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“You almost did anyway when you not only left me, but left me so suddenly and without an explanation.”
His teeth made a grinding sound that made her wince, his eyes blazing like a cornered wolf’s. “I wanted it to hurt, so you’d forget me. When I realized I hurt you too much for you to ever venture into another relationship, I took solace in the fact that you were at least safe and successful. And I told myself that you might still find someone.”
Taking the opportunity to infuse a measure of lightness into the mood, she teased, “The someone you would have come back to take apart.”
His eyes squeezed shut. “I already admitted I’m messed up.”
She reached up to cup his face. “Well, I’m messed up, too, now, in case this is what’s still stopping you.”
“You’re nothing like me, moya dusha.” His hands covered hers over his face, his eyes full of so much emotions, it was dizzying. “You have no idea what I am.”
“I got a pretty good idea since you came back.” The shake of his head told her what she’d always suspected, that whatever she’d extrapolated, no matter how extravagant, wasn’t even close. She caught his face again, pleading with everything inside her. “Then don’t keep me in the dark any longer, Ivan. Don’t push me away anymore. Tell me.”
His eyes flared with such fierceness it made her gasp. Then he shook his head again, turned on his heel and headed for the balcony. And though it was already freezing out there, he threw the shutters open, as if he was escaping a fire.
Grabbing a thermal shawl off the back of the brocade couch by the balcony, Anastasia wrapped it around her shoulders and stepped out after him.
It was a crisp, clear night, the moon a waxing gibbous. The air was still, making the cold bearable. She watched him as he fisted his hands on the marble balustrade and tipped his head back as if he was gasping for breath.
He looked like a knight of old, silvered by the moon, carved from the night, invincible, incomparable, yet weary from battle. As if to accentuate his reaction to her approach, the wind gusted suddenly. His body stiffened more as she neared him, as if it was cast in bronze, the only animate things about him his satin mane rioting around his leonine head and his clothes rustling around his imposing frame.
“Ivan, please.”
He turned as the wind died down and the moonlight deposited glimmers in the emerald of his eyes. Stepping closer, mesmerized by his magnificence, she reached for one of the hands that had saved her, took it to
her lips.
His growled protest and attempt to withdraw his hand made her cling to it, cover it in kisses. “Besides everything you’ve done for me, letting me in, letting me understand, would be the best gift I could ever be given. Give it to me, please.”
Without warning, she tugged his hand. She hadn’t even intended to do that. Surprise made him jerk forward the step that separated them, ending up pressed against her from breast to calf. Her hand released his, went to his head, sifting through the silky locks, bringing it down to hers, pressing her longing against his forehead with lips that shook on a litany of pleas.
His groan sounded as if it tore through all his vitals to rasp on his lips. “I can’t, Anastasia. I can’t.”
Holding back tears, she let him go gradually, only so she wouldn’t sag to the ground. “As you wish, Ivan. Like you said I have a right not to tell you anything I didn’t want to, it goes the same way for you.”
Turning on her heel, she walked back into the warm room, felt him following her, closing the balcony door behind him. She heard his breathing leveling out and she knew what would come next. He’d take her back in his arms, start to arouse her, worship her, give her everything he thought she needed, but the one thing she truly did. Himself.
And she couldn’t take it anymore.
She was healed, was her old self again. Or maybe even a new self. One that couldn’t drift in this realm of coddling and contradictory behavior and withheld explanations anymore. One that needed answers. Direction. Solid ground, whatever it was, to stand on.
The moment his hands landed on her shoulders, she whirled away. “I’m sorry I pushed, Ivan. But I don’t need you to put me to bed. I can handle that on my own. I can handle giving myself pleasure, too. I’ve been doing it for years without you, after all. You also seem fine being without me, in the past and now.”
His huffed laugh was vicious, bitter, as if he’d never heard anything so ironic.
But it no longer mattered what he felt, that he’d never wanted anyone but her. Not if he didn’t act on it. And it was time to make him choose a path.
“I can accept that you can’t trust me with your secrets—”
“It has nothing to do with trust, Anastasia.” His objection was vehement. “I would trust you with my life and far more.”
“Whatever your reasons, I can live with knowing only what you choose to reveal to me. You were right, about what I would have done had you given me a choice in the past. I would have wanted to be with you, no matter the price. Even now, without knowing what is so unspeakable about you or about the reasons you left me that you can’t divulge, I still want you, Ivan. I crave you.”
At his urgent step, she raised a hand to stop him from coming closer, afraid she’d settle for whatever he gave her if he touched her again. “But I can no longer accept this status quo you’ve imposed on us. I can no longer exist in this limbo.” She paused, to brace herself for what she was about to say, to surmount the fear that when she did, it might end everything. Then she said it. “So it’s up to you, like everything has ever been. But this time I get to give you a choice, Ivan. Either take me, or let me go.”
* * *
Ivan’s heart felt it might race itself to a standstill.
