by Bethany-Kris
The second time, he’d managed to get her bent over the pillows while his hands were on her hips, pumping his cock in and out of her in quick succession until every last drop of his seed was buried deep in her.
She’d pushed back into him when he came, too, using her hands against the bed to steady her trembling form as the waves of her hair tickled his chest, and she sat hard on his cock to take it the way he demanded.
Karine’s cheeks were flushed as she stared back at him. Sweaty, and pinked.
He pushed some stray strands of hair off her shoulder and out of the way, then kissed the tip of her nose.
“You promised,” she repeated.
He did.
Still hard and jerking inside her with every jostle of their bodies, Roman said, “I am hopelessly, completely in love with you, Karine. I will never abandon you.”
Her breasts heaved after he’d pulled out of her, and she yanked him down on top of her on the bed again. She reached up to touch his face, tracing her finger along the sharp lines of his cheeks and jaws, not complaining about his weight on her.
Though it was substantial.
“I know that. I have always known that. You don’t have to teach me to trust you,” she finally whispered.
Didn’t he?
Trust like that was always earned.
*
Sylvia D’Souza, Karine’s head therapist in the Twin Rivers facility, stood beside Roman the next morning with a coffee in her hand. He had his own brown paper cup which he’d been sipping from while she droned on about policies and bullshit—and his complete lack of disregard for all of it.
“You know, we have strict rules in place regarding family contact, and we have them there for a reason. While we encourage family members to keep in touch regularly, and we are very happy to coordinate meetings—spending the night in a client’s room—well, it shouldn’t have happened.”
While Sylvia spoke, Karine was in the garden across from them. She was tucking some bulbs of something into the dug up soil, though he hadn’t thought to ask what. Even though she was probably aware of being watched, she chose to ignore them. She had to have known they were talking about her, too.
He admired her for that—for her ability to accept the fact that her life was the subject of discussion to the people around her whether she wanted it that way or not.
Roman took a sip of his coffee and shrugged. “Did they learn something?”
That question had the woman’s cheeks burning red. “They deleted the camera footage if that’s what you’re asking.”
He actually hadn’t been.
“Yeah, listen—I know it’s against the rules, but I’m sure you get that these are unusual circumstances.”
Sylvia looked at him with an almost indulgent smile. “Each of our guests are here because of the unusual circumstances of their lives. We cannot make exceptions. For the sake of your wife’s recovery—follow policy. Otherwise, we’ll have to discuss removing her from the program.”
Threats now?
“Look at her today. Does she look like a woman who needs any of this after spending the night with her husband?”
As if on cue, Karine turned her face up at the sun and shielded her eyes to look. They could clearly see the smile on her face, the pink in her cheeks—the life in her eyes.
Sylvia cleared her throat, muttering, “I’m sure she was delighted to see you, and I’m very happy that you were able to put aside your differences. Hopefully, that’ll help us here as well. However, Mr. Avdonin, you are going to have to leave again, and I sincerely hope that ... well, last night ... hasn’t taken us too many steps back in her recovery process.”
He knew she had a point.
They hadn’t had much of a chance to talk last night. Karine had fallen asleep in his arms after letting him lavish her with all the attention and affection she craved from him for as long as he could keep his eyes open. Only after she closed hers did he allowed himself to drift away, too.
It was the first night in over a week since he relapsed—that he hadn’t used just to stay awake, and was able to sleep. It was like his mind had been running on full gear and top speed, and Karine had a slowing effect on it. She made him push down the brakes, and his spinning mind came to a screeching halt.
Before he came here he wasn’t sure if he’d want a line, or if his hands would start to shake come morning. He didn’t want her to see him like that, but so far, he’d managed without a single craving clawing at his back.
Maybe that was it ...
That’s what he needed.
She was the drug he missed.
“I won’t leave this place until she’s calm. She won’t be back where we started,” he replied.
Sylvia appeared to be ready to argue, but she took one look at him and relented nonetheless, only nodding in silent reply. Frankly, she could only ask for so much. He couldn’t offer anything different than he did. Their hands were both tied.
“How has she been? The last time we spoke, you said she was resisting all help.”
That brought a smile to Sylvia’s face.
“I’m happy to say that has at least started to change—she’s made what I would consider to be immense progress in regard to just being here. Thankfully, she did only need time. I’m sure seeing you is going to have a huge positive impact as well. I see great potential for recovery in her.”
Roman’s heart dared to feel a little lighter at the thought. Drawn to even simply staring at his wife, he did just that. She was so tender and delicate with her work as she crouched in the soil on her knees. Her hair fell around her shoulders, and she worked with her gardening gloves on, inspecting each bulb before she put it into the ground.
He wanted to see her working in their garden. A big, beautiful blossoming garden where she had planted and flowered every bed herself. Adjacent to their warm home filled with children.
It took him a second.
The image ripped away his breath.
