Total Package, page 18
Then she lay down at the opposite end of the bed, wrapped the quilt around her and studied the large glossy pictures. It was the best of herself that she could give Danya. “Good composition. Good subjects.”
With a sigh of satisfaction that she had redecorated his room, Sidney slid into sleep.
Danya held his breath as he walked into his home that evening.
Sidney had brought him lunch, a somewhat flattened and battered peanut butter and jam sandwich, and he’d quietly hid the hearty turkey and cheese sub sandwich that Jessica had made for him. Sidney had been quiet and he realized suddenly that she was now shy of him; she’d sat beside him near the new dormer windows on the roof, and surveyed the ocean, the beach, the children playing on it, the tourists milling on the pier, and then she’d put her arm around him as they sat side by side.
Danya had held very still, absorbing this new intimate gesture. She had smiled shyly at him. “Good sandwich. Thanks,” he’d said.
“Alexi is eating a great big one.”
“This is better.” Her hand had slid up to his hair, toying with it, and then she’d placed her head lightly on his shoulder. Danya had understood immediately that she was experimenting. A woman raised in a family that rarely showed affection by touching, she’d come to him and she was nervous of this new beginning. Danya had taken her hand and Sidney took it to her lap, studying the broad dark width against her own. “Nice. Different.”
She’d looked at his bare chest and had started to breathe quickly, her eyes going almost black. “Sweaty. Smooth. You’d be very slick if—”
Danya had jackknifed to his feet, because if he didn’t, they’d be making love right on the roof. “Well, better get back to work. Let me help you off the roof.”
“Hey, guy. I’m not helpless.” But Sidney had blushed and hurried away from him.
All afternoon, he’d held that image of Sidney’s large dark eyes on his chest, the way her tongue came out to slide over her bottom lip as if she’d like to taste him. At quitting time, Danya had hurried home, anxious to see her.
In the house, Stretch and Junior were modeling their girly-clothes, tight and low cut, their faces overly painted, and getting ready to go out on the date that was intended to mortify his cousins. Sidney’s sisters didn’t know Sergei and Kiril very well. When the cousins arrived soon after, Bulldog served iced tea and talked comfortably with the men.
Sergei grinned at Danya and winked.
“My, how lovely you look,” Kiril said to the sisters.
“You lost the climbing race, too, huh?” Sidney asked with a grin.
Stretch turned on her like a tiger. “You think you could do any better, short stuff?”
“I’ve always been faster than you guys in something like that. Less weight to haul, more agile, yada, yada.”
After the couples left, Danya took his shower and Bulldog served dinner, a shrimp and linguine dish from his new spiffy Italian recipe book. Sidney pulled out Danya’s chair for him to sit and then sat beside him. She took his hand and held it on the table. “How do people eat like this?” she asked curiously.
“Well, that takes practice,” Bulldog answered, diving into his own food.
He seemed to enjoy listening to the projects Danya and Alexi had contracted, and was just serving dessert when the door burst open and Stretch and Junior stomped in, carrying their high heels. “We’re leaving in the morning,” Junior said. “Paid all the damn debts we owe to your cousins, Danya. What’s to eat? Mmm. Pasta.”
“I thought you’d stay out late,” Sidney stated tightly as the sisters sat to eat hungrily. “I thought you’d be cooking and cleaning at the cabin.”
“Oh, we cooked,” Stretch said. “These guys are from Montana and they didn’t like burned steaks and who knew you had to wash potatoes before you baked them?”
“It was sheer hell,” Junior said, “Got to haul out of here in the early morning. Back to work.”
“You could leave tonight,” Sidney suggested in that tight, furious tone.
“Stay as long as you like,” Danya invited, and she turned to scowl at him.
“Well, hell, girls, I thought you liked it here,” Bulldog said. “But if that’s how it goes, what about a game of pool after dinner. You, Danya? You, Sid?”
After the first game ended, Sidney faked a yawn and slid a sultry look at Danya that said she wanted him and she couldn’t wait any longer. “I’m hitting the sack.”
