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Roman was more beautiful than she remembered.
His hair was shorter than she recalled but was still black and glossy. The black eyes that met hers warned her heart to still fear him, for even after all these years he had the absolute power to hurt her again.
She could not recover from losing him twice.
Three times, in fact, but she chose not to go there in her mind.
It would seem that the years of despair she had suffered through had suited him. The man she looked back at was polished and poised and the cologne she now inhaled was heady.
He commanded her senses—he always had, for whether he wore cheap denim or a designer suit, the effect of Roman up close was the same.
Her senses did not point out the differences.
They did not care that the fingers that came to her shoulder were now manicured.
Just his touch had her fighting not to arch her neck, to rub her cheek against his hand.
He was back.
That was all she knew.
And as his hand remained on her shoulder, the contact had her eyes close in the ecstasy of his touch.
‘Brava,’ he said.
‘Roman.’ It was all her voice would allow.
For Roman, just one word was almost too much—hearing his name from her lips, the familiar slight huskiness of her voice, made locked-away memories pour in.
Finding out that his brother had married, that Daniil’s wife had just had a baby, had hit Roman like a fist. Knowing that he had a niece and that his twin was now a father had been difficult and he had fought not to make contact.
He could remember a worker speaking with him on the day of the fight, the last time the four had shared a dorm. Called into the office, Roman had been nonchalant as he’d been used to being in trouble.
‘Daniil is talking about not taking this opportunity unless they adopt you too.’
Roman had sat.
‘They don’t want you.’
Roman had said nothing.
‘Do you remember when you were four and that family took you for a walk?’
‘Nyet.’
‘They were a married couple and were considering adopting the two of you, but they said you were too wild.’
Roman had vaguely recalled something of the kind. They had been taken to a park and he had remembered standing on a swing for the first and only time.
‘Back then we said we would prefer not to separate twins. Roman, Daniil lost an opportunity once because of your poor behaviour. Don’t let this happen again.’
‘Tell him that if he goes, when I am older—’
‘No.’ Immediately the worker had interrupted him. ‘I don’t think you understand the opportunity this is. Daniil will be receiving a private education, he will be given the best chance for a new life. Do you want your twin to have to look out for you? To support you?’
Never.
‘You need to do the right thing by him and let him go for good.’
And he had.
Daniil now worked in London. Roman told himself he was here to purchase a property—that it happened to coincide with Firebird’s return was a coincidence.
In the end he had bought a ticket for tonight’s performance.
Dressed in a black suit, ready to leave his luxurious hotel, Roman had sat on the edge of his bed and stared at the earring and told himself to tear up the ticket.
To not go back.
He had made a vow to himself that he never would.
Yet he had gone to the ballet and watched silently in a box seat. His breath had caught when Anya had first briefly appeared on the stage.
And then again.
He had watched her dance and had ached with pride for all she had achieved.
That little girl who had diligently practised over and over in the kitchen, the teenager who had devoted herself to her dream was now a prima ballerina.
And she could not have made it this far with him.
He knew that for a fact.
Standing to applaud, Roman had meant to leave then, to slip away with the precious memory of watching Anya perform at her peak, but unable to resist he had called out to her. He had watched her face lift and her eyes search for him and he admitted to himself that he had lied about slipping away, for he had brought with him the gold earring that he had found on the floor as he had cleared out his bedsit.
No, he reasoned, for he took it with him everywhere.
Would she want to see him?
Roman didn’t know.
And now Anya asked a question he could not answer properly.
‘Why are you here?’ she said. They spoke in Russian and it had been a long time since Roman had used his native tongue, but he slipped into it with unexpected relief.
‘To congratulate you, of course,’ Roman said. ‘You made it. I always knew that you would.’
He leant forward and Anya breathed in again the heady scent of him and felt his arm brush her bare shoulder as he placed the missing earring on her dressing table.
She picked it up and remembered them at eighteen, lost to the world, wanting only each other.
‘You told me you couldn’t find it.’
‘I couldn’t,’ he said. ‘But when I packed...’
He had packed everything he had into a small backpack and left without even a goodbye.
‘You could have come and given it to me.’
‘No,’ Roman said. ‘Because we would have ended up making love. It had to be that way.’
She couldn’t dispute that they would have ended up making love, neither could she forgive his choice to leave, but that he had kept her earring for all these years meant so much.
Anya wanted to open the small box and put the earring with its partner but she decided to do that once he had gone. She did not want Roman to know just how much she had missed him, so she placed it back down and stood and turned to face him. She was tiny compared to his large frame. Her breathing was too shallow but face him she would, even if it nearly killed her to do so and to see all she had lost.
He looked immaculate.
