by Anthology
“I seem to be on the same side as you right now.” Warning bells rang in her head.
“No way. I know which side you are on. I know what you are.” A serious scientist, not a sexy soldier.
“And what is that?” He was right there, right in her personal space and she felt her mouth going dry. Why did he have to be so confusing?
“A trained monkey touting the Soviet message.” It had just fallen out from her mouth, slipped out from between her lips, something she had heard her father mention while watching the party leaders on the television.
Erik’s eyes went wide. And then, a total pause before he tilted his head back and gave a hearty laugh.
“Oh, my Sophie, how you make me laugh. You are very cute when you are angry.”
“Stuff it.” She crossed her arms and hunkered further down into her warm clothing.
He gave her a wry expression. “We are not all evil dictators, bent on destroying forests and stringing up bunnies and deer. We Russians love our land, our waters, the animals as much as your country does. I am not some Bond villain, wringing my hands and making evil laugh. No ‘Mwahahaha!’ But I do have a white cat.” His eyebrow popped up above his left eye just like Sean Connery’s.
Darn him! Why did he have to be so charming? And captivating? And sexy … Ok she had to stop before she got herself into real trouble.
“So why won’t you agree on the plans for the Islands?” Oh crud. She had slipped that time. She blamed it on his nearness.
“What? What do you mean?” He gave her a funny expression then that just made him look more appealing, like some lost little boy.
Might as well go for broke, Sophie thought. “I know who you are Dr. Zacrevsky. We’ve been exchanging letters for months now.”
***
“Aha!” He had just looked at her for a moment before the light had clicked on. He pointed at her with a huge grin breaking out on his face. “Dr. S.R. Blumstein! Blustering Blumstein!”
“Hey! Blustering?”
“Well, what did I know, I thought you were some boring old white haired lab coat wearing doctor, holed up in some university lab, or worse, out in your big boots and tie-dye, screaming about peace and love or some such!” He pointed at her again and gave a hoot of laughter. “S.R.?”
“Sophie Rebecca, thank you very much.” Now her hands were out, waving around passionately. Her eyes narrowed and she stepped into his space before planting a finger on his chest. “And you are Dr. Z.; as in so dry and boring I couldn’t help but catch a few Z’s after your letters.”
“There would be no sleeping if you spent the night with me.” He caught up her hand and tucked it into his own, giving her a naughty little boy look that suddenly had her heart once again slamming against her rib cage. “So the esteemed Dr. Blumstein is a brilliant scientist … and a beautiful lady.” He stepped closer that voice dipping lower and Sophie could almost feel herself melting.
“Don’t try to distract me with pretty words, buddy. We are talking business here.”
“Business, business. We will talk about business tomorrow. Today, I want to talk about your eyes, about holding you again. About kissing you again.” Sophie suddenly found herself maneuvered into a corner with Erik’s arms caging her in. This man infuriated her.
“We have to keep this professional …”
“No professional. You know and I know that boats are made for hanky-panky. I watched the Love Boat.” And that was it. She laughed like she had the night before, cracking her frowning face. He joined her in the laugh, and she could feel that magic from the night before seep in, despite the terrible weather. He looked at her with hungry eyes, trying to convey everything in his mind. In his heart. She must have caught some message as her own eyes went wide with fear.
What was happening to her? She felt her heart fluttering, her brain missing. She grabbed onto the last few arguments in her head, while the rest seemed to escape through her ears.
“This can’t happen, Erik …”
“It already has, Sophie. You feel it as well as I do.”
“Even if we put aside our political differences, you’ll be gone in a week. I’ll never see you again.”
“That is no excuse for us to miss out on each other while we have the chance.” He brushed his thumb along her cheek before he traced her lips, causing Sophie to shiver with the sensation. “Please Sophie, I want to be with you, even if our time is short.” His eyes lit with fire and Sophie pushed away from him, needing air, time, anything, as her mind spun away with all the confusion this handsome Russian caused inside her.
