The Only Woman to Defy Him

CHAPTER SEVEN


DEMYAN ASSUMED, though correctly this time, that Alina’s red eyes were over him.

It was claustrophobic in the office, though the tension wasn’t all down to last night.

Demyan went to his room and tried to call Roman but got sent straight to voicemail.

Nadia texted to say she was moving things forward.

She was now planning for her and Roman to leave as early as next week and so, Demyan decided, would he. ‘Come now.’ He strode out of his bedroom. ‘We go and look at the farm.’

‘I’ll call your driver.’

‘Just call for the car,’ Demyan said. He was agitated, restless about the news from Nadia and also not in the least happy with his handling of Alina last night. The speeches were still playing in his head and her red, puffy eyes weren’t helping matters. ‘I’ll drive.’ As he went to put on his jacket he glanced down at her heels. ‘Did you remember your flats this time?’ Even as he said it, Demyan regretted the small tease. There would be no more mixed messages.

He just wasn’t prepared for her answer.

‘It’s fine,’ Alina said. ‘I’ve got some boots in my car, I’ll go down and get them.’

That was the woman she was, Demyan thought.

The trouble was, though, that he liked it.

As they left the city, Alina couldn’t help filling the silence.

‘I’d never have imagined you owning a farm. It’s just not the sort of property I’d picture you having...’

Demyan shrugged. ‘It is...’ He tried to think of the best way to describe it. ‘The constant toothache...’

‘Farms are.’

‘Always there is something to be done. If not the tenants needing something then there are boundaries or fences...’ He shook his head. ‘I should have sold it ages ago.’

‘Why didn’t you?’

Demyan was trying to keep it business on the two-hour drive there.

It was business, he had to remind himself as he told Alina what she needed to know.

‘This couple were friends of my aunt’s,’ Demyan said. ‘They had the neighbouring orchards. The property was left to me on Katia’s death. I was never going to live there...’ Alina glanced over, at his brief hesitation. ‘Well, I did consider it at one time. Then there were bush fires and Ross and Mary’s property and orchards were razed. I leased to them the house and my orchards. It has been twelve years. Their orchards are back...’ Demyan drove through the mountains, trying to ignore his own disquiet.

‘What about their home?’

‘They chose not to rebuild.’ He glanced over and saw her tight lips. ‘They can make an offer. They have a very successful business, flourishing orchards...’ He glanced over again. ‘You’re not writing it down.’

‘I don’t need to.’ Alina looked out of the window. ‘Our farm was described as flourishing too.’

‘What produce?’

‘Waratah.’ She knew from the silence he was waiting for her to explain. ‘They’re huge, red flowers, beautiful, like a big cabbage...’ Her voice trailed off. What would he care? ‘I just know farming’s hard. Selling produce is hard.’ Alina gave a tight smile. ‘Anyway...’

They drove the rest of the way in silence.

Business, Demyan told himself as he shook Ross’s hand.

Ross had calmed down since the phone call. Demyan had been good to them after all. No, they wouldn’t be making an offer, Ross said as Alina pulled on very well-worn leather ankle boots and they walked around.

This Christmas especially hadn’t been a great one and Demyan knew from his aunt that when you sold cherries in Australia for a livelihood you lived and died by Christmas.

It was just as hard as expected to be back at the property where he had spent those years with his aunt, years spent thawing just a little from a brutal life.

It was harder, though, than he’d imagined, a couple of hours of discussions later, to be back in the house, to wash his hands in the bathroom and catch sight of himself in a mirror and see a man staring back instead of a mistrusting youth.

‘We’ll do this as seamlessly as possible.’ Demyan said as he shook Ross’s hand. ‘Alina will be in contact and...’ His voice broke off. For once Demyan didn’t know how to conclude a business meeting.

‘Of course,’ Ross finished.

‘I made you some lunch.’ Mary’s eyes were as swollen as Alina’s had been that morning. ‘I know it must be hard for you too, Demyan. I remember when you first came here...’ She gave a soft laugh. ‘Look at you now.’

‘Times change.’

‘They do,’ Mary said. She offered him the basket of food. ‘I thought you might want to take a last look around.’

