Hers To Keep: THE QUINTESSENCE COLLECTION I

by Akeroyd, Serena

  Relationships were complicated. The few she’d been in, had been fucked up from the start. She didn’t have healthy ones to look back on. Not to reminisce on or to discern the rights and wrongs of steering a partnership in a good direction. She had five relationships going on here. Five men to comfort and love. To love her and be comforted in return.

  When she’d been stuck downstairs in her pit of misery, she hadn’t forgotten that. But she hadn’t wanted to deal with it either. Somehow, not being alone had been as perilous as having the five men with her.

  For the first time, Sascha had had a chance to see what life was like without their intrusion, and she hadn’t liked it.

  Sure, they’d intruded in some ways. It was their house, after all. The food she’d chowed down, they’d paid for. The sofa she’d been vegging on? Yup, all on their dime. But they’d left her alone for the most part. Popping in here and there, but never discussing anything of import. Never bringing her news. They’d been men.

  It sounded bizarre because she was well aware they were of the male variety. But, they hadn’t been like women. Hadn’t wanted to gossip or verbally slaughter someone on her behalf. They hadn’t sat in silence with her as she watched shit T.V.

  They’d been there. A presence, but they’d left her to her own devices.

  Even now, as she thought about it, as she’d been thinking about it since Kurt had decided to end her vegging out, she realized how life could be with the five of them.

  It might not have seemed like groundbreaking stuff, but to her it was. It was a revelation.

  They were solid.

  Dependable.

  Reliable.

  Collected.

  Calming.

  Five adjectives she’d never realized she’d needed her quintet of boyfriends to epitomize, but five adjectives that meant the earth.

  They were older than her. That too had been apparent. They were serious at moments, lighthearted at others, but their humor was of a different generation—one that didn’t push her out in the dark. If anything, she understood it more.

  They weren’t men who shared memes on Facebook or funny videos on twitter. Their humor was suave. Like them. Even Devon, with his amazing capacity to say the wrong thing at the wrong time held that kind of charm about him.

  Andrei shivered next to her as she cuddled up beside him, and it dragged her from her thoughts.

  He’d been angry earlier. It was why she was here now.

  “Sascha?” he asked groggily, for the first time realizing he wasn’t alone.

  Her laugh was low. “Well, it’s not Katrin.”

  He stiffened a second, his muscles tensing, then he rolled over from his side and onto his front.

  “Thank God for that,” he said, lifting an arm and resting it over her belly. With his face in the pillow, he murmured, “You were joking, weren’t you?”

  In the faint light of the streetlamp through the window—he never closed his curtains—she could see him lift his head and peer at her with one eye.

  Her lips twitched. “Yes.”

  “Good. Wasn’t sure of your mood,” he mumbled, half asleep once more.

  She blinked at him. Had he thought she was accusing him of something? Was that why he’d been tense at her teasing?

  She hid a smile and turned her face into his shoulder. “Night.”

  He hummed under his breath and whispered something in Russian. She figured it was ‘good night’ though, so she just let herself relax into his hold.

  She wasn’t sure how long she slept, but the grim morning light woke her.

  It was going to rain. Again, she thought glumly, as she peered with squinted eyes out of the bay window.

  In the near distance, there was the park, and the branches of the trees already whipped around in a frenzy from the growing wind.

  In Tucson, she’d been awoken by blinding light in the mornings if she hadn’t closed her shades.

  Here?

  Yeah, it didn’t often work like that.

  It was half-dark, meaning it had to be past seven, but earlier than nine when it was properly light.

  At her side, Andrei was snuggling into her still. His warmth was welcome because the view from his window made her feel chilly. She cuddled into him in return, letting her foot slide against his calf.

  The thin hairs tickled her foot, making her smile lazily as she stroked him there.

  “What are you doing?” he asked groggily.

  “Petting you,” she told him, her voice just as thick with sleep.

  “Like a dog?” he asked, somewhat disgustedly. “I’m not a dog.”

