OMG, I had fun writing this one - so much, in fact, I sneaked it in at work. Naughty writer. Ah, well. I've been wanting to get our favorite couple drunk forever. If you love it, make sure to gift me with reviews - each one is like Christmas :) J.F
"So, Dimitri," Anya asked around a mouthful of roasted chicken thigh, "do you believe me now?"
Across their tiny table crammed against the wall, Dimitri grunted and ripped another chunk off his chicken leg with his teeth. He held up a finger to indicate Anya would have to wait for a verbal response.
Anya turned with a roll of her eyes to Vladimir, who'd squeezed his chair between them.
He heaved a contented sigh and tossed another chicken bone onto the growing pile in the center of the table. "We never stopped believing, Your Grace," he said, and winked at her.
Anya bestowed what she hoped passed for a royal nod and drained her mug, humming with pleasure. The warm beer had all the effervescence of a stagnant pond, but right now, everything tasted like victory.
"Speak for yourself." Dimitri sucked the last traces of grease from his long fingers and he, too, sat back with a satisfied groan.
"I think the chickens speak for everybody," Anya said, sweeping her arm over the decimated carcasses of six whole birds. She narrowed her eyes at Dimitri but couldn't muster much more than smug vindication. Rescuing them from the brink of starvation was something she could hold over his head forever, however long that was to be.
Dimitri had the grace to concede. "Fine, fine. I guess the proof is in the pudding - or the chickens, in this case."
"And the potatoes, and the cabbage, and the bread." Anya smirked and rubbed her overstuffed belly.
"And the drinks!" Vladimir toasted Anya with his third round since they began their meal, making her laugh aloud. Craggy brows slammed down over his eyes. "Speaking of drinks - where in God's name is the vodka?"
Anya shook her head in amusement. "Are you drunk on the beer already? We never ordered any." A stiff drink had been the last thing on Anya's mind. The town's water quality was questionable at best, making beer a necessity. They'd been able to keep their food down thus far and she didn't want to tempt fate.
"My dear, there is no such thing as a celebration without vodka." Vladimir's voice rang with conviction as he gestured at the barkeep for their best bottle.
"Vlad has a point." Anya looked up and got caught in Dimitri's intense gaze. "We are celebrating, right?"
He stared so long Anya could no longer assume a comfortable position in the hard wooden chair. She glanced away, brought her mug to her lips only to remember it was empty, then placed it back on the table. The warmth of the room went from cozy to stifling in a matter of seconds, which shouldn't have been possible seated so far from the hearth.
Anya could feel Dimitri's eyes as if he'd reached out and stroked her. To distract herself, she fed little scraps of chicken to Pooka under the table, who snoozed off and on atop Vladimir's knee.
When the liquor arrived, Vladimir happily set to work sloshing the clear liquid into each of the accompanying glasses. "Zdorov'ya," he said with a brief raise of his drink, then gulped his down before Anya or Dimitri could bring theirs to their lips.
The desperately attentive barmaid lingered, perhaps lured by the glut of cash she knew they'd hidden away between the three of them. She smiled sweetly at Vladimir and left her hand on his shoulder much longer than was appropriate. He didn't seem to mind.
"Anything else I get for you?" she asked in broken Russian, tossing her long black hair over her shoulder. Despite a childhood clearly not far behind her, her very grownup breasts were in danger of tumbling out of her top into Vladimir's face.
Anya tried to gauge Dimitri's reaction to the barmaid's performance beneath her lashes, though it annoyed her to feel the need to do so. She found his searing look right where she'd left it.
She hoped the flame the liquor lit in her chest would numb her enough not to care.
Vladimir took the girl's bait without hesitation and grabbed her around the waist. She squealed in mock outrage but made no attempt to wriggle out of his grasp. With a guffaw, he took two more shots in her honor, then whispered something in her ear.
When she blushed and gave Vladimir's arm a playful swat, Anya caught Dimitri's head shake and fond smile out of the corner of her eye.