Demyan didn’t want one last look. He wanted to get into the car and drive off, to just drive away and never look back. To blow up the life he had built here because without Roman it meant nothing anyway.

Didn’t it?

‘Thank you.’

It would be rude to refuse, Demyan told himself.

Not that that had ever stopped him in his life.

They walked for ages, right up to the back orchards, and they walked in silence. Alina’s head felt as if it was exploding. There was so much about Demyan she loathed—the way he spoke to his ex-wife, that he wasn’t fighting for his son, that he was ripping up Ross and Mary’s lives when surely, surely they must mean something to him.

Clearly they didn’t.

She wanted to loathe him and yet...

Her world had never felt...

She had never felt as much as she felt now, walking through an orchard with Demyan beside her.

Alina felt like crying, like singing, like getting naked.

She just felt.

‘Do you want to take your lunch by that tree and I take the one here?’ Demyan said, teasing her about the agency rules. ‘Or you can eat in the car.’

‘Stop.’

‘I used to go there,’ he said, pointing to a huge willow, its branches bathing in the river. ‘It’s much cooler.’

He held the green curtain open for her and she entered his heaven.

‘I used to come here to think,’ Demyan said, though he didn’t tell her about what. ‘We will have dessert first.’ He took some scones and butter and cream and then smeared thick cherry jam on as Alina’s mouth watered. ‘I don’t believe in saving the best to last.’

He handed the scone to her and watched as she took a bite.

‘Good?’ he checked.

‘Amazing!’


‘Why were you hungry at high school?’ Demyan asked. ‘Was the food bad?’

‘The food was fantastic,’ Alina said. ‘But when you’re a big girl you really wear it if you go up for seconds.’

‘So you didn’t go up?’

‘No. It wasn’t worth the bitching from the other girls.’

‘I’d have told them—’ Demyan started, and Alina interrupted him

‘Mne pohuj,’ Alina said, and she was rewarded by a brief burst of deep laughter as she told him, in Russian, what she should have said to those bitchy girls—that she didn’t care a jot, only rather more rudely. Yes, she’d picked up a few Russian swear words, being around Demyan.

‘More emphasis on the po,’ Demyan said.

‘Your language is terrible.’ Alina smiled.

‘My language is excellent,’ Demyan said. ‘In Russia swearing is an art.’ He looked at her as she happily ate another scone. ‘Say it again.’

‘Nope,’ Alina said. ‘I’ll practise in private.’

‘Did you like growing up on the farm?’ Demyan asked.

‘I loved it.’

‘Do you have brothers or sisters?’

‘No.’

‘Your mother?’

‘She’s overseas, having some “me time”.’ Alina rolled her eyes. ‘She’s earned it apparently, raising me alone.’

‘Your father?’ Demyan fished.

Alina shrugged. ‘He left when I was three.’

‘Do you see him?’

‘No.’ The sting of rejection from her father burnt so badly. ‘Apparently he always wanted a working farm—that’s how Mum and he met, she was a florist... Anyway, I came along and he decided it was all too much and just walked out on it. Mum tried to keep it going and she did well for a few years but it was tough on her, getting up in the middle of the night for the flower markets...’ Alina shook her head. If she carried on talking about it she’d start to cry.

‘So why did you decide to be a PA?’

‘Because it’s a much more reliable way to make a living. Businesspeople will always need assistants...’

It wasn’t his place to tell her she was terrible at it.

Actually, it was his place.

Were it not for a very nice kiss, she’d have been fired. In fact, had he not been so hungover he’d probably have fired her the moment he’d realised she hadn’t a clue about real estate.

He hadn’t fired her, though. Perhaps because his skin didn’t crawl when he thought about her walking through his home, his things.

He’d even allowed her to tidy Roman’s room.

Demyan wondered if she had.

‘Do you get a lot of work through the agency?’

‘Some,’ Alina said, then admitted the truth. ‘Not an awful lot. I’m very grateful for my waitressing job.’ She took another bite of her scone rather than explain to a man who would never get it anyway how much safer she felt knowing her half of the rent was covered, that even if she didn’t get any work she had a meal at the restaurant four nights a week.

Had she told him, though, she might have found out that Demyan did, in fact, understand perfectly well.

‘Do you enjoy it?’

