Married By Christmas: His Pregnant Christmas Bride / Carter Bravo's Christmas Bride
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Coming back to her, he gave her his full weight, which she always begged him for after the storm, his heartbeat a slow thunder against her decelerating one, completing the spell.
She was drifting off when he rose off her, dragging a crisp sheet over her cooling, enervated body. She tried to rouse herself, and he spread soothing kisses over her brow.
“Sleep a while, moya dorogoya. I exhausted you and now I must refuel you.”
Knowing he’d get them breakfast, she sank back in his indulgence and the echoes of his scent and passion.
* * *
Ivan took his time preparing breakfast, to let Anastasia rest. He really shouldn’t have taken her twice in a row like that, after a night when he’d done it three times. His insatiable need for her frightened him at times. But at least it only seemed to delight her. She was always hungering for everything he could give her. And he gave her way too much at times.
He now walked back into their bedroom with a tray laden with everything she loved. His lips spread, remembering her accusing him of having a nefarious plot to fatten her up. He’d admitted he would enjoy having more of her to fill his arms, to fondle and squeeze and worship.
Not that he didn’t find her perfect no matter her weight. But it was such a relief that after weeks of escalating delight in each other’s company, her appetite had returned. She was also back to exercising and had never been more, as she’d said earlier of him, painfully, distressingly beautiful.
Placing the tray down on the bedside table, he luxuriated in watching her sleep off their latest lovemaking. Her lush body was tangled in sheets the color of her hair. Her thick lashes fanned her softly flushed cheeks, her lips swollen with his passion and her wild locks strewn over his pillow.
Suddenly, a white-hot spasm stabbed his gut as images of her bathed in her own blood and Alex’s tore into his mind. Seeing her that way now, the image of health and contentment, had emotions raging through him. Every violent emotion, sublime and searing collided inside him, buckling his knees. He sank down on the mattress, a shaking hand reaching out to touch her, to assure himself all over again that this was the reality, that he had her with him, safe and whole and happy.
Her eyes fluttered open, absolute welcome and joy filling them at once. He forced himself to breathe, struggling to banish the brutal images that assailed him regularly back into the deepest dungeon of his memory.
Stretching and yawning delightedly, she sat up, looking like a goddess of voluptuousness, her breasts full and firm, her waist nipped, her thighs long and sleek, her hair gleaming gold around her strong shoulders. His body roared all over again. He tamped it down as viciously. It was enough he’d been all over her the moment he’d found her awake, not even giving her a chance to freshen up or eat. He really had to do something about his perpetual arousal, the need to possess her as many times as she could withstand every single day. He shouldn’t unleash seven years’ worth of deprivation on her. Even if she was breathlessly willing.
But she was now getting on her hands and knees, slinking toward him like a mischievous cat, rubbing against him very much like one, before turning all human female, pressing her softness into his hardness, turning his arousal to distress.
Pushing him on his back, she lay on top of him, pressing her every hot inch to his. “It’s you I want to feast on.”
He gazed up at her, needing to tell her so much, yet still unable to, the unuttered confessions a constant burning coal in his throat. “I’ll be right here after you eat. I’ll always be there for you to take your fill of me.”
Next moment, her response made him like everything had come crashing down.
Wrapping one lock of the hair he’d grown longer as per her request, her smile inexorable seduction, she asked, “Always? Even when I go back home?”
Eight
Anastasia could no longer keep the knowledge from herself.
Not that she’d really kept it hidden. It was just she hadn’t given her all-encompassing, overwhelming emotions for Ivan a name, not since he’d come back. But it had been a constant in her life, even when she’d thought he’d left her forever.
She loved him. Had always and would always love him.
But though he behaved as if he loved her as passionately, as absolutely, and was profuse with extravagant actions and endearments, he never put his emotions into those words. So neither had she. And in spite of everything he’d done, everything they’d shared, she dreaded that he’d one day suddenly end it again.
And that wasn’t another attack of anxiety or paranoia. She had reason to think what she did. It had started that morning two weeks ago, when she’d introduced the subject of going home.
He hadn’t answered her, had done it smoothly, heaving up to engulf her in kisses and coddling, feeding her breakfast before making love to her again.
He’d expertly avoided the subject since, diverting the conversation each time she tried to take it there.
By now she knew if she left it up to him, she’d never go home.
Though he’d been struggling not to show it, he’d been on edge, anticipating that his evasive tactics would soon run out, and they’d have a confrontation. She feared that when that happened, this rarefied state they’d been living in would come to an end. And this time, he would let her go.