He bet she would make an amazing mother—the kindest and most caring. He wanted her to be the mother of his children; to see their little faces and find his wife’s familiar features staring back.
“Has she had any ... episodes?” he asked.
“There were a few times when I thought she came close ... I think the lack of medicinal cocktail and time away from her most stressful triggers has allowed her a bit of clarity and control of her disorder. I would have liked to speak to the others if I could, but I won’t say it’s a bad thing if she can halt them from coming forward for now.”
“So ... does that mean she’s oka—”
Sylvia shook her head. “It’s not about that. What’s okay for one person is someone else’s beginning, Roman. I’m afraid this condition is not as simple as that. Mental health rarely is. This is going to be a lifelong struggle, but with time and therapy, she will learn to keep her alters in check. They may even eventually merge into one. Merge into her. It takes time, and none of this might happen at all, too. You just never know.”
Roman continued staring at Karine. He was back to thinking about their house again and what a life with her was going to look like—how the very picture of it make his heart beat harder. Would the professionals tell him to keep her from being alone with their children even though he couldn’t imagine doing something like that to her?
That was far away, sure, but ... it was on his mind, all the same.
“As much of a struggle as it will be for her, you should be prepared for what that will mean for you, too,” Sylvia said.
“All I want is her,” Roman returned. “The rest is details, and I don’t care much for those.”
“Then that’s all she needs.”
He turned to the therapist who was smiling again.
“I have never wanted a normal life,” he said with a chuckle. “Or a boring marriage, for what it matters. She challenges me. Keeps me on my toes, and reminds me every day that she needs me, that I have to strive to be a better person. I can’
t fuck this up for her. Is that messed up? That I need her more than she needs me.”
“No, it’s not. It’s just a little co-dependent, is all. It could also be that you are both incredibly lucky to have found each other. I’m not here to judge the whys, Mr. Avdonin. Only figure them out, lay it bare, and let you do what you wish with it. Keep that in mind.”
Right.
Karine stood up, then, and waved at them.
Roman shook Sylvia’s hand before he walked over to his wife so he could take her in his arms and kiss her one more time.
They only had a little time—the rest could still wait.
*
“Is Sylvia pissed with us?” Karine asked as he held her in his arms, enjoying the heat of the sun beating on his face. The weather in Nevada in the colder months was nothing like New York.
“Fuck Sylvia,” Roman uttered, bending his head down to run his mouth over her neck with quick, peppered kisses.
She shivered with a giggle.
Standing in the garden, in the open for everyone to see, he didn’t care if it was inappropriate.
He was paying these people a lot of money to have Karine here, and he was done being lectured on what he could and couldn’t do with his wife.
How did this hurt her recovery? She couldn’t help herself but lean into him, to want him. And given how viciously he’d ripped himself apart over the last while at the idea she didn’t want him, he was all too happy to soak this up.
Karine did eventually pull away from his mouth with a breathless laugh. “I’m already embarrassed enough by last night—the girl who handles the desk blushed at me earlier. Stop it.”
“Don’t really want to.”
She gave him a half-hearted glare. “Well, try.”
“Or ... we can go somewhere else. There’s a path, let’s walk.”
That seemed to work for her. Roman weaved their hands together, and they started down along the cobblestone path.
Karine couldn’t stop peeking over at him, each time making her grin bloom even wider. Happiness gleamed in her eyes. He still couldn’t believe how much he loved her—how right she felt beside him.
With him.
“I thought you would be disappointed in me,” she said.
“I’ll never be disappointed in you, Karine. I’m proud of you, and I know I hurt you by bringing you here. The way I did it ... no excuses, babe, that was wrong. I should have had a conversation with you about it.”
She nodded. “Maybe. And maybe I would have still resisted. I didn’t really want that week to end, you know?”
He pulled her hand up to his mouth, and kissed her wiggling fingertips.
“I didn’t want it to end either, and I promise we’ll go away on a vacation. Somewhere far away with beaches and palm trees—white sand and ocean for days. Just as soon as all this is over.”
“You mean as soon as Dima stops looking for me?”
That stopped him in his tracks, and her, too. She turned to him, offering only a shrug to explain what she’d asked.
“When he stops looking—he’ll be dead,” Roman said frankly. She drew in a quick, shaky breath and he thought, now or never.
“Karine, there is something you need to know. Something about your father.”
Her smile sagged for a split second as she searched his eyes, and didn’t find something to calm her worry.
“What is it?”
“It’s nothing to be—”
“Just tell me, Roman. What about my father?”
“There was a fire—at his home. They found a body. The FBI thought it was likely your father, and no one led them to believe any different.”
“He’s dead?”
The wetness in her eyes made his chest clench. Despite the complications that colored their relationship, he thought there was a small part of Karine that had to love Maxim because he was her father.
Maybe that part of her would never forget the father he used to be before her sister’s death.
Roman wished he’d prepared something to say, but he hadn’t bothered. He didn’t start thinking until he got there, and saw Karine again.