‘It’s a very nice restaurant, the staff are great...’

‘I was talking about being an assistant.’

Alina swallowed. ‘Of course.’ She flashed what she hoped was her corporate smile.

‘Alina...’

She stared back at him.

I hate it.

How could she say that?

How could she say to her temporary boss that for the most part she loathed her job? Oh, she tried to make the best of it, yet she was careering badly down a path that she had never really thought through stepping on; she was just too scared to follow the path that beckoned more loudly.

No, she couldn’t say that and so she turned the conversation to him.

‘This is where you first lived when you came to Australia?’

Demyan nodded. ‘My aunt ran it. She died when Roman was two.’ Alina swallowed. So rarely did he mention his son. ‘In fact, Katia died two days after my divorce was finalised. Nadia thought I should sell it but, given we were officially divorced, I told her...’ He paused and they shared a teeny smile as he contained his language. ‘That I did not care what she thought.’

‘That’s better!’

‘I suggested she live here but Nadia wanted the city. In the end I rented it out.’ He looked at Alina. ‘Suddenly I had equity.’

‘Your start?’

Demyan nodded.

‘Did you ever think of living here?’

‘Briefly.’ Demyan shrugged. ‘It was never really the same, though, once Katia had died. I thought of keeping it for Roman but...’ Demyan shrugged. ‘It seems he will be living in Russia.’

He could not go there; instead, Alina did.

‘Will you travel to Russia to see him?’

‘Of course,’ Demyan said, even though he felt ill at the thought. He had always sworn he would never go back. ‘I haven’t lost him.’

Alina frowned at his choice of word but then told herself that Demyan’s words were not always the correct ones. ‘Of course not.’

Demyan hadn’t even discussed this with his lawyer yet; he was precariously close to telling her, to admitting to what was killing him.

Yet he could tell no one.

Not even Roman.

Especially not Roman.

Demyan replayed Nadia’s words.

‘Please, just think about it. I’m not asking for for ever I just want us together...’

Nadia didn’t love him, she loved the glamour, the name, the money, and when Roman turned eighteen, that money would dry up.

Another loveless marriage?

Demyan thought about it.

Another expensive divorce?

Demyan thought about that too.

It wasn’t in the least palatable but if it meant that he kept the status quo—the life he had built, the times with his son in the country he had, for all these years, called home...

Checkmate.

Nadia had practically called it.

No.

He looked at Alina again. ‘Have you ever been in a serious relationship?’ He watched as her cheeks turned pink.

‘Not really,’ Alina said, then looked at him. ‘Not at all.’

‘Can I ask why?’

‘I don’t know,’ Alina admitted. ‘I knew that my dad had slept with half the village mums, I was always terrified there might be half-brothers that I didn’t know about, so that was rather offputting...’

‘Alina!’ Demyan gave a shocked laugh. ‘When you forget to be shy you are funny.’

‘I know,’ Alina said. ‘I make myself laugh all the time.’

‘Why haven’t you slept with anyone?’ He was deliberately more specific.

‘I don’t really know...’ How could she best explain it? ‘I’m not really into muscly, brawny guys, which is a shame because the pale, interesting men aren’t really...’ she looked at him. ‘What sort of a man do you think I should cut my teeth on?’

Demyan would prefer not to think about her with other men.

He lay on his back in their little green glade and tried to picture the ideal guy for Alina’s first.

He just couldn’t.

Or rather he could, but the image in his mind came with his face on.

He looked at her brown eyes and round face and imagined some sleaze giving her too much to drink, or someone awkward and shy who would simply make her more awkward and shy.


‘I was divorced with a five-year-old by the time I was your age,’ Demyan said.

‘I know.’ She was quiet for a very long moment. ‘Why did you two...?’ No one asked, no one ever had, but she was either foolish or brave enough to ask. ‘Why did you and Nadia break up?’

‘I wasn’t doing well enough,’ Demyan said, then hesitated. That wasn’t strictly true but he discussed it with no one, not even himself. Alina sat fiddling with the salt rather than look at him but her hand slipped and salt spilled on the blanket. Demyan felt the familiar clench to his throat and tried to ignore it. It was illogical to think that something as simple as spilling salt could cause disaster, but even all these years later he could hear his mother’s wailing and screaming, the slap to his cheek for a simple accident. He frowned as Alina took a pinch and threw it over her left shoulder.