  “What about a cat?”

  He huffed, lifted his head to glower at her, and she realized this was the first time she’d seen him properly first thing. She’d never spent the night with him. Or Kurt for that matter.

  Guilt throbbed through her at the thought.

  Or was she making too big a deal out of this? Men were men, right? They didn’t think about things the way women did. And it wasn’t like she’d been purposely avoiding them.

  Most nights, she’d been with Devon if she’d been with anyone recently, and she knew they didn’t mind that at all because Devon’s insomnia was borderline dangerous.

  Well, to himself, but also, to the world. Some of his work was very important. With consequences that could be devastating if he wasn’t fast enough or was too tired to work on whatever was necessary.

  When he came to her bed, she knew he didn’t sleep the whole night through, but he did doze.

  She knew he did. She’d seen him sleeping, and felt as proud as a mother who’d managed to get her terrible-twos-toddler to nap after an eight hour rampage with crayons on the wall and three tantrums in the grocery store.

  Andrei, unlike Devon, didn’t appear peaceful and rested. He looked groggy and grumpy.

  But, to be honest, she quite liked that.

  He was one of the most debonair and polished men she’d ever seen. With his slicked-back blond hair, perennially shaved jaw, and his wicked sharp suits? He belonged in a GQ magazine twenty-four-seven.

  Here in bed, however, it was another matter entirely. And though he was handsome when he was polished, that was nothing to him half-awake.

  His hair was all over the place. A tousled golden mess of wavy locks adorned his head like some kind of skewed crown.

  His jaw glinted in the gloomy light as his blond stubble started to come through. It was darker than she’d figured. She had even imagined him being a bit strawberry blond where his beard was concerned, but nope. His beard would be dark blond if he ever let it grow out.

  His eyes were shaded with fatigue as he squinted at her, seeming to realize she was studying him.

  “You’re gorgeous,” she pronounced after a few seconds of staring into his eyes.

  He snorted, then tugged her closer so he could press his face into the pillow and burrow the rest of it in her hair. “You are.”

  “Takes one to know one then,” she retorted, but she wasn’t too surprised that he wasn’t horrified at the sight of her without make up.

  She’d made breakfast often enough in this state. Had even cooked in front of them without brushing her damn hair, figuring they needed to get used to the sight of her au naturale as well as in full-on glamor mode.

  No woman was glamorous twenty-four-seven, but men were creatures of habit. Devon, more than most. If she did something long enough, he started to believe that was how it would be forever.

  Like the time she’d changed her lipstick and he’d gawked at her in astonishment. Like no other lip color existed save for the one she wore most of the time.

  “I don’t like it,” he’d declared, making the men groan and Sawyer knock him in the side with his elbow. “Red is better than pink, Sascha. Pink reminds me of my grandmother,” he’d told her with enough earnestness that she could smile now at the memory.

  “What are you smiling about?” Andrei grumbled.

  She tilted her head to the
side in surprise. “How do you know I’m smiling?”

  “Yours is not to question why,” he said sleepily. “Share the joke.”

  She snorted and rolled her eyes, long since accustomed to their coming out with weird shit and expecting her to make sense of it.

  “Remember that time I wore pink lipstick?”

  He groaned. “And Devon said you looked like his grandmother?”

  A laugh escaped her. “Yeah. That time.”

  “Jesus. I tried to kick him under the table, I swear.”

  She smirked. “I know. You were all too cute. But then, you generally are when he says some dipshit thing to rile me up.”

  He laughed, his body shaking beside her. “We’re used to it, but we know other people aren’t.”

  “I’m not other people,” she reminded him, her toes still stroking his calf.

  “No. You’re not now. You were then.”

  She conceded that with a bow of her head, her lips curving in a rueful smile that spoke of how true those words were. “Remember when he told me to have tripe to replenish the blood I lost on my period?”

  “We’re very lucky you didn’t walk out the door right then and there.”