Just minutes ago, she’d reached critical mass. She couldn’t go one more hour without finally having this out.
Her footsteps faltered outside his office before she came into his view. He always left the door open, as if perpetually afraid she’d need him and he wouldn’t be aware of it at once.
She inhaled one last bolstering breath and walked in.
His eyes flashed that all-out welcome at her sight. He rose at once from his massive mahogany desk with the multiple computer screens at his back. But his eager steps slowed down when he saw her face clearly. She was sure she looked as tense as she felt.
The momentary slowing turned into urgent strides that had him catching her by her shoulders in an anxious grip in seconds. “What is it, moya dorogoya? You’re not feeling okay?”
Gripping his hands she tried to stem his anxiety, what could soar at the slightest provocation. “I’m fine, really. Don’t start worrying. I just...wanted to talk to you.”
His face emptied. But in the blankness she could see one important fact. He knew what she was going to talk about. And if he could have done anything to stop her, he would have. But she’d cornered him this time, and he could do nothing to escape the subject. And he hated it.
It made her almost back down. How she hated to force this confrontation, too. But it had to come, sooner or later. And now she knew it would, she could no longer postpone it and live in this progressively debilitating suspense.
Gathering all her strength of will, trembling inside in apprehension at the possible outcome, she said, “I’ve tried to bring it up before, but you clearly weren’t ready to discuss it. I let it go as long as I could, Ivan, I really did. But I can’t do it anymore. Even after what happened, the condition I was in when I first came with you, being with you here has been the most magical time of my life. But...”
His hands caught her arms again. “There shouldn’t be any buts. It is magic, being together. And I never want anything to break the spell.”
“I’ve thought about it long and hard from every angle, and now that I’m healed, inside and out as much as I ever will be, I’ve changed my mind. I won’t sit back and let you pull strings to honor Alex’s memory. I will do that. I owe it to him, to our parents and to Cathy and the kids. I owe it to myself. Only then can I get closure and change my path.”
His jaw muscles bunched, but he finally nodded. “Very well. If you will let me orchestrate this to the best outcome, you can be the one to make the final steps and announcements.”
Grabbing his hand, she planted a fervent kiss in his palm. “Thank you...” He started to protest and a finger on his lips silenced him. “Just let me thank you, Ivan, please. I need to give you my thanks far more than you hate receiving it.”
He gave another reluctant nod, before his eyes lightened, as if with relief. “If this is why you want to go back...”
She had to stop him. “No, it isn’t. I do have a life back in the States, Ivan, a life I want to go back to. But I need you to tell me what going back would mean for us. I know you thrive on solitude, but I don’t. I needed it for a while, to regain myself and my stability. But I can’t continue being with you in such isolation from the rest of the world.”
“Why not? It has been perfect that way.”
“It has been more than perfect, but it has also been like a pocket universe, an alternate reality. We can’t exist in this bubble forever. You have friends who’re as close as family to you, and I do have a family. Two families.”
At her last words, something dark and terrible filled his gaze. Something elemental. Bleakness? Revulsion? Even despair?
When families had been mentioned at the beginning of their relationship in the past, he’d only said he was orphan, adopted and abandoned again at an early age. It had been her cue never to mention family to him again, avoiding mention of her own in deference to his sensitivities.
But did it go beyond sensitivity? Did the scars of his childhood go way deeper than what she’d ever estimated? Did he abhor the idea of family, especially one that would invade his life, as hers would, through her?
If this was true, where would this leave them?
Heart pounding with trepidation, she ventured a direct gaze into those grim eyes and broached the subject that had been an unspoken taboo between them. “I realize family isn’t something you consider kindly, and rightfully so, but my experience with family is nothing like yours. I—I love my family. I need them.”
The sheer pain that came into his eyes made her hate herself for causing it. His next words, forlorn and agonized, hit her even harder.
“I thought you needed me.”
“I do. Oh, God, I do. But needing them, too, wouldn’t make me need you any less, wouldn’t interfere in our relationship.”
His whole face twisted as if unbearable bitterness had just flooded his mouth. “It will. And I can’t abide something coming between us.”
Dreading his answer, she knew she could no longer dance around the subject, had to ask him pointblank.
“What will you do if—when—I go back to my life, the life that includes my family? Will you disappear again?”
This time he said nothing, his silent rejection far harsher than if he’d spoken it. A dozen emotions seethed in his eyes as they fixed on hers. It felt as if he was trying to bend her to his will, to make her relinquish this intention. And she had to face what she’d long avoided facing.