His glossy black hair was superbly cut, he was beautifully clean shaven and scented with expensive cologne. His suit was exquisite, so much so that she reached up and touched the lapel. His chest was a toned wall of muscle beneath her fingers and she could feel tears pooling in her eyes as she saw a different Roman from the impoverished youth she had known.
His hand came and took hers, at first to remove it, because contact was too much, but then it closed over hers.
Now she lifted her eyes to his and they stared and the years that had parted them seemed to drift away.
No one could move her like Roman and it was the same for him.
‘Where have you been?’ she asked.
He did not answer when there was so much she needed to know; she could almost feel his reluctance to tell her.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘It does to me.’
‘I cannot stay long.’ Roman shook his head yet still he held her hand.
‘You could at least take me to dinner—we can talk properly. There is so much to catch up on.’
‘Don’t you have an after party to go to?’ Roman checked. From the shadows he had watched her accept the duchess’s congratulations and had heard the chatter.
Still they held hands, but now their fingers were entwining and their palms were exerting beats of pressure as the flame that had never died started to burn brightly again.
‘I can miss it.’
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘We didn’t do too well at dinner last time, remember?’
A laugh caught in her throat as she remembered the one time they had been in a restaurant together. Roman, trying to make his way as a boxer, had taken her out for a Valentine’s Day dinner, using his winnings from a fight.
Valentine’s Day had still been relatively new in Russia but Anya had wanted to celebrate it.
She had wanted flowers and, of course, chocolate.
Roman had taken her to a restaurant, though.
The first restaurant they had been turned away from as Roman had not had a jacket and tie, and in the other restaurant it had been just as much hell on the inside.
A menu had been handed to him, when he had never known such a thing even existed.
There had been a wine menu too.
He had wanted to give her everything, except he’d had nothing to give.
Nothing.
But he had taken care of her aching body after rehearsals and soothed her panic as she’d prepared for an important audition.
They had lain in his room and talked, they had glimpsed a future, even if Katya had said it would be an impossible one.
And then, without warning, he had gone.
‘You left me...’ She said it with the pain she had felt then and his hand was warm over hers as she jabbed at his chest.
‘Anya, I had to. You would not be where you are today had I stayed’
‘You don’t know that.’
‘But it’s true,’ Roman said. ‘You wanted to get to Saint Petersburg and you did.’
‘You could have come too. We could have got a flat—’
‘It would never have worked, Anya. I could not afford a flat for us and neither could I sit back and say nothing about...’
He did not finish, both knew what he referred to.
Oh, their night at the restaurant had been such a disaster.
They had left and gone back to the small bedsit he’d had and it had been the blackest of Valentine’s Days. Roman had lain there, knowing that he had embarrassed her with his unpolished ways.
No.
Anya had stared at the ceiling, wondering how she might excuse that three-course meal. There had been steak and hren, a horseradish relish that she adored, as well as wine. A large meal, though, was the very last thing she’d needed before such an important audition. She’d known he had spent everything that he’d had. Roman had thought good food would help her tomorrow. Yet it had sat on her stomach like lead and she’d known it would weigh her down.
Once she’d been sure he’d been asleep she had crept to the tiny bathroom and knelt down and done what she’d had to do to make the next day work.
Her shame when the lights had gone on she felt again now.
The row that had followed had been as passionate as they.
‘What the hell are you doing to yourself?’ Roman had shouted.
‘You don’t understand how tough the competition is.’
‘Nothing is worth that! Anya, your mother is wrong to tell you...’
He never got to finish.
Embarrassed at being caught, still trying to save the situation, Anya had jumped to Katya’s defence. ‘She does what is best for me. Roman, you don’t understand families.’
She’d regretted her choice of words so badly because Roman’s eyes had shuttered.
It was the last conversation they’d had.
No, Anya thought, perhaps he could not have sat back idly as she’d done what she’d had to in order to get where she was. She had never made herself vomit since that time. Instead she controlled her portions and worked hard on her body, but few understood the discipline required.
‘Where have you been?’ Anya asked.
‘France,’ he said. ‘Corsica...’
‘So you did join the Foreign Legion?’ She just stared at his huge hand over hers and tried to hold tears back.
‘Yes.’
Anya knew about the French Foreign Legion because during their precious time together Roman had hinted that it was an option, and so when he had left she had looked into it. Legionnaires were given a new identity, passport and birth certificate.
Their pasts were wiped clean.
And it meant that the soldier you loved so much might die but you would never know.
‘Rather than be with me?’
‘I needed it, Anya. I needed a new start.’
‘So what is your new name?’
Again he didn’t answer her and Anya knew he would not be allowed to reveal his new identity. He should not even be here as visiting the past was strictly forbidden.
‘Roman.’ Anya answered her own question, for he would always be Roman to her. Yes, maybe the details had changed but he was still Roman to her heart. The feelings she’d had for him had never left, now though they heightened.
‘Are you still in the legion?’
