I point at Story and give the sign for hungry, raising my brows, the way we learned.
“Am I hungry? Yeah, actually I could eat. You?”
I nod. We hit the first drive-thru we see—a Wendy’s. I use the iPad to order, which makes Story laugh, lightening the mood a little.
We eat as I drive, and then she drops the bomb on me.
“Oleg, I can’t move in with you.”
Somehow I keep the Denali from crashing into the guy in front of me.
She doesn’t go on, which makes it a million times worse.
I make the sign for why? by pulsing my middle finger by my forehead, brows down.
“I thought I could do this. I care about you. I really do. But I have so much drama in my life already. And your life is really intense. I mean, you’re in the Russian mafiya, and you’re getting shot at, and I’m getting shot at, and then I thought you were going to die, and it’s just too much.”
I want to argue with her. I reach for the iPad, but realize I can’t type and drive at the same time.
Fuck.
I pick up her hand instead and shake my head.
She pulls away, gutting me. “I can’t. I need you to accept this. Please don’t make this harder than it already is.”
Blyad'. I grip the steering wheel. Part of me refuses to believe it. I want to fight for her. But she just asked me not to, and I’m also not the guy who doesn’t understand no means no.
Story wants me out of her life.
The irony is too thick to swallow. I chose to live and fight because of her, and I lost her anyway.
I’d almost rather be dead.
Chapter 15
Story
I asked Oleg to drop me at Rue’s. I told him not to come in.
He honored my request.
I was half-afraid he wouldn’t. I mean, I know the guy’s stubborn. Dogmatic in his devotion to me.
Somehow I made it through the night. I actually don’t think anyone even noticed anything was off with me, which made it all the worse.
Because that anxiety that was brewing, the sense of everything being wrong—it didn’t go away when I broke up with Oleg.
In fact, it got worse.
Now, as I stand outside Rue’s to catch an Uber home, I practically want to crawl out of my own skin. The buzzing in my ears isn’t just from the amps. It’s noise. Noise that makes it impossible to think through the slightest problem, like how to open the app and check for my ride.
A familiar white Denali pulls up in front of me.
Oleg.
Tears instantly pop into my eyes. Of course he’s still here. He probably sat in the parking lot for the entire show, waiting to make sure I got home safely.
I pull open the door. “You can’t be here!” Tears clog my throat.
“Let me take you home,” the Australian-accented voice from the iPad says.
My shoulders sag. “I called an Uber.” I already know I’m going to get in the Denali.
Oleg is my ride, even if I don’t want him to be.
He rubs an open hand over his head. Please.
I blink back the tears. “Fine.” I get in. “But this is it. This is our goodbye. Please don’t come back here again.”
He nods his agreement.
Except when we get to my place, he parks and opens his door.
I want to protest, but I don’t. Maybe part of me wants to drag out our goodbye, too. He carries my guitar and walks me to the door, taking my keys from me to open the front door then following me up the stairs.
He unlocks the door to my apartment and pushes it open.
And then he’s on me. His arm bands behind my back, his lips descend over mine with a bruising force.
I surrender. Completely.
I’m the girl who lives in the moment, and this is our moment.
I give him my tongue, loop my arms behind his neck, standing on my tiptoes to reach. He grips my ass, yanking my body up against his as he claims my mouth.
He backs me against the arm of the sofa and picks my leg up behind the knee to spread me open for him.
“Oleg.”
He cups my mons firmly, the warmth of his fingers searing through my panties. He slides his fingers beneath the fabric, rubbing over my entrance as our lips tangle. He sucks my lower lip and dips a finger inside me.
I reach for his jeans, opening them, desperate to get him inside me. He drags his mouth down my neck and nips me as I get his cock out and positioned at my entrance.
I teeter backward, my hips balanced on the stuffed arm of the sofa, but he loops a strong arm behind my back to hold me in place, at the same time he yanks my hips forward toward his.
Pushing the gusset of my panties to the side, he enters me, and we’re moving together from the first moment he’s inside.
We fuck like our lives depend on it.
We’re the last humans on Earth. It’s the last chance we’ll ever have for sex. We have to make it count for all of humanity.
He fucks me hard, thrusting in and up. Each stroke feels necessary. Satisfying. Life-affirming.
I cling to him, one hand around his neck to keep me suspended, my knees spread wide for his plunder. I love his wild passion. The way, once he starts, it’s like he can’t hold back with me. Like making me come is his life’s only pursuit.
Time suspends. Pleasure shimmers all around us, building, aching. Climbing.
I don’t even realize tears are leaking from my eyes. I’m not sad. It’s just necessary. The intensity meets the burning flame in my soul. My reason for living.
I’m unusually quiet. Other than that single utterance of his name when we began, I don’t beg, don’t moan, don’t cry out. It’s like this is too serious an occasion for the usual passion-chatter. Too significant. The heavy rasping of our breaths is the only music we dance to.
There’s no question we will climax as one. I feel the surge of his orgasm, and my own rises to meet it. He’s the first one to make a sound. An urgent vocalization. I return the call.
And then we both come. He arcs in deep and stays, shooting his wad. I suck on his neck, my internal muscles contracting around his cock, milking it for more. It goes on and on. A completion, not just of sex, but of us. Of our relationship.
One last momentous time together to remember each other by.
Oleg eases out of me and helps me back to my feet. Dark concern swirls in his brown eyes.
I put my hand on his face, memorizing his beloved features. “I love you.” It’s worth saying, even if we’re breaking up. And I say it as an ending. An Amen to the sacred space we gave to each other.
And Oleg does seem to understand we’re still breaking up because the words make his forehead crinkle as if he’s in pain.
My anxiety revs back up, starting to eat away at the endorphins released by the incredible sex.
I need to end this thing. Maybe that’s why I’m still anxious. Because he’s still here. It’s still going.
“Goodbye, Oleg,” I say firmly.
He flinches, visibly destroyed by my words.
I feel equally destroyed. I don’t know why the anxiety isn’t getting better.
He cups the back of my head and presses his lips to mine. This time the kiss isn’t brutal, it’s soft and sweet.
And then he turns and leaves without looking at me again.
I thought I’d cried all my tears out earlier thinking Oleg was dead, but it seems I still have an ocean left to cry. I mean to walk myself to the shower and put myself to bed, but instead I find myself on my knees, wracked with sobs.