Ivan was incapable of leading a life among others. He was the wolf she’d once jokingly accused him of being. A lone wolf. If she wanted to be his mate, it would be either him or the rest of the world.
But though it would have been a terrible choice, knowing the nature of his scars, she would have chosen him over anything. If she didn’t fear his inexplicable moods, what stemmed from his unknown and not-to-be-known past. If she didn’t dread his future abandonment.
But there was so much she didn’t know about him, and about the reasons he’d left her in the past. With so many things she couldn’t understand about him, so much he hid from her, she couldn’t bet her heart, her life and future on him.
It felt as if her heart broke for real, and, her chest was tightening over its jagged pieces, until she couldn’t stop herself from crying out with the pain.
Her desperation released some shackle that had been holding him back and he caught her in a fierce embrace.
“Don’t leave, moya dusha. Don’t leave me.”
She sobbed her desolation. “I never want to leave you. But I can’t remain here where I have no life outside of you.”
“Then I’ll make you a life. Anything you want.”
“I only ever wanted you. Going back doesn’t make this any less true. It’s you who’s putting an impossible condition on being with you. You don’t have to be involved with my family in any way if you don’t want, but you can’t expect me to just cut them off, too. You don’t have to come back with me. Just say you will be back for me.”
Again, his oppressive, horrible silence in the face of her entreaty, where all doubts mushroomed, shrieked for her to cut her losses. To go now, before leaving him became impossible, or even worse, before nothing much of her survived leaving him.
Feeling like she was reaching inside her chest and ripping her shattered heart out, her shaking hands undid his grip on her arms. “I want to go back to the States now, please, Ivan. You are free, as always, to do what’s best for yourself.”
* * *
Ivan had done what Anastasia had asked him.
He’d taken her back to the States. He’d insisted he’d be the one to drive her to her parents’ doorstep, even when she’d tried to convince him Fyodor had better do it.
She hadn’t wanted him to come with her in the first place. Extending the goodbye for all these hours, and up until these last moments, had been brutal, for both of them.
But he couldn’t let her out of his sight before he saw her safe inside her family home. Only his overpowering reluctance now let her walk to their door on her own, rolling the single suitcase she’d packed from the innumerable things he’d bought her.
He sat in the car watching her go, paralyzed, unable to move a muscle or make a sound to stop her.
Knowing he shouldn’t stop her.
All he could do was cling to her every nuance as she rummaged shakily for her house keys. She hadn’t told her parents she was coming home, didn’t even ring the bell. She probably didn’t want to hurt him with the sight of her family receiving her in tearful welcome, when she thought his hang-ups stemmed from having no family of his own.
Her consideration tore at him all over again, her every move as she fumbled to open the door more slashes to his bleeding psyche. Then without a last look, she stumbled in and closed the door.
The moment she did, Ivan felt his heart being crushed. Literally. What else explained that stab that sank into his heart, making him lurch forward, his head shaking on the steering wheel and his lungs tightening on what felt like broken glass?
Giving in to the agony, he almost wished that it was a real heart attack, and that it wouldn’t spare him. Almost. He couldn’t wish for his life to end as long as Anastasia existed. As long as she needed him. As he knew she did.
But she needed more than him to complete her healing. She needed to resume her life. He’d tried to put that moment off for as long as he could, plying all his diversion tactics to postpone it. But even before she’d confronted him yesterday he’d already known. If he loved her, he should let her go.
And how he loved her.
He’d long admitted to himself that the all-consuming feeling that had blossomed into life from their first meeting and had only intensified as he’d gotten to know her, was love.
No. Far more than love. He now fully knew what his brothers, Antonio, Rafael, Raiden and Numair, even Richard, felt for their soul mates. This absolute admiration and allegiance, this endless desire and devotion. And he wanted with her what they had with them.
Union, children, permanence. Everything.
But that also meant being in extreme proximity with his own family, since they were a close and constant part of her life.
In her efforts to convince him that going back home, reentering her family’s life wouldn’t impact him or their relationship, she’d as good as pledged he didn’t have to see any of them. But he knew this was impossible. How could he make her live in this abnormal state, torn between him and those who’d raised her? How could he force her to split herself in two, part for him and part for them, keeping the two halves separate, with her contentment lost in the middle?
He couldn’t. He’d taken her away knowing it was best for her. He shouldn’t have pressured her to remain in isolation with him the moment he’d realized it was no longer the case.
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