The Blakelys barely noticed Sidney and Danya walking to their bedroom. Inside, Danya locked the door. Sidney was showing all the signs of a nervous bride, keeping her distance from him. She may have wanted him earlier on a sensual plane, but now she was wary of him in this new intimate, seemingly semipermanent relationship.
It would be their first night in his home, in his bed, and that held connotations that evidently still frightened Sidney. He’d give her all the time she needed to adjust to this intimacy. He surveyed the large glossy family pictures tacked over his bed. “Thanks for decorating. I didn’t know what to do with the walls.”
“You’re welcome. I stuck up a few in your office, too, and in the living room. You may have noticed. This afternoon, I took some of Bulldog’s roses, really nice still shots, zoomed right in there. Tomorrow morning, I might even catch a drop of dew. Sometimes dew on spider webs can sparkle like jewels…. Danya?”
“Hmm?”
“Um—I think I’ll take a shower.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t go back and play pool or anything, will you?”
“I was thinking about it,” he said, just to see how she reacted. Sidney always reacted perfectly.
She walked slowly to him and Danya held his breath while she lifted her arms and placed them around his shoulders. “Hi,” she whispered and stood on tiptoe to whisper in his ear. “Honey,” she added softly.
Danya’s hands tightened on her waist. It was the first endearment she’d given him. His heart did that racing thing because he knew it was the first “Honey” she’d given to anyone.
She brushed her lips across his on her way to his other ear. “Hi—dear.”
Then she rested her head upon his shoulder, snuggling to him as she smoothed his back with her open hands. Adrift in sweet sensations, Danya held her against him. “Hi, yourself.”
Sidney leaned back to look up at him, and smooth his hair back from his face. “You’re such a sweet guy. Really. I mean it.”
She stood on tiptoe again and lightly kissed his lips, his jaw, his throat. Danya realized that she was experimenting in her romantic technique, but he was having an immediate and urgent problem, his body hardening. He groaned slightly, wondering how long he could restrain himself from making love to her.
Sidney began to unbutton his shirt and with each button leaned to place a kiss on his chest, his stomach, and she was taking too long—Danya smiled tightly as she turned to look up at him with that drowsy shy and impish look. “This is going to take a very long time, honey. Relax. You’re so tense and hot and fierce already. I’ll be back in just a minute—”
She left him rigid and shaking and dazed as she walked to the dresser. She slid away her T-shirt and sports bra and shimmied out of her jeans and undershorts. Danya couldn’t move, pinned to the sight of Sidney’s pale curved body, moving gracefully as she slid into a short black negligee, supported by two tiny straps. She stepped delicately into a ruffled scrap of cloth and turned to him. “What do you think? Does this look romantic? I found it in a shop on my way to bring you lunch.”
Danya had that fierce hot look she loved, but Sidney had promised to take her time romancing him. She walked to the vanity he’d made for her, sat down and picked up a brush. In the mirror, Danya stood rigidly behind her. “How much time is this going to take?”
“Why, honey, I really don’t know. I’m new at this, you know.”
“Pick up the pace, my darling,” he ordered huskily.
“Now there’s a time for everything. Romance can’t be rushed—”
“You’re killing me, Sid.” Danya sat on the bed, kicked off his shoes, slid off his socks and stood to unzip his jeans, sliding out of them and his shorts. He threw back the quilt and sheet, turned and studied her.
Sidney continued to slowly brush her hair. “This anticipation stuff really works, huh? Building the moment and all that? A slow seduction, rather than just going for it?”
With a rough sigh, Danya turned off the light, lay down on the bed and covered his hips and legs with a sheet. He placed his hands behind his head and watched her. Sidney took her time applying moisturizer to her hands and then to her body, making certain that Danya had full view of her legs. “Come to bed, my darling,” he ordered roughly.
“In a minute—”
“Now.”
Thoroughly enjoying tantalizing Danya—a patient man who always took his time, but now couldn’t wait—Sidney smiled in the night’s shadows. “But I thought you might want to go play pool with my family. Have you changed your mind?”