‘No.’
‘How long were you there?’
‘Ten years.’
Which would have brought him to twenty-eight, and, given he was almost thirty-two, it meant that there were four years missing.
‘So, why are you here now?’
Because, despite so many promises to himself, he’d been unable to stay away.
‘I had to see for myself that you are okay.’
‘Then you’ll leave?’
‘Yes.’
He had to.
He did not want to complicate her life.
Always he had.
And he had read that she was dating Mika. He had always assumed male dancers were just pretty boys in tights.
His opinion had changed tonight.
‘Anya, I just came to see that you were doing well and it is clear that you are.’
‘Then go.’
Yet he did not.
They stood there, staring at each other, having a conversation, not with their mouths but with their eyes, just as they had in the early days. Then she would look across the sparse dining room and meet his solemn gaze.
Did you miss me? she asked without words.
His eyes told her that he had. They were black, the colour of coal, and they glinted the same way and could make her burn too.
His gaze moved down to her painted mouth and he would kiss her, she knew, because he had taken a tissue from her dressing table and was now removing her lipstick.
And she let him.
Even as he wiped off the crimson to expose the flesh of her lips, Roman knew he should walk away.
What the hell had he been thinking, that he could come and watch her dance and then simply leave?
Not a chance.
They were staring deep into each other’s eyes and their breathing was in the rhythm of the first time just before they had kissed.
Then Anya had come out of the stage door and faced Roman, then a man.
Tonight, though, as she put her hands up to his face, unlike then, he didn’t flinch.
He just felt the soft probe of her fingers explore his face.
Such a beautiful face, Anya thought. High cheekbones, black eyes that were embedded in her mind and the lips that had taken her to heaven would let her glimpse it again now.
‘I kiss you goodbye,’ Roman said.
He did not say, Can I kiss you? Roman had never needed to ask.
His kiss was gentle and it surprised her for his kisses had previously been hot and rather rough. Now, though, he lowered his head and cupped her chin and softly kissed her lips, and they rediscovered each other. Anya’s lips parted and he slipped his tongue into her mouth. They tasted each other, when they had starved for each other, but then he kissed her roughly again.
He pulled her tight into his body and she had never been held as Roman could hold her. He just owned her body and as her tutu was crushed against his suit his mouth ravaged hers.
He took her mouth in a deep, passionate kiss that made her hands move to his chest just to feel the strength and the power, never to push him away.
He pulled her harder into him. His hand was in the small of her back, warm and sensual, yet the barrier of the fabric of her tutu briefly halted it from moving lower. It did not perturb him for long, and now his hand roamed her bottom.
Their tongues were mingling, their passion building, and it was a kiss that could no longer be classed as a farewell kiss for their bodies were greeting each other’s again.
She could feel him pressed hard on her stomach, and his other hand now touched her breast, and though they rued the fabric that separated their skin, still it felt blissful. His thumb caressed her nipple and she ached for her breast to be naked in his hand.
‘Tatania...’ There was a knock at the door and she could hear the dresser wanting to come in.
They stopped kissing but still he held her, still he stroked her breast, and they stared into each other’s eyes. She could feel his erection and, more than that, she could feel his body was broader, more primed, and she ached, simply ached for him, for the years he had denied her his touch, his body.
She should tell him to go, and now was her chance to do just that.
Roman knew too that he should leave.
Once, their eyes said.
Just this once.
Their bodies could kiss the other goodbye.
‘I will deal with my costume,’ Anya shouted through the door in Russian. ‘You are to leave me.’
Roman would deal with her costume, Anya knew, as without a word he went and turned the key in the door.
He was back.
For their closing night.
CHAPTER THREE
ANYA SHIVERED WITH want now, rather than stage fright.
Her legs, which had just a short while ago performed the most amazing feats, barely remembered how to walk as he took her by the hand and led her to the dressing-room chair. He moved it so that she faced to the side and he came round and got down on one knee.
He undid the silk ribbons of her pointe shoes and slipped them off, and Anya grimaced as he did so. Always, after a performance, it hurt to remove them.
There was blood on the toes of her ballet tights, even though she had worn in her shoes and bandaged her feet carefully. He caressed the soles of her feet and her sore heels and then he ran warm hands up her aching calves too.
Roman felt the cramped muscles beneath his fingers and he smoothed and soothed them for a couple of moments and Anya held onto his shoulder as she wished his hand would move higher.
‘Come on,’ he said in that deep low voice that made her throb, and as he stood so too did Anya and she lifted her arms.
Roman knew to be careful and his fingers found the small concealed zip and slid it down.
She stepped out of it and stood as he hung up her costume.
‘Don’t tell me I’m too thin...’
‘Shh,’ he said. He did not want to relive that final row. Instead he went to the waist of her ballet tights and slid them down. She was naked save for the bandages on her feet.
