The Hacker by Renee Rose

12

Natasha

I don’t know where I’m going. All I know is I need some fresh air. I need to get away from Dima and his anger and blame. From my regrets and desires. From the constant churning and yearning Dima produces in me.

I throw open the back door and skid down the slick wooden steps from the deck to the rain-soaked earth. It’s spongy and wet under my bare feet, mud sinking between my toes as I run.

“Natasha.”

Damn him. He ignores me for hours on end, and the one time I need some space, he has to follow?

I keep running, heading into the thicket of trees, tears blinding me.

“Natasha, get back in the cabin!” Dima follows me.

I run faster.

“You really do love punishment don’t you?” he shouts.

Oh, hell no. No, no, no, no, no. He doesn’t get to throw that in my face. To shame me for the intimate acts we’ve shared.

I whirl and march back to him, slapping him across the face as hard as I can.

His blue eyes widen behind his black-framed glasses, dismay in the slackness of his mouth. “I guess I deserve that.”

I turn again, intending to run, but he catches me around the waist. I scramble out of his grasp, but my feet slide in the mud, and I face-plant in a puddle.

“Oh, baby. Natasha, I’m sorry.” Dima jogs up and crouches beside me.

For a moment, I don’t move, praying the earth will open up and swallow me. When I feel Dima’s hands on my shoulders, I try to scramble up. If I wanted to run from him before, the urge has quadrupled now.

“No, please.” He catches me around the waist and drags me back, pulling us both to the ground, me cradled against his body in the mud.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He pushes my wet and mud-thick hair out of my face, his touch gentle. “None of this is your fault, Natasha. It’s all on me.” He cradles my cheek in his palm. “You’re… you’re special to me—I can’t say why. And my attraction to you clouds my judgment.” He plucks a wet lock of hair from my forehead and smooths it back. “I never should have given you the address for that game. I knew everything about it was wrong, but I got confused. And my mistake nearly killed Nikolai—” He shakes his head, closing his eyes as if in pain. “It’s not the first time he’s nearly died because of me.”

It’s all too raw and vulnerable. I want to bury my face and hide, but Dima’s exposing his vulnerabilities, too, and it’s impossible to look away.

Misery makes Dima’s youthful face suddenly appear ancient. “He’s the other half of me,” he explains. “And all I’ve done is drag him into danger. He’s in the bratva because of me.”

“He’ll be okay,” I promise. I’m not a doctor, but Nikolai seems like he’s stable. Improving a little every day.

“I’m sorry you got mixed up in all this, Natasha. I’m sorry I blamed you. I’ve been an asshole. It’s only because… I needed to push you away. It’s hard for me to think straight when you’re nearby. And I can’t…” —he leans his forehead against mine and slowly shakes his head.

“Can’t what?” I whisper.

“I’m not the guy for you, amerikanka. And you can’t be mine.”

Pain lances through my heart.

The urge to run again, to try to escape the ache of rejection hits me, but before I can struggle for sovereignty, Dima leans forward and brushes his lips against mine.

I go still. After all the things we’ve done, we’ve hardly kissed. He opens his lips, closes them around mine. His hand at my cheek slides around to cup the back of my head, and he holds me steady as he deepens the kiss, firming his lips against mine, tasting me, then sweeping his tongue into my mouth.

I loop my arm behind his neck and kiss him back. Nothing has ever felt so good—this messy, vulnerable meeting of lips, mating of mouths in the middle of a puddle after a rainstorm. My body comes alive, every nerve-ending responding to the intensity of his kiss. My nipples harden under my tight, wet t-shirt, I go slick between my legs.

I shift position to straddle his waist, and then he pushes me back into the mud.

“Natasha.” It’s a lament. Like he’s broken. Like he’s sorry.

Whether he’s sorry for hurting me or sorry for what we’re about to do, I can’t be sure.

He kisses along my jaw, sucks at my neck. “I want you,” he rasps, sounding breathless.

“I want you, too,” I murmur.

He unbuttons his jeans and frees his length, and then he pushes into me, my panties and the boxer shorts easily shoved down. My back sinks into the soft mud as he pins my wrists beside my head and slowly, gently rocks, holding my gaze as if we’re performing some sacred ritual that requires his utmost concentration.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmurs. “You can’t possibly know how beautiful you are to me.”

His words enter me, swirling and spiraling up my center core, received like broken fragments of his withheld love. A few more pieces I will cling to and save for later, for those moments when I try to rearrange and fit them together, trying to make it real. Make it whole.

I love you, Dima.

Those are the words in my head that I want to say, but I hold them back.

He’s already said I’m not for him, and he can’t be for me.

Is it possible to love someone who can’t be for you?

Yes!my tattered heart screams. It may not be logical, but it’s true. I’ve always felt something for Dima, just as he’s always felt something for me.

