I wake up cocooned by Aleksandr’s warmth. His abdomen is pressed up against my back, one arm is slung over my ribcage and wrapped around my chest, and his knee is wedged between my thighs. Aside from how his heat smothers me like a hot, humid day, the other thing I notice immediately is the way he is already hugely hard and resting right against my ass.
I want to press myself back into him, wake him up with the motion of my body rubbing against him, and see if we can fit in a quickie before I have to get up and shower. I glance at the clock on his nightstand and see that it’s only six in the morning. The alarm was set for seven. We have plenty of time.
I arch my lower back and run the crease of my ass cheeks along his impressive length. I feel the way he twitches against me, so I repeat the motion a few more times until his hips are moving forward, meeting me each time as he thrusts himself against my skin.
“I want to wake up like this every day,” he says quietly, the words a whisper across my hair.
Me too. I don’t say anything in response, just take his hand, kiss his knuckles, then move it to my breast. His fingers instinctively move across my nipple, gently at first.
I slide my own hand behind me, between us, and grip him tightly in my hand, sliding along his length in slick, smooth motions.
“Holy shit,” he growls. “I want to be inside you.”
“Then make it happen,” I say.
He pulls away and I know he’s reaching behind him toward his nightstand where his stash of condoms are, but I’m overwhelmed with the need to feel him bare inside me, to share that moment with him so that he can be the first man ever to have that honor.
I move my hand to his hip and pull him back toward me. “Now.”
“Petra, I need—”
“Now, Aleksandr.”
“Are you sure?”
“You’re clean?” I confirm.
“Yes. And I’ve never not worn a condom. Ever.”
It feels like my heart flutters in my chest, skipping a beat or two at his admission. So I’ll be his first too.
“Same,” I tell him. “I’ve never had sex unprotected.”
“You’re on the pill?”
“Yes.”
He must lean up on his elbow because he’s looking down at me, his face hovering above mine as I turn my head to look up at him.
“I want to know what you feel like inside me,” I tell him, “with nothing between us.”
He looks down at me, unmoving. Finally he says, “I don’t know if I can do this, and then let you walk out of here in a couple hours.” His voice is unsteady, choked with emotion.
I reach up and stroke his face with my palm. “It’s only for a few weeks. I’ll be back next month for the party.”
“You know what I mean,” he says, but his hips thrust against my ass again and I know how badly he wants me.
“We can use a condom if you want, Sasha.” I make sure my words are soft and understanding, even though I want him inside me so badly I can feel the moisture dripping down the back of my thigh.
He quickly exhales through his nose—a short, quick grunt. And then he’s lifting my top leg and sliding himself along the creases between my legs.
I sigh. “That feels unbelievable, and I need you inside me.”
Aleksandr uses his knees to sweep my legs up so I’m curled into a C on my side, his body is wrapped around every part of mine. His groan as he slides into me is raw and loud enough that I’m actually worried Stella could hear it two rooms away and over her white noise machine.
I turn my head over my shoulder. “Shhh.”
“Don’t tell me what to do, woman,” he says as he moves his hand to my hip, anchoring me in place.
Silent laughter rumbles around in my chest and my upper body shakes against him. And then he moves inside me with deep, deliberate strokes that take my breath away.
“Shit.” The word rolls off his tongue in a grunt. “This. Is. Too. Good.”
“And that’s a problem because . . .?” I ask, driving my hips to meet his as best I can on my side.
“Because it’s been ten seconds and I’m already close.” He sounds frustrated.
I know exactly what will make me catch up to him. “Roll over and sit up,” I say.
He pushes into me again. “I’m not saying I want to stop.”
“And I’m not saying we’re going to stop,” I tell him, meeting his next thrust. “I’m just going to show you how to catch me up.”
“Fine.” The word is another growl, and he sighs as he pulls out of me slowly, like every inch of movement is against his will.
Once he’s sitting, I roll over. I sit up and swing one leg over his hips so I’m straddling him. On my knees like this, my breasts are right in his face and as I sink down onto him, sheathing him inside me, he takes them both in his hands reverently. Until Sasha, I’ve never been with someone who makes me feel like he’s worshipping my body and owning my soul.