‘What are you doing?’

‘You know...’ She gave a shy, embarrassed smile. ‘It’s bad luck to spill salt.’

‘And that counteracts it?’

‘It’s supposed to.’ She watched as he sat up and took some salt and went to throw it over his shoulder.

‘The left one,’ Alina said. ‘That’s where the devil sits.’

He looked into her eyes, saw her smiling face and the calm of her voice and the ice that had gripped him thawed just a little.

‘My mother was very superstitious,’ Demyan said.

‘Oh.’

Alina took a bite of her scone.

‘Very,’ Demyan said, and watched as she looked at him. He had never really spoken of it with anyone. That note to Alina had been the first time he had shared such a detail. Nadia had had no idea. She had laughed at the old superstitions and had happily placed an empty wine bottle on the table, and Demyan had long ago taught himself not to react, not to show weakness. ‘That speaker last night, I thought for a moment that we must share the same mother.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Alina said, and then blushed because she was talking with her mouth full. She quickly swallowed and took a mouthful of water. ‘Excuse me...’

‘Alina...’ He smiled. ‘Everything embarrasses you. Even when you are being kind, you have to excuse yourself for not...’

‘I know.’ She took another mouthful of scone, just so that she wouldn’t jump in and ask for more information, simply to give herself a small pause, because surely it was too personal to discuss, except Demyan had brought it up. And when her mouth was empty, the need to ask was still there.

‘How bad was she?’ she asked.

Her question wasn’t a knee-jerk reaction and Demyan was grateful for that.

Demyan lay back and closed his eyes for a moment and tried to keep it in, but being at the farm, losing Roman, that speech last night...he couldn’t.

Not today.

‘If I told anyone how bad she was I knew they would take her away,’ Demyan said. ‘So I tried to keep her world safe.’

‘How?’

‘You don’t want to know.’

‘I do.’

‘Lie with me, then,’ Demyan said, not because he wanted her beside him but because he just didn’t want to see her reaction when he spoke.

He told her, not all but enough to reveal the madness, the impossibility of his world—spitting three times, how you must not speak of a hopeful future, how he had left a school book once and returned to get it. ‘She was screaming and dragged me to the mirror. Everything was bad omens, everything was going to ensure we went to hell. The rituals for her drinking...’ He shook his head at the hopelessness of truly conveying it. ‘There was so much madness.’

‘So, how did you go—’ Alina wondered whether she should even ask ‘—raising Roman? Was it hard, given all you’d been through?’ Alina asked.

‘It was actually easy. I had a very good rule of thumb, I did the opposite to my mother. If Roman was scared of the dark, instead of joining his fear I turned on the light and read a story. If Roman cried, I cuddled him... If he walked on the cracks, I walked on them too... If he spills salt I just brush it off.’

‘Now you can just throw it over your shoulder,’ Alina said, but tears in her eyes marked the solemnity of the conversation. ‘How old were you when she died?’

‘Thirteen.’

‘Your father?’

‘I don’t know who he was.’

‘At all?’

‘He was poor,’ Demyan said. ‘Well, given how we lived, I assume that my mother didn’t charge much.’

He knew then why he was telling her this.

Be appalled, Alina, Demyan thought.

Gather your things now and we’ll head back to the car. He half hoped for it, for she was innocent and he was far from that.

Instead, Alina sat up and took another drink of water.

He watched her tongue lick over her lips and it was not a seductive move. Still, he felt it in his groin.

‘It sounds as if she was terribly ill.’

‘She was weak,’ Demyan said. ‘She chose drink...’ Then he paused and looked at Alina, who said it again.

‘She sounds as if she was ill.’ Alina thought about what he had said about his mother not charging much. ‘Is that why nothing shocks you?’ she asked, and he watched as her cheeks turned to fire.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well...everything shocks me. Maybe I was too sheltered. I mean, there was just Mum and I and then school was only girls...’

‘We’re taking about sex, yes?’ Demyan checked unnecessarily. He loved it that even her throat was red and then he thought of her breasts and whether or not it was convenient. Demyan was turned on, just at the thought of her shy, and then not.