Danya sprang out of bed, walked to the vanity and scooped her up in his arms. He tossed Sidney lightly upon the bed and she smiled her best sultry one up at him. Certain that he was going to have her in his arms, Danya smiled back and bent to slide into bed with her.
Sidney scooted out, and Danya was faster than she expected, reaching for her. He was laughing now, a good sound, and Sidney knew that he’d make a perfect playmate—therefore, she just had to dive upon him. Danya caught her and held her tight as he lay on his side, smiling at her.
“I’d appreciate it if you’d—you know, make certain I didn’t scream or anything,” Sidney whispered. “You don’t want Bulldog and my sisters worried about me, do you?”
“This room is soundproof. I turned up the radio in here today, stood in the hallway and listened—not a sound. And I love those noises you make—can’t get enough of them.” Danya was busy stroking away the filmy negligee, his hand smoothing her hip, her thigh. “Call me ‘honey,’ and see what you get.”
Sidney smiled back at him. “Honey?”
His expression stilled as he said quietly, “I love you, Sidney. I loved you from the first time I saw you.”
His quiet declaration caught her, wrapping around her heart. “I love you, too.”
“Mmm.” Danya sighed, and still holding her against him, lay back against the pillows, covering them with a sheet.
Sidney listened to the slow beating of his heart and smoothed his chest. “I love you, Danya,” she whispered again, more firmly this time, adjusting to the words on her lips, because she was going to give him plenty of them.
They lay there in the night, close and tender, and then Danya began to make love to her with long sweet kisses that heated and warmed.
He was making this first time in his home, very special, she realized as his lips moved to one ear and then the other, and then slowly down to her throat. Those beautiful big wide hands moved gently over her, easing her closer, soothing her as she began to tremble and hold him tight. She held her breath as Danya nuzzled her stomach and lower.
When Sidney could stand no more, her fingers digging into his shoulders, her head tossing upon the pillow, her hips lifting restlessly, eagerly, Danya worked his way back up to her breasts again. He treated gently, thoroughly, tugging at her with lips and teeth and flicking his tongue over the sensitized peaks.
Sidney smoothed that rock-hard stomach and found the full hot silky length of him. Burning with the fever now consuming them both, she urged Danya to complete her. She moved quickly through her storm, the fever pounding, threshing them, skin against damp skin, softness and muscle, plunging desperately against him, aware of his lips, his mouth slanted perfectly to hers as were their bodies….
Textures, smooth and hard, stroked her body, Danya’s hands cupping her bottom, lifting her higher to meet him, withdrawing, joining—
She seemed to ride those pleasured peaks forever, distantly aware of his uneven breath, of his straining to hold her. Then everything stopped, whirled around them, and suddenly, he came down to her arms, damp and heavy, and he belonged to her.
Sidney stroked Danya’s muscled back, soothed his trembling body, eased his damp hair from his face, listened to his uneven breathing against her throat, and gave herself to the peace of coming home. “Mmm,” she whispered against his cheek, “I’m not the only one who can’t keep quiet. There was this muffled little shout at the end.”
“I was saving it just for you,” he murmured in a drowsy tone that said she’d taken everything, met him on an equal plane, demanded everything back. It was quite the fulfilling feeling, on top of being quite pleasured herself, to know that she’d given him everything, that she’d taken everything.
Sidney forced her hand to flop to the side, and Danya chuckled deeply, easing away slightly, until her head lay on his chest, her limbs tangled with his. Danya caressed her head, his fingers working magic, until she slid into sleep.
During the night, Sidney heard the shower running and rose to enter the bedroom’s spacious bathroom. Danya’s tall fit body moved beyond the glass closure. She leaned against the vanity, studying him, thinking how wonderful he was, this lover of hers, when the glass door opened and Danya’s hand circled her wrist—“In.”