"Shall I watch Pooka tonight?" Vladimir stood with the yawning puppy and faced Anya with questioning eyes. Anya gave him a crooked smile and nodded, shooing him with both hands. He beamed at her and let the giggling barmaid lead him away to the rooms for rent lining the hall beyond the kitchen. "Just don't let him see anything that'll scar him for life!" Anya called after them.
After the couple disappeared, Anya dared to look Dimitri in the eye. A grin flirted with his sculpted lips.
They burst out laughing at the same time.
Anya felt the shift, the change in the few inches of space separating her from Dimitri. The now-familiar charge felt foreign in the absence of fear for their lives or Vladimir - hell, even Pooka - acting as a distracting buffer.
For all the boisterous bar patrons still crowding the tables around them, they were alone.
This combined with the heat - in the room, in her alcohol-laced blood, in Dimitri's stare - made for an unsettling situation indeed.
They fell into an electric silence once their laughter faded. Anya crimped the corners of her mouth into a tight smile. "Is he usually like that?"
Dimitri chuckled and took another drink, finally breaking his optical stranglehold. Anya breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh, yes. Nothing Vlad likes more than a pretty girl. Except maybe the vodka." He cast an amused glance down the now-infamous hallway. His voice resonant with affection, Dimitri added, "He's in his element tonight."
Anya mentally slapped away the picture of what could be transpiring behind Vladimir's locked door. And the sting of Dimitri calling that pudgy twit pretty.
"Another?" Dimitri held the bottle aloft above Anya's glass. The provocation in his expression made her nod in agreement.
Dimitri threw back his vodka without so much as a grimace and took up his vigil once more.
"Okay." Anya put down her glass and crossed her arms over her chest. "Honestly, Dimitri, a picture will last longer."
His forehead crinkled. "What?"
"What the hell are you staring at?"
His mouth quirked again. "Sorry. Just wondering what they teach you in those orphanages. I'm guessing that's where you learned to play cards so well, right?" Something about the way he wet his lips made Anya want to clamp her legs together to relieve the swelling pressure down there.
"I learned plenty of things," she said in retort, surprising herself with her boldness. She sucked down the shot as her arms and legs became deliciously heavy. God, it was hot. She tugged off her coat and let it flop over the back of her chair.
Dimitri's eyebrows shot up. "Really?" He laughed, refilling their glasses. "Do tell."
A loud cackle made Anya turn around, looking for the source of the noise. Realizing belatedly it had come from her own mouth, she frowned.
"Well?" Dimitri stretched one long leg out next to her chair.
Anya cleared her throat. "Um, let's see. Off the top of my head: how to pick a lock, how to take care of a pet rat. Dubinka you know. Checkers, drinking games - "
Dimitri snorted. "Drinking games?"
"No one's beat me yet." It had only been sixteen-year-old Anya, her friend Irina, and a bottle of scotch stolen from Comrade Phlegmenkoff's office, but Dimitri didn't need to know that. "Wait a minute - back up. Was there a compliment in there somewhere?"
"You're hearing things." Dimitri's eyes sparkled in the dim light.
Anya planted both elbows on the table, grinning. "No...you said something about me learning to play cards 'so well'. Your words, not mine."
"Damn." Dimitri sighed. "I had hoped to get that one by you. Fine, Anya. After all this tonight - " he made a vague gesture above his head - "color me impressed."
"I'll drink to that." Anya held up her glass in salute and took another swallow of liquid fire.
"Hey, slow down," Dimitri warned, swiping the bottle from Anya's grasp when she reached for it. "That drinking game thing sounded like a challenge, and I don't want you soused just yet."
Anya scowled at him. "Who said I wanted to play with you?" When she lunged for the vodka again, he held it just out of reach.
"That's what you do with friends at a celebration. Did you miss that lesson at the orphanage?"
Anya somehow found that outrageously funny. "Is that what we are now? Friends?"
And there it was, out of nowhere, the smile she hadn't seen since Dimitri offered Anya a room of her own in the palace the day they met. She swayed in her seat, blinking at him. She didn't know what else to do with its effect all over her body at once, like a thunderclap beneath her skin.
