Chapter 10: Intoxicated

Disclaimer: I do not own Vampire Academy

DPOV

This was so going to be a piece of cake, I thought trying hard to maintain a straight face as Rose practiced aiming at the dartboard. She had lost the coin toss and had to go first. She was slightly intoxicated and I could tell she was off balance. While it was true that she was good at darts and that she always beat me, it was also true that I was better and had always let her win. I was one hundred and ten percent confident that I would beat her especially after she'd been drinking. She may have been able to take a shot like a man, but she never could hold her liquor.

"Okay three darts and highest score wins," Christian said handing her the first dart.

She closed one eye and aimed letting the dart fly out of her hand with miraculous precision for someone who had imbibed three shots of vodka.

I watched nervously as she hit the outer ring of the bull's eye earning twenty-five points.

"Sure you still want to play Comrade?" she asked grinning at me as if she had already won the bet.

"I never back out of a bet Roza, you know that," I told her. I held my breath hoping for her to falter, but was unpleasantly surprised that she managed to hit the triple ring for the number fifteen giving her forty-five more points. I was beginning to sweat wondering if I could truly go through with what I had agreed to if she won. I could always refuse to sign them again, but that would only make her more furious and wouldn't help me win her back, but then again neither would giving her a divorce.

"Last shot Rosie, don't fuck it up," Christian teased.

"Shut up Sparky," she snapped.

"You'd better hope she does or you're screwed," Ivan mumbled.

I forced myself to watch as she threw her third and final dart cringing as she hit the bulls eye dead on earning her fifty more points for a total of one hundred and twenty.

"Beat that Comrade," she said as she and Lissa did their happy dance. She called to one of the bar tenders ordering another shot of vodka.

"This one is for celebrating our divorce," she whispered not so quietly as she hiccupped in my ear.

"You haven't won yet," I reminded her.

"Aww Comrade, you're so cute," she said pinching my cheek. "You actually think you have a chance. Remember I've seen you play before and trust me you're not that good. No one will blame you if you back out now or fake a cramp."

Her lack of confidence in me fueled my need to win and gave me the courage I needed to take back what I wanted. I stepped forward grabbing the shot from her hand downing it in one gulp.

"Thanks for the confidence, but I'll be just fine," I told her reading myself to win the bet.

"Your turn D," Ivan said handing me the darts. I had played a lot of darts in my life, but the stakes had never been higher than they were right now and the thought of losing her forever was making my hand quiver.

I took a deep breath and attempted to drown out all of the sounds around me. I put my hand forward aiming directly at the twenty and let go. I relaxed a little as it hit the triple ring giving me sixty points. All I had to do was get sixty-one more and I was golden. I aimed the second dart and grimaced as it slipped out of my sweaty palm missing the twenty mark giving me only one point.

"This is in the bag. Look at him, he's so nervous, he's sweating his balls off," Rose snorted. I tried not to let her get to me as I had one more shot at this. If I could hit the sixty I would have one hundred and twenty-one points and I'd have twenty-seven days to win her back. If I missed not only would I lose her, but suffer a public humiliation as well.

"Don't blow this one D or it's over," Ivan reminded me patting me on the back.

"It's okay if you do Dimka. You've been living just fine without her for the past seven years. Giving her a divorce means you can finally move on with your life," my sister encouraged.

"You can do it Dimitri, just concentrate," Lissa cheered me on.

"What the hell! Are you on his side?" Rose asked slapping Lissa upside the head.

"Well someone has to be," she muttered rubbing the back of her head.

I took one last look at her willing myself to realize what I'd be losing if I didn't hit precisely the right spot. I gathered the last of my strength and courage, aimed the dart and fired it at the twenty.

I didn't have the nerve to look at it so instead I watched the expression on Rose's face instead. Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped and in that instant, I knew I had won.

"But how?" she stammered walking up to the board to make sure her eyes weren't deceiving her while Ivan and Christian high fived me.

The crowd that had been gathered around us congratulated me and then began to disburse until it was just Rose and I standing alone in front of the dart board.

"I guess we're going to New York," she gulped pulling at the collar of her sweater nervously.

While a part of me was rejoicing triumphantly in my victory, it was short lived as she sat down on a chair staring blankly out the window.