There’s a rightness when I’m with him. A sense that I know him, even though I don’t. And even after all his rejections, I’m still here, taking whatever he’s willing to give, waiting for the moment when he’s ready to give more.

“Natasha.” He dips his head and nuzzles into my neck, all the while moving in a steady rhythm inside me. “You are summer rain and the sun that shines afterward.” He nips my ear. “You are everything kind and pure in my world. And I’ve been jaded for such a long time.”

He kisses along my collarbone. “I would help you with my fingers, but they’re covered in mud,” he murmurs like he’s telling me a secret he doesn’t want the trees to hear.

I laugh. “I’ll come if you go harder.”

Dima’s eyes warm. His smile is soft and indulgent. “My biggest surprise with you,” he says, releasing my wrists and bracing his hands on the ground beside my head to thrust deeper.

“What?”

“That you like it rough. I never would have guessed.”

“Me neither,” I admit, my eyes already rolling back in my head as he increases the intensity of his strokes, slamming in harder and deeper, but still at a slow, measured pace.

The pressure in me grows, building and coiling tighter until Dima murmurs, “Are you close?”

I nod, my gaze locked on his. He doesn’t blink, doesn’t look away. He pins me with that beautiful blue stare and drills into me, faster, harder, until need makes his movements jerky, his mouth open.

“Natasha!” he gasps.

“I’m coming!” My muscles tighten around his thick member, and he thrusts even harder and faster, pumping to his finish while I come and come beneath him.

When it’s over, when I open my eyes—I don’t know when I closed them—I find he’s still staring down at me with that same crazy intensity.

“Dima.”

I don’t know why it feels like our first time.

It feels like my first time, ever.

Maybe because sex has never felt so intimate and shared. It wasn’t beautiful or romantic or hot. I didn’t have sexy lingerie on. He didn’t show me his expert moves.

We broke apart in the mud, and then we put each other back together, one thrust at a time, until we were nearly whole again. Whole, but rearranged, as if some of my broken parts were glued to his and his to mine.

He lowers his head slowly and presses a kiss to my forehead. “Let’s get you out of the mud.” His voice is kindness and whispers. He slips out of me and straightens the panties and boxer shorts. “Come here, rodnaya.” He tugs me off the ground and up into his arms, and for a moment, he just holds me.

Sunshine filters through the pine trees, lighting up the water droplets and making the forest sparkle.

He kisses the top of my head, loops an arm around me, and steers me back into the cabin.

There’s a sadness to him—like he’d been holding all that anger in place between us before, and now that it’s fallen away, he mourns something.

Or someone.

Maybe he regrets breaking his promise to her.

Has he chosen me? Or was this another one of his mistakes?

I can’t bring myself to ask. It feels too nice to have his arm protectively around me. To have him whispering sweet things to me. To ride the post-orgasmic bliss as far as it will take us.

He takes my hand when we get inside and leads me to my bathroom upstairs where he peels my soaked t-shirt from my body, then crouches down to lower my panties and his boxers, tugging them off my ankles.

I stand there, soaking up his attention, letting it seep into all the cracks and crevices he split open these past few days.

He turns on the water in the shower and helps me in, then strips out of his clothes and joins me. Dirt, pine needles, and tiny leaves turn the water at my feet into mud soup. Dima’s smile is soft as he helps clean the dirt from my forehead and my hair. He picks up the bar of soap and runs his hands over me. It’s sensual but not sexual. He has a semi, but I don’t think he’s seducing me.

It’s more like… he’s asking forgiveness.

Making it up to me.

There’s an ease between us. Like neither of us want anything from the other; we’re just content to be together. To exist in the same energy. To commune, I guess.

I shampoo my hair while he soaps his body. We change places, so he can rinse.

“Are you okay?” he asks softly when he opens his eyes and finds me watching.

I was admiring how beautiful he is, in awe to find myself feeling so close to him. I nod.

“There’s a frozen pizza I could put in the oven for dinner.”

I smile. It’s so comfortable and familiar. So ordinary. Like we’re long-time live-in lovers instead of neighbors with no benefits. A captive and her captor. “That sounds nice.”

“You finished?” he asks, hand on the water nozzle. When I nod, he turns off the shower and pulls open the curtain. He grabs the closest towel and hands it to me, like a gentleman.

I wrap it around myself and stare at the filthy clothes on the floor. “Looks like I’m back to wearing the damn dress.”

“My torture,” he murmurs, as he dries his body in swift, efficient movements. His admission sends fluffy cotton candy clouds of pleasure floating through me. Except I still sense the sadness in him. Weariness. Defeat. Or am I misinterpreting contrition? He wraps the towel around his waist and picks up the heap of our muddy clothes. “I’ll get these washed and turn the oven on.”

I stare after him, trying not to spin out on domestic chore porn.

Things have changed between us, yes. But as sweet as Dima’s being, I don’t think he’s happy about the change.

He’s just not angry anymore.