‘Yes.’

They were talking about sex.

Alina lay back down.

‘I don’t think men...’ She faltered.

‘Go on.’

‘Fancy me.’

‘Wrong.’

‘Or if they do, then they don’t want to be seen with me.’

‘Alina, it was work.’

‘Even so, you didn’t want to...’

‘Wrong,’ Demyan said again. ‘I very much wanted to but you would have thought it...’ He circled his hand and she didn’t jump in. ‘A date.’

‘No.’

‘Yes,’ Demyan said. ‘You would have thought it a first date and then been upset when there wasn’t a second.’

‘How many second dates have you had?’

‘Survival rates are shocking,’ Demyan freely admitted. ‘If I were a hospital I’d be closed and audited.’ How could his appalling reputation make her giggle? ‘You will find that nice man one day, you just need confidence, experience...’

‘Ah, but you can’t get that without confidence and experience, it’s like trying to get a job.’

‘You’ve worked for me now,’ Demyan said, and their faces turned to one another, their eyes met and held. She felt her stomach fold over on itself as she stared into unblinking eyes. ‘You will have no problem getting any job you want now.’

‘Are we still talking about sex?’

‘Perhaps.’ Demyan thought about it for a long moment. So badly he wanted to escape his own thoughts but Alina deserved more than the rather straightforward exchange that sex usually was for him. ‘Just so long as you don’t go falling for me.’

He was so direct, which meant Alina could be as well. ‘Too late.’ It was surprisingly easy to be honest lying next to the sexiest man she had ever met and she admitted a little truth. ‘Kissing you took care of that.’


‘Don’t be so honest,’ Demyan said.

‘I never usually am,’ Alina admitted. ‘But you don’t have to worry, I’m not going to fall in love, you’re really not my type.’

‘Am I not pale and interesting enough?’

‘Too interesting,’ Alina said. ‘Though I do think I’ve got a crush on you.’

‘A crush is okay,’ Demyan said. ‘I have a crush on you.’

‘Really...’ She smiled and looked over at him.

‘Anyway, we can’t—my jacket is in the car’

‘I’m sure there are other things we can do.’ Alina smiled again. ‘Anyway—’ she repeated his word ‘—I’m on the Pill.’

‘First,’ Demyan said, ‘you never give that answer if there are no condoms to hand. Second...’ He hesitated, he didn’t really do other things, well, certainly not the ones she was alluding to. ‘You want a man who makes love, a man who...’ He just stared at her trusting eyes. ‘All we are talking about is sex.’

‘I get it,’ Alina said. ‘PA with benefits.’

This time he didn’t smile because despite her brave words Alina didn’t understand that he didn’t do tenderness and he certainly didn’t do intimacy, which was what Alina’s eyes craved.

‘A sex lesson,’ Alina offered. She was unbelievably turned on, she could feel the moisture in her panties and could barely drag in the sultry air because it was so thick with arousal.

‘No sex,’ Demyan said, safe because his jacket was in the car. But he could show her a thing or three, he thought as his mouth moved in to kiss her. ‘Just a lovely come.’

His tongue tasted of cherries, or was that hers? Alina thought, then she stopped thinking and just focused on the lovely feeling of his hand playing with her nipples.

Demyan had seen a lot of breasts but had never felt nipples as large as Alina’s and his eyes were hungry as he removed her top.

‘What have you done?’ Demyan asked. ‘How far have you gone before?’

‘This far,’ she said as his hand crept up her skirt. ‘But not that far,’ she admitted as his fingers prised their way into her panties.

‘You’re serious?’ He smiled on her mouth.

She couldn’t answer. Alina had never felt anything more wonderful in her life, the press and the slide of his fingers over and over as his mouth worked hers. She should feel awkward perhaps, except there was no space in her mind for that. Surely it should take longer, surely she wasn’t about to come.

‘Demyan...’

His fingers didn’t relent, but his palm was on her *oris as his fingers slipped into her tight space and stretched.

It hurt and it was delicious and if she’d been a man it would all have been over, because she was twitching to his palm, clamping her thighs to his hand, and Demyan felt a small surge of triumph as so readily she came.

