3
Manya
Iwas surrounded by clouds.
At least, it felt like I was. The comforter puffed up around where I had fallen face first into it upon entering the hotel room. It cradled the weariest parts of my body as if it somehow knew that was where I needed the comfort most. I could still taste the champagne inside my mouth where I ran my tongue, like a chaser for the taste of Dmitry that now always seemed to linger there.
I didn’t remember much of the night. If I was being honest, I didn’t remember much of anything after getting in the car and being lulled to sleep by its steady movement. I vaguely remembered being inside the elevator, and I even more vaguely remembered Dmitry telling me that he would be back before I woke. Blinking blearily into the stark white of the hotel’s bedding, I was half tempted to call him out on it.
Even if, apparently, it was his re-entering that had woken me up.
I listened to the faint sounds of him rustling about and stretched, starting with my toes, until I felt mobile enough to roll over. The shades covering the windows were drawn, just as they had been when we arrived, and they were so effective that I could barely see the faintest outline of light behind them.
“Whattime’sitis?” I mumbled, my words jumbling together in my sleep-fogged state.
Through my still half-lidded eyes I could see him halfway across the room, putting something on the side table before turning back to me. He looked amused, if still blurry in my vision, and I had half a mind to roll over and go back to sleep.No jet lag my ass.
“What was that?” he asked, a chuckle underlining his words. “Were you trying to speak yeti, or do you just naturally devolve upon returning to the motherland? Ah, don’t tell me, that was your attempt at Russian?” His teasing was gentle, even if the words worked their way inside of me until heat filled my cheeks.
No doubt that had been his exact intention.
“I said,” I stated more clearly, pushing myself into a seated position and rubbing my eyes. “What. Time. Is. It?” Each word was perfectly enunciated, my eyes narrowing just slightly as focus slid over my vision, sharpening my view of both the room and my husband standing within it. “Ti zaeba, you know I speak Russian,” I mumbled as an afterthought.
Maybe not so fluently as him, but I at least understood all of it.
A grin broke across his face, briefly lighting those dark features before he turned back to the table. “It’s almost 10 in the morning. You were tired, I let you sleep. And I brought you coffee and breakfast.” A clinking sound accompanied his words, and I could just make out the large silver carafe and the trays that he had carried in with him.
I stood and stretched out again letting out a yawn. “Sounds like bribery to me,” I grumbled. I didn’t mean much by it though.
Dmitry laughed. “Da, in part,” he agreed. “I have to see a man about my new rank tattoo, and I thought you might accompany me.” It came across as more of a suggestion than a demand, and I marveled at the progress we had made in such a short time.
Had it been two weeks ago, the man would have been barking orders at me. Now, though, he was giving me time to respond to his plans.Damn his charm. I didn’t like the idea of putting new ink into his skin. Although, I wanted him smiling down at me even less. It was disarming, making my insides churn with a kind of warm intrigue that only made me want to test the bed I had just left in other ways.
“They’re going to brand you then?” I murmured, coming up behind him and peeking around his torso at the spread of food he had brought with him. Sausage, waffles, eggs, strawberries, and all manner of toppings and custards sat on the trays, smelling of the kind of cooking I had only ever had in Russia.Actual, real sausage, not the American swill they had in place of it.. . . I could feel my mouth watering profusely already.
“I’m already branded,” he answered dismissively. He moved over just enough to give me access to the food, carefully pouring the cups of coffee out of the carafe and adding just the right amount of creamer and sugar by rote. “This is more of a . . . rebranding, if you will.”
I snorted, hastily piling my plate and starting eagerly with the sausage as I looked at him with one raised eyebrow. “Not that I oppose you having more tattoos, but you say it like it’s got to be done right now. What’s with the urgency?” I asked between bites, surprised to find myself adding more eggs onto my plate before I’d even finished the first half.
My eyes moved over his body, examining the pieces of skin still free from ink and imagining them filled in. I felt a sick feeling in my stomach, and not from the eggs that I’d nearly finished in a matter of moments.
“It’s a bit more than just a tattoo, my tigrenok,” he muttered, and I caught the barest twitch of one side of his lips as he stepped back. The motion forced my gaze back to his once more, his lifted eyebrows letting me know that I’d been caught out.
“Details, details,” I breathily dismissed, dropping my eyes to my plate. There was no food left for me to continue eating, and I found myself surprised at how quickly that plateful had disappeared. “And you want me to go with you because. . .?” My eyes lifted back up to him as I pushed the empty plate away and took the coffee mug, he was offering me instead.
“Because you are my wife, Manya,” he said easily, almost dismissively. “Because I want to take you with me, da? Unless you wanted to stay shut up in the hotel for the duration of our visit.”
“Well, I guess it’s a good thing I’m still dressed from last night—” I replied, only stopping at his quickly bitten back grin. “What?” I demanded, my eyebrows furrowing. “You picked this dress for me to travel in. Are you going to tell me that it’s inappropriate now?!”
“Nyet,” he chuckled, passing his hand down his face before taking another sip of coffee as if to buy time. “I’m not going to tell you that it’s inappropriate, but I will tell you that it’s still inside out.” His eyes ran down my frame as if remembering how it would have gotten inside out, and my toes curled almost instinctively. “And I picked it for the ease of access, not appropriateness. If you wish to leave this hotel cutting glass, be my guest.”
My gaze dropped to verify the status of my dress, and my cheeks heated even further than they already had. I could feel the flush encasing my entire face and down to the center of my chest, realizing how I must have looked coming in the night before. . . . And worse, as crude as his comment was, my nipples were certainly doing their best to make it seem factual.
“Nyet?” he teased, replacing his now empty coffee mug on the tray. “I did not think so.” His fingers curled softly around my chin with just enough traction to lift my face. I met his gaze once more.
His eyes were frank and honest as he scanned me again, very obviously appreciating what he saw. It made it easier for me not to turn away as he rubbed his thumb over my lower lip, watching the way it indented the skin there and smiling slightly. “You are back in the motherland, my tigrenok. You will need to dress as if you never left and this is the coldest winter in your memory. Your bones will have forgotten her welcoming chill, your skin will have grown used to the soft warmth of America. And here? We cannot show them weakness.”
There was no bite to his words, just an open transparency that I appreciated more than I had the words to explain. Again, he wasn’t telling me to jump and expecting me to blindly comply. He was taking the time to explain the decisions that were being made, to include me in a way that made me feel like there was something more between us than just the ceremony that bound us.