"What's the matter?" I asked knowing she was upset, but wondering why she wasn't taking it out on me in an angry tirade.

"If you come home with me, I will have to tell Adrian the truth and he'll break up with me," she said sadly. While I would like nothing more than for that exact thing to happen, I didn't want her to hurt her.

"We could always stay here instead," I offered. I didn't care where we were as long as we were together.

She shook her head. "I can't. I just got a phone call about a shoot I have to be at on Wednesday next week. I can't back out, I'm under contract."

"I'm sorry Roza, but he isn't right for you. You have to give me the chance to make you see that," I said hoping she would perk up a little.

"Dimitri, we've known each other our whole lives, we dated, we were married, we lived together, we had a family together and still this is where we ended up. I don't know what else to do or say to prove to you that we were doomed from the start."

"I refuse to believe that," I said shaking my head. "The girl I fell in love with is in there somewhere and I'm going to find her." I took her hand in mine and for once she didn't pull away.

"She isn't there. She hasn't been for a long time. If you need to come to New York with me to see it, then fine, but I still don't know how to explain all of this to my fiancé."

"Hey, I don't mean to interrupt, but I think I have an idea," Lissa said smiling brightly.

"What would that be?" Rose asked.

"Well, the deal was, you'd let him come to New York with you, but you didn't say you'd introduce him as your husband right?"

"I guess not, but who the hell is he supposed to be then and where is he going to stay?"

"Well I was thinking about that. What if instead of just Dimitri going to New York with you, I went too?"

"Why would you do that?" I asked.

"Well, I've always wanted to see New York. I would get to spend time with you and you could take me to your photo shoot as a Christmas gift to make up for all the ones you missed," she said with a grin.

"But that still doesn't explain Dimitri," I said finding the hole in her logic.

"Well, he and I and Ivan and Christian could just be a group of friends from back home. We could get a suite at a decent hotel and make a vacation out of it. Who's to say that Dimitri is any more than just a friend from back home, come to see his friend on the runway?"

"I guess that would work," she said.

"So what do you say Ivan? You in?" Lissa asked.

"Sure, I'm game. I could get out of here for a while," he agreed.

"What about Sparky. Doesn't he have to work?"

"Nope, just hired two new deputies and they can handle things for a few weeks while he takes his much needed vacation time."

"Woah, if you guys are going to New York, you have to take me with," Viktoria exclaimed having just walked through the door to overhear our conversation.

"The more the merrier," Rose muttered.

"So when should we book a flight for?"

"I guess Monday."

"Monday it is," Lissa exclaimed excitedly pulling out her phone. "Wow that only gives me four days to pack. I have to get home and start."

RPOV

I watched in horror as his dart hit the triple ring on the twenty for the second time. Where the hell had he learned how to play darts? My shoulders slumped in defeat as Lissa booked all of us a flight out on Monday. I had absolutely no idea how I was supposed to bring a crowd full of friends home from a place I had pretended didn't exist for the past seven years and not slip up in front of Adrian or Mia or God forbid the paparazzi. I ended up needing two more shots to get my nerves to calm down and by this point I was more than a little drunk.

"I think you've had enough. I'm going to take her home," Dimitri told our friends as he removed the glass from my hand. I was too exhausted to put up a fight and allowed him to coral me out of the bar and out to his truck. He opened the door to the cab of the truck and helped me up and into the passenger seat before climbing in beside me.

I could barely remain upright and I figured it wouldn't hurt to just lean my head on his shoulder for a few minutes to make my head stop spinning. By the time we reached the house I was very comfortably snuggled into the crook of his neck.

"Mmm you smell good," I murmured inhaling the deep woodsy scent of his aftershave that I had always loved. He pulled me closer stroking my head with his hand as he put the truck in park.

"You always smell good Milaya," he whispered in Russian.

"Can you walk?" he asked as he attempted to get me out of the truck.

"Nope," I said swaying dangerously on the icy patches.

"Okay then," he said lifting me into his arms carrying me bridal style over the threshold the way he'd done on our wedding night.

Flashback

"What are you doing? Put me down!" I said as we arrived back at the disgusting shack of a house my father had helped Dimitri buy so we could have a place to live after we were married. It was nothing like the luxury I'd grown up in and I was not happy to have been forced into a marriage at seventeen let alone live in this crusty old piece of crap someone had mistaken for a house.