As I move over him, his mouth and his hands are everywhere, licking and stroking every part of my body that he knows will bring me pleasure. As I tilt my hips and slide along him, I focus on making sure he hits that spot deep inside me that will bring me to orgasm. I look down at him as I sink onto him again, marveling at the way his eyebrows scrunch together at the effort of holding himself back until I find my release. There is raw desire in those eyes as he glances up at me. Eyes locked on my face, lips locked on my breast, his mouth is doing things that are driving me wild.
I pick up the pace and find the best angle so when he rubs against that spot deep inside me, I about come undone. He sucks my breast further into his mouth, circling my nipple with his tongue as I slide him in and out of my body. When I groan with pleasure, he emits a sound from the back of his throat that is both desire and torture, and it reverberates along my skin. I speed up, my thighs and core working hard as I rise and sink over him, and the more I move, the closer I get to that orgasm I so desperately want.
Framed by dark lashes, his eyes are a swirling mass of gray liquid steel again. The way they focus on my face—assessing, studying, loving—makes me feel seen. He knows me like no one else. He loves me.
The realization hits at the same moment that my orgasm begins. My muscles clench in rippling waves that pulse around him as I buck my hips wildly against his. Without taking his eyes off me, he tilts his chin up, letting my breast fall from his mouth as he reaches one hand up to bring my head down to his. His lips are parted when our mouths meet and his tongue plunges into my mouth with the same relentless ferocity with which my muscles are clenching around his cock. I feel him pour himself into me as my orgasm brings about his, and both his hands cup my face as he kisses me like it’s the last time.
It’s too much, the way my body responds to his, the way he owns my heart. I don’t know what to do with all these feelings. The physical ones I can deal with, even though I’ve never experienced anything of this magnitude, but the emotional ones are strangers. Is it just like this because we are saying goodbye? Or could I always have this if I stayed?
And more importantly, how does one walk away from this kind of earth-shattering experience?
The tears started falling when I walked onto the plane yesterday.
I held it together when Sasha and Stella dropped me off at the airport. I said my goodbyes and made it through security and to the gate without incident. But the moment my butt hit that first-class seat, the tears started falling. I slid my sunglasses onto my face and the flight attendant brought me napkins and a glass of champagne, but I cried silent tears until there were none left to shed. I managed to eat lunch without crying, though it was hard to get the food past the enormous lump in my throat. But the moment I handed the plate back to the flight attendant, the tears started falling again. If the businessman sitting next to me noticed me constantly dabbing my cheeks, sliding that napkin up under my sunglasses, he didn’t say anything. I managed to collect my luggage and make it to the car Morgan sent for me without tears, but the minute I slid into the back seat, they started falling again. I cried even harder when I walked through the door of my apartment. Normally my refuge, now the sunny space felt like a jail cell.
It was like each time I transitioned into a new situation that would take me further from Aleksandr—the plane, the car, my apartment—I broke down. And I can’t seem to stop breaking down over and over. Maybe these are the unshed tears from the first time he left me, back when we were teenagers. Maybe they are the unshed tears of all the men who have screwed me over time and time again. Maybe it’s the acknowledgment that I’ve once again let a man into my life, not just into my bed, and this gives him the power to hurt me.
But I trust him. And maybe more importantly, I think I love him. And I think he feels the same way. Which is why it’s so hard to have to walk away, even if it’s not forever.
I take another tissue from the box I’ve left on the ottoman in the center of my closet, wipe my face and blow my nose, then toss it in the now almost-full trash can I’ve moved into my closet while I’m packing.
My phone buzzes with a text and I scoop it up, hoping to see Aleksandr’s name. Instead, I have two texts from Sierra and one from Morgan. Nothing from Aleksandr. Which makes sense, since last night I’d told him I needed some time to adjust to being home. I told him I’d contact him when I felt ready to talk.
Sierra: When are we going to talk? I know you’re back in Park City, and you said we’d talk when you got home this weekend.
Sierra: Petra, you can’t hold this all in. Whatever is happening, you need to talk about it. If not to me, then call Jackson. I’m pretty sure you haven’t talked to her either. We’re here for you if you need us.