"Whoa, whoa." Chuckling, Dimitri held up both hands. "Maybe 'friend' is too strong a word. Let's go with...amicable acquaintances for the time being."
He shrugged out of his vest and rolled up his sleeves. Anya couldn't tear her eyes away from the sinewy muscle carved into his forearms. How had she never noticed it before?
Oblivious to her distressed state, Dimitri kept the liquor flowing. He raised his eyebrows. "Well? You're supposed to be the expert here - what's the game?"
"Uh..." It took an enormous effort for Anya to recall what they had been discussing. Oh, yes - the one drinking game she'd ever played. "Okay. Truth or Truth. One person says something, the other person has to guess if it's true or not. If they guess right, the first person has to drink." Her brows knit. "Or maybe it was the other way around - "
"I think I got the gist of it, Anya." Dimitri's distressing smile turned wicked. "After you."
Anya studied her lap. Best to go with a safe subject. "I don't know how to swim."
His penetrating gaze swept over her for half a second. "That's true."
Anya's head shot up. "You sound awfully sure of yourself."
"Am I wrong?" His eyes danced.
Anya glared and took a swig that went down smoother than the last one. She let the fresh swell of heat flood her body and slouched deeper into her chair. "Your turn. And it better be good."
Dimitri pondered the aging wooden boards forming the low ceiling. "I...have never been arrested before."
Anya barked out a laugh. "I know that's a lie."
Dimitri gave her a slow, lazy smile and shook his head.
"Dammit!" Her hand came down and smacked the table. Palm stinging, she frowned at it as if it were an alien object, then pointed a finger at Dimitri. "You do realize this involves an honor system, right? You can't lie about not lying. It's uneth-ah...uneth..." She huffed, giving up trying to wrap her clumsy tongue around the word. "You can't do that."
Dimitri's eyes widened in mock outrage. "My goodness, what kind of scumbag do you take me for? I'm not lying! I've never been arrested in my life. Now stop being a sore loser and drink up."
Anya took yet another drink, wincing when a headache nailed her right between the eyes.
Dimitri clucked his tongue at her. "You sure you've played this before? You're pretty terrible."
"Be quiet, it's my turn." Anya squinted to make her eyes focus. "I...I don't know. Um...I don't like tea."
Dimitri scoffed. "Please. That's a lie. Everybody likes tea."
"HA!" Anya exclaimed loudly enough to make him jump. "You're wrong. I've hated tea forever." She threw her head back, laughing long and hard, and couldn't stop. "Vodka time!"
A troubled expression scrambled across Dimitri's features. "Fine." He drank his shot without breaking eye contact. "My turn. I..." he paused, his grin twisting into something dark and mischievous. "I have never had sex in a public place."
The laughter died in Anya's throat.
Eyes of the color of melted chocolate burned into her own. She felt the truth of his uninhibited statement in the heartbeat banging away at her temples.
Anya swallowed hard. "Where?"
She took in Dimitri's knowing look. "And you say I'm sure of myself."
"Just answer the question."
"Behind a little market, in an alley." He reached for the drink Anya had just poured. "She rather enjoyed it, if I remember correctly."
"Classy," Anya said, then hiccuped.
Dimitri shrugged. "Never been accused of that. Your turn."
"Okay," Anya said on a sigh. If she didn't get the upper hand - and quick - she'd be under the table soon. Time to fight fire with fire. "I've never seen a naked man."
Dimitri's eyes went round as saucers and he grinned full out. It felt like looking into the sun. "Finally, a good one," he said, rubbing his hands together. He peered into her face. "That's...a lie?"
"Nope!" Anya's glee bubbled out of her like an unstoppable spring.
After taking his punitive drink, Dimitri stared anew in shock. "Wait a minute, so you've never..." He shifted in his chair, looking uncomfortable for the first time since they started the game. "...you know."
