by Lucia Franco
Turning toward him, I poked his arm, his waist, his leg, his stomach. He flinched each time, then grabbed my wrist to stop me and I shook my head like it was unacceptable.
"Look at you. You're turning to mush already. That's it. I'm definitely trading you in for someone else. How are you going to take control of me when you've lost control of yourself? You probably can't even hold yourself up now."
In the blink of an eye, Kova spun us around until my back was flat on the lounge and he was laying on top of me. I giggled and poked him with my free hand. Seeing Kova laugh did funny things to me, and I wanted to see what else I could do to make him laugh again. Grabbing my wrists, he placed them on the sides of my head.
Our eyes met and a breath of submission softly rolled off my lips. Kova noticed immediately. My heart battered against my chest in anticipation and I could see his pulse thumping in his neck. The laughter died down and the teasing vanished. His eyes roamed over my face and inspired a different story. I realized I missed the weight of him on me and shifted so he was forced to give me more. Kova pushed one knee between my thighs until we were almost connected, my other leg on top of his. I drew in a shaky breath, and pulled him closer. His lips were a breath away and his body was so warm on mine.
He looked at me, his Adam's apple bobbed up and down, and fireworks danced around us. "Adrianna," he said quietly, intimately. "I wish I could make you understand how much I miss you. I miss being near you, being with you, being inside of you," he whispered in a sexy, raspy voice, moving his mouth to my ear. "I miss the way you smell, the way you taste. I miss every single thing about you. I try not to, and I fight it so hard, but you are always on my mind, and I do not ever see that changing."
Kova was healing my heart and breaking it all at once. These little moments were what locked me to him, because they were real, and they were what mattered. It was also these little moments that made me question so much, because knowing he was the one who threw away what we had was more devastating than anything. It didn't make sense that someone could do that.
"How can you say those things to me?" I asked softly. "You're the one who stripped it from us with two little words, Kova."
I do.
"I know," he said, his voice full of remorse. The intensity of his gaze moved me deeply. "Do you think we will ever have it back?"
I answered with the truth. "Honestly, I don't know. I don't see how it's possible to ever go back to that."
"But you are with me now," he said.
My face fell. "It's not the same. You’re married, Kova. You went behind my back and got married. It's hard to forget that."
Kova agreed. "Sometimes I fear I will miss you for the rest of my life, to the point I ache with sickness just thinking about it."
"Like I'm that one person you can't walk away from, even though you know it will eventually come to that." He nodded subtly in agreement. "I feel the same way."
"I never realized how deeply entwined I was in you…how I still am."
Shifting my hands, I threaded my fingers through his. I wanted to tell him I missed him too, that I missed us, and that I felt the exact same way. My heart was racing, screaming with feelings I thought I’d closed the door on. Our connection was too strong and too rare to be denied. We both knew that. We were a sea of reckless abandon with endless possibilities. My attraction to him hadn't diminished, and being alone with him while his wife was away was an invitation on its own that laid out everything we should never be tempted to do.
I looked up at him and stared into his sorrowful eyes. While I didn't want to be susceptible again, Kova was making it impossible to stick to my guns.
"Why are you telling me this?" I asked softly, my heart was going to explode from his raw emotions. "Why now?"
He shrugged. "I do not know. I get this indescribable feeling, and once I feel it, I chase it. I crave it," Kova said, his eyes shifting back and forth. "And it never stops with you. It is like a high all the time. I do not know what to call it or how to make sense of it. Then, tonight, you did what you could to wish me a happy birthday. You are the only one who said it to me today. It was so simple and yet it made me happier than I have been in a long time." Kova paused, swallowing slowly. His brows bunched together like he was lost in an internal battle and needed help to fight his way out.
I frowned. "Katja didn't even call you? Text you?"
Kova rolled to the side, taking me with him. "No. It has been five days since she left. She has not called once, and the only time I have spoken to her was through a text, which I sent to her yesterday to check on her. That was it."