“We just met.”
“It can happen; I promise you.”
“And you are an expert on this how?”
“I had a wife. It happened in one night. We were together from then on. Until she died, a few years ago.” Sophie felt her heart break for the man in front of her. How could she compete with the pain and loss she saw in his eyes? She must have been an amazing woman. Sophie wanted to say something, but nothing felt quite right. Nothing except to step into his arms and hold him.
He pulled her tighter in his embrace. She felt herself pulled onto tippy toes. She had no choice but to hold herself up, with her hands pressed against his large, cold, and wet chest.
“Sophie, happiness is so precious, and it can go just like that. I saw it leave me in the blink of an eye. That is why we must take happiness where we can find it, no matter how short it might be, or how much it might hurt later on. Remember last night. Please let us put our weapons away and have an accord, for this short, magical time.”
A mix of trepidation and excitement raced up her spine. She didn’t want to be hurt again. She had steeled herself against it after Nate, her louse of an ex-fiancé who had left her for a better grant in the Caribbean Sea, along with a leggy blonde geologist. And yet, she could never say that Nate had ever made her feel this alive, this passionate. She felt her eyes dart around Erik’s face while he seemed to take in everything. A raindrop fell onto the lenses of her glasses and Erik reached out to take them from her face.
“Someone hurt you, I can see it, but you cannot hide behind these lenses forever. Can we separate the professionals from the man and the woman and just live?”
With that statement he pulled her into his embrace, lenses forgotten, to kiss her with all the passion and fire, all the want and need, built up inside him. She could feel it in him, calling toward the matching feelings inside of her, and she couldn’t help but wrap her arms around his neck, intensifying the kiss. It felt like the boat on the turbulent waves below, the high of the crest before the fall to the trough. His tongue crept along the opening of her lips before she let him in, let the life in. Matching his tongue’s rhythm with her own, she felt her head spin, smelled the ocean, and knew that even for a short time, Erik could be her taste of life. It would be short, and it would hurt in the end, but it would be worth it!
“Sophie! Look!” he whirled her around and her brain had to catch up as she already felt dizzy. Then she saw where he was pointing and noticed a single gray tail, waving at the boat. Her eyes lit up and she grabbed onto to Erik’s arms in a tight hug as another whale breeched the surface, not ten yards from the starboard side of the boat, a huge splash following.
As Erik laughed, while he held her close, Sophie decided that yes, she could do this. It felt right, and if this was her allotment of happiness then she would take it. Damn tomorrow!
***
Sophie felt as though she would scream if she heard the word glasnost one more time. The group had spent the next five days being carted around on buses from what felt like one publicity stunt to the next. Museums, multinational corporations, Washington State University, media studios ... Sophie felt as if her lips would fall off from all the smiling. Of course there might have been a few other reasons why her lips were getting a work out as she and Erik had taken every stolen moment to be together.
In public they had talked business, science, politics, learning more ab
out each other’s work, and finding out how very similar their views were on so many things. And in private they had learned about each other, as a man and a woman. She never wanted this to end. And yet a cloud fell over her horizon as she thought on the inevitable parting. If she had thought the pain had been bad before … No, she thought to herself, as she stubbornly pushed her glasses up onto the bridge of her nose, she would not let that taint their last evening together.
While they had all felt like performing bears by the end of the week, the poster boys and girls for brotherhood in the science community, everyone was looking forward to tonight’s event, a performance of the Ballet Ondine with the roles being played by members of the Bolshoi theater and the Portland Ballet Company.
She sat in her reserved seat, nervous and excited, waiting for Erik to come to the chair beside her, just after the theatre went dark. She had even dressed up for him in a fancy teal suit dress, keeping the shoulder pads in despite her hatred for the things. She had to admit, they did make her look more confident.
She glanced at her watch again, then pulled the program from the seat back, thinking about the ballet and story behind it that Erik had described to her just earlier that day.