In the tiny space, he seemed even larger and somehow foreign and fierce as the shower spray hit his head, plastering his hair close. Danya carefully, intently, soaped and rinsed her body with minute care. Embarrassed that he should be so attentive, almost as if he were tending a child, Sidney stepped back and closed her arms over her breasts. “That’s enough.”
“Is it?” Danya asked too quietly. “You’re still shy of me, aren’t you? After all this?”
“This is new. Different. It’s very intimate. I—I’m a private person.”
“We have been that…intimate…. Okay.” Danya stepped out of the shower enclosure, leaving her alone in the spray and the steam.
Finished with her shower, Sidney noted the soft woman in the mirror and sighed. Danya had been very thorough, and her face was still flushed from lovemaking and exhaustion, but there were shadows around her eyes and her body felt relaxed. She wrapped in a large thick towel and when he wasn’t in the bedroom, wandered onto the bedroom’s tiny private deck to find him sitting in a wooden recliner.
Sidney understood immediately that he’d come here to brood while she was gone and she ached to soothe that loneliness now. She eased onto his lap and Danya drew her close, kissing her forehead. She lay very still, absorbing this new phase, the quiet, good one where no words were needed.
“This is good. I hope I don’t turn into a clinging Fluffy-type woman.”
“Cling all you want. Look,” Danya said, indicating the direction with a nod of his head. There, on a bench in the moonlight, overlooking the ocean, were three familiar shapes. Bulldog sat with an arm around each daughter.
“I’ll miss them.”
“This is their home now, too, you know. I just ask that they don’t try to renovate until they consult me. I’ve got a suspicion that when your sisters decide they are going to change something—they do.”
Danya framed Sidney’s chin with his hand and turned her to look at him. “I meant what I said about taking whatever I could get. That doesn’t mean you’ll be tied down here, if you need to travel.”
“I’m happy here, now with you, honey,” she whispered shyly.
“Uh-huh. But if the time comes, you’ll let me know, won’t you? And by the way, I’m not repeating that offer of marriage.”
She toyed with the fascinating center of his chin, kissing it. “Some offer. You asked my father, and then me. ‘Well, will you?’ you said.”
“I think you can be more romantic—if you feel like it. But only when you feel it is right for you.”
“Well, will you?” Sidney asked slowly, carefully. “Marry me?”
Epilogue
A
fter Danya and Sidney’s September beach wedding, the photographer kissed the groom, stood on tiptoe to whisper she loved him, and hurried toward her camera equipment. In a flurry of his mother’s traditional lace dress and a lacy veil, Sidney came running back to Danya. On her way, she stopped to kiss Bulldog, Viktor and Fadey. She stood on tiptoe to whisper something into Viktor’s ear and tears came to his eyes before he turned to speak Fadey and Bulldog. They looked soft and humbled and Bulldog brushed away a tear. “I wonder what she said,” Alexi murmured.
“She wants boys—three. Their namesakes, and if it’s girls, well, she’ll get inventive.”
Alexi chuckled. “She’s a fast mover. Get prepared, brother.”
“Oh, I am.”
Rosy with excitement, Sidney hurried on to Danya who was standing by his brother. “Alexi, give your brother his bouquet. I’ve just got to get this shot.”
Alexi grinned and handed the huge bouquet of roses to Danya. “Your wedding bouquet, Danya?” he asked in a way that said he wasn’t going to stop teasing Danya for a long time.
Danya only smiled; nothing mattered except the love—and romance—Sidney seemed set upon giving him.
“You looked great carrying it. Oh, wait a minute—” Sidney ordered.
She eased his arms away from his body and stepped in close to smooth his newly embroidered festival shirt that now matched all the other Stepanov males.
His bride was truly romantic, handing him the rose bouquet she’d given him to carry as he walked toward her and their marriage.
Sidney studied him critically, straightened the wide collar, and smiled softly up at him. He’d remember that glowing smile forever, Danya thought, the way her eyes cherished him. With his arms wide-open, he bent to take a long, thorough kiss that would hold him over until they were alone, and Sidney held very still.