After days of silence from his wife, he still checked on her. My chest tightened. She hadn't even considered him. Talk about breaking my heart. I ached for Kova and what he was telling me. I couldn’t believe no one wished him a happy birthday, not even his wife, who was a complete and utter bitch in my eyes now.
This was the real reason he was here, why he’d pushed himself inside and insisted he help. There was no doubt in my mind. I knew Kova cared about me in his own puzzling way and wanted to make sure I had a speedy and healthy recovery, but loneliness was a bitch and the worst feeling in the world. It was when the walls closed in and the silence became deafening, and the long moments allowed you to sulk inside your mind, where your thoughts ran haywire until they caused you to fall into a depression so deep it was hard to climb out of.
This wasn't the first time he’d pushed. I had to wonder how long he'd been stuck inside the darkness.
"Tell me how you guys met," I asked. I needed to figure out why this woman was so cold toward him. I was the only girl he ever cheated on her with, and from what Kova had said, she'd been this way toward him even before that. Despite that pretty and sweet demure look she had going on, Katja was a viper and would quietly go for the jugular when you least expected.
Now more than ever, I couldn’t comprehend why he would marry someone who treated him so poorly. Maybe she blackmailed him. No. I quickly scratched that thought from my head. I didn't see Kova as the type to cower in a corner. He was a fighter, and someone who had no issue with confrontation.
Kova cleared his throat and shifted his legs closer to mine so they were entwined together. "Katja and I have a long history. We have known each other our whole lives. Our mothers were close friends. My mom and I lived with her mom for a short while after I was born." He hesitated for a moment. "Kat’s mom is the one who got my mom a job at the gentlemen’s club. They worked it out so that she would watch me on days my mom had to work, then when Kat came along a year later, my mom returned the favor. We were always at one another’s homes, practically raised side by side. We became like brother and sister."
I couldn't fathom a friendship being forged between two women who were prostitutes with children around the same age. They both were saddled with baggage and stuck in a dark hole with no one to help them out of it except for each other.
Curious, I asked, "How did you go from a sibling type relationship to now?"
"Our roles shifted throughout the years. My mother made peace with what she did for a living. She was able to provide a somewhat good home for us, keep food on the table, put me through gymnastics, and never miss a competition. There was no other job she could have worked that would have allowed her that." He took a breath. "Kat’s mom, however, grew discontented with the profession." His eyes were distant, a sadness filling them. "She began using drugs to numb herself and eventually became addicted to heroin, she still is. When we were in middle school, I went over to Katja’s one day and found her mom passed out on the couch. I heard a commotion from Kat’s room…" He stopped for a long heartbeat. I looked up and found Kova with his eyes squeezed shut.
I placed my hand on his chest. Quietly, I said, "You don't have to talk about it if it's too much."
Kova shook his head vehemently. "I ran to her room and found a sick scumbag leaning over her with his pants down to mid-thigh. Her nightgown had been ripped, and black, watery streaks ran down he
r cheeks. In seconds, I had him off her and on the floor. I snapped." Eyes wide like he was remembering every vivid detail, Kova continued. "I beat him until my knuckles bled, until pieces of skin were torn back from his face. I did not stop until Katja pulled me away."
I blinked rapidly, blindsided by this revelation. "What did you do?" My question came out hoarse.
Kova shook his head, pain thick in his eyes. "I dragged his bloody, beaten body out to the hallway and left him there. After that, I took her home with me. I went from her brother to her protector. Where I went, she went. Even when I had practice, she would sit out in the waiting area and wait for me. My mom pleaded with hers to stop using, but she would not. She was too far gone and that left me with no choice."
Tears burned my eyes, the fireworks long forgotten. I was nestled up to Kova, hanging on to his every word, too deep in the riveting conversation about his past to stop now. I wanted to know more. I wanted to know everything.
I yawned, exhaustion suddenly washing over me. I hadn't slept in eighteen hours and it was finally catching up.
