasn’t the sex that he couldn’t get out of his head as he stood there in his shower, though certainly everything they did together had been memorable.
After they’d eaten, she’d tucked herself into a window seat in his work room and had worked on her pad, sketching and inking in as he’d worked on his newest painting.
She’d been in her own space, doing her own thing. She hadn’t needed him, hadn’t depended on him to pay attention to her. He’d never been with a woman with that sort of intimacy before. A woman who didn’t need him, not for constant reassurance. She chose to be there.
And when he’d finished, she’d been wrapping up, too. She’d allowed him to look at her work, nearly shyly, which had touched him. And when they’d tumbled from his shower into his bed, they’d loved long and hard and he’d pulled her close and told her to sleep instead of taking her home.
When he’d woken up that next morning, she’d already left. Gone to school and to her life. She’d left him a sticky note on his bathroom mirror saying she’d stolen some of his cookies and she’d see him later.
He’d fought it but she’d simply flowed into his life and he liked it.
Gregori scrubbed his face, letting the water from the shower sluice down his body as he tried to figure out what to think. What to do.
Because he thought about her all the time. If he read something interesting or funny in the paper he wanted to tell her about it. When his agent told him the painting he’d finished was one of his best ever, his first instinct had been to call her. Which he had.
Her reaction had left him lighthearted. She’d been thrilled. Said all the right things but not in a calculated way. No, she’d simply responded as someone who truly knew him and cared for him would.
He could defend against fake people, or flattery designed to get something from him. But she didn’t do that. And it wasn’t that she didn’t want anything from him. She did. He knew.