‘Lick them clean...’ he said, as he slowly removed his fingers and offered them to her mouth, and their tongues met as he did the same. One taste and for Demyan there was the rare need for his head to lower, for he wanted to taste her, but Alina was first in with requests.

‘I want to see you too...’ She could hardly breathe and Demyan felt the brush of a clumsy hand to his groin. He’d never done the fumbles and things. Demyan’s first sexual experience had been with an older woman who’d shown him exactly what to do.

What was he doing in a field? Demyan thought as, instead of going straight to his zipper, she undid his shirt.

He just liked being here, hearing the birds and the sounds of nature as something terribly natural occurred; she could never have guessed that playing like this wasn’t natural for him.

Demyan, Alina decided, had the most beautiful skin she had ever seen. Her fingers traced his chest and then down to his stomach as she tried to gauge the oils she’d use if ever she painted him. Linen White, perhaps, she briefly thought, but then her mind moved to other things as he lifted his hips. She slid his belted pants down, and saw the small wet patch spreading on his black hipsters, which she was going to pull down but he halted her.

‘Take it out.’ He liked her nervous eagerness, liked the soft fingers that traced his length and the hand that freed his balls as tentatively as if she were lifting eggs out of a nest, and then he pushed his hipsters down.

Alina had never felt or seen anything quite so lovely. Warm, straining and strong, he rose to her touch and her fingers trailed along the thick vein and then closed loosely around him.

Virgin hands too, Demyan thought as she stroked him so lightly. He took his hand and closed it around hers till she caught his rhythm then he released it so she held him solo but she kept losing her stroke. She saw him grit his teeth and she bit down on her lip and concentrated some more.

‘Like that?’ Alina checked as a low sound came from Demyan that was somewhere between a cuss and a moan. He swelled further to her palm and dripped to her fingers.

‘Oh.’ Alina had no need to ask if that was better, and he watched as greed lit her eyes and he almost came as she licked her lips.

‘Can I taste?’

‘Later,’ Demyan said. Right now he wouldn’t even make it to her lips let alone her throat, which was how Demyan usually preferred it.

He took her hand and halted it. ‘I’ll show you how to have a good orgasm if the loser isn’t carrying condoms.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘The loser being me.’

He pulled her hips so she was over him.

Demyan loathed a woman on top. Control was the name of the game but he was still in charge here, which made it doable.

‘Oh...’ Alina said, as she felt him hard yet soft against her thighs, then she felt Demyan sliding the head of his cock against her panties over and over and even ‘Oh’ was too hard a word to find. Her hips were starting to move on their own, pressing down on the warm head as it butted at her soaked panties. ‘Demyan...’ She choked out his name.

‘It’s okay.’ He wanted to press pause, to leave her right where she was, dash to the car, grab his jacket, put on a condom and part her panties.

‘Demyan...’ She kept saying his name. If he stopped she would die, if he carried on Alina didn’t know what would happen. Her face felt hot but nowhere near as hot as it felt down below. She put her hand down, felt the wetness of his length and the cold wet silk of her panties. ‘Is that me...?’

‘Both...’ He was as breathless as she.

She loved the sight of him concentrating, and, as she leant forward, she loved the sight of her own breasts near his face. His open mouth could not catch the fruit of her nipple and she deprived him of a taste as she moved to her own pleasure.

He felt her twitch and Alina felt her throat tighten at the urge to press down, to be filled. Demyan was pulling her hard onto him, digging his hands into her bottom and grinding her on him till Alina tipped fully forward and felt her hot sweaty face in his neck. She let out a low scream and Demyan held on for one reason and one reason only as she pulsed around his length.

He had to have her.

Demyan rolled them so she was on her back and took her tongue and suckled, then kissed her hot, tense face till she was calming, and then he told her how it would be.

‘I’m going to be your first.’

Weakly she nodded. Demyan knelt beside her, and reached for a bottle and fed her a drink of water, as if she were some marathon runner grabbing sustenance while still running the race, which she was, because he was already pulling her panties down her thighs.


‘As nature intended,’ Demyan said.

‘Maybe I should shave?’

‘I shave you tonight, if you like,’ Demyan said, except he rapidly reminded himself there wasn’t going to be a tonight, it was just this afternoon.