I fold a few more dresses and add them to my suitcase as I consider how to respond to her texts. In the past, I’ve been a confidant for both Jackson and Sierra. I’ve given them both advice they needed to hear, when they needed to hear it. At various points over the past couple years, they’ve each told me things they hadn’t told each other, despite the fact that they’ve known each other since they were eight years old. It’s always been easy for me to dish out impartial, practical advice because my heart’s never been involved. And now that it is, I don’t know what to do.
Petra: Call me when you have a minute.
My phone rings in my hand.
“Hey,” I say.
“God, I’ve missed you and your sexy voice,” she tells me. “How have you been?”
“There’s, uh, been a lot going on lately.” I don’t mention that my voice is more raspy than usual because of all the crying.
“Spill.”
As if it’s that easy. “I don’t know what to say.”
“How is this hard?” she asks. But Sierra is an open book and the most empathetic person I’ve ever met. Loving is easy for her. Caring for other people is easy for her. The only thing she has trouble dealing with is the weight of her own expectations. But it’s not like that for me. I don’t know how to be that person, the one who gives up her dreams for someone else. My dreams and my success are too tied to who I am.
“You’re not saying anything,” Sierra says from the other end of the phone.
“I know. I’m thinking.” I take a stack of neatly folded basic loungewear and add it to my suitcase. I never step foot outside without a banging outfit, carefully styled hair, and a natural-looking full face of makeup. But the minute I come home, I change into something comfortable for lounging around the house in. I try not to think about what it means that Sasha and Stella were the first people I’ve let into my small circle of trust in years. I hung out with them at home, in PJ’s, with no makeup, just doing normal family-like things. And I loved it. I loved the coziness, the comfort of having people around who I didn’t feel like I was performing for.
“What are you thinking about?” she asks.
“If I wanted you to know, I’d be talking.”
“That’s not how this whole confiding in a friend thing works. You share what’s going on, and then I’m either supportive if you’re making good decisions, or I tell you you’re an idiot and you need to stop fucking up your life.”
I laugh like she’d intended for me to. “I don’t know how to do this,” I tell her.
“Do what?”
“Be the one asking for advice.”
“It’s simple, really. You let go of the need to control everything, and instead tell me what’s happening so we can talk through it and you can get impartial advice from a friend.” She sounds so confident, which is wholly unlike the Sierra who wasn’t sure what to do about her relationship with Beau only a few short months ago. I like this new, empowered version of her.
“You’re going to be sorry you asked,” I say as I take two piles of underwear from a drawer and add them to my suitcase.
“I doubt that.”
I tell her everything.
“So you’re telling me that the queen of noncommitment, the one who won’t let anyone get close to her, who never wants to settle down—is actually married and now trying to help her husband adopt a kid?” Her cackle is totally uncalled for, except I’m sure I’d be reacting the same way if I were in her shoes.
I think about all the times I’ve given my girlfriends shit about “settling down” and talked about how I never would. And now here I am, trying to decide how I can settle down without “settling”—without giving up everything I’ve worked so hard for.
“I really appreciate your understanding,” I grumble.
“Oh, honey,” she says when she finally stops laughing, “you are so screwed.”
“Thanks.” I roll my eyes even though she can’t see them.
“Okay,” she says, the word rolling out on a sigh. “Seriously though, do you want my real thoughts on the situation?”
“Would I have told you if I didn’t?”
I think about how my relationship with Sierra has changed over the past year and a half, how we went from two people with a friend in common to two people who were actually friends. I miss Jackson every day, but I’m also glad that she and Nate getting back together allowed Sierra and me to become closer. If only Sierra hadn’t then moved away, too, leaving me in Park City with just one close friend, Lauren, and a bunch of work friends who are more like acquaintances I see all the time.
“Here’s the only thing that matters,” Sierra says. “Do you love him?”
“I mean . . .” I hedge.
“Petra,” she says, her voice serious. “Do. You. Love. Him?”
“Yeah.” My voice sounds small and quiet and distant, even to my own ears. “I always have.”
“But do you feel differently about him now? Not the infatuation of the unobtainable best friend that you felt during your teenage years . . .”
“That’s not what that was.”
“Wasn’t it?” she asks. “Regardless of how he felt about you then, wasn’t he your unobtainable best friend? The older guy you had a crush on?”