"Is my story boring you?" He laughed lightly, the shadows fading from his eyes.
"No. It's quite the opposite actually. Keep going."
He laughed again. "Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"We can finish this conversation another night if you are tired."
"I'm happy right where I am."
Pulling back, Kova leaned down to kiss my forehead, his arms tightening around me. I was a glutton for punishment, wanting to know the gritty details of his life with Katja.
"Katja stayed with us on and off all through middle and high school. In high school our roles changed again…"
When he didn’t continue, I glanced up at him and met his gaze. He tilted his head to the side and studied me. Whatever came next in his story, I knew I didn’t want to hear it, but I needed to know. I needed to understand his relationship with Katja.
I rested my head back on his chest, willing him to continue.
Finally, he spoke.
"Katja had always been a beauty, but when she hit around sixteen she blossomed into something else entirely. Men and women looked at her everywhere she went. She turned heads, she still does. We were both teenagers with hormones. I would catch her staring, watching me, just like I did her. Not that I want to go into detail, and I am sure you do not want to hear, but we experimented a lot…until one day we eventually lost our virginity to each other."
An overwhelming burn of bitterness bubbled in my chest. I never gave much thought to Kova’s first time, but if I had to guess, I would have thought it was with some random hookup at a party. A total clichéd assumption, but I should have known better. Nothing about Kova’s life had ever been clichéd.
I should have prepared myself, but I hadn’t.
* * *
"You went still on me," Kova said. He pulled back and looked down at me, but I wouldn't meet his gaze. God, why did I have to be so irrational? I saw his lips curve up from the corner of my eye, but I couldn't look. "You are mad," he stated, amusement filling his voice.
"I'm not. I'm fine."
"You are." His voice rose, pleased with my anger.
"I'm not," I chewed out, causing Kova to laugh. He pinned me, his arms over mine, the weight of his body between my spread legs holding me down. I glared up at him and all he could do was smile like he’d won the damn lottery. "Get off me, Kova," I said, and used my hips to push him off, which only resulted in nudging him closer to me.
"You are jealous. Admit it." He chuckled, and I wanted to punch him in the throat.
"I'm not. I don't get jealous."
Obvious lie.
Kova grinned even more. "Then why do you look like you are ready to castrate me?"
My lips flattened, remaining silent. Kova leaned down with a smile on his face, his happiness striking me hard. It was totally irrational of me to behave like this and yet I couldn't help it. His mouth angled toward mine. Just as he was about to close the distance, I turned my head to the side. The tip of his nose grazed my cheek, the heat of his laugh tickling my skin. Sliding his hands, he laced his fingers with mine again as he peppered kisses along my jaw and down the length of my neck. My chest burned and my heart pounded. Just because he and Katja had a deep history didn't mean I had to like it.
"I think my Ria is jealous," Kova said, his voice almost singsong and proud. "I kind of like this look on you. Admit that you are and I will get off," he said, nipping my collarbone. My back arched, pushing my stupid hardened nipples into his chest.
"There's nothing to admit."
Kova pulled back and looked down at me, tightening his hands on mine. "Then kiss me. Prove to me you are not jealous."
"What? No."
"Why not? You gave me a birthday kiss earlier. This can be my good luck kiss."
"You don't believe in that crap."
"I had a change of heart."
A laugh burst from me. "Yeah, right!" I said, and Kova smiled. He nestled closer. We stared at each other, the warmth of our bodies pressed so close together it was difficult not to think about how perfectly our bodies aligned in all the right places.
It was too comfortable. Too natural. Too right.
Leaning down, Kova's lips softly met the corner of my mouth. Slowly, he took his time, kissing all around the edge of my lips with the same tenderness, until he was hovering above me. I looked at his mouth as he waited.
"Maybe I am a little jealous," I admitted in a whisper.
Kova's eyes softened. Tilting my chin up, I gave him the consent he sought to close the distance between us. Right before he kissed me, I said, "Okay. I'm a lot jealous and I don't like this feeling inside me."
