That hit a little too close to home, and Alexei felt a frission of remorse for having ordered Emilio to look into Aaron. “I assure you, I do love you. This is not about winning. This is about me wanting to be with you again.”
But she shook her head at him. “You say you love me now, but what happens if I do something that upsets you, or if heaven forbid, it doesn’t work out? You were ready to destroy my entire hometown because I dumped you eight years ago.”
“Love is like business, there is always a certain amount of risk involved.” He reached for her hand and threaded his fingers into hers. “But I can promise you this, if you are honest with me from now on and if you promise never to walk out on me the way you did before, I will never intentionally hurt you again.”
She was quiet for a long time after he said that, then she asked, “What about children?”
He froze. “Is that why you will not leave him? Because he can give you children?”
“You didn’t answer the question,” she said. “If children were in the equation, would you still be so in love with me? I mean, you got a vasectomy for a reason, right?”
This gave him a moment of pause. In his mind, the vasectomy had been the end of the story, serving the purpose of not having to worry about accidentally impregnating the women he shared a bed with. The truth was that the break-up with Eva had turned him off the idea of marriage all together, and he’d thought he’d turn out like his uncle—a lifelong bachelor who could always be found with a new woman on his arm from year to year. Getting the vasectomy had also quelled the argument once and for all with his uncle who kept on insisting he should get married to a nice Russian girl and have a son to take over the family business. The thought of putting a son in the same position he’d be in had been enough to convince him to go through with the minor surgery.
But if this was all that stood between Eva and him, and if this was the one bargaining chip the other man had that he did not, then he was willing to bring it into the negotiations. “I will try to get it reversed, but there are no guarantees. We might have to look into other ways of starting a family.”
“So you would be okay with kids?” she asked with obvious suspicion in her voice.
“If it is the only way to keep you by my side, yes,” he answered.
And once again she started shaking her head. “I’ve seen what happens when guys who don’t want kids have to deal with them. It’s one of those things, you either want them are you don’t.”
“And Aaron wants them?”
“What Aaron wants shouldn’t matter. Children aren’t bargaining chips in negotiations. If you’re only agreeing to the possibility of having a family with me, so you can win me, I can’t accept that.”
It worried him that she sorted out his business tactic so easily, and even went so far as to say the words he had thought to himself, like “bargaining chip” and “negotiation.” Once again, he consulted his mental book of business tactics. Usually, when he found himself at this point in a business discussion, where the person on the other side of the table was bringing up legitimate reservations to something he was proposing, he’d simply bide his time, reset with a better argument, and come back to the table with it.
“The truth is, I do not know how I feel about children. I have not considered the possibility of them for a very long time.” Alexei was proud of himself for coming up with this answer, which would buy him the time he needed to work out the problem, maybe even get Emilio’s opinion on the matter.
He pulled her back into the circle of his arms. “Perhaps what we both need is more time to think about this. Do not say yes or no to any of my proposals right away. I only ask that you think about them.”
She peeped up at him. “Just think about them?”
“That is all.” He pressed a kiss to her delicious mouth, the one he couldn’t bear to think of another man claiming.
“How about Ms. Threesome?” she asked.
He captured her hand and laid it on his chest. “Ms. Threesome and I have not seen each other for anything more than dinner and formal events since Nathan and Layla’s wedding.”
Finally that beautiful smile of hers came back to her face. “Not that I have the right to ask.”
“I like that you asked. I have never seen you jealous before.”
The smile disappeared again. “I’m not jealous.”
And he leaned down to kiss her. “This is fine, if you would like to believe it. But just in case you are not being fully truthful, you should know I would rather be with you than in a million threesomes with a million Carolines.”
She didn’t say anything to that, but she did swing her leg over his torso, positioning her mound directly over his softened dick and rubbing it against him, “Is this okay?”
His cock answered for him, swelling inside her wet folds and giving her something to really rub against. “Da,” Another idea occurred to him. “Whatever you do is okay. For this time you will set the pace.”
Her face lit up. “You, Alexei Rustanov, are giving little ol’ me, Eva St. James, control.”
He nodded and let his hands fall to his sides, even though his instinct was to drop them on either side of her hips in order to set the pace and keep them balanced in his half-supine position.
“Whatever I want?” she asked.
Desire for her fell over him like a warm blanket and he could feel his mind, which had been so sharp about trying to negotiate Eva away from her current relationship a few minutes ago, growing hazy with lust. “Da,” he said again.
That was all it took for her to start to move on top of him, this time slowly running her pussy lips from the bottom of his dick all the way to the bulbous top. The sensation was unbelievable, and bolts of hardcore, Grade A ecstasy ripped through his pelvis. It was all he could do not to grab her hips and slam inside her.
Then she did it again.
His hands fisted the sheets. And he gave himself a sharp command to stay in control, to not release outside of her like a school boy.
But then she did it again. And this time it was the wettest, slowest stroke yet.
“Eva,” he said. “Eva, please. Please.”
And she smiled, widening her eyes with mock surprise. “How did you guess I wanted you to say my name and beg?”
She then leaned forward and stroked him with her pussy lips again, but this time when she got to the top of his dick, she worked its head inside her. She didn’t even have to guide him in, he was so hard and she was so ready for him. Soon enough, he was embedded all the way to the hilt, but at an angle that wouldn’t give her clit the attention it needed for her to come in this position.
As if picking up on his analysis, she began to ride him, then said. “Touch me.”
He didn’t have to ask what she meant. At least in bed, he knew her better than she knew herself. He rubbed the side of his thumb against her clit and enjoyed the show of her breasts bouncing as she moved on top of him.
She moaned and said, “Just like that, and speak Russian to me, baby. Like you used to.”
It was a relief to be able to tell her all the things in his heart in his native language. “I want to be with you” and “You are mine” and “I will never not want you” and “You make me happy” and last but not least, “I love you, Eva, I love you.”
Maybe she remembered the Russian words for love, because she flew apart soon after he said it. She then fell onto Alexei’s chest as he unloaded inside her, her pussy still milking his dick as she rubbed her face against his shoulder while he said, “Kotenok… kotenok… kotenok…” over and over.
Afterwards, they didn’t talk. He switched off the lights from the control panel near his side of the bed and settled in behind Eva, spooning her as had become his habit over the course of their vacation, with one arm around her waist and the other providing her with a pillow for her head.
He luxuriated in being able to hold her close like this after having loved her physically. And he refused to think there was a scenario in which this affair would end with her going back to Aaron. They were too perfect together, and they were meant for each other. He’d figure out a way to keep her by his side.
Still, he couldn’t help but note as he drifted off to sleep that she had yet to say she loved him back.
Chapter Nineteen
EVA woke up and disentangled herself from Alexei around three in the morning. Really, saying she woke up was stretching it, since she hadn’t been able to do much more than lightly doze after the bomb Alexei dropped on her.
“I love you, kotenok.”
Her traitorous heart all but sang the memory back to her as she climbed out of bed, even as yet another wave of dread flooded her stomach. She loved him, too, would like more than anything to tell him how she felt. But there were two things holding her back now.