24. Yuri

Whoever said laughter was the best medicine never had cracked ribs. The thought of laughter made me wince. Smiling too big seemed to hurt them.

Especially those first days. That first day waking up in Katya’s bedroom, her bed, with the shame of my half-delirious confession hanging in the air.

What possessed me to tell her that my life had flashed before my eyes and the only good parts, the only parts that mattered, were with her?

Did dying scare me so much? No, it was being without her. Her not knowing how I felt.

This room still bothered me. The sliding glass doors opening onto the deck and the view of the lake was beautiful but an unacceptable security risk. That and the fact the room was also accessible by a common bathroom made this the worst safe room I’ve ever seen. Maxim was slipping— I was slipping to settle for a room like this that was becoming her room now since her door was splintered—by me.

This was a good place to die, plenty of light, a nice view, and comfortable— damn her bed was comfortable. There must be two or three feather comforters below me and a couple more on top, if I needed them. And pillows of all sizes. Sherpa-soft, throw blankets everywhere.

She was taking risks for my safety. Now caring for me, shopping, running errands. I wished she would play it safe and let me take all the risks. Didn't she know what it would do to me if anything happened to her?

Of course not.

How could she know that when I never told her? I never told her and never would, because that would risk her safety. I would trade my life for her, no question. I would protect her even if it killed me.

And it would kill me. Not my body. But inside my heart, my soul whatever the hell you want to call it that place deep inside that I had never let anybody touch me. Until Katya had slipped in, past all my defenses, broke through all my walls and became a part of my mind and my soul my heart.

I knew what I had to do to really protect her. It wasn't marrying her. It wasn't locking her up in any safe house or safe room or fucking fallout shelter. It was letting her go. Sending her away from this life, from the bratva and then going on in living my life, such as it was, without her.

I had always been alone very much inside myself, and it always seemed perfectly natural, and I had never wanted it to be any different. Even when Dmitry took me home with him, got me off the streets. I was still alone. I wasn't his brother; I wasn’t Viktor’s son or Katya’s brother. They were a broken and fractured family, and I was a guest, also broken and fractured but never part of them, never a family member.

Dmitry, more than Viktor, included me in everything and treated me like one of the family but I wasn't. I knew I wasn't. I was apart, alone, different. And I didn’t mind.

I must have known—or suspected at least, as a child— how much it would hurt to love. So, I didn’t.

The Kolesovas were too broken, incapable of love once the mother passed. Katya was capable and came closest, but I never allowed myself to get close to her. Except that one night.

I was too intense to fall in love easily like Dmitry or even Katya. She loved me since she was a child— schoolgirl crush sort of thing. I enjoyed it but I knew that if she could love me like that, then she could love someone else just as easily.

And I knew she would grow out of it, grow up and see the real me and know how unlovable I was.

I also knew what I liked about it— the schoolgirl looking at me like I was a God. Admiring me, looking up to me, worshiping me, idealizing me. Inventing the perfect me in her mind— not seeing any of the bad only the good. But now I've shown her the bad—rubbed her face in the bad.

I use the 90 percent rule for most of my men: I love 90% of who they are what they do, 90% of what they bring to the table. But every man I have, there’s that 10% that I don't like. That 10% that I wish I could change. But that's the thing. Someone like Maxim is childish, he doesn’t take most things seriously. For Anton it's the taking everything seriously and not being able to relax and connect with the people under him. But that 10% that I don't like in them is what makes that 90% possible. I had to learn to love the 10% because the 90% was impossible without it. I could do that with my men, and I could do that with Katya, but I don't think she could do it with me.

My coldness and emotional distance had been my greatest defense, but Katya shattered it and now it hurt. It hurt so goddamn much.

My body hurt but it was my heart, soul, mind, or whatever the hell you want to call it that hurt more.

My body was much better after a few days of drug-induced sleep and the care of Katya.

I couldn’t believe she had stayed by me the whole time. She had endless chances to escape—at the cemetery, every time I slept since then. Yet she stayed each time. She carried me from the wreck and dragged me to her new Jeep and back to the lake house, into her bed.

And she has positively ignited since she started to settle into this lake house: decorating, cooking, building fires, turning this house into her home, her nest. The pride and sense of accomplishment has lit her up and given her confidence from her toes to her ears, she even walks surer of herself in this place and breathes deeper, calmer.

I was finishing her breakfast of cheesy eggs and bacon while she watched, hovered over me really. Annoying but slightly endearing.

“I like you much better like this,” Katya told me. “Weak as a kitten, harmless, —"

“In your bed,” I finish her thought for her. She blushes and ignores me.