“He wasn’t unobtainable, I mean.”
“Based on how things turned out back then, I beg to differ.”
“Ouch.”
“But,” she says, “it doesn’t matter because your story doesn’t end there.”
Her words make me realize that Aleksandr still hasn’t told me what happened that night, why he pushed me away so abruptly. Why haven’t I asked him about that? He has definitely said that he had feelings for me then, so why did he end things like he did? Suddenly that information feels so crucial to understanding my own feelings, to knowing whether we can ever have something meaningful and lasting.
“So,” she continues, “do you feel differently about him now than you did back then? Or is this just you finally getting what you wanted?”
I consider what she’s asking as I fold another shirt. “It’s hard to separate how I felt back then and how I feel now. It feels like I’ve always loved him, but yes, what I feel now is different than what I felt back then.”
“How so?” Her question feels like a test where I need to prove to her and to myself that I’ve grown up.
“Back then, my feelings for him were based on two things, need and want. Like he was the one person who was always there for me when I needed him, and I loved him unequivocally in return. I was also stupidly attracted to him, and I wanted him to feel the same way about me.”
“How is that different now?”
“Now, I guess . . .” I pause to think this through before speaking. “Now I don’t need him in my life. In fact, in most ways, my life is easier without him in it. Yet I still want him. Not just sexually, but I actually want his company. I enjoy spending time with him.”
“I feel like love is a lot stronger when you want someone without needing them,” Sierra says.
“Please explain.” I like this phrase Aleksandr used the other night, and I think I’m going to employ it often.
“Well,” she says slowly before pausing. “When you love someone because you need them, it’s hard to tell what that love is based on—is it really love or is it codependency? But when you love someone that you don’t need in your life, when you’re already whole and you love someone because they make you happier, better, more fulfilled—that’s a much stronger kind of love.”
I sit on my ottoman next to my almost-full suitcase. Was the love I felt for him back then based on codependency? A lot of times it felt like we were all each other had. Sure, he had his father and a ton of friends, but Niko was already away at college. I had my emotionally distant dad and basically no friends. Aleksandr wasn’t just my person, he was my only person. Was the love I felt for him related to needing him in my life and being thankful he was there?
“I feel like I want to know him better, to understand him more, to know what makes him who he is now.”
“You don’t feel like you know who he is now?” Sierra asks this question like she’s considering her words carefully.
“I do know who he is now, in all the important ways. I know that he’s a great surrogate father to Stella, a loyal brother who’d do anything for his family, a dedicated teammate. He’s a good man. Do I love who he is now? Yes. But do I know enough about his past to know how he’ll act in the future? To understand what makes him tick? What makes him act and react how he does? No.”
“It’s okay to love him and still feel like you need to know him better before you can commit, you know?” Her words are the assurance I need about the conflicted feelings I’m having.
“I know. But I don’t know where to go from here.”
“Yes, you do,” Sierra says. “You need more time to get to know him, to learn about all those years you were separated, to understand him. You need time to build up that trust you lost when he walked out on you before.”
“Yeah, but . . .” Time feels like the one commodity we don’t have.
“Relationships take time and constant work, Petra,” she assures me, “even with me and Beau. Yeah, we started out as an explosion and I took a huge leap, leaving my job to follow him after only a few weeks, but we didn’t stop working on our relationship then and we haven’t stopped yet. We’re still getting to know each other, figuring out how to argue without fighting, how to work through big, scary feelings without pushing each other away, and loving each other despite our flaws. It’s work, and it’s always going to be work, but it’s worth it.”
In every relationship I’ve ever been in, I’ve felt like I was the only one doing the work. But for the first time, I feel like maybe we could be in this together—equally, as partners. We’ve only ever talked about our marriage from the perspective of him adopting Stella. Even though I know we both have real feelings for each other, we’ve never talked about what happens after he adopts her. Does he still want to get divorced and go on his way, or does he want this to last?
I take a deep breath, because before I talk to him about what he wants, what he sees in our future, I need to figure out what I want. Could I really settle down with one person? Am I ready to be a mom? Can I put my heart on the line, loving not only Aleksandr but also Stella?
This relationship is the antithesis of everything I’ve ever wanted, but somehow it still feels like it could be exactly right just the same.