He grinned and it electrified my blood. Kova's kisses were unlike any I'd ever had, erotic and as seductive as black lace.
"I would feel the same way you do if the roles were reversed," he said. "The thought of another man with you does more to me than make me jealous, Adrianna. It makes me downright murderous, and it terrifies me. You are mine, and mine only."
A knot formed in my throat as the times I’d slept with Hayden flashed in my mind. I prayed to every god I could think of that Kova never found out.
"I'm not yours, Kova. Katja is yours."
"She was never mine," he responded immediately, and his words sank into my bones. "Not the way you are. It is…different."
"Yet she's the one with your last name."
Kova licked a wet trail up the column of my neck, and a sigh rolled off my lips. He let go of one hand and held my hips in place as he surged against me in a painfully slow motion. I moaned at the friction against my wet pussy, the desire to tear his clothes off strong.
"For now."
A soft breath rolled off my lips. I arched my neck and pulled his bottom lip into my mouth with my teeth, and kissed him. I was an addict for this man, and despite all the pain and suffering he had caused me, I still kept coming back for more.
It didn't take long for our passion to take over. Kova pressed into me. His lips moved, slow and steady, like he was both sad and in love, reminding me of the night he repeated prosti over and over.
I slammed that door shut and blocked it out. I couldn't go back to that night, so I kissed him back the way I thought he was kissing me—wholly, completely, and regrettably in love.
He gripped me hard and moaned into my mouth, a sound somewhere between pleasure and need. His fingers trembled against my skin as he moved his hand to my outer thigh.
Kova pushed against me slowly, and I squirmed as his cock hit just the right spot. Reaching around with my free hand, I slipped it under his shorts and grabbed his butt, pulling him into my center. I gasped into his mouth as he thrust against me again, the head of his cock straining against my opening. All I had to do was pull down the elastic of his shorts and he could slide right in…
"Kova…" I licked my lips. "I want you."
A deep growl sounded in the back of his throat. "Not yet."
<
br /> Little flames licked my skin as his hand palmed my thigh. His touch, like his kiss, always drugged me and made me ache for more. His fingers dug into me, and I rolled my hips against his length, wanting more, secretly getting hotter knowing we were outside where people could see us. It was so daring and I loved it. I wanted everyone to see he was with me and not her. It gave me a sense of power.
"The thought of you telling me about your wife, while you're here with me, while your cock is pushing against my pussy, is intoxicating." The words dripped from my lips like venom. Kova’s eyes flared and he let out a growl. "It's thrilling and wrong and I honestly love the feeling it gives me," I continued. "Like I'm high or something. I take pleasure in knowing you're here with me and not her. Somehow I get the sense that even if she were in town, you would still be between my legs."
"Why must you talk like that?"
"Because I know you love it, and it's the honest truth." I smirked.
"You have a corrupted, devious mind," he said. "And I love that you do. It is one of the things I love about you. We feed each other's cravings without guilt."
His hand skimmed higher up my thigh and reached the crease in my hip. His thumb gently stroked my bare flesh, then slid lower to my bikini line, where he groaned at the contact, realizing I wasn’t wearing panties.
"I would be with you all the time if I could, and be in that tight little pussy all day long."
Slipping my other hand from his, I placed it in his shorts and rubbed circles on his perfectly round ass. Boldly but curiously, my palms slid along the seam of his cheeks, my fingers pushing in just slightly enough to spread him. Kova tensed then growled as he devoured my mouth. I did it again until the tips of my fingers touched his sack. We became fervent and passionate, breathing heavily, our chests pushing into one another's while fireworks continued to explode around us.
I reached for his wrist and placed his hand between my thighs, and bared down, grinding on his palm, guiding him to rub me how I liked it.
"Please," I begged, forcing his callused hand over my clit. I sighed in pleasure, the beginning of an orgasm climbing.