“Weak, dependent on me for everything, my little kitten, my kiska—”

“I won’t be here very long, and I’m still strong enough to drag you in here with me,” I said as I reach out for her waist, but she slips away, and I wince at the sharp pain in my side.

She admonished me, “Dr. Zemlin said you’re supposed to stay still, no movements that put pressure on your ribs. No pulling or lifting anything , especially me. You must rest,” she scolded, adding, “Absolutely no sex until you’re better.”

“The usual flavor of sex between us would be very painful for me, but we could branch out and try something easier on me, something where you do most of the work,” I tell her, then add innocently, patting the empty space on the mattress beside me, “I’ll rest if you stay with me.”

She eased into the crook of my arm, “Is this hurting you?”

“I’m feeling better by the minute,” I say as I pull the covers over us both.

My thumb grazed the edge of her lower lip, then slipped down, stroking the soft skin beneath her chin before pulling her in for a long, deep, wet kiss.

My mouth covered hers, hot and slow, and my hand drifted down along her spine, bringing her hips aligned with mine. I kissed her more aggressively, my tongue probing, searching deeper, as she moaned in response.

This bed was the entire world while we kissed, and our hands wandered. She moaned into my mouth as I cupped her ass and brought her closer to my erection.

“No, you can’t, your ribs—” she pretested.

“I’m fine. Better than fine. Much better, aren’t you?” I assuaged her as I guided her hips, rolling them with mine, against my cock until she began to moan with each stroke.

Who would ever have thought this gentle, almost-sex could be so amazing? I cursed my cracked ribs for not being able to really fuck her the way I wanted to, needed to, but this soft and gentle stuff was severely underrated.

She squirmed and moaned against me, rocking her body closer and harder against mine until she pinched my ribs and I half-broke the kiss to wince.

“Oh shit, damn, I’m sorry . . .” she rolled away from me, somehow.

“No worries,” I held her hips and pulled them back in alignment with mine, “Don’t you dare leave me. I haven’t felt this good in days.”

“We can’t,” she protested. “You’ll never heal this way. Once you are healed then we can … well do whatever we like.”

“We can do whatever we like now ,” I tell her as I press her onto her back, my parted lips dragging over her throat and chest. “And later,” I assured her with my mouth covering hers, drawing in the tender flesh of her lips as she moaned in acquiescence.

I cupped her breasts in my hands and sucked at her nipples lightly as her hips rocked helplessly trying to relieve the tension.

“This is all I’ve thought of in this bed, don’t you dare move from it now,” I warn her in a soft whisper. “You’re so beautiful. Your skin, your smell, every single piece of you.” My hand slid between her thighs, easing them apart.

Skillfully I teased her lips and the sensitive bud of flesh within, she jolted as I dipped one finger inside her. Her eyes flew open, and she reached down reflexively, gripping my wrist, her eyes never leaving mine.

I stared down at her chocolatey, wet, dreamy eyes, “Relax, kiska. Lay back, trust me, enjoy this as much I do,” I tell her huskily.

Her body had clamped my finger, throbbing as she awkwardly tugged at my wrist, but I resisted her futile attempts to stop.

My thumb swirled over the tight, sensitive bud, more gently than I thought possible, and she let go of my wrist, her legs fell open gently like the petals of a flower for the sun. My finger slid deeper inside as I pressed my lips to hers.

I slipped two fingers inside, stretching her tight, my fingers thrusting deep, deep, and she couldn’t help arching in hot confusion.

“Stop,” she whispered through dry lips. “Please . . ..”

I whispered in her ear, “Nope.”

She spread her legs, helplessly rocking against my hand.

She bucks up into my palm. Another rush of blood to my cock doubles the ache. I’m about to bust in my pants like a horny fucking teenager. I try to keep my attention on her, remind myself that coming is going to hurt like a motherfucker for me, so fucking don’t do it.

Katya was unraveling before me with astonishing force, tumbling headlong through her release as she moaned and gasped. “Open your eyes, kiska,” I command her. She does, her eyes ragged, “I’m going to jerk off to this for the rest of my life and I need to know exactly how you look writhing with my fingers inside you. I just thought you should know that, close your eyes,” I tell her, and she does.

I kiss her, sucking her lips as if I could taste the whimper and moans of pleasure coming out of her.

She loved what I just told her, that was clear.

Another jolt went through her body, her muscles stiffening, her legs closing and clenching my hand and fingers while my mouth never stopped ravishing hers.

After her moans and gasps and clenching muscles turned to shivers, she wilted against me. My hand rubbed her ass in comforting circles.

“Your body has gone as taut as a bowstring,” I said drowsily over her head. “And after all the work I just did to relax you.” A chuckle escaped me at her mortified silence. My hand came to her back, caressing the length of her spine.