“It is a beautiful ballet about a water nymph, Ondine, who marries a human prince. But her family is furious and they cause a great storm at sea that swallows Ondine into the ocean. Palemon, her human love, believes she is lost forever and marries a human to ease his mourning. When the water nymph returns she finds him married and kisses him which instantly kills him. She then takes his body with her back to the sea to be with her forever.”
“Sheesh, talk about a tragic love story.”
“Most of them are, my Sophie.”
It was at about that time the lights dimmed and a sorrowful song filled the air of the auditorium. Sophie wondered where her soldier was when she felt a cold wind hit the back of her neck and she shivered, trying not to think of Erik’s sad words. The stage opened up, full of cold, blue lights, snow delicately falling, and she felt a tear slide down her cheek. How powerful and moving art could be.
She felt a warm presence beside her and inhaled the spicy scent of him as he folded her hand into his and squeezed. Sophie almost cried out with relief from the warmth that quickly chased away the coldness from only a moment before. How would she do it when he was gone? Before the loneliness would fill her up, the air freezing in her lungs, the cold water drowning her heart. She felt another tear follow in the trail of the last one and grabbed on to Erik’s hand with her other squeezing tightly, hoping that if she held on hard enough, he would never leave her side.
“Ah, my Sophie, shh. It is okay now. They will fall in love. Watch.” She felt his fingers tracing a pattern on the back of her neck and she instantly felt a sense of calm while the snow on the stage stopped and a pink haze slowly replaced the blue.
It was a beautiful dance, the two characters falling in love by the sea. Sophie couldn’t help but think that Erik’s hands stroking her arm, playing in her hair, his lips at her temple, helped to increase the feeling of passion the dancers communicated between them. She felt his warm breath in her ear.
“Look at how they move together, so sensual, so much emotion.” He nipped at her lower ear causing her heart rate to skyrocket and her pulse to jump. The two dancers moved closer to each other through the falling waters of a fountain, and Sophie felt every sense of yearning emanating from their bodies, echoing in her own.
She watched the wedding scene happily, then began to despair as she watched the ocean tear the two lovers apart. Just like Ondine, she would lose him tomorrow, this man, holding her so gently, so secure. She would lose the man she had fallen in love with. Erik took his eyes from the stage to focus on her. She could see the stage lights of the raging storm light his icy eyes, and what she saw took her breath away. Every emotion, every heart break and unstoppable feeling that raged inside of her, was also inside this beautiful, infuriating man. He carefully reached out to trace the pad of his thumb against her tear streaked cheek and she felt herself come apart completely. “Please …” She murmured against his lips as she held on for all she was worth. “Please just take me away from here. Take me back to my room. Stay the night with me.”
***
Erik could hardly breathe as they closed the door to her room. A bluish haze filtered through the drops of rain on the window panes of the hotel, and deep shadows played against the far wall. It was only them now. Two separate bodies, destined for a short while to become one, and then part, once and for all. He watched the wall as her shadow’s arm reached out to put her hand against his rapidly beating heart. It was all he needed as he crushed her against him, tasting the lips he craved. As he deepened the kiss he cursed himself, knowing that while he would do anything to keep her from sadness, he would hurt her, and soon.
“Erik. Stop.” Her voice was a quivering whisper and his mind reeled, the passion making him slow. But reluctantly he stopped and backed up, a tiny space between them now. She put her hands on either side of his face, to cradle him gently then massaged at his temples. “Stop thinking about it. Just think about tonight. Think about us being together.” She took his hand and walked him to the bed then sighed as he pulled her gently to him and let their bodies sink to the mattress. He had one night to communicate to her with his touch, his gaze, all the feelings bottled inside him, all the things he could not say.
Rolling her onto her back, he watched her hair fan out onto the starched white pillow, and shook as she shined her deep chocolate eyes at him. This meant just as much to her, it was just as special. He gently kissed along her hair line, memorizing the smell of her, the feeling of her under his body. He took her head gently into his hands and looked back at her, memorizing her face. Her brave smile was enough to almost break him, as he knew without a doubt, in that moment, that he was completely in love with the woman in his arms.