"I'm carrying you over the threshold," he said smiling at me. "It's a tradition." How he remained in such a chipper mood after this disaster of a wedding I will never know.

"Whatever, just put me down," I said once we'd entered the house.

He set me back on my feet and tears sprung to my eyes as I realized what my life had become. I'd gone from having a bright future and going to school for fashion design to seventeen, knocked up and married to my high school boyfriend.

I knew that I should be grateful that Dimitri hadn't run away and refused to take care of me and our child, but then again I could never be sure if he would have married me if my father hadn't busted in on him at work and held a knife to his throat telling him that he'd better take responsibility for his family. What was even more embarrassing is that the whole town knew about it. I could barely show my face anywhere without being humiliated. It was July now and I was ten weeks pregnant and so far my body looked relatively the same, but when school started up again in September it would be a whole different story.

"Do you want to see the bedroom?" Dimitri asked. I had only seen the outside of the house before the wedding as I was too distraught and angry to go inside. I also knew this was his ploy to get me into bed on our wedding night so our marriage was legal and binding. I also knew he was frustrated because I had refused to be intimate with him since the day I found out about the baby.

"Sure, why not add insult to injury," I said allowing him to take my hand.

As I stepped through the door I gasped at the breathtaking sight before me. It wasn't at all the dank prison I had expected it to be. The entire room was lit with candles and white twinkle lights. A Queen sized bed sat majestically in the middle of the small room with rose petals spread out on the red and gold comforter in the shape of a heart. There was a bottle of sparkling cider on the night stand and soft music played from a tape deck.

"Do you like it?" he asked his voice hopeful.

I held back tears nodding. "Did you do all this?" I asked.

"I had a little help from my sisters. Roza, I know this isn't the life we had planned, but for me the most important thing is being with you and that our child grows up feeling loved by both of us," he said placing his hands over my abdomen.

"I promise I will try my hardest to give you a good life," he said cupping my face in his hands. "I love you so much and there's no place I'd rather be than right here."

The tears that I'd been fighting began to leak out as I leaned into his touch.

"I'm sorry for being so uncooperative these past few weeks. I love you too," I said and I meant it. I did love him more than anything. I was just struggling with how much things had changed these past few weeks.

He leaned down capturing his lips with mine caressing my bare shoulders with his hands before fiddling with the zipper on the back of my gown.

"You are so very beautiful my love," he said as I stood before him, my dress pooling at my feet.

"Are you sure you want this?" I asked still unsure of whether or not he felt as trapped into this marriage as I did.

"I've never wanted anything more," he said lying me back against the pillows hovering over me as he looked deeply into my eyes. At that moment I decided believing him was my only option. I wanted to take the opportunity to just enjoy being with him tonight on our wedding night. I knew that in the morning reality would set in and our lives would be miserable, but just for tonight I let things be perfect as we made love in our new house for the first time as husband and wife. I let myself pretend that it was five years from now and we had graduated college, had successful careers, had a fairy tale engagement, shopped for the perfect house and had planned to have the baby we were expecting. I knew at the end of the day I was delusional, but it helped me sleep that night.

End Flashback

I was brought out of my reverie as I felt Dimitri lower me onto the bed.

"You can sleep in here tonight. I will be on the couch," he said pulling off my boots laying them next to the bed.

"Okay,"I murmured already half asleep.

I woke sometime later shivering to death and I couldn't figure out why I was so cold. I was still wearing my sweater, leggings and socks and was under three blankets. As I breathed out I could see my breath. This was not normal. I mean it was twenty below outside, but this was ridiculous. I got out of bed threw on one of Dimitri's sweatshirts over my clothes and went to check the thermostat.

"What are you doing?" I asked as I found Dimitri hovering underneath the furnace.

"Heat is out. I think I'm going to need a new part," he said sitting up brushing off his dirty hands.

"Are you cold?" he asked.

"Uh huh," I said my teeth chattering as I read that the temperature inside had dropped to forty-six in the absence of the heat.

"It must have blown out while we were gone. I didn't notice it when we came home," he said sighing heavily.