‘I’m working.’

She gave him an out but Demyan didn’t like that answer. ‘We’ll see.’

What was he saying?

He didn’t know and he didn’t care and Alina wasn’t exactly focusing on words. The lovely weight of Demyan was over her, his thigh nudging her legs apart.

‘How much will it hurt?’

‘How the hell would I know?’

She didn’t have time to ponder his words. Alina assumed it was a facetious quip.

It wasn’t.

Demyan had never bedded a less than knowing woman and had never made love unsheathed.

Sex, Demyan amended.

Make love, her heart decided as softly he kissed her mouth.

She felt his fingers again, heard them because she was soaked, and then she felt the soft batter of his rigid cock as Demyan knocked three delicious times, stretching her a little further with each one, before letting himself in.

It was the most delicious pain and Alina’s hips rose as he seared inside. It was a pain that hurt less than the knowledge this could be both their first and last time. She moaned into his mouth as the pain did not abate, and he moved deeper. Demyan could only admire her stoicism because he felt the tear and the brief jolt of shock run through her body at his invasion, then he did what he’d fought not to, he lost himself to the sensations as he inched further in.

‘You’ll get used to it soon.’

‘I don’t want to get used to it,’ Alina whimpered, for could the feel of Demyan inside ever lose its wonder? How could the rhythm she was trying to match ever become a familiar race?

‘You will,’ Demyan said, moving in but not fully, telling himself this was no different, that he was taking his time not so he could relish the warm vice that gripped him, or the soft, yielding body beneath him—he was just trying to ensure her pleasure.

Except her pleasure was already here.

Alina first thought she had a cramp at the very tops of her thighs. As they tightened, she attempted to move, to escape, to relax, to stretch...she did not know. She felt her ankles crossing behind his, felt her hips stretch to the sky and then the ache of deep orgasm but with Demyan’s mouth at her throat.

Then, as her body should be sated, as her pulse should steady from its peak, it shot up again as she heard a sound as if from behind her, yet her back was pressed to the ground. It was Demyan’s passion that chased her as she felt him unleash above her, the rapid thrusts that pelted her virgin flesh were deliciously overwhelming. The mouth by her ear was delivering encumbered, illegible words that swirled her into his vortex and then released her to free-fall as his hot release procured in Alina a dense, almost reluctant orgasm. Or perhaps it was just a forbidden one, because it ended with his name, yet somehow she held onto three words that were clearly best left unsaid.

Three words that didn’t make sense, Alina thought as she folded up the blanket and did her best not to meet his eyes.

How could you love someone who this time last week you didn’t even know?

How could you love someone who was so clearly bad?

Demyan too was just a touch awkward driving home, he was used to a rather more seamless post-coital experience.

Namely a shower and occasionally a morning coffee.

Not picking up picnic baskets and shaking blankets and pulling grass out of hair.

Or attempting conversation on the way home afterwards.

He knew they had gone too far, or rather that he had and somehow he now had to pull back. Just as he had shrugged his aunt’s arm from his shoulders on the day of his mother’s burial, he tried to shrug Alina off now. As much as he might want to give in, Demyan would not.

As a familiar skyline came into sight Demyan scanned it, as he always did, for his home.

‘Won’t you miss this view?’ Alina asked.

‘No.’ Demyan shook his head. ‘A view is a view.’

‘Will you come back at all? I mean...’ Alina wasn’t asking about them, she simply couldn’t imagine just walking away. She still drove past what had once been her mother’s farm at times; she still missed it every day. ‘Won’t you miss it?’

‘I have never been back to Russia,’ Demyan said, ‘and I do not miss it at all.’

They pulled up at her apartment and he deliberately ignored the slight sag to her shoulders when he didn’t try to kiss her.

‘Demyan...’ She turned to him instead of getting out of the car.

‘No,’ Demyan interrupted, and reminded her it had been but a sex lesson and he continued it, even the difficult part afterwards. ‘You just ignore that he’s barely talking and you get out of the car with a wave...’

Nothing would be easier than resuming, but it would be both foolish and cruel to do so, Demyan decided.

He would not be getting closer to Alina.

In fact, he would prefer her gone.