He kissed her lips through his smile and decided that all the pain of later would be worth it for just this one night. Tonight, despite the storm that raged outside, they stayed sheltered in each other’s arms, with nothing to think of but their own happiness. Tomorrow would bring the reality of their two countries, the politics, and the pain. But tonight, they had found each other, and it was enough.
***
He watched the subtle shades in her hair turn from a deep brown to a chocolate, much like her eyes, then to a fiery burnished mahogany that made it impossible for him to keep from stroking Sophie’s hair. These were the last few moments, as though they were in the gentle eye of a hurricane, walls of gray ominous clouds surrounding them. He felt his heart constrict in his chest but then he tamped down the emotion. He would change nothing.
Someone had once asked if he could have one more day with Anya, knowing he would go through the pain of losing her all over again, would he do it? He had just looked at them as though they were a child who couldn’t understand. He would walk through the fires of hell to be with Anya again, even for only one day. He also knew without a doubt he would do it for Sophie. The thing that almost killed him, was knowing the only thing he could do for her would lead to losing her forever.
His hand wandered down her now exposed back, trailing his fingers over her soft skin, delighting when she sighed in her sleep. He would keep her safe, no matter what she may want. He leaned down to kiss her gently on her now unfurled brow. This was the last of the calm. There would be no more shelter for this sailor. “Please understand why I do this for you, Sophie.” He whispered against her still sleeping skin. “And know that while you might come to hate me, I will never stop loving you.”
***
Sophie had woken up alone and cold, already feeling her heart start to crack. He had left her without even a goodbye. And yet she knew what the day brought: Erik’s speech. She could only pray that perhaps their week together had softened the strict scientist inside him to the idea of the two countries working together. The idea of the two of them working together. Perhaps t
hey would not have to leave each other after all. Her heart soared for a moment with the thought, but her practical side pulled her back to earth. He had not been there when she had woken. Now as she sat in the crowd of people and flashing camera bulbs, almost immune to them now, she waited with her eyes locked onto the front of the room. She could sense him; she knew he was up front. And she had a terrible sick feeling in the pit of her stomach over his coming words.
Finally, after what felt like forever, Erik stepped up to the podium, cameras clicking, reporters moving their microphones and jockeying into position while the rest of the room settled down. Sophie could hear and see no one but him. He looked so handsome standing there in his uniform, on the lighted stage between the two countries flags. He was the perfect military man, rigid, proud, and yet Sophie could almost detect a hint of dread in him as he removed his cap and handed it to a younger soldier. His eyes scanned the room and fell briefly on hers, and she immediately understood why that sick feeling had settled over her. His eyes, those beautiful, icy blue calm eyes, had lost all of their sparkle. She felt her knees shake, and thankfully remembered that she was already sitting down. Her knuckles turned white as she gripped her notepad hard between her hands.
Erik began his speech with the usual polite acknowledgements, both in Russian and English. Sophie couldn’t help but watch his lips as he did so, remembering suddenly his mouth on her skin, hot and tasting … she shook her head to bring herself back to the speech.
“We have long talked of a brotherhood between our two countries. A way of bridging the gap from the East to the West, to ease the tensions of our nations and help to bring a lasting peace to our mother earth. I believe this trip has been another important step in this direction. Please understand now, that we have thought long and hard about the idea of the two nations working together, hand-in-hand, on the Novaya Zemlya Islands. The Soviet Union takes great pride in reaching out toward our American brothers, er, and our sisters.” He tripped as his eyes traced over Sophie who couldn’t help but smile at his correction, even as she felt her fingers go numb. Eric adjusted his papers, shuffling them nervously then took one more look at her with an apology in his eyes. Sophie felt her heart stop beating. Oh, no. He wasn’t going to say it …