“No, he’s not dead,” he admitted. “Your father is still alive.”
TWELVE
“I don’t ... I don’t understand,” she finally settled on saying. “I thought Katina had—”
“Her plan—” He didn’t miss the wince Karine gave at that statement; Roman bet knowing her alter having a major hand in plotting the death of her father had to be a big blow. “Doesn’t seem to have gone through—at least, not how she expected.”
Roman had made his mind up to tell Karine everything this time. No matter how difficult that conversation would be, a part of her had played a big role in the events leading up to what he believed might have happened in Chicago. And she deserved to know how it could affect her now.
The hardest part was telling her about the hand Katina had in all this. No matter what her relationship with her father had looked like over the years—or the fact that she had been unfairly treated by him—Karine would not want to hurt him.
“I didn’t want to have to tell you this, Karine, and I tried to shield you from it as long as possible. Just until we had everything figured out because it was clear something wasn’t right from the start. It’s likely Leonid died in the fire, Dima’s been hiding it to use a false position of power and move around—nobody knows where Maxim is.”
It was a lot.
Even he knew it.
Karine stayed quiet while he held her in his arms, rubbing her shoulders with slow and steady pressure. She kept her face turned from him, but he could see the way her stare darted maniacally around the peaceful view of the garden. As if the small fish ponds would somehow give her the answers to Katina’s actions, and make sense of what Roman was saying.
“You flew all the way across the country just to tell me that?”
“You had to know—it could mean he’s coming for you. We don’t know that, or anything different, but we have to act like we do.”
“You could have told me on the phone,” she insisted.
“Could I, really?”
How well would that have gone over?
Karine didn’t argue that; he was more grateful than he would admit about it, too.
And he had more than enough money to burn so what was another four-hundred-k on a chartered jet? It was the paper trail risk that concerned him more than anything else, but he was always careful in that regard, anyway.
Karine shuddered as he held her, and she sniffled before covering her mouth to hide a soft cry. The sound alone was enough to cut him deep.
“I want to say he deserved it—that he deserved what she wanted to do to him, but he didn’t. Nobody does. It makes me just as terrible as Dima. It makes me a monster.”
Oh, this sweet woman.
She truly was too good for the world.
Their world, anyhow.
He took her face in his hands, stroking her silken cheeks with his thumbs and quickly swiping away any tears that dared to fall, saying fiercely, “Never, ever make the mistake of comparing yourself to that man. You can’t take fault for the actions of something you never had control of, to begin with—Katina was never you. She doesn’t think like you or act like you or even want the same things you do.”
“But she is me—in me. They’re like little doors. All these memories, and people, and things ... the feelings I don’t like or the images I can’t forget, I put them behind doors. And some of them won’t open again after I close them, and others never had a door to start with. She didn’t like it when I put one in front her. She’s still there, though. Always, there, Roman, and it takes so much to—”
“I know,” he murmured fast.
He bet that scared her the most, too.
Roman held her face a little tighter, adding, “But you know now that she’s only one piece, huh? And it doesn’t make a difference to me, anyway. This is the woman I love. This is the woman I kiss.”
He took her mouth in his, without warning, and bruisingly. She sank into the kiss instantly, gasping hungrily for breath, and tugging his lip with her teeth as she kissed him back ferociously.
He trailed his hands down the delicate line of her throat and over her trembling shoulders. Crushing her tighter against him when his hands splayed across her lower back, he whispered hoarsely, “You’re all mine, Karine. No matter what.”
“You’ll always tell me, won’t you? That you love me, remind me that I’m yours—you will, won’t you? Because I hear one thing in my head, but it can’t change what you do, Roman. Okay, so I just need you to keep telling me—”
“I will—forever. I promise.”
Her forehead laid against his chest, and he was fine to stay there like that with her for as long as needed, letting her cling to him like he was her lifeboat. Because frankly, she was the only lifesaver being thrown out for him to catch, too. She gave him a sense of purpose in his life, in a way he hadn’t had before, and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to forgive himself for relapsing.
For using her as an excuse ...
Roman made a mental note to talk to Marky as soon as he got back to New York. His best friend deserved an apology for his behavior and resistance. No matter the shit he took for it, Marky had been there reminding Roman what, and who, was important.
Over Karine’s shoulder—Roman noticed a staff member from the facility walking hurriedly towards them down the path.
“Someone’s always gotta shit on my parade,” he said.
*
As it were, Marky had been attempting to reach him all morning, so he had no choice but to call the facility and ask for him directly.
Demyan warned Roman not to leave New York—his father was clear, but somethings just mattered more than an order. He hadn’t told anyone where he was going except for Marky because he needed at least one trustworthy, reliable connection to home. Since he was the only one who knew the name and location of where Karine was admitted—other than Demyan—he took on the responsibility of tracking the phone number to the facility down.
He must have managed to get the right motherfucker on the phone.