Again she sat on her dressing chair and he dealt with the bandages. Anya couldn’t help herself, she reached and touched his gleaming black hair, unable to believe he was really here after all those years apart.
Still kneeling, he looked up and observed her body. He saw the small breasts and she closed her eyes as he licked at one and then blew, and then toyed with her nipple between his lips.
She held onto his head as he took her breast in his mouth and sucked and then did the same to the other, took it so deep that it hurt, and her thighs shook but his hands held them down.
‘Roman...’
She was drunk on him, aching to be with him, and when he removed his mouth she caught her breath and watched as he parted her thighs and looked at her. Oh, she ached for him to bury his head there but he stroked her for a moment and slipped his fingers inside and then ran a figure of eight with one damp finger around her clitoris. They smiled at the memory of their first time and her telling him where it was.
Roman had cared only for his pleasure back then.
At first.
Then he had discovered the sanctuary of her bliss.
Now he removed his finger and stood.
She could see his erection and then she felt it for herself, running her hand over and over it as he unbuckled his belt. She took it out as he removed his tie and undid the buttons of his shirt so his chest was bare, but he left his shirt and jacket on.
Such beauty, she thought as she licked her lips and lowered her head to take just one small taste.
That turned into more.
The feathers of her headdresses moved and shivered and teased against his toned stomach, soft and tender, unlike the feel of her skilled mouth that gave rapid flicks and enslaved him. Roman’s breathing tripped into a moan that was a familiar one and turned Anya on totally.
She took him deeper but now more slowly as his fingers worked the pins of her headdress and, care forgotten, he tossed it aside and pushed her head lower.
His fingers were busy freeing her hair, and then he lifted her head. He was so close to coming and she licked her lips. He raised her, lifted her body against his and kicked away the chair. He brushed away all her carefully placed trinkets in one motion and then placed her on the dressing table. Anya stroked him as he carefully angled the mirrors so that there were hundreds of them and then he pulled her bottom to the edge of the table and parted her legs, and in his deep gravelly voice he told her that he was going to fill her with ecstasy.
He did.
Anya gripped tight to the edge of the table and arched back as he drove in.
He tore into her and the pain and bliss of their first time was replicated.
Roman had always loved to watch them, and now he looked down and widened her legs for better exposure, so that he could see himself glide in and out.
Anya looked at the mirror.
There they were, an endless stretch of Anyas and Romans but there were hundreds of images when instead there should be hundreds of memories, all denied to her by him.
‘I hate you for leaving,’ she sobbed as he started to thrust faster into her, and then she pressed her lips together so she would not reveal more of her hurt.
He did not look to the mirrors, he simply looked down and then when he had to have her body closer, he scooped her in to him and her skin was against his naked chest as her mouth found his.
Anya wrapped her legs around him and she was no longer on the table. She moved on him, and for all she had danced tonight, she did so again. Gripping him, grinding herself on him, wrapping toned legs tightly to his loins, and she held on as his powerful thighs allowed him to thrust harder.
She was fit enough not to require holding and now Roman’s large hands cupped her buttocks and he stroked them in deep rhythm till she shivered from the inside.
‘Stay still...’ he told her.
‘I can’t.’
‘I want to feel you.’
He knew she was almost there and now his hands held her rigid and would not allow her to move. He knew her body, and he was right, because as he held her still she felt him swell and he let out a primal grunt as he did what he had promised, filled her with ecstasy. The feel of him coming long and deep into her brought Anya to her own intense climax. It raced the length of her spine, she seized in his arms and pulsed and dragged out from him every precious drop and ached as still she fought for more.
They kissed and even now, Anya knew, she could have him again.
Such was their endless desire that, as they rested their foreheads on each other, Anya knew she could bring him back with just a few shifts of her hips—they could resume and chase oblivion again.
Their mouths meshed and their tongues mingled as her hips did just that, and she gripped and massaged him back, but there was knocking at the door.
Anya closed her eyes in frustration as she was informed that the car would soon be there to take her to the after party.
Their lips parted in regret and as Roman lowered her she never wanted her feet to hit the floor, but they did. She rested her head on his chest and drank in the scent of him, of them.
‘Did you love me?’
Anya had to know but he did not answer.
Almost fourteen years later and she still didn’t know.
Fourteen years without seeing him.
Only that wasn’t quite true, as he regularly appeared in her dreams.
But, no, there had been that one time she had seen him since then. It was something she had tried to erase from her memory.
A sight she would have preferred never to have seen.
Yet she had.
She looked up at his mouth, at his slight smile, and Anya knew how rare a smile from Roman was.
But then she looked into his eyes and was there a glint of triumph there?
Was that a smug smile at how easily he could have her? That, after all these years, he could walk back in and she would melt like a candle to his flame?