“I’m fine,” she whispers, and clenches around me so hard I have to take a deep breath. “Fuck, I’m fine. Jesus, Kostya.”
She moves her hips forward an inch and then pushes back again.
“Oh, my god, I’m fine,” she breathes. She moves again, rocking her hips forward and then pushing back and each time she does she lets out a breathless little moan.
I lean my forehead against the back of her head and just watch my cock disappear into her, my thumb in the dimple on her back as I let her fuck me, trying as hard I as I can to stay in control.
It’s hard. It’s almost impossible, and it’s almost all I can do to close my eyes and press my face into her hair.
Suddenly she slides back and then stops, wrapping her arm backward around me. It’s a little awkward but I lean into her.
“This?” I growl, pushing against her.
Hazel just moans and moves her hips so I just barely move inside her.
“Fuck yes that,” she says, and then her hand is on the side of my face and she’s twisting toward me.
“Kiss me while you’re inside me,” she whispers.
I lean forward and she leans backward, and the angle’s not quite right but we kiss anyway as we move against each other. I can tell I’m nearly at the end of my rope, nearly out of whatever self-control I had left, and when I pull away from her I kiss her shoulder and pinch one nipple.
“I don’t have much longer,” I murmur into her ear, rocking against her. “I can only be inside you for so long before I explode, zloyushka.”
She moves her hips again, harder, and we both groan at the same time. Hazel leans her head forward until it’s resting on the bed post. We move together, and we start out slow and deliberate but it builds and builds until I’m driving hard into her with every stroke, pulling her hips back against me as if I can somehow get deeper.
“Oh that’s good,” she whispers, and I do it again and again until suddenly she pushes back and grabs my shoulder. I’m sunk completely inside her as her hips flex, her pussy muscles fluttering and squeezing.
“Kostya, I’m gonna come so fucking hard,” she gasps.
I move my hand to her clit and rub.
“Good. I love feeling you come,” I whisper.
She explodes, moaning, her pussy clamping down as she rocks back and forth and in seconds I’m coming too, growling in her ear as I come harder and longer than I ever have in my entire life as she keeps moving.
At last we both slow, and then finally stop. I’ve got an arm locked around her waist now and I don’t remember doing that, but I hold her close and her chest expands and falls against my arm.
All of a sudden, in that afterglow, I feel wildly, almost insanely protective of her, like she’s mine and I’d fight a tiger bare-handed if it came into the room right now. I don’t know what to do so I kiss her on the top of her head and hold her tight. After a moment she lets go of the bedpost and slides her hand over mine, lacing our fingers together.
I squeeze, she squeezes back, and maybe for the first time in my life everything feels quiet and still and right.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Hazel
Kostya kisses me on the top of my head, and then clumsily on my ear. I squeeze his hand, let him go, and we finally untangle ourselves from each other. He grabs tissues from the bedside table, wraps the condom in them and tosses the whole gross bundle back onto the table, but I couldn’t care less.
I sit up against the headboard, the pillows behind my back, and he lets me pull him in until he’s leaning against me, his head on my chest, my right arm slung over him. I run my hand through his hair and he makes a barely-audible grunt, somewhere low in his chest.
“You purring?” I murmur.
“I’m contented,” he says. “Like a house cat in a sunbeam. Meow.”
I laugh and he smiles, then plants a kiss on the inside of my elbow.
The bedroom is mostly dark, but the curtains are translucent enough to let some moonlight through. We sit there, like that, for a long time. I stroke Kostya’s hair, my other arm across his chest, and he strokes my arm with his fingertips, back and forth.
I’ve never seen him like this before, perfectly relaxed and totally unguarded, sprawled across the bed like he doesn’t have a care in the world. I get the feeling that not many people have seen Kostya like this. Maybe none.
“I’m getting better at that,” he says, his voice low and slow and sleepy.
“At what?” I say, still twisting my fingers in his hair.
“At making you laugh,” he says. “That time I even meant to do it.”
I laugh again, leaning against the headboard.
“Thanks,” I say.
“This is why we’re not a secret,” he says. “My mother told me tonight that I light up like a lantern when I’m around you.”
“I thought it was because I act like a shy teenager when we’re together,” I murmur.
He looks at me, eyebrows raised.
“Shy?” he asks.
“I mean in public,” I say.
“Good,” he says. “Don’t be shy around me.”
“We’re naked right now because you just fucked my brains out,” I say. “If that’s shy, I’d almost hate to see not shy.”
I’m sliding downward slowly, the pillows shifting under me, so now I’m at a forty-five degree angle and Kostya’s head is on my stomach. He turns his head and kisses it, and I think both of us are slowly falling asleep, tangled together in a mass of limbs and bed sheets and pillows.
“Do you have to leave?” I finally ask.
“No,” he says.
“You sure?” I ask.
“Are you trying to get rid of me?” Kostya asks.
“I just don’t want you disowned, exiled, and penniless,” I tease.
I meant to make him laugh, but instead his face goes serious and he looks at me.
“I’m just going to tell him,” he says, his gray eyes steady. “He can’t do anything. He won’t disown me. He can’t force me to marry anyone. All he can do is be angry, and I don’t care any more.”
I hold my breath and bite my lip.
“Are you sure?” I ask.
Kostya just nods.
I’m not sure how to phrase this next thing, so I take a deep breath and just let some words fly out of my mouth.
“We’ve only known each other for what, a week and a half?” I ask. “I don’t want you to ruin your relationship with your father over something that might not...”
I swallow, and Kostya’s just staring at me.
“I mean, it’s just, you know, what if I go home at the end of the month and, like, you come to your senses or something and realize that you fucked up your relationship with your dad because of some American girl?” I say, all in one breath.
“Zloyushka, what the hell are you talking about?” he asks. “I’m at my senses. However you say that.”
“What if it turns out I’m a serial killer?” I say.
For some reason it’s the first thing that pops into my head.
“Then we’ll deport you back to the U.S. to stand trial, and I’ll still have made it clear to my father that he doesn’t control who I’m with,” Kostya says.