“Tell me.”
With reluctance, he said, “There was a back-alley prostitute that all the boys used to watch. I could tell she was feigning passion with her clients, faking screams—desperate just to be done for the night.”
I cringed to think of all the things he’d seen when living on the streets.
“Then one night, a man came to her, touching her in ways I’d never seen before—exacting, even cruel ways. He made her put her hands against the wall as he whipped her. I couldn’t believe he was striking her. I was ready to kill him for hitting someone so much smaller. I started for the man, but then I looked at her face—really looked. Her eyes were glassy, and she couldn’t catch her breath.” Sevastyan’s gaze flicked to me—to see if I was still with him?—then away. “She was . . . she was in heaven.”
“Go on.”
“Once the man finally f**ked her, this jaded woman melted for him. In those moments, she would’ve done anything for more. She belonged to him absolutely.” Sevastyan faced me, holding my gaze, as if he needed me to fully understand him. “He had something to offer her—something that other men didn’t. I realized if I could learn how to do the things he’d done, I could master a woman like that. I could make her melt. I didn’t crave the acts as much as I did the result.”
I’d suspected that kink for this man had more to do with a woman’s pleasure than his own. Now I was learning that he’d imprinted the day he’d seen a woman taken to heights he’d never before witnessed. “And then later?”
“As I told you, it always felt like practice. After I met you, I understood why. But then when my needs grew fiercer with you, I feared I was interested in pain for the wrong reasons. Maybe because I’d received so much of it. Maybe because I wanted to control it like alcohol, meting doses of it. I was terrified that I would scare you away—or lose control and harm you.”
And all I’d done was push him. Regret weighed on me. “Then I’ve pressured you into things you’re not comfortable with.”
He shook his head forcefully. “When someone like you had those needs . . . what I did to you didn’t feel sordid. You made it . . . clean. I went to a place like that club, and I felt hope too.”
I must have looked unconvinced, because he added, “I was right all those years ago. That night of the club, you looked like you were in heaven—and I knew you were mine.”
I recalled how his eyes had glinted, how he’d rested his forehead against my shoulder. He’d told me I was made for him.
“On the ride home, you curled your little fingers into my hair and shivered against me. You sighed like you loved me.” His gaze bored into mine. “I will do anything for that reaction.”
He’d seen how tastes of pain could affect a woman, and he’d internalized that want. This man only yearned to madden me, to take me to new heights. Which meant I wasn’t hurting him!
And he was actually communicating with me.
Right when I was growing convinced that we could make this work, his eyes turned bleak. “But you weren’t mine, were you?”
“I was. I am!” I made a sound of exasperation. “Do you know how frustrating it’s been to fall in love with every facet you let me see—even when I believed you’d never let me see more?”
“Love?” His Adam’s apple bobbed.
“Yes, Sevastyan. I’m willing to work on us, if you are too. If you’ll just keep talking to me, I believe we can handle anything.”
He eyed me suspiciously, as if he couldn’t fathom this turn of events. “You’re giving me another chance?”
“If you’ll give me one too. I do need to learn to be more patient, just like you said.”
He eased closer. “I know I’m not right. But if you help me, I can be better. That’s what I want. Natalie, understand me: I’m . . . asking.”
I was already reaching for him. When he swung me over to straddle his lap, I wrapped my arms around his neck. Against me, his body shuddered as if a weight had been lifted from him—like an overworked muscle finally allowed to rest.
I whispered, “You let me in.”
He could only nod.
“Please don’t shut me out again. As long as you talk to me, I’ll never leave you.”
“I’ll do whatever it takes.”
For what might have been hours, he held me like this. “Sevastyan, what happens now?”
In a voice hoarse with emotion, he said, “Now we go home.”
Epilogue
The Moskva River was almost frozen.
From the pavilion, I watched otters frolicking on blocks of ice. I’d seen a stoat, several hares, and a snowy owl. They were all thriving in these bitter temperatures—a damp cold even more biting than I’d known in Nebraska.
The pavilion was one of my favorite places on the property. I would come here whenever Sevastyan was working.
All around me, Berezka was covered in snow, pristine. Which helped me to forget the fight to the death by the boathouse, the war for control that had raged over these grounds.
Paxán’s untimely death.
Seamless white reminded me that wounds heal.
Though Paxán’s grave site was beautiful—a clearing atop a hill, surrounded by birch trees—I felt closer to him here.
His funeral had been somber, attended by so many who’d loved him. In front of others, Sevastyan hadn’t allowed himself to show grief. Later that night, in front of me, two tears had slid down his face, which might as well have been a thousand for a hardened man like him.
Every day that passed we could think of Paxán with less pain. I was thankful that I’d gotten to spend even that short amount of time with him. In just weeks, he’d changed my fate forever.
His dying wish had been fulfilled: my life was better because he’d been in it.
I glanced over and saw Sevastyan striding toward me, his long charcoal coat whipping about his legs; my heart sped up at the sight of him. I knew that it always would.
The winter sun caught his face as he neared. To look at him now, I would say he’d found some measure of peace. He appeared younger, that weariness I’d first sensed in him lifted. He smiled more often, and I could even make him laugh on occasion.
“Ready to go in?” He offered his arm for the walk back to the main house. We’d redone my wing for the two of us, moving his things from his house on the property.