“You aren’t still sick, are you?” I ask her, remembering the last time we did this, it ended with her running off to the toilet. A blow to my ego if I hadn’t just ravaged her. Still, I didn’t want that to be her normal response.

Her eyes go down to the floor, her body stiffens again, “No, I’m okay now. I felt woozy before but all good now.”

Her body language screams deception, but I have no idea why. I watch her closely.

“How was the talk with Dmitry?” I ask, watching her every move. “I never had the chance to ask you before.”

“Emotional,” she says, and I believe her.

“I’ll bet he was a good listener,” I tell her.

She chuckles, “Yeah,” her eyes still won’t meet my own and her hands worry at her hair, twirling and fidgeting in it.

I’m studying her and realize this may not be deception but more lack of confidence right now. Her false confidence is gone, worn away, and now she must rebuild it, from the ground which may turn into real confidence. This lake house, the Florence Nightingale routine she’s been doing with me, all of this was the beginning of real confidence, but it seems it’s all gone now. Why?

And how did it happen so quickly? Like turning off the light.

Her light.

And now I need to take some of her freedom, her autonomy away. “You’ll need to stay here, close to home here for a while,” I tell her. “Only leave for emergencies, groceries, things like that, okay?”

“She nods, still worrying at her hair, she was expecting this it seems.

“I’ll take you to see Dmitry once things settle down again, okay?”

“How long will that be?”

“We’ll see,” I tell her. “Why haven’t you tried to escape? You had a hundred chances. At the cemetery, during the last few days … but nothing. While I’m weak as a kitten. No less. You could smother me with a pillow and be free from me, all of this.”

She’s quiet, then becomes aware of her hands and she stops them fidgeting. Stretches them out on her knees.

I wait, the silence growing louder until she can’t stand it.

“I don’t know,” she says softly.

“Sure, you do. What was it? What stopped you every time?”

“I don’t know. I should have, I guess. You sure wouldn’t have missed me.”

“What does that mean? Passive aggressive shit. Say what you mean, aggressive aggressive or at least active aggressive. Not that passive bullshit,” I say, as nicely as I can. “Please,” I add, not meaning it.

She closes her eyes tightly, determined not to cry, “I went back to find you, to thank you, to tell you what a weight lifted talking to Dmitry, to his headstone anyways, and… I heard you. I don’t know who you were talking to, but I heard, I heard—”

“‘Cheese for the mousetrap’ or something?”

“It was the way you said it that hurt even more than the words themselves, a coldness, that I never was anything to you, that ….” Her voice is steady, far-off like she found detachment, but her face gives her away, trembling, twisting, ready to fall apart if she opens her eyes.

“I told you many times, from day one that if you wanted love from me, from this that you were looking in the wrong place. We’re all out. You won’t find any here with me.”

“How could you?” she asks, not meaning to say these words at all, her voice losing the detachment it found, matching her face now.

Uncontrolled sadness.

Bereft.

Her face is an open book to me now.

I can read her mourning.

Her brief glimpse of a different life—a wilder, more urgent passion with me, this intense man she had found—was over.

And all the little dreams she had been building over the last few days, a future— our future— was gone.

“You could have left,” I tell her again. “You could have smothered me with a pillow, you could have dragged a knife across my throat, or, even easier, left me to die at the cemetery. Again and again, you chose not to. You chose to stay with your captor, in your bondage like a good little slave, didn’t you? Why Katya?”

I know the answer.

She closes her eyes, “I… I couldn’t…” she breathes.

I smile cruelly, pulling her closer to me, “I know.”

Tears are escaping her closed eyes, rolling silently down her face.

My cock still aches for her, but I tuck it aside as I pull her close, I don’t want either of us distracted by sex right now.

“You never feared I might leave, did you? You could have had Maxim, or another follow me, watch me every moment but you didn’t. You knew, didn’t you?” she says quietly, it’s a rhetorical question but I answer anyway:

“Yes,” I say simply.

“How?”

Another rhetorical question. The answer is obvious to us both now. She can’t avoid it, but I say it anyway. Out loud. No confusion left. No passive aggressive, missing-the-point, deflections.

“I knew you wouldn’t leave because you made the mistake of falling in love with me, Katya.”

I leave her alone with that truth, now made explicit, to think about what to do with it.

She knows that my loving her is what killed Dmitry. My loving her, going to check on her that night instead of staying by Dmitry’s side is why he was dead. If I hadn’t taken my eyes off the ball, he’d be here, alive, running a thriving Bratva.

It’s good she reminded me of my duty, once again.