  A laugh left her. “He’s adorable. Even when he’s rude.”

  “Good fucking thing he is,” he said gravelly, raw enough that she realized he meant every word. Wasn’t just saying it in a trite way.

  She placed her hand atop the forearm he’d laid on her belly. “I wouldn’t say you were a romantic man, Andrei,” she said carefully.

  He chuckled. “Is that a complaint, query, or a statement?”

  She grinned, amused by his take on her remark. “More like a statement.”

  “Okay, so I can relax?”

  “You can relax,” she teased. “I just meant, I wouldn’t say you were overly romantic, but this... us... don’t you think it feels like fate?”

  He went quiet for a second, then he leaned up on his elbow. His eyes were a moody green, shifting a little so they seemed almost turquoise, and she was swept away in them. Caught up in his glance.

  A shudder swept through her, and she turned into him fully. With a wish, she magically blinked her clothes away, needing to feel all of him against her. But then when reality carried on, her clothes still on her, she burrowed into his arms.

  He only wore briefs, so her face smushed against gorgeous muscle with no T-shirt interrupting. He smelled like her man. And as pathetic as that sounded, it was the truth.

  She pressed her mouth to his collarbone and dotted open kisses along the hard line. Her tongue peeped out and trailed along too, tasting him, loving the flavor that burst on her taste buds—him. One-hundred percent Andrei.

  She wriggled against him, slipping her hands down to grab his cock and hold it firmly in her grasp.

  He moaned, but stayed still, and she smiled, loving that he was lying back in a sleepy haze, letting her maul him like this.

  Her fingers tightened around him a second before they slipped underneath the elastic of his boxers and touched skin.

  He let out a hiss, one that had victory flushing through her. She whispered, “I need you, Andrei. I always need you.”

  Where the words came from, she didn’t know. But she meant them. She meant every single one of them.

  She let her tongue trail down, arching her back so she could flicker it over his nipple. It was already puckered from the brush of morning air, so she nibbled on it delicately, adoring the texture against her lips and tongue.

  With one hand gripping his shaft, not moving it, not directing him just holding him firmly, with the other, she splayed her fingers against his muscles, gently pressing and massaging as she went.

  He shuddered when she moved around to grab his butt and used her hold to pull him closer against her.

  “Do you need me?” she asked, and with any other man—save her five—she’d have felt desperate. Like a pathetic woman needing reassurance.

  But this was rhetorical.

  They needed her. She knew that. Sometimes, the lines were blurred in her head. Sometimes, she got confused and had to have a reckoning, but she knew they needed her as much as she needed them.

  The five of them would always be bound together in ways that would forever exclude her, but she was another tie, another reason to keep them united forever. A woman who would never try to break them apart, to tear their connections asunder. In that, she was what bound them together, she knew, and she loved being at the center of their world.

  With a shiver at the delicious thought, she murmured, “I want you inside me.”

  At her words, he tugged her closer and rolled onto his back. His eyes were still sleepy, the lids heavy as he peered at her through the morning gloom. “Have me,” he ordered.

  A naughty smile played about her lips. “You willing to lie back and think of England?”

  He pondered that a second. “How about I think of Russia?”

  She snorted, slapped her free hand to his belly and squeezed his cock harder. When he groaned, she retorted, “Ha ha. Very funny.”

  She spread her legs, grateful she wore a long T-shirt to cover herself and not PJ bottoms. The panties were in the way, but they could work with what she wanted to do.

  Straddling him, her knees pinned to his hips, she pulled his cock out from under his boxers and pressed it to her core. “Shit, you’re hot,” he said with a hiss when she cocked a brow at him in confusion after he mumbled something in Russian.

  He rarely spoke it, she realized. Never swore in it like Kurt did in German or mumbled crap under his breath. He always spoke either English or German, never his mother tongue.