"Do you have any more blankets?" I asked. He shook his head in negation. I have the two that are on the couch and then the ones you have in the bedroom. If I leave the stove on it should warm the living room up. I will light a fire in the fireplace as well. That way you will be warm."

"What about you?" I asked as he carried the blankets from the bedroom and began covering me with them as I huddled on the couch.

"I'll be okay. I'm used to this weather," he said grabbing his coat to go get the firewood.

Twenty minutes later there was a roaring fire in the fireplace and the oven was on creating even more heat and I was finally beginning to thaw out. Dimitri on the other hand looked like he was turning blue.

"Come here," I beckoned holding up the edge of my five blankets he so unselfishly gave to me without regard for his own comfort and health.

"I'm really okay," he said crouching in front of the fireplace attempting to warm his hands.

"I know you're not. You're just too stubborn to admit it, now come on. It will be warmer for the both of us if you come over here," I said. "Besides you can't sleep on the floor, you won't be able to walk tomorrow," I pointed out.

He nodded taking off his boots and coat joining me on the couch.

I turned on the television flipping idly through the channels to see if I could find anything good.

"They have Elf in Russian?" I snorted leaving it on for background noise.

"You know you used to enjoy Russian movies," he pointed out rubbing his hands together.

"Yea right, that's what I told you," I scoffed. "If I had to sit through one more bad Western or one more stupid Russian movie with you I'd probably have been bored to tears. Give me your hands," I said placing my warm ones over his which were ice cold. I rubbed them between mine hoping the friction would keep him from getting frostbite.

"I've really missed you Roza," he said lying back on the couch patting the spot beside him so we could spoon for warmth. I moved so he could wrap me up in his arms holding me close to his chest which was bare. I too had shed my flannel shirt so his body heat could warm me as well. My skin tingled and burned red hot where our bodies touched and I couldn't deny that I was still very physically attracted to him.

He began to rub my shoulders and arms warming me even more as he buried his face in my hair placing a feather light kiss on the back of my neck. Tingles shot down my spine as he pulled me closer to his body allowing me to feel his arousal against my leg. White hot heat swept over me as I ground my hips into his manhood giving him the go ahead to slip his hands under my sweater caressing my stomach and hips with his now very warm hands. I let out a moan as his lips continued to graze my neck and ear. My head was screaming to me that this was wrong. I was still a little drunk and I was giving him the wrong idea. I didn't want him to touch me. I was engaged to Adrian or so my mind said, but my body had other ideas as I spun myself around so our foreheads were pressed against each other both panting from the sexual tension that hung densely in the air.

"I need you so much Roza," he breathed before pressing his lips to mine. I knew I shouldn't, but my brain was only responding to the passion the rest of my body was feeling as I wrapped my arms around his neck deepening our kiss pawing at him hungrily like a wild animal.

"Uh so good Comrade," I groaned as his hands moved higher under my shirt caressing my aching breasts setting fire to my throbbing core. There was never a doubt in my mind that he had a physical hold on me. Every time we made love it was fiery and passionate. More clothing was shed until we were both bare and every inch of our skin was touching. He ran his hand slowly up my leg stopping to dip his fingers into my dripping wet core stroking my nerves softly at first and then speeding up as I responded lustfully to his minstrations. My hand reached out for his member and I clasped him between my fingers slowly working my way from the bottom of the shaft to the tip swirling my finger around the opening knowing how much it drove him crazy.

"I need to be inside of you he growled pulling me on top of him anchoring me against his body with one arm and positioning himself at my entrance with the other.

"Look at me!" he commanded placing his fingers under my chin.

My eyes focused on his long enough for him to realize that I was still intoxicated.

"I want this so much," he said kissing my lips softly. "But not like this," he finished pulling away from me.

The lust filled haze began to clear and I realized I was buck naked and about to have sex with my soon to be ex husband while engaged to another man.

"What am I doing?" I asked shaking my head.

"Nothing tonight," he replied handing me his shirt so I could cover up. "When we make love, I don't want there to be any regret," he said pulling on his sweat pants.

Damn that was a tease! LOL whew, she dodged a bullet there. So leave me some love. What do you think will happen in New York? Your response to my last chapter blew me away and spurred me to write this today and half on the next chapter as well=)