Anya stared back, unblinking. She'd look like a happily puzzled doll if her dimple didn't flash and give away her suppressed mirth. She licked her lips. "Assume I don't. Never what?"
"You're really gonna make me say it." Dimitri glowered.
"Oh, are we shy all of a sudden? Say what?"
Dimitri's sneaky smile made an encore appearance. "You've never been with a man? Ever?"
"'Been with?'" Anya crinkled her nose and tried to look adorably confused. "I've been in the same room with man. And I've been alone with you before, although whether or not you're a man is still up for debate." Anya snickered. "Is that what you mean?"
Dimitri sent his eyes skyward in frustration. "You know what I mean, Anya. Are you saying... good God, that you're a virgin?" He said the word like it was some kind of curse.
All the liquor coursing through Anya's system was the only thing keeping the mortification at bay. "I have never been with, under, on top of, or around a man in that way, no. And - " she added sharply " - as a Grand Duchess, I could have your head for even asking such an improper question."
"My apologies, Your Grace." Dimitri placed a hand on his chest and swept her an absurd seated bow. "But I will say this - may your first time be better than mine."
"Why do you say that?" Anya asked, distracted by the second Dimitri that had appeared next to the original.
"It was...awkward. That's all I'm going to say. But you deserve someone who will make your first time everything you girls dream about." He hit her with The Smile again. Anya weaved so hard she almost fell off the chair.
Catching herself, she coughed and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "Huh. I had no idea you were so charming."
"Yeah, well...you never deserved my charms before."
"I guess I can be a bitch sometimes."
Dimitri choked on the last of the vodka he drunk straight from the bottle. "Let's be clear," he laughed, "you said it, not me."
Anya's shoulders lifted in a shrug and she smiled until her cheeks ached, so warm she thought she must be glowing. "I might not know who I am, but I know who the hell I am."
Dimitri laughed again after wiping his mouth on his sleeve. He shook his head. "I must be drunk, because that somehow made perfect sense."
Tired of resisting, Anya allowed herself to fall prey to Dimitri's charisma. Each watched the other, the pulse and spark between them directly connected to the thick haze in Anya's brain and the blood pounding between her thighs.
She needed to get up. Right now. If she didn't, if she continued to sit and let Dimitri's eyes eat her up, there would be nothing he couldn't talk her into. The thought was too dangerous - and exciting - to contemplate.
Anya discovered her legs had turned into cast iron when she tried to swing them out from under the table. She moved to stand and the ground rushed up to meet her. "Oops." In that moment, Anya couldn't imagine anything more hilarious.
"Alright, Your Highness. Apparently you aren't walking anywhere." Anya's feet left the ground as Dimitri scooped her up from her hands and knees and carried her past the kitchen.
She'd paid up three rooms for the night. Dimitri kicked open the door to one two doors down from Vladimir's, which was mercifully quiet. He tottered a bit himself as he bore Anya's weight over the threshold. Anya tightened her arms around his neck and giggled against the heat of his smooth, tangy skin.
He dumped her limp form on the narrow bed shoved into a space slightly larger than a broom closet, not bothering to light the lamp on the single table. Anya moaned in protest at the abrupt release. She couldn't bear the thought of him leaving her alone in the dark.
"Stay," Anya said, her voice muffled by the pillow as she reached for his hand. The seduction of sleep grew stronger than the alcohol singing in her veins. Eyes closed, Anya heard Dimitri groan, felt the hesitation in his grip, but he didn't relinquish his hold on her fingertips.
"I shouldn't - "
"Please."
He cursed. "Jesus, you're a needy drunk," he said under his breath. "Scoot over." Anya wriggled backward until she hit the wall. Dimitri's shoes thumped onto the rotting floorboards one by one. The bed dipped and creaked precariously as he propped himself up against the makeshift headboard.
"Thank you," Anya murmured into the fabric of his shirt. She breathed his soft, earthy scent, like the forest after a hard rain.
"You owe me. Just don't drool on my shoulder, alright? Anya? Did you hear me?"
A deep, black sleep had already swept her away.