  From out of nowhere, the need to hear him talk to her that way filled her. The guttural sounds were so different to what she was used to hearing, and they set her pulse alight. Her heart thumped heavily in her ribcage, so hard that she felt certain her chest rattled with the motion.

  “Don’t speak in English,” she ordered. “Only Russian.”

  He blinked, shrugged. Said something. She moaned as he began to talk to her, the low grunts, the harsh syllables, and the weird intonations... all of them worked a magic on her, made her clit throb and her pussy drip.

  She shivered and reached down to pull aside her panties. When his cock brushed her pussy, she moaned and let her hips rock as she started to ride him. Her sex was slippery with juices, her wetness beyond normal as he made her gush with the sound of his voice.

  He could be reciting the weather forecast to her and she didn’t give a damn.

  Just needed to hear this, needed to hear him.

  It was raw and crude, even though she didn’t have a clue what he was saying. The translation was in the heat in his eyes, the tension on his face, the grip of his fingers on her hips.

  He spoke to her with words she didn’t know but she understood. He wanted her. Badly. He needed her. Under him, over him. In his life, his world. She shivered, head flying back as the glory of the moment whirled through her.

  Every nudge of his dick against her clit had her seeing stars, and she made sure to wiggle her hips from side to side for maximum clit torture.

  With a moan, she rocked in a harder, shorter motion. The pressure was exquisite and made her sob out with want.

  “Sascha,” he said thickly, his voice redolent with his accent, a thousand times stronger than usual. “Stop teasing.”

  He reverted to Russian, but knew he’d spoken in English to get his point across—a point he reiterated by grinding her down against him with his grasp on her hips mashing their pelvises together.

  It should have been painful, but she was so wet and he was so hard, that it was a delicious bite of pleasure.

  With a gulp, she arched her hips, thrusting them forward, and as his cock dragged through her folds and found her gate, she shuddered as the tip pierced her entrance. Not enough to enter her, but enough to entice. To make her greedy for him.

  To make her ache.

  He moved a hand fr
om her ass and slid down to grab his shaft and guide himself into her, telling her things she’d never understand but her senses loved the sound of them anyway.

  With a whisper, she murmured, “More. I need more.”

  She needed him thrusting into her. Needed him to take her, to fuck her.

  He seemed to understand because he blinked, then grabbed her hips and murmured in English this time, “Swivel around on me.”

  She blinked, gulped. Wouldn’t it have been easier to climb off him then have him fuck her?

  Apparently not, because when she tried to move off his shaft, he kept his grip on her hips tight until she complied and began to swivel around on his cock.

  As she did, she let out a breathy gasp. “Oh, Jesus!” The words weren’t a benediction but a plea.

  Holy hell, the movement had his cock touching places she’d never had touched before. At least, she didn’t think they’d been discovered, but he could definitely plant a tiny Russian flag on her pussy because he had her seeing stars again just from cautiously moving on his cock.

  When she faced forward in a position she loathed—reverse cowgirl—he stunned her by rearing upward. His hands moved to her belly, and he held her close to him as he rocked forward so they were both on their knees.

  Before she could do little more than gasp, he began.

  His thrusts were heavy and hard. Rough. As rough and as coarse as the words that spilled from his lips. More guttural intonations that set her blood alight. Made her wish she knew what dirty, filthy things he was telling her as he fucked her. As he rocked her world.

  One hand stayed on her waist, the other slid down to caress her clit. Her hands fisted in the bedsheets as she slumped forward, her face pressing into the mattress as he fucked her hard.

  Her eyes twitched, then nearly rolled back in her head as she let out a low, sharp scream that was swallowed by the sheets. Her orgasm blindsided her.

  Andrei became frenzied at that. His hips ramming into her, his cock an almost bruising presence deep inside. When he burst with his own climax, he dragged her over the edge too.

  The dual orgasm was more than she could stand. Her vision wavered at the edges, the lines becoming fuzzy as something in her brain short-circuited. Her nerves flickered and fired with the heat of his release inside her but